The Taming of the Shrew (and the martyr) Part One

Warning: this might be a series because I have a feeling I will need continual reminders.

Warning #2: There are no cute anecdotes about the kids or even a picture.

Warning #3: This hurts my feelings and it might hurt yours too.

I read this quote on Amy's Humble Musings a few weeks ago and haven't been able to get it out of my head:

There are many Supermoms (at least 2 on my street) who can throw a birthday party for 27 kids without becoming a shrew or a martyr." --Prudence Macintosh.

It turns out, I am a shrew AND a martyr, and I've never even planned a birthday party for 27 people. In fact, we've haven't had anyone over for dinner since we moved into our house. Because of the dirty blinds etc. And the whole weird vegetarian thing. And because I am so insecure about my cooking that I'm secretly afraid I'll poison everyone. (martyr, see?)

I was at the park with the kids a few weeks ago. One of the parks that we go to that is smack in the middle of a neighborhood where the median home price is around $850,000 (read that in the Sunday paper). So usually it is me and the nannies. Because if the median home price is around $850,000, even the stay-at-home moms have nannies. Anyway, we like these parks because they are generally clean and I feel pretty sure that even if someone manages to lick something or get a skinned knee, we probably aren't going to get hepatitis B or find a used hypodermic in the tunnel slide. We can explore my hypocrisy on that later. On this particular day there happened to be another mom there. She had two sons who looked to be around 4 and 2. She was on her phone the entire time, wandering behind them, occasionally admonishing them to "be careful" or helping them off something that was too high. I caught snippets of her conversation as she would wander into my radius, and the phrase I kept hearing, again and again was, "But that was MY TIME! and now I never have any time for ME!" I never caught what tragedy had befallen her to so cruelly steal her MY TIME away--perhaps her nanny had quit without much notice, or her preschool plans had fallen through, or their Gymboree class had changed days. Anyway, I found myself feeling quite disgusted with her lament. Disgusted that she was so unable to deal with the loss of her gym time or her weekly mani-pedi or her shopping for new jeans or her volunteer work or her writing of The Great American Novel or whatever. You know why?

Because it sounded just like me. I whine that whine continually. And it wasn't until I heard it coming from someone else that I realized how obnoxious it sounds. To, for example, someone struggling with infertility. Or someone whose adoption has just fallen through. Or someone who longs to be married but is not. Or maybe someone like Sarah, who went to Ecclesia (I regrettably didn't get to know her) and who died, at 28 years old, of a rare cancer this last week after a noble, joy-infused struggle. Or maybe a nanny who has her own kids in daycare so she can care for someone else's kids. Or maybe a husband who works very hard to provide for his family only to get home to a cranky shrew whining about ME, MINE, MY.

So the struggle is to embrace the US, the WE, the OURS. I remember learning, when my parents and I were traveling through Amish country many years ago, that the Amish sing in unison and not harmony in worship. Because it reminds them of the US, the WE, the OURS. We are in community. We are one voice. Not in the weird, crazy, utter abdication of individualism like what we see in Ayn Rand's Anthem, where, in order to make her point about communism, she has the narrator refer to himself in the plural until the very end, when he discovers the light bulb and realizes he is an "I". But in the sense that God loves community enough that He Himself is IN IT (see: the Trinity). So we should see ourselves as beautifully unique AND also beautifully able to practice agape.

Which doesn't mean that I think it's sinful to want to go see a movie or take a walk or get a cup of coffee by myself on occasion. Or go to dinner with my friends once in awhile. I think the key is weighing my motives. I gave birth to three kids in three and a half years. That was our choice. Three baby humans require much of me, even more so, perhaps, now that they are maturing. I resolve not to be a shrew or a martyr in the midst of all this blessing. I resolve to remember that when I signed up for this Gospel-infused life (or WAS sighed up FOR, if I am true to the Reformers) I did not sign up for a ME-focused life. But neither did I sign up for a husband-focused life or a child-focused life. My chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The result of that will be US, and WE, and OURS. May it be so. I write it because it holds me accountable. May it be SO.

The red shoes

A few months back my friend Mrs. S noticed that we wear lots of red shoes. I hadn't really thought about it but then I decided to gather them all up one day:

Those are my new Frye boots. I've wanted some since somewhere around 1990. I never planned on red but that's what Nordstrom Rack presented to me at a 70 % discount, so, red it is.

The Daddy gave Hudson a haircut. Before:

and after:

I also got a haircut, though not from the husband. I went to a local school that trains hair stylists. It was an interesting experience. The trainee does most of the cutting and then the teacher swoops in at the end to demonstrate New Techniques. At this point a whole crowd of students hovered over my head and it made me feel a little like a patient with a very rare disease (freakishly thick, wiry hair, perhaps?) at a teaching hospital. I like the haircut, though it frightened me that at one point there were two ladies working with two flat irons to style my mane. Because nothing says "I'll never be able to recreate this at home" like two people wielding two scorching hot styling devices and spending almost an hour to reach the desired effect.

It looked completely different after I washed it. Ah, well.

We finished the stingray pajamas and Stingray-ee, after initially expressing genuine delight with his pj's, wore them only one night before deciding they were a bit snug. So, rather than make Stingray-ee another pair of pj's (which has been suggested)I have rather callously suggested that maybe he should go on a little Reducing Plan like Pooh did that one time he got stuck in Rabbit's window.

And yes, yes I will absolutely be starting my own Etsy shop to sell hand-stitched stingray pajamas (one size too small) and painfully homemade looking octopi. I will sell them for around $1000 apiece because I took a semester of Economics at Texas A&M and learned all about supply and demand. And please, if more people knew about my hand sewn masterpieces it would be like Twitter or something. BILLIONS in growth potential.

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep

Well, I just spent 45 minutes trying to get Helena out of her bedroom. She managed to lock herself in there even though I was less than two feet away folding clothes. The husband happened to call just as I realized our predicament, and, much to his Very Great Frustration, he tried to talk me through the picking of the lock. To say that I am mechanically minded is akin to saying that William Faulkner uses concise sentences to write about normal, well-adjusted families. So, really, really NOT. The husband is the type of person who never looks at instructions because he intuitively knows how to put things together in an efficient manner. At some point in the 45 minute tutorial over the phone, he said in utter frustration, "I mean, haven't you ever THOUGHT about how a doorknob WORKS??" and I had to confess that indeed I had not. Not once. Plus I don't know where any of the tools are. It was not a highlight in our marriage I confess, and I'm still not entirely sure how I got the door opened, though I eventually did. It involved unscrewing the doorknob and taking it off. And then pliers. Thankfully, Helena didn't seem the least bit bothered by the whole thing. She played with her puzzles and unfolded a rather nicely folded fitted sheet that she found in one of her bins.

Remember when Hudson locked me out on our patio?

I was actually thinking about being a shepherd today. Not in the God sense, necessarily, but in the literal sense. I realized about myself that I think I might actually be pretty good at the tending of the sheep--the feeding, the herding, the protecting from wolves, the shearing (though we don't do much of that around her, obviously, and when we do, the husband is in charge). The hard stuff is when the kids get older and stop acting so much like stupid sheep with tiny brains. Sheep never ask the shepherd what a spirit is, as Hudson asked me today (blast you, catechism cd!). Sheep aren't selfish, or emotionally insecure, that I know of. A sheep would never burst into tears when told that his choice didn't win in this round of "eeny meeny miney moe." Sheep don't ask you to read one more chapter or want to learn to sew. Sheep do not inadvertently lock themselves in their bedrooms. But I suppose neither do shepherds get the satisfaction of watching the sheep begin to understand that they are more than just a body, that there will always be another round of "eeny meeny miney moe," that disobeying Ma On the Banks of Plum Creek will lead to nothing good. For the strength to do more than just herd and feed and protect and shear--that is my prayer today. Also, that the doorknob will go back on the door.

The year of the dog

Well, happy "birthday" Sasha. Whatever made you choose our doorstep that cold, rainy morning, we'll never know. But even I have to admit, you have fit in pretty well here. I like you more now that you don't poop inside and chew on stuff that doesn't belong to you. I don't like to have to canvass the yard for poo before anyone goes outside to play. I don't like that you require a bath every week because you get inexplicably rank. I do like it when you curl up next to me (or, as you really prefer, ON me) when everyone is asleep and you seem to embody contentment.
I think it is pretty hysterical when you have what Harper refers to as your Reaction--sprinting through the house in concentric circles like a Dog on Fire. I think it's kind of sweet, albeit really loud, pitiful, and annoying, when you howl after we put you in your kennel and you can hear us outside getting in the car, leaving you behind. They almost sounds like words, those plaintive howls. The husband claims you started doing that when we started letting you sleep in our bed. Maybe he's right. Now that you have tasted of communion, you can't stand the pain of separation. Dogs are good for metaphors, after all.

So, little dog who was uninvited to the party, we'll keep you, I guess.

We are not busy

A couple of months ago, I answered the query, "How have you been?" with the standard, "Busy!" Then, after a moment's reflection, I recanted, and confessed that actually, no, we aren't busy at all, and I didn't know why I had answered that way. I guess that I equate "busy" with "productive" or maybe "purposeful" or perhaps even "popular" and possibly even "virtuous." I know that this is faulty thinking, and that more apt synonyms are probably frazzled, exhausted, and distracted.

So, we are not busy. We have one day a week (Wednesdays) where we have to be somewhere in the morning at a particular time (we get together to play with two other homeschooling families)and somewhere in the afternoon at a particular time (Harper's ballet class). Two Friday mornings a month we get together, rather informally, with a group of friends at a park. We go to church most Sunday mornings. And that is all we have planned. See? Not busy.

There are all sorts of philosophical and spiritual and emotional and educational reasons to homeschool. On any particular day, I have several internal debates in which I revisit our decision. I'm sorry to report that there are many days when "Because the thought of the carpool line makes me fall into apoplexy" is the most compelling reason I can muster. That's not good. There's no use in creating a vacuum if you aren't going to fill it with something Good. So, the goal for these days we've left wide open is to really strive to be productive--joyfully, actually productive.

RESOLVED: to have sufficient time to clean the house properly (and with a happy heart--Oh, the agony of this impossible aspiration), to read aloud, for an hour or two if interest dictates, to go to the museum on the day it is free and find a Georgia O'Keefe painting of a shell to copy, to practice kindness and thoughtfulness and generosity...it's an endless list, really, and every day I think of something new that I'm not doing and should be. Then I get overwhelmed and I can't keep the dishes from piling up and I just mopped yesterday and the floor is already sticky and crumbly again and the 20 year old mini-blinds are so encased in filth that when I, with great trepidation, took a Clorox wipe to them this morning (for the first time since we moved in here 19 MONTHS ago) something inexplicably disgusting began flaking off and wafting to the sill and I wanted to simultaneously vomit and weep so I gave up and we took a bike ride to the park and Hudson had a meltdown in the middle of the street because his nose is running and this is, for reasons I can't understand, THE SADDEST CONFLUENCE OF EVENTS TO EVER BEFALL ANY FOUR YEAR OLD BOY IN THE HISTORY OF FOUR YEAR OLD BOYS RIDING BIKES, and so, again, I am using a tired, frustrated (read: TOO LOUD) voice and counting the minutes to nap time. Then it's nap time and Harper's hour of quiet time passes so quickly and now she wants to sew some pajamas for her stuffed stingray because she had such a great time with the octopus-making a few days ago:
and I really just want to say no. No, I do not want to sew any stingray pajamas. I also do not want to load the dishwasher. I do not want to read On the Banks of Plum Creek out loud. I do not want to deal with the mini blinds. I do not want to clean my desk (which is piled up with stacks of papers and books) or my bedside chest(which is piled up with stacks of clothes that need to be put away). I do not want to do another load of laundry.

So.

Instead of all of that whining, how will I fill the vacuum today? How about this:

1. A faithful, kind husband (who has a job that he truly loves).
2. Healthy kids (who obey far more often than they disobey).
3. Healthy grandparents (who love our kids and are not too far away for frequent visits).
4. A good many good friends.
5. 73 degrees and sunny (in the middle of February).
6. Many good books, yet to be read.

Now, I feel better. Perhaps we might even make some pajamas for a poor stingray who has none.

multi-cultured

I have several posts in my head right now. This is one that requires the least introspection. We've read some good books lately that I like because they are "multicultural" without getting out any sledgehammers. Here's a list:

1. Jamela's Dress by Niki Daly. Jamela is a little girl in South Africa who gets carried away while playing with some beautiful new fabric her mom has bought to make a special wedding dress.

2. The Friday Nights of Nana by Amy Hest, ill. by Claire A. Nivola. Jennie and her grandmother spend a delightful day together preparing for a Sabbath meal.

3. The Journey by Sarah Stewart, ill. David Small. A young Amish girl writes in her diary about her first trip to the city. This one makes me cry every time--the author beautifully juxtaposes Hannah's simple life on the farm with all of the new experiences she is having: "Then we walked into a great cathedral, and the voices of the practicing choir almost lifted me off my feet. When we've finished singing on Sundays, and the music is still hanging in the air during prayers, sometimes I feel as if I'm going to fly!" Isn't that lovely??

4. Just Plain Fancy by Patricia Polacco. Another Amish tale, this one about a girl who longs for something fancy, and is surprised and dismayed when an egg she finds hatches into a peacock. I skip a page that talks about the adults gossiping about a woman who was shunned for being too fancy. Because gossip and shunning are two concepts I'm not ready to introduce. Yes, I continue to edit the books I read to my children. Yes, you can call Ray Bradbury if you need to. He is still alive, I just looked on wiki.

5. Thy Friend Obadiah by Brinton Turkle. Obadiah wishes the seagull who follows him all over Nantucket island would go away. Then he changes his mind. Beautiful illustrations.

6. Elizabeti's Doll by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen, ill. Christy Hale. I love this book. Elizabeti is a little Tanzanian girl who has a new baby brother and a rock she names Eva, which she lovingly tends to as her mother tends to the new baby. She is like a Tanzanian Laura Ingalls with a rock in lieu of a corncob.

We invited ourselves to the Scholastic book fair at the little private school across from the park on Monday. The selections wasn't great, but we've enjoyed the few we ended up with:

7. Pig's Egg by Katherine Sully, ill. Sam Chaffey. Pig is the only one of his friends who can't fly or lay an egg, then, to his delight, he discovers an "egg" in his sty! It's really a turnip with a caterpillar inside. Very adorable animal illustrations.

8. Katie Loves the Kittens by John Himmelman. Katie is a dog who can't restrain her joy when some new kittens arrive at her house. The problem is, her unfettered enthusiasm manifests in a loud howl which scares the kitties. I think we so enjoy this one because Katie is rather like a certain dog who lives in our house.

9. Ready for Anything by Keiko Kasza. Raccoon, who is Mr. Worst-Case-Scenario, can't possibly join Duck on a picnic because of all the horrible things that just might happen (killer bee attack, a dragon in a cave..). Duck finally convinces Raccoon that the "what-ifs" don't have to be so dire. The Raccoon may or may not be loosely based on a certain Daddy who lives in our house.

10. What Sisters Do Best/What Brothers Do Best by Laura Numeroff, ill. Lynn Munsinger. Two books in one. Not much substance, but sweet all the same.

11. Lonesome George Finds His Friends by Tori Kosara. (non-fiction) George is a Galapagos tortoise who introduces us to a few of the many animals found in the Galapagos islands.


Well, then. It is cold here again and raining, so maybe there is more blogging in my near future. Not right now, though. Harper found this felt octopus in a craft book (FIE on you, craft book!!) that she wants to try to make before we head to ballet this afternoon. I'll be sure an post a picture of the final product.

The littlest lass is two today

Helena Jane. You are our delight. I looked back at pictures from last year and am amazed at the changes in you. You got a mouthful of teeth this year! And a full head of curly, curly hair! You run and talk and slide and play! You EAT lots and lots and lots. You finally hit 20 pounds and we turned your car seat forward-facing a few weeks ago. You slowly weaned from breastfeeding and stopped completely about a month ago when you decided that books before bed were a much better use of our time. Some things haven't changed, for which I am grateful. You continue to be a tremendous sleeper. You still request your sleepsack (sleezak), even though it's too short and you can unzip it and take it off. Most mornings when I go in to get you, you have it slung behind you like a cape while you play with your two bed friends, Puppy and Baby. You still have such a sunny disposition. You rarely cry, though you have decided that the sound of a leaf blower (even at a distance) requires a Time of Weeping followed by a Time of Prolonged Consolation.

You got 31 birthday presents: the 30 balloons that I blew up last night and tossed on the floor of your room this morning, and a stuffed ladybug from the Grandparents Pate that shines constellations onto the ceiling when it's dark. You really love balloons (boos, you call them) and balls and babies (especially my old dolls, Mandy and Jenny). A favorite new activity is Baby Eat:


You love to take walks (tegga wok? you inquire upon awakening) and baths:
This was a special birthday bath--you usually take one by yourself while the other two finish dinner. You will never be satisfied with that again after this rollicking good time. You adore Harper and Hudson, though your technique for getting them to notice you needs a little polishing. Presently, you seem to think that grabbing whatever they are playing with and running away with it clenched in your tight little fist while squealing with glee is great fun. They do NOT concur.

You enjoy all of our friends and especially relish the nurturing attentions you receive from June and Izzy.

You like an outing of any kind, but I think you might prefer the park lately, because you love to slide. On your tummy:


You have just started to talk and put sentences together in the last couple of months. You like narrating Harper's every move, much to her dismay: "AH-Poo has HAT! AH-Poo EAT! AH-Poo go OUTSIDE! AH-Poo SHOES!" You pronounce your name "Yah-yah" or "Yeh-yah", Hudson is "Uh-seh." It is an absolute requirement that you receive kisses (sisses) from all members of the family, including Sasha, before you go to bed. You like to say, "NO NO Sasha!" and "Good girl Sasha!" and Sasha likes to chase you and make you giggle like crazy.

I don't even know what your favorite foods are because you eat everything with equal joy. I thought maybe you had developed some ambivalence toward broccoli, but tonight at dinner, you discovered it on your pizza and said, "num, num, num BROCKI!" like it was a special, special treat.
No birthday cake this year, but you were a big fan of the oatmeal muffins at breakfast. Hudson helped you blow out the two candles. "Hot!" you exclaimed, with a little reproach in your tiny voice. Then we sang and you said, "Ah-boo BUD-EYE" to yourself all day long. You do like to sing and your go-to melody is always the "ABC/Bah Bah Black Sheep/Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" tune.

Well, it was supposed to snow today and I was going to count that as your 32nd present. Alas, there is no snow. But I hope you know how much we do celebrate your coming, little one. You make everything brighter.