Tender Tennessee Christmas

Is a Christmas song that should have stayed in Amy Grant's living room, where I'm assuming it originated. It's just silly. Two different radio stations in Houston are playing all Christmas music, all the time, and this means every vanity Christmas song ever written gets airplay. I don't like songs that try to speculate about how Joseph or Mary or Jesus or the sheep or the manger might have felt about the whole God intersecting time and space thing. Unless your name is Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, AND you were divinely inspired 2,000 years ago, keep your musings in your journal and don't try to set them to a jazzy beat.

For the third time in 4 1/2 years of marriage, we again have a baby crib in our bedroom. There isn't room in the closet this time. The husband is a magician when it comes to arranging furniture.

For the first time in 4 1/2 years of marriage, we have a Christmas tree. It's little and has white lights. The ornamentation is a work in progress. I find myself greatly inspired by the Jesse Tree over at Chrys and Mike's blog. A project for next year, hopefully.

Here is the baby boy, who has no idea what that nice, expanding perch on my tummy is going to mean for him in seven weeks.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

It is indeed snowing just a tiny bit in Houston. Snow showers, they call it. We have our heater on for only the second time. I do not like using the heater because I don't like how artificial and dry it makes the air seem. I also don't particularly like air conditioning because I think it's unnatural and uncomfortable to be so cold inside when it's so hot outside. I realize this makes me very odd. It's also meant big marriage compromises because men seem to prefer the air to be around 58 degrees Fahrenheit inside when it is hot outside.

Harper has always been very attentive to her stuffed dog, whose name started out as Wadsworth and who has since been renamed, and this list is in no way definitive: Jeff, Joshua, Toby, Millie, Sasha, Maddie, Chanel, Hank, Dada, Gracie, Levi, and today, Mimi. Jeff was in homage to her then-favorite Wiggle (the Wiggles fell very far out of her favor around 18 months ago when she got terribly frightened by the pirate, Captain Feathersword), Joshua was the husband's beloved childhood dog, and the others are dogs we meet out and about that particularly strike her fancy. Her attentions have become increasingly maternal (some might use the word 'smothering') the past month or so. She also hasn't mentioned the puppy in her tummy in awhile which might mean that she has actually given imaginary birth after an extremely uneventful labor. Today Mimi is diapered, pajama-ed (these were stolen from the poor Cabbage Patch baby who is tragically neglected), bootied, pantied, and, after I found it in the bottom of the laundry basket, encased in the little knit hat that was on Harper's head when she got back to me from her first bath at the hospital. When I was tucking her in just now, the hat slipped off and Harper asked if I could fix it. I tried just perching it on top of Mimi's ears but Harper insisted that it be pulled down to entirely cover her face. She looks kind of like a hostage. Or a bank robbing dog in a baby disguise.

The Friendly Beasts

Hudson noticed that he had not been featured in a long while. His hair grows increasingly fluffy. We have a new computer and while it is so fast and efficient it makes me almost dizzy, it changed the way I find pictures and we all know that Learning New Computer Skills is not a strength of mine. Along with his tricycle attempts, Hudson has also developed a deep and almost primal need. To Dance. Christmas carols, the Nutcracker, the theme song to "Blue's Clues", Daddy on the guitar--he finds them all irresistible. He takes it extremely seriously. His particular choreography involves very deep knee bending, stomping, an occasional stomp/spin combination move and a grimace. He would prefer that you not watch him and if he catches you enjoying his stylings, he will push out his bottom lip, take a final, almost careless stomp, and cease.

Yesterday morning I looked at my two kids enjoying breakfast in their footy pajamas and it seems as though it is all a dream, this sweet life.

Today we went to visit the horses at the Houston Police Department stables. They were a lively bunch and Mrs. B and I made the decision that the carrots and apples we brought were best handed to the friendly beasts via our hands and not the four other eager sets of tiny hands we had brought along. We assured the kids that tossing carrots into the corral and putting pieces of apple into the feeding buckets was equally as fun as having the horses snatch them directly from their hands. Harper decided on the way home that when she gets to be six she will be able to hold her fingers still even if there is a horse tickling her palm with his big horsey mouth.

Go, Tell It On the Mountain!

Well, the December Blog Challenge, Revised, has begun. The goal is to blog every day for the next two weeks and use Christmas carol titles for each post.

We seemed to have settled on a name over the weekend:

She will be called Helena Jane and we will pronounce it HuhLAYnuh and probably call her Lanie. We will not be dismayed if it gets pronounced HELL-in-uh (I think that's how my friends in England might say it) or Huh-LEE-nuh, which is apparently how it gets pronounced in Nederland, Texas, according to my mother. So, there. She is getting an H after all.

Harper got an actual Big Girl Bed at Ikea this weekend. She is thrilled. We got some really cute (and cheap) bedding as well. Sheets, duvet cover AND duvet all for around $40. Take that Pottery Barn Kids. Ikea has figured very prominently in our design scheme since we moved to Houston 4 years ago and have lived on one salary. Though I'm pretty sure we'd still shop there even if we could buy expensive things. The thought of heavy, expensive furniture has always stressed me out. It seems restrictive somehow. As though if you decided to up and move to Argentina or Alberta or Albania it would just be so cumbersome and back-breaking to transplant. I knew this girl Caroline at A&M and when she packed up her dorm room to go home at the end of each semester, if there was stuff she couldn't fit into her tiny car, she would give it away, reasoning that if it wouldn't fit, she probably didn't need it. That's just good. I wonder what she'd say if she could see our minivan packed for just a few days at my parents' house.

Ten for Tuesday

I stole this from Robin. There are probably rules of which I'm not aware, but my version is just going to be a list of ten things that pass as an actual post.

1. It's beautiful weather here in Houston today--clear and coldish and autumnal.
2. I'm supposed to be going to the doctor every two weeks now and I find this very vexing.
3. Because each appointment takes around 2 hours, some of which is travel time and parking time, and some of which is spent waiting to be asked the same pleasant questions they asked at the last appointment. To which my answer is always no. I am, however, exceedingly thankful for uncomplicated pregnancies. I just think I should be allowed, in spite of my Advanced Maternal Age, to go to the doctor only when there is an actual need. When one is in active labor, for example.
4. I read a novel titled Home while at my parents' for Thanksgiving. If you ever think about writing your very own novel, Marilynne Robinson will either inspire you to be better at it, or, as is probably the case with me, her writing will convince you that if it's already being done this well, why sully it up with your own paltry effort.
5. On that note of self-pity, I have just received in the post a series of lectures from The Teaching Company titled, "Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft." A fellow named Brooks Landon, who teaches (with Marilynne Robinson, incidentally) at the the University of Iowa's famed writing workshop is going to lecture me on things like The Riddle of Prose Rhythm and Prefab Patterns for Suspense. I'm extremely excited to start.
6. This afternoon, the Daddy accompanied us to the park, to our delight, and on the way home Harper exclaimed, "Daddy, I found an idea!" which I thought was a pretty cute take on the more conventional having of ideas. Perhaps she's already watched Prefab Patterns for Suspense. The idea she found had to do with officially changing her name to Lightning Harper Anne.
7. The baby still has no name, though not from lack of input. Some people seem to feel we started the alliteration business and we should persevere lest #3 feel left out. Because clearly having names that start with H has bonded Harper to Hudson in a way she never would have experienced otherwise.
8. Your child can listen to Tchaikovsky for weeks and weeks and still tell you, that actually, her favorite song in the world is "I Was Made To Love You" by Toby Mac, Christian rapper. No offense to Mr. Mac, whose song she has heard maybe twice on the radio, and is indeed snazzy, but it's like that post I wrote last year about how you can take your kid to the Louvre and whatever, but they'd still rather look at the inflatable Frosty the Snowman snowglobe in the yard down the street.
9. I watched "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" last week. For a movie about a guy who has a stroke at 42 and is utterly paralyzed and able to communicate by flickering his one unaffected eyelid, it is oddly uplifting. I think it's just good to get a vivid reminder to be daily and deeply thankful for bodies that are whole and work as they should.
10. On Monday I shall again embark on Jamie's December Blog Challenge, Abridged.

