Playing possum

I was pushing Helena in the swing late yesterday afternoon (while sweating) and the dog started barking herself into an absolute frenzy in the back corner of the yard. I ignored her for a few minutes, assuming she and the neighbors' dog were having one of their yappy "chats," but then I realized there was no other dog. I walked over to investigate and there, huddled in the corner and so well-camouflaged that I had to stare intently to see it, was a baby possum. It looked quite dead until Sasha got in its face and yip-yapped, at which point it opened its tiny mouth, bared its tiny teeth, and made a teeny hissing sound. I took the dog inside and when I came back out, it looked really dead again. Like eyes wide open, no visible breathing DEAD. Right around that time the husband got home, and while he accumulated various defense mechanisms to take outside with him to investigate (including a can of Bear Attack Spray) just in case a rabid possum mother decided to come save her joey (they are marsupials!)I called a local wildlife rehabilitation place I remembered reading about in the paper a year or so ago. The lady was very helpful and invited me to throw a towel over him (joey not husband) tape him in a box and drive him across town where they would be glad to take him. I was really hoping they had some sort of on-call possum wrangler who would come to my house and do that for me. Alas, they did not. And while I have a soft, warm spot for All Creatures of Our God and King (except roaches) I am not Francis of Assisi. I had three hungry human children and a meeting to get to. So, what finally ended up happening is that the husband took a spray bottle with water and sprayed it on the REALLY dead looking baby possum and he came to life and went running the entire length of our fence and into the next door neighbors' yard. I felt a pang of remorse, especially when I googled 'baby possum in my back yard' and saw all these people who make their own baby possum formula and nurse them back to health and then lovingly release them into the wild where they have a rather tragic life expectancy of one year.

A few days ago Hudson scored a free comic book at Williams-Sonoma (a promotion for the new superhero-shaped cupcake pans), and he has spent quite a bit of time poring over it, making up names for the superheroes he doesn't recognize (which includes all superheroes except Spiderman, Batman, Superman, and I-Ron Man, as he pronounces it). He named one guy Giant Man (I think it was the Hulk) and another one Ursus Major, which I thought was a pretty good superhero name. At one point he asked me, "Do you think I-Ron Man would say P.U. if he smelled my feet?" and I said "Undoubtedly" and he thought that was great news. What was not such great news was when, a little while later, he was not helping Harper pick up in a manner that she found acceptable, and she said, "Hudson! You may not say 'Reginald Von Hoobie Doobie' until you have picked up the books!"

This afternoon we went to the grocery store and the lady bagging our groceries was asking Harper lots of questions and she asked her if she and Hudson were twins (which I think rather horrified Harper) then she asked if they were best friends (having watched them giggling and playing and generally enjoying one another) and Harper was quick to answer "No!" but she is wrong. They are best friends and they delight in one another about 90% of the time, and, even though it is much louder and rowdier than those days when Harper couldn't seem to enjoy him, I am so thankful for the way it is now. When I was putting her to bed just now, Harper said, "I am going to wake Hudson up in the morning and we are going to continue our hullabaloo!" We welcome you, sweet hullabaloo.

You say cicada, I say buh-tay-duh

Helena has discovered the cicadas and their songs. "I hear buh-tay-duhs!" she says. We found a couple of empty shells or hollow nightmarish husks or whatever they are called (creepy, creepy disturbing) on the side of the house and we all looked at them today. Better than roaches, but not by much.

I took some pictures today with the great natural light in the front room, with the new camera set on 'automatic,' because I've yet to read the manual. I think I see some improvement nonetheless:

The above angelic vision is really experimenting with the being two business. She has begun to raise her voice whilst simultaneously proclaiming desires counter to my own. She has also discovered the ability to make herself boneless when I am trying to pick her up in the midst of said disagreement, which is super enchanting.

The husband just got home from his first day of classes, which he celebrated with a lunchtime visit to a gun range with Mr. S. He laid out his bullet-riddled human-shaped silhouette targets and had me admire them, as proud as a second grader with an A+ on his first day of school.

Unrequited love

I saw a movie many years ago and I remember nothing else about it, including the title, plot, or major characters, but there is a scene where one character says "I love you" for the first time to the person he/she (the details are extremely fuzzy)loves, and the other party says, with visible squirming, "And I am FOND of you." I've decided this sums up my relationship with Sasha the dog. She loves, I am fond. But it is an improvement over the ambivalence and/or thinly veiled resentment I used to feel
.

We listened to Travels With Charley on the husband's ipod on the way home from Dallas and it reminded me of why it's one of my favorite books, and it also made me think about how well Steinbeck brings Charley to life. Charley is much more interesting than Sasha. I think standard poodles are somewhere near the top on Dog IQ charts. I don't know where Chihuahuas are, but I'm guessing it's pretty low. Sasha isn't stupid, she just doesn't have many character traits except blind adoration, which is generally focused on me. Her favorite time of day is when she sees me getting everyone getting ready for bed. She goes and sits in the chair in Helena's room and waits for Helena's story time. Only once Helena and I are in the chair, there is no longer room for Sasha, a fact which she is steadfast in ignoring. She tries to curl up on top behind our heads, which is precarious because Helena will rock the chair rather forcefully if the story is exciting enough. Usually Sasha ends up on the ottoman in front of us, and she sits and stares at me with a bereft expression and sometimes her eyes close as if she is escaping to a dream world where she is curled up in my lap 24 hours a day.

Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct

A few weeks ago, I picked up a kids' book by a guy named Mo Willems. I'd seen his pigeon books but had never checked them out. The book that caught my eye was Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, because at our zoo in one of the indoor exhibits, there is a thriving, writhing (slightly disturbing, if I'm honest) community of naked mole rats, and I thought the kids would enjoy a story about them. The conflict in the story is provided by a particular mole rat who enjoys getting dressed, and the other mole rats WILL NOT HAVE IT. Because, well, they are eponymously Naked. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Willems' wit and simple drawings, so we, on the advice of Mrs. B (I actually have two Mrs. B's--this is Mrs. MB, or CB, if we are being traditional)we checked out the Knuffle Bunny trilogy, which is about a little girl and her stuffed bunny. The third one has a little epilogue which made ME cry, but I think we've established that this happens with disturbing regularity, and that most adults will manage tear-free. We have enjoyed the pigeon books too, and then on our last library jaunt we picked up Edwina: The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct, which is about Edwina, a dinosaur who lives in this town and bakes cookies and helps little ladies across the street and everyone loves her, until one day, this kid, Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie decides he is AFFRONTED by the fact that everyone in the town is so nonchalant about a Dinosaur who is SUPPOSED to be EXTINCT just baking the cookies and wearing hats and generally not acknowledging REALITY. It's clever and hysterical and the kids love it, but mostly, they are ENAMORED of the name Reginald Von Hoobie Doobie. Can't stop saying it, singing it, yelling it. Even Helena got in on it, yelling "HOOBIE DOOBIE!!" on the way home from Harper's gymnastics class today.

I really need to better organize our reading list and create some categories and a more accurate ranking system. We obviously trend heavily toward books about animals, but I think I can come up with some sub-categories. Examples:

1.Books About Little Girls and Their Beloved Stuffed Bunnies: Emma Bean by Jean Van Leuwen and the Knuffle Bunny trilogy.

2.Books About Dogs Who Run Away (humorous): Harry the Dirty Dog (Graham), Angus Lost! (Flack), The Great Gracie Chase (Rylant), The Stray Dog (Simont), Ivan the Terrier (Catalanotto).

3.Books About Animals Who Are Getting a New Sibling and Feel Some Ambivalence: What's in the Egg, Little Pip? (Wilson) A Baby Sister for Frances (Hoban), It's Quacking Time (Waddell)

4. How about Seemingly Simple Stories That Actually Introduce Big Ideas Like The Origin of Man and the Sanctity of All Life In a Way That is Winsome and Does Not Involve Placards? : Yellow and Pink (Steig), and Horton Hears a Who (Seuss)

5. Books About Bears and/or Rabbits Who Think They Want to Be Alone But Who Are Actually Made for Community: Bear Snores On (Wilson), A Visitor for Bear (Becker), Too Many Frogs! (Asher)

It's actually fun! I have a really good book that's basically an annotated bibliography of quality children's literature (Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt) that has really helped guide our reading choices. I rarely just grab books from the shelf anymore, though that is how I found Mo Willems, so I don't discount it entirely.

Harper is brand new today. She winced but was very brave when the nurse swabbed her throat for strep (negative!) at the doctor's office. We left with a hug and a diagnosis of "probable virus, no treatment necessary." This morning she woke up ravenous and has not complained of any more headaches. I took Winnie-the Pooh with us to read while we waited, and she is understanding and appreciating the humor in a new way. "Pooh Bear," she confided on the way home, "is not very smart. HE WAS the WOOZLE! And Piglet was the WIZZLE!" and today, she laughed uproariously over Owl's spelling of "Happy Birthday" on Eyeore's present from Pooh. She made me read the "HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY" part three different times. Fuzzy and cute, like Pooh.

Maybe every other day is more realistic

We've been a little busy, which is not our natural state. And, as if to physiologically rebel, Harper is sick. So sick that at our dear Izzy's swimming party this morning, she asked to leave the swimming pool to go inside to LIE DOWN. Also she was not at all interested in the adorable cupcakes. This has NEVER EVER happened. She is currently napping and when she wakes up, we are off to see the pediatrician, who, when I called, actually had no record for her because I realized she hasn't been sick enough to go to the doctor since she was 2.

We went to Dallas for a few days last week to see our teeny, beautiful new niece. Harper and Hudson loved the cousin time with the big sisters, and I got to do this for a very long time:
I love newborns. Tiny little warm loaf of bread.

We checked out some Maisy books from the library a few weeks ago, and this kid named Avner had written his name really big in the front of two of them. Yesterday, out of the blue, Harper said, "I wonder what Avner's mommy was doing when he was writing his name in the library books?" which made me laugh. Also, she and Hudson have started playing a game they call "Baby". This is how it works: Hudson sits on the arm of the big red chair and starts crying about something. Then Harper will go over and pick him up and carry him a couple of feet and say something kind. A couple of days ago when they were playing, he started crying and saying "I'm hurt MAMA!" in this baby voice, but instead of picking him up, Harper walked away and announced, rather callously over her shoulder, "I'm going to go exercise" and went into the other room. Lovely. And, for the record, the words, "I'm going to go exercise" have not crossed my lips in MONTHS.

God Only Knows

The Beach Boys were the first concert I ever went to. I was 11 or 12 and I still remember in vivid detail the outfit I assembled: pastel, Hawaiian-print jamz (I believe this was the correct spelling--they were surfer shorts with a drawstring waist) a pastel pink tank top with a net overlay shirt, some chunky plastic bracelets, and, the piece de resistance was a pair of pastel multi-colored Converse high-tops that I wore with two pairs of socks scrunched just so. I remember my feet hurting because of the two pairs of socks. I don't remember anything about the concert, but I'm pretty sure that was a pretty dark time for at least one of the Beach Boys. They were no longer boys, that I remember. But the harmonies were lovely, I'm sure.
We got a new camera. It's nice and it scares me. But I'm going to read the instruction manual and try to keep my sweaty fingers from smearing the lens (again) and then WATCH OUT.

So, back to music. I seem to have trouble remembering the ipod when we are going someplace and, because of the work that is involved in fishing out a cd for a 15 minute ride, we end up listening to the radio. I think I've mentioned more than once my rather disenchanted attitude with "Christian radio." However, Helena has gotten to the point where she actually listens to songs and wants to know what they are called, and her latest query is, "This about Jesus?" and so, when we're listening to the Christian station I can usually say, "Yes, it IS about Jesus!" although sometimes I want to add something cynical like, "Ostensibly, anyway. It actually seems to be more about how this girl lost her keys but it's okay because she just loves the way Jesus holds her." Anyway, the other day I decided to try the classic rock station and the first song was Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend" and Helena says, "This about Jesus?" and I said, "Um, no, I think it's about how people work hard all week so that they can enjoy not having to work on the weekends (even though that's really counter to the idea of finding meaning in our vocation and actually seeing our work, not as drudgery, but as purposeful and God-honoring). Next up came the Eddie Money classic "Two Tickets to Paradise" which, of course, I explained was about a story by Dante that we could all read together in a few years. Then, and here is where I finally relented and switched back to radio that's "Safe for the Whole Family!" I give you, Billy Joel, with his bouncy melodies and the blasphemy that is "Only the Good Die Young":

You got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation
You got a brand new soul
mmmm, And a cross of gold
But Virginia they didn't give you quite enough information
You didn't count on me
When you were counting on your rosary
(oh woah woah)

They say there's a heaven for those who will wait
Some say it's better but I say it ain't
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
the sinners are much more fun...

you know that only the good die young
thats what i said
i tell ya
only the good die young, X2

Oh, woah, woah, indeed.

Dear KSBJ: Forgive me my fault-finding, and thank you for the fact that never once have you exposed my children to lyrics that tell Catholic school girls that their chastity will lead to an early death. Sincerely, Patti.

Two more pictures from the yearly photo shoot also known as All of You SMILE and DO IT NOW So We Will Have a Decent Picture to Put in the Frame We Are Giving Grandmother Pate for Her Birthday:

I'm going to try to blog every day this week. We'll see how that goes.

Bass line

I'm reading Ann Lamott's Traveling Mercies, and every few pages she punches me in the stomach while simultaneously assuring me that God's grace and mercy and creativity and patience and magnanimity and tenderness are more than any of us will ever comprehend. It's gritty (I've never before read or heard a conversion story that included the 'f' word. And no, I don't mean 'faith.') and she definitely doesn't fit into any comfortable mold, but, as I'm getting older (in body and mind and spirit) I'm realizing this is whence some of the deepest blessings come. So Donald Miller, Mary Karr, Annie Dillard, Lauren Winner, Marilyn Robinson, Walker Percy, Willa Cather, Graham Greene, Flannery O'Connor, and now, Ann Lamott, welcome to my bookshelf, question and challenge and inspire me with your salt and grit and grace as you will.

Many years ago I was chatting with some musician friends before their concert, and I remember the extreme frustration that occurred when, minutes before they were to go on stage, their bassist called to cancel. I remember thinking they were over-reacting a little, because really, does anyone even notice the bass thudding along in the background? I mean, I get it if Sting calls and tells the Police he's got a little stomach bug, perhaps you think about rescheduling, but in general, the bass player seems pretty expendable. Then for some reason, a few months ago, I started really paying attention to the bass line, especially in songs that start without it, then build to include it. It DOES matter. It does make the sound richer and more interesting. It does turn an average melody into something rather anthemic. I try to point things like this out to the kids when we are listening to music in the car. The other day I was flipping through radio stations, and I happened on the opening bars of "Free Bird." "Hey everyone!" This is the song that Freebirds the restaurant is named after!" So they thought that was pretty nifty, and we listened to it the entire way home from the zoo because it is a really long song. At the end, I asked what they thought and I think they were a little confused that there weren't any lyrics about kids who like rice and beans stuffed in a fat burrito.

We went to "toddler skate" at a roller rink last Friday. Harper got to use her skates, Hudson zoomed around on his scooter, and Helena pushed her stroller around and stole stuffed animals from other kids while they weren't looking. I got a total of 4 pictures and, believe it or not, this is the best of the lot:

Harper and Hudson's rooms have both undergone Extreme Makeovers thanks to the husband, who stepped in because he saw a wife in need of mercy. In case you have forgotten, here is the retina-searing before shot:
And the after:
He also vacuumed AND dusted to spare me from the anaphylaxis that tends to ensue when I have to deep clean.

Ikea, we thank thee:
Thy storage solutions, they comfort me, and bring me peace. Amen.