Crafty

I am NOT crafty. I don't sew or knit or needlepoint. I do not scrapbook. I have, in the past few years, taken to making cards, on which I paint a little watercolor something. But I didn't start this because I really love painting. I started it because I detested card shopping. The cards were too busy or just ugly and, as for the "sentiment" printed therein? Well, let's just say 'unsatisfactory' so as not to use words like blather and tripe and banal, which would be disrespectful to those folks who make their living coming up with these pithy verses. Which reminds me that William Safire died. I will miss his columns On Language. Anyway, I made a couple of cards this week for my friends Alicia and Priscilla. I have trouble coming up with ideas--nothing new under the sun etc, etc..so Alicia's design came from the cover art for Maybelle the Cable Car, written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton, which happened to be on the coffee table (neither of my two older kids could sit all the way through Maybelle, which is the story of a group of San Franciscans' quest to save the cable cars from extinction. It's a touch pretentious):

Then I painted some not very sunflowery-looking sunflowers for Priscilla, and added a quote from an old Alphaville song called "Forever Young":

I also made a thank you note with the sunflowers:

And that about did me in. And I could be happily done until January. Only I have children who love crafts. And who don't go to preschool. Or Mother's Day Out. OR any other place where someone else is responsible for crafts. I have realized that there is no better way to release The Control Freak Within than to do glitter with a four year old and a two year old.

Though I will say that our painting today went much better thanks to these that I bought on Saturday:

Look at the industrious harmony we had for almost an hour this morning!

And a gift for Grandmother Morrow's birthday:

Which, naturally, needs a picture of all three kids because apparently I am a glutton for punishment:
Sing it with me now: "Second verse, same as the first! A little bit louder and a little bit worse!" I'm debating getting everyone smocked back up and back outside for round 2 this afternoon. I feel like there's an aphorism that goes something like, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

robed in righteousness

I don't blog much about current events, mostly because I don't have time to be as informed as I feel I ought to be if I'm going to give any kind of insightful commentary. But lately I've been increasingly annoyed as to why we spend so much time analyzing motive. I think we can agree that a congressman yelling something rude at the President of the United States is bad form. That Serena Williams probably shouldn't berate a line judge. And that a bunch of kids beating up another kid on a school bus is shocking. Why does the ACT (the inappropriate yelling, the beating up) so quickly get passed over into The Analysis of WHY? And it really is frustrating and lazy to always make The Why somehow about racism. There are people who are determined to see racism everywhere and people who are determined to see racism nowhere. I'm pretty sure the truth is somewhere in between. I read an interesting study about racism and children last week and I'm still thinking about it. The gist of it was that even when parents don't differentiate between races, kids are, of course, noticing and wondering why no one is bringing it up.

We are deciding about church. Since we've moved, we are about 5 minutes from our old church, and I really struggle with the idea that we ought to worship in our community and not drive past 87 other churches to get to the place that we think Meets Our Needs. Our old church and our new church have orthodoxy in common (though the old church might dispute this), and just about nothing else. Their orthopraxy is starkly different. At the old church the pastor is robed in a heavy black robe to remind him of the weight of his charge to faithfully render the Scripture. At the new church this morning, the pastor was robed with a t-shirt and jeans and his three year old son Christian, who, because his mom has been out of town hadn't been sleeping well and decided that he needed Daddy, right in the middle of a sermon about Exodus. The weight of his charge resting on his shoulder, he taught us about Jethro and Moses and the offering of burnt sacrifice in response to deliverance. There are those who are determined to see God everywhere and those determined to see Him nowhere. I am convinced it is the former.

Helena had about 4 bites of mashed up banana this morning and seemed pleased. We all went to Hobby Lobby this afternoon and got some paint and construction paper and glitter. I am 100% sure that I will regret the glitter.

Of shofars, harmonicas, and bells

This morning over breakfast we looked at the calendar, which hangs just above the table, and I noted that today was Rosh Hashanah. Hudson said, with a mouth full of waffle, "I want to SEE her." You want to see whom? I asked. "Roshanah," he explained. Oh, it isn't a SHE, it is a Jewish holiday, I explained. He insisted that he really wanted to SEE HER. I pointed to the square on the calendar where the words were written, "Here are the words that say 'Rosh Hashanah' Hudson, but you can't really SEE Rosh Hashanah because IT is a holiday..." and I just had to trail off because I couldn't remember (sorry Lauren Winner) WHAT Rosh Hashanah was. I remember once, years ago, sitting with my parents at a Le Peep restaurant in Dallas and I was reading the paper over breakfast and noted that it was Rosh Hashanah. My dad said, "Is that a band?" which made me giggle for weeks. It's the Jewish New Year and the beginning of the High Holidays which culminate in Yom Kippur. At least that's what it said on Wikipedia, so it must be true. Totally by coincidence (or WAS it??) we got some harmonicas yesterday which have been tooted with much zeal all day, not unlike the shofar which is blown on Rosh Hashanah:

Harper has been writing quite a few harmonica songs, utilizing the three notes she knows, which she refers to as: "High C, Low C, and Medium-sized C." One of the songs has catchy lyrics that go something like, "There is a fast car named Lightning (Lightning) and she likes the color pink. She has a friend named Mater (Mater) and he is ve-ry brown." The chord progression is a little tricky to describe, but there seems to be lots of High C, Low C, High C, Medium-sized C with a little bit of jazzy slide thrown in somewhere around "the color pink." I expect Disney/Pixar to be calling any day now.

The husband and I got to have a date Thursday night while Grandmother Pate was here. The president of the university where he teaches had all of the new professors to his home for dinner. The food was delicious and the conversation was rich. I also got to have lunch with three of my college roommates yesterday, including the radiant Tiffeny, who you would never know just weeks ago walked down a hall at M.D. Anderson and rang a bell symbolizing having finished almost a year of intense treatment for breast cancer. We ate appetizers and RED VELVET CAKE CHEESECAKE and talked, among other things, about the joy in mothering our THIRTEEN kids.

I love our neighborhood

We went for a walk yesterday afternoon between rainstorms. Harper on her tricycle (she has a bike, you'll remember, but it is really still too big and wobbly for me to supervise properly when I've got the other two along), Hudson on his little push trike, and Helena in the stroller. Our new neighborhood is the sort where people wave when you walk by. We had just turned a corner and I saw a car coming slowly towards us. They stopped in the middle of the street and the window rolled down. It was an elderly couple and the wife was driving. The husband said, out the window, "How. CUTE." And the wife went on to tell me that they had three grown kids who were also pretty close in age. I felt a little like Mrs. Mallard in Make Way for Ducklings. Proud, with a little extra waddle in my step. I do like when people make sweet comments because I can agree with them and not feel like I have to be a little apologetic, as I sometimes do when people make the, "BOY, you've got your hands FULL" comment. I saw something in the Dallas Morning News last weekend that made me so thankful for my healthy children who do indeed keep my hands full, but in a most beautiful, fulfilling, albeit exhausting way. I'll link to it, but don't watch it unless you need a serious catharsis. It's incredibly life-affirming, but devastatingly sad. It's about a baby named Thomas.

Ten on Thursday

1. Just look at Little Missy Pulling Up Girl. She has not yet figured out how to gracefully disengage from the standing and tends to topple over like a felled sapling, which makes her wail in frustration and, possibly, pain.

2. My favorite part of President Obama's Speech to America's Schoolchildren was when he told them they needed to wash their hands. I'm afraid the likelihood of that happening, even if The President SAID To, is about equal to the likelihood that government intervention is actually going to improve our healthcare situation.

3. Helena seems to have given up the middle of the night feeding! We've had about a week now of 11-13 hours straight at night.

4. Sometimes my entire Target shopping list is comprised of paper products: paper towels, toilet paper, wipes, diapers, tissues, Clorox wipes, swiffer refills, paper plates..That sound you hear? Al Gore weeping. In his Lear jet.

5. Hudson uses the 'yuh' sound for r's and l's and sometimes t's. My favorite words he says:
watermelon: "wah-yuh-meyun"
scary: "sca-yee"
yellow: "yeh-yoh"
caterpillar: "cah-yuh-pih-yuh"
So, if you know of any books about scary yellow caterpillars eating watermelon, you should definitely tell me about it.

6. Harper spent awhile yesterday perfecting this picture of a chick named, I think, Chica (or maybe Teacup--she has her own speech issues), and wanted me to take a picture of it:

7. We went to Dallas for the long weekend. It was very good to see family and a couple of friends. Helena did fine for all but the last hour going and coming back. In those two hours she cried more than she has in her life so far, cumulatively. Loud and sad she was.

8. Cousins:

9. Dear friends:

10. It's been raining quite a bit this week and yesterday, I entertained the two older kiddies by putting them in the stroller (not clicked in, for just a hint of Danger) and pushing them around the house kind of fast and crazy-like. You make your own fun.

seven months

We like nicknames here. Lately the husband has been referring to Harper as Big Little, Hudson as Middle Little, and Helena as Little Little. She is, at seven months, still very little little. This lends itself to a certain agility. She is crawling. AND pulling up. WHILE reading:
She still won't really sit by herself. I'll put her down on her bottom and she immediately gets on her tummy and into crawling position. I wondered with the other two why in the world there was a strap on the changing table. For Helena Jane, that's why. Changing her (size 2) diaper involves some major dexterity on my part. She kicks and flips and arches--I really think there might be serious gymnast potential. She's had a little cold this week and I've had to utilize the Dreaded Bulb Syringe. She sees that bottle of saline coming and whip-POW she is NOT having it. I have squirted saline in her eyes, mouth, ears, and, occasionally, in her nose. Last night she slept for 12 hours--or at least I think she did. I turned the monitor off in my sleep at some point, so it's possible she cried for hours on end and I simply couldn't hear because she is over in the west wing. Let's hope not. Harper and Hudson are paying more attention to her now that she's a little more interesting. I love how Hudson says her name--it's Huh-YAY-nuh. He likes handing her things, like his special puppy, and telling her that they are "veh-yee FRAGILE." He also enjoys relaying the news that "HuhYAYnuh spit UP," which happens pretty often, especially when she is participating in the aforementioned crawling and pulling up. Harper likes going in and talking to her when she's just awakened. We had to lower her mattress this week because she was doing lots of this:
She has also decided she likes sleeping in a fleece sleep sack. I like that it contains her to some degree. I still haven't tried giving her any food yet. Maybe this month..

from whence it comes

We went to the Museum of Natural Science this week and there is a volunteer named Jean-Claude who's been there our last few visits. He is in charge of a table covered with trays of rocks and shells and fossil fragments where kids are encouraged to use tweezers and magnifying lenses to dig and discover. Jean-Claude is stooped, almost gaunt. He has hearing aids in both ears, which seem to work approximately not at all. His English, though perfect, is heavily accented. He really seems to take great pleasure in helping the kids find tiny shells and fossils, holding out his wrinkled palm to receive each new specimen. Harper, as is her wont, had brought a little something with her to the museum. It was the plastic cover from an old thermometer (NOT rectal) and she was using it, she had patiently explained when I asked if it were absolutely necessary that she bring it, as a Special Lens For Dinosaur Viewing. As she busily dug in her tray of fossils, she put her Special Lens near the top of the tray. Jean-Claude happened to spy it as he was helping her put a tiny mollusk shell in a small paper cup. "What is zis?" he asked, puzzled. Oh, she brought that from home, I explained. His hearing aids didn't properly amplify my reply, so I repeated it. Twice. Finally he exclaimed, "Parthenogenesis!" with great delight, and a hearty chuckle.

Later that day we played outside a little while with the hose until the mosquitoes drove us in. We then spent about 15 minutes detangling Harper's hair. She was less than gracious and I reminded her that if she would not insist on spraying the water on her head, the unpleasantness could be avoided. She said, in an accusatory tone, ''It's YOUR fault! For LETTING me!" I don't speak Yiddish, but I'm pretty sure that called for an oy, vey. I only wash her hair once a week because it is quite an undertaking. Around 6 years ago, I babysat for my friends Eugene and Heather who have 5 kids, 4 of whom are daughters with glorious long, golden hair. What Eugene and Heather had NOT told me beforehand was that it was hair washing night. I did my best, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that Cara might still have a small knot at the base of her scalp even now.

One of Hudson's favorite activities this week has been repeating what Harper says. He is not sophisticated enough to be doing it to evoke a response, he just finds her VERY worthy of adoration and emulation. "I don't like repeaters," she said firmly, one morning at breakfast, "I don't want a repeater named Hudson John." Well, I said, you could pretend he is a parrot--like Beau. (Beau belongs to our friend Izzy's grandmother. He hails from the Congo and can meow like a cat AND yell "Halleluia") "Nooo, no.." she said slowly, almost scornfully. "THAT is not pretendable." Here is Beau, helping us celebrate Izzy's birthday today.