Beatrix, not Harry

Yesterday at the park Harper was sitting in this little jeep structure with two girls who were probably around 8. They were in the front driving and Harper was in the back sorting the collection of treasures she had acquired since we had arrived--an empty snack bag filled with mulch, a rock, and a piece of string. Hudson and I were just above her walking back and forth across a little bridge and I could hear Harper talking but couldn't really tell what she was saying. The two girls got up, and as they galloped over to the swings I heard one of them say, "Did you hear what that little girl just said? She said..(she lowered her voice and whispered to the other one, much to my dismay)" to which the other girl responded, "She's barely bigger than a baby--and she said THAT!!" Well, you can imagine my curiosity. I decided to go directly to the source, and asked Harper to come over. She gathered up her things. "Hi there, little one. Um hey, Mommy was just wondering what you said to the big girls just now." Blank stare. "The big girls who were driving the jeep? Did you say something to them?" She can see that it's clearly important to me that she remember, and she is trying. "Were you telling them a story, maybe?" Aha. Now we're getting somewhere. "I said, 'Stop, thief!'" she said. This is her friend Izzy's favorite line to shout when she and Harper are playing chase. It's what Mr. McGregor says to Peter Rabbit when he catches him eating the radishes and French beans in the garden. And I'm guessing that with Harper's speech issues, and the fact that it was completely out of context, it probably had sounded somewhat profane. I deliberated following the girls and trying to clear things up, but decided that would probably cement the incident into their brains. Just goes to show the importance of shared context. If she had said it to Izzy, there would have been, instead of scandal, an imaginary throwing down of lettuces, and an energetic scamper around the cucumber frames.

If you're ever wondering how to get two hungry kids to stop whining while they are waiting for dinner to be ready, Pregnant Mommy Doing Ballet works wonders around here. We've been enjoying The Nutcracker Suite. Hudson thinks I'm the most elegant Sugarplum Fairy he has ever seen. Harper is looking forward to going to an actual performance in a few weeks and I have yet to convince her that she is only going to be in the audience and will not be up on stage in a starring role.

Who ARE you people??

A few mornings ago I had just asked Harper to clean up the impressive array of toys and activities she'd managed to strew throughout the entire apartment. Instead of heeding my request she walked over to the front door, paused, turned around and said, "I'm just coming back from a walk. I don't know you." And then, rather imperiously, "You need to clean up your house!" I joined her in her little charade and speculated that she must be the little girl, whom I'd never seen before, of course, whom I had hired to come and clean up my house. "No," she replied vaguely, "I am not that little girl." Then the familial amnesia continued today when she composed a charming ditty on her keyboard that went a little something like this:

"Hudson is not my brudder. I do not know him. I do not love him.."
The melody was rather bouncy and light so that Hudson, who was sitting next to her on the couch at the time, was actually chortling with glee, probably thinking it was a love song. Harper and I spent several minutes post-prayer, pre-sleep tonight discussing how she might make tomorrow's lyrics a little more edifying. We'll see how that goes. Speaking of unedifying lyrics, when I'm too lazy to put in a cd while we're driving we will listen to the Christian radio station. It's not all cringe-inducing (and some of it is good) but I heard a song sometime last week that actually had "steeple-people" as a recurring rhyme theme. I am incredulous that someone went through an actual song writing Process and that's all they could come up with. Let's be better than that, shall we? If this is your favorite song, or if, as I'm sure is the case, the songwriter himself is a reader of this enormously popular blog, I kind of apologize. I've been reading New Yorker articles to branch out, and boy howdy, are they a smug and bitter bunch up there in the big city. I actually winced while reading a satire piece a few days ago. I felt bludgeoned.

How about a picture instead? The new help finally decided she wasn't above a little swiffering: