Here is N with her latest intellectual stimulus package, courtesy of her grandparents, who thus far have shown proper concern for her upbringing:
Here Comes Our Dancing Daughter
Sometimes keeping a baby awake requires drastic measures:
Land Wanted
In my social work training, I learned to say to people with problems, “In a perfect world, what would you be doing differently? Now do it.” In my perfect world, I would be living more down-to-earth, raising more of our own food, and removing ourselves from the grid. So here is my first step towards doing it–a want ad:
WANTED: 5-10 south-east facing acres, with a pure-water spring, including both woods, for cutting firewood, and pasture, for raising a garden, a little brown cow, and chickens; located within 10 miles of my place of employment; with a 2-4 bedroom, well-windowed house (in quite nice condition) heated by wood stove and powered by solar panels or wind. Will offer in trade a totally electricity-dependent townhouse with a small backyard.
Does any member of my vast readership know of any such option?
Cathartic Confession
Today I committed what I regret to assume will probably be only the first of many acts of horrible parenting: I dropped N. In the grocery store parking lot.
Well, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I was lifting her out of her car seat (we’d driven about a mile to get to the store, which is located 150 yards from our house but rather inaccessible by foot) and was turning her around to fit her into her Snugli, when kersplat, she fell (er, I dropped her) onto the back seat of the car.
She screamed for a little bit, and then slept through the whole expedition into the store.
Simply Christian
In his text Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, N.T. Wright attempts to weave all of biblical history and the development of Christianity into a supposedly simple, watertight TV-dinner package. The book, which we’re currently studying in Sunday school, doesn’t really work for me, perhaps because it’s a rather complex attempt to tie so much together into one knot.
Some things Wright says are, I would venture to guess, on target. For example, he asserts that the universal human longings for justice, spirituality, beauty, and relationship all point to the presence of a bigger, as-yet-unrealized reality that is God’s kingdom. However, he limits the entirety of the human experience to any of three options for understanding God’s association with the world: God is an entity entirely separate from earthly reality, God is in everything (and yes, that table over there is God), or God’s realm intersects with the earthly realm in Jesus (God’s “rescue operation”) and his followers.I wonder if there couldn’t be a fourth option for understanding our interaction with the divine. Here it is–a succinctly summarized, universal, non-heady, truly simple platform on which Christians can be living contributors to the kingdom of God here on Earth: God is love, Jesus embodied that love, the spirit of God resides where there is love, and the ultimate ethic and morality is to act in love, a love that includes the offering–and inevitable receiving–of grace and forgiveness. One of my university Bible professors asked this question, which I think helps us muddle through how this fourth option is to be played out: “Is ______ life giving or death dealing?”
(By the way, this was the same professor who assigned readings by Walter Brueggemann, whose comment on the back cover of Wright’s book reads, “Readers will welcome such ready access to one of the fine teachers of the church.”)
I say that this fourth option is “simply Christian” not because it’s easy, but because it lays to rest many oft-debated, bogging-down theological and doctrinal points such as biblical infallibility, the virgin birth, the afterlife, the existence of miracles, the meaning of the crucifixion, etc., and instead challenges each and every person to immediately practical godliness.
The Verdict
Our daughter’s look of seeming disgust may be that of a drunk judge, but that’s not all that’s cute about her.
Her grunting contortions are superimposed on her sleep. Her sprawled-out relaxation hearkens back to happy memories of Jello. Her wide- (and I mean wide) eyed intensity soaks up the fly-by that is life (or at least the filling of diapers). When the good six ounces of milk regurgitated on my t-shirt become her facial, when bathing leaves her so tense and tentatively curious that
she emits not a peep, when her eyes meet and focus on ours with occasional registration, when her arms and legs are flung wide with livid kicks and orchestral sweeps–during all of these she is marvelous.But I am in love not only with her. Meals brought to us by our families (ham, salad, pork roast, lima beans, pizza, steak, fruit, sweet potatoes, baked beans, corn, cookies, bean dip, custard…and much more), meals brought to us by our church (pasta and meat balls, pecan pie, beef stew, cake, fresh homemade bread, cherry crisp…and much more), and many other pieces of attention prompted me to comment to Lloyd at church on Sunday, “We need to have babies more often!”
Go George!
Little do I know about George McGovern–but this impeachment plea should be noted.
Neighbors Make Fences: A Story
On a certain plot of land in the midst of townhouses and smaller single-family dwellings, a certain grocery store chain constructed a megaplex of blueberry, chocolate, and cream puff donuts, prepackaged salisbury steak dinners, and fresh vegetables like okra and carrots. Around the store grounds was built a wooden slab fence, with two gates, one on the east side and one on the west side of the store.
The only problem was that whenever a nearby family, whose back yard nearly bordered the fence behind the store, desired exercise, gasoline conservation, outdoor conversation, and groceries and so decided to walk to the store, they either had to walk a long way–including along a busy road with no sidewalks–or venture through one of the two gates, which necessitated trespassing through someone’s yard.
The ethical dilemma of trespassing was rendered irrelevant soon enough, however, by the padlocking of the gates. The message was clear: don’t take a shortcut in our backyards. The family seldom walked to that store after that (instead, they shopped at their previous grocery haunt, which was farther away but could be approached with minimal trespassing), until one day they noticed that the padlocks had been removed, and the gates were swinging open. “Look at that!” they said, knowing in their hearts that once again they would need to find a balance between the tempting trespassing and dangerous busy-road walking. They ventured closer to the open gates, until they noticed a sign: “No trespassing. Surveillance.” Rats.
Not long afterwards, the hole in the neighbor’s fence bordering the family’s back yard began to grow, as did a nearby hole in the grocery store’s fence. The next-door neighbor boys began scrambling through the holes on their way to Cokes and chips or emergency rolls of toilet paper. No problem, the family decided–that little bit of trespassing saved those boys a lot of walking on the streets.
But the situation grew a bit more complicated.
A very small man moved into the neighborhood. His was the Chinese takeout restaurant being furnished in the megaplex. The family’s patriarchal figure one day helped the very small man lug some mattresses indoors when he first moved in; on New Year’s Eve, the very small man showed up next door, talking to the neighbor boys who so much liked Cokes and chips. “I’m all alone this evening,” he said. “All of my family is together elsewhere. But this is my New Year’s celebration,” he said, pulling a very small bottle of vodka out of his pocket. “Keep that in your house,” the patriarchal figure said pleasantly, and the very small man agreed. “Too many kids around,” he said. They chatted until the patriarchal figure nodded goodbye and went inside, thereby concluding a non-trespassing walk to the non-megaplex grocery store for a pack of diapers and a gallon of 1% milk.
The very next day, looking out his back window across their back yard, the family saw the very small man, his briefcase in hand, taking the shortcut to the megaplex. The day following, the patriarchal figure was raking leaves and said “Hello” to the very small man as he again ducked through the fence.
That very evening something happened. The neighbor boys showed up in the family’s back yard with a hammer, nails, and a big piece of plywood, and went straight to the bordering fence. The next time the very small man tried to go to his restaurant, he found his shortcut blocked.
Now the patriarchal figure worries. It wasn’t his fence to patch–and it wasn’t the neighbor boys’ fence to patch, either. But he had greeted the very small man taking the shortcut, and so the likely inference by the very small man would be that the patriarchal figure knew about, did not like, and was responsible for barring his quick, efficient means of getting to work.
Which couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Paternity Leave Today
NOTE: As (the?) one reader of my blog noted yesterday, “Okay, I think it’s time for you to get back to work! You obviously have too much time on your hands!” (I wasn’t offended, though, as the next line read, “Will you post daily? Please?”) The following post exists because I thought it might be helpful to show that I’m not bored or sitting around listlessly…
We’re such troopers, here.
My alarm went off at 6:02; by 6:10 I was frantically trying to keep up with the McDonald’s virtual personal trainer whose half hour of verbal cues and background music barely leaked through my own choice of high-energy tunes. After breakfast–granola I made yesterday–and a bit of time with M & N, I was off for the remainder of my day’s athletic event: I watered our houseplants (with N in the Snugli), washed a load of laundry, perfunctorily cleaned both bathrooms, dusted in (almost) every room, swept/vacuumed all of our floors, emptied the dust cannister on the vacuum, emptied all the trash cans, and washed dishes. That was all before 9:30.
But I am not the star of the day, really. N had her first-ever excursion, so that makes her the star. We bundled her up into her car seat and took off for the doctor’s office, where she met every possible expectation without noteworthy fuss. Number one comment heard today: “Oh, what a wonderful Christmas gift!”
From the doctor’s office we drove, armed with the gift card from our little friend Jedrek and a page of coupons we got in the mail, straight to McDonald’s (Is a theme developing? Eat that, Barbara Kingsolver–more on this in a later post). I ate two Big Macs and a large chocolate shake (I couldn’t finish the coupon-trophy sweet tea), M had a fillet o’ fish (Do they really always come with cheese on?) and a large chocolate shake. She didn’t even try the tea. N sat quietly in her car seat; I couldn’t see her, but she probably bore the smug expression of an effortlessly accomplished health nut. Maria’s comment during the meal: “Five years ago I never imagined we’d be doing this–and with another person in the car.” Yes, that’s right–our McDonald’s meal appears to have been our fifth wedding anniversary outing.Then to the hospital for tons of red tape just for N’s PKU (meanie nurse pricked her heal and squeezed out her blood), then to the county health department where I had to tell the receptionist what to do with our birth registration form, then to the post office to buy stamps, and then, oh my blessed, at last off to home.
M & N are both tuckered out–N’s here, asleep in the Snugli; M’s in bed (this was her first excursion since Christmas Eve)–and so am I. A quiet Friday night with supper provided by a church friend will be just what we need.
My Daughter + Jesus
My colleague D emailed three responses to N’s birth announcement:–cool beans. n was the name of one of our donkeys. we sold her.
–other than a birthday, n and jesus have another tidbit in common…. little known fact, jesus weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces when he was born.
–however, here is a difference, jesus was not born at home.Unfortunately, the birth announcement that I sent to the White House bounced because of the cute photos (“Message size exceeds administrative limit”). But my friend R wrote:
–Congratulations!!!!! Sometimes I like going though people’s group mail and seeing who they sent the email to. The White House (president@whitehouse.gov): I’m sure the president will be thrilled to hear about your newborn. I didn’t know you guys were tight with the president. You got a wonderful gift for Christmas. Too bad that M’s name is not Mary….but then again that would mean C wouldn’t be the father.
But as someone commented to me last night, it’s better to be born on Christmas rather than just near it, even if either means your birthday will be forever forgotten. I guess it’s better to be special and forgotten rather than just plain old not remembered.
she emits not a peep, when her eyes meet and focus on ours with occasional registration, when her arms and legs are flung wide with livid kicks and orchestral sweeps–during all of these she is marvelous.
My colleague D emailed three responses to N’s birth announcement: