Snips and Snails

Quote of the Day:

"Reuben! Reuben!  Let's play LASER SWORDS!" --Sean, age 4

(Yes.  It really is what you are thinking.)

Jamie Oliver and Baby #7

Eleven and a half years ago, Justin and I went away for one night to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.  We left at home (with his Gramma and auntie) our 2 1/2 month old infant son.  (We packed the pump and several glass jars.)  We stopped at the grocery store before leaving town and bought fresh October whole crab and a plank of salmon, then skipped away to a beautiful vacation home owned by relatives out in the San Juan Islands....experiencing the oddity of driving in the opposite direction from our baby and knowing we were doing something that was important for our marriage. 

We arrived at the house in the evening, barbecued our salmon and cooked a smattering of gorgeous fresh veggies, then photographed our food and each other sitting out on the deck, just a stone's throw from the water.  We exchanged our "paper" gifts and talked about our son.  We sat on the bed in our jammies and ate crab dipped in melted butter.  And we giggled when we turned on the cable TV (a luxury for us) and discovered a cooking show called The Naked Chef.

Of course we fell in love with Jamie nearly instantly, once we saw the magic he could make from a few simple, fresh, local ingredients.  We don't have access to television and we've caught very little of that magic over the years, but he remains a special figure to us.  We spent our first anniversary with him!

So a couple of years ago, on a cold Christmas morning, I was delighted to open an oversized package in my stocking and discover a cookbook:  Jamie's Dinners.  I was even more delighted to look inside and see that our favorite chef had married and had two beautiful babies of his own.  I still remember the bliss of that moment:  Christmas morning breakfast was in the oven, the coffee was brewing, I had my Beloved and all of my sons about me, and all was right with the world.  I wanted to freeze time, sit with my mug of coffee, and read every word of that cookbook cover to cover--twice. 

But Justin was beside me, urging me to continue opening the trinkets of my stocking.  I persisted, relishing the moment, and said No, no, I'm so happy right here, please, this is so much more than I ever could have wished for, let me be.  I'm so happy.  I want for nothing.  He laughed and protested:  But there are gifts for you under the tree!

In the end, he won out.  He had chosen special things and couldn't wait for me to open them.  My children didn't understand how I could look at a Christmas tree brimming with bounty and not want to dive in headfirst.  We enjoyed the gifts of our stockings, we shared breakfast together, and we opened the tree gifts...but when all was said and done, you better believe I found a quiet little corner of the living room and snuggled right back up with my new cookbook.

In February of this year, I was 8 weeks into training for the Seattle Rock and Roll half marathon when I missed a period.  Thinking it was nothing because I was running 5 to 6 miles at a time with no loss of energy, I assured my husband that I must just have the dates wrong or my training was affecting me physically.  But within a matter of weeks, when I began falling asleep on the couch at 9pm every night, he started giving me knowing glances.  I was still unsure.  A new baby?  Really?  When Henry is only 9 months old?  Our usual MO is one year...

In those quiet first weeks when he and I began to adjust to the idea of our family growing again....privately, without involving the children or making it public, taking our time to move through the normal range of emotions....I remembered my cookbook on that crisp December morning and that feeling of wanting to pause time.  For the past seven years, God has been whispering to me about living with open arms, living sacrificially, holding nothing back.  Primarily this has played out in the way that we have perceived our growing family.  I want so much to learn to live with this heart!  I crave a life of listening to that still, small voice and being willing to follow its leading.  It's a long, drawn-out message and though I've made strides, I feel like I have so much further to go.  This was the first time that I felt like I wanted to put my hand up and say Abba, no, it's too much, you have given too much love, these gifts are too great, I am so undeserving.  Leave me in my corner to enjoy what you have given!  ...and I hear him saying, But there is so much more for you under the tree!

Oh, our God is so gracious.  How humbled I feel by the way that he continues to give, and give, and give, even when I am fumbling with what he has already given.  He gave us this land...and we have allowed the grass to get too high and the weeds to overtake the flowerbeds.  He gave us these children, and I misspeak when I attempt to parent them.  He gave me a roof over my head...and its corners have cobwebs.  And the floors need to be swept and mopped.  And my desk is overflowing with papers...

But still he says, Child, there is more for you under the tree.  And I am overwhelmed at his goodness.  I repent of my inadequacies and I thank him for new mercies every morning.  To get up, to see the sun rising, to dust myself off and to try again to make what he has given into something beautiful.  I want it to be beautiful.  And in the midst of all of it, I find an inkling of communion with him, and I feel like I get to experience the tiniest bit of the love that he has for me.

Transition

Somehow, suddenly, inexplicably, it has been seven weeks since the birth of our beloved Henry. Obviously we have been sailing away on our babymoon with minimal contact to the outside world. But lest you think that the babymoon has been without hiccup, let me share this little story...

When Henry was 9 days old, the boys were asking to go back to church. It had been weeks and weeks since we had made it to a service, but I was feeling ready to at least attempt it. Justin and I lay in bed the night before and made a game plan--decided who would need to shower and who could pass with a hairbrush and some q-tips...visualized where all of the non-muddy shoes were...defaulted to cold cereal so that we all had a chance of getting out the door on time. And against all odds, we made it....
and it seemed that everyone did quite well (despite having to take both the car AND the truck for the first time, since we no longer fit in the Volvo)...
until we returned home and the boys were throwing their crafts down in search of peanut butter and jelly and I found this sweet little paper that said "Reuben's Mom"

....
and I turned it over to reveal this...




....
and I thought suddenly that maybe the transition of bringing Baby home hadn't actually gone as well as maybe I thought it had (tho I would love to have a pair of those killer boots)...

A bit dismayed but not wanting to squash tender, resentful feelings, I asked Reuben about his picture...

and he shrugged (while eating his pb&j) and said, "oh, that's just a picture of that giant we learned about, the one that the boy killed....I wanted to write "Reuben's. For Mom" on the back, but I didn't know how to spell "for". So I just wrote my name and yours. But you can have it!" and he danced off to make another sandwich.

One tiny crisis averted. I try to remember that on the hairier days!

Heard Around The...Volvo

(alternately titled: Mama's Ears Must Be Going)

Reese: "I just saw a cannibal!"

Cole: "What?"

Reese: "I just saw a camel!"

Sean: "I just saw a fart."

Daddy: "Ooh, look, that was a rabbit on the side of the road. I might have to stop and pick that up on the way home."

Cole: "Maybe it was Obama."

Mama: "What?"

Cole: "I said, maybe it was a llama."

Sean: "Nope. It was a fart."

38 weeks

and thinking it's about time to get the baby clothes, blankets, carriers and car seat out of storage

relishing an 8-hour night of sleep this late in the game

feeling way too comfortable and mobile for being so far along

giving Ari extra squeezes because his babyhood is ending

feeling thankful that Whitney asked for more photos of Snake Hill because it alerted me to the fact that the camera battery is DEAD

trying desperately to keep up with the dishes and laundry

abandoning cloth diapers for the easy-peasy disposable ones

making last minute trips to the chiropractor

trudging through Target with all five of my boys for non-essentials that seem terribly essential suddenly

checking out name books from the library

huffing and puffing up and down our hill

eating a Paleo diet and loving my un-swollen feet and low sugar numbers

dozing in front of Mad About You reruns in the evenings

cooking huge pots of refried beans for the freezer

warding off attacks from the new kitten

dreaming of starting a million new knitting projects suddenly

reading books about childbirth

living at the doctor's office (3-5 times per week)

wondering if I can hold on to the title of Queen

falling behind in my book club book because it seems to require a level of concentration that I just don't have

contracting

breathing

moving forward!

Wendell Berry Love

Oh, how we love us some Wendell Berry around here.
Oh, how his words ease the days.

This is my favorite of his poems--the first time Justin read it to me, I wept. I still cannot get past the part about "the forest that you did not plant" without my eyes brimming with tears. Especially when I see my five little oak trees running out in the field.

...and don't get me started about the line referring to the woman about to give birth...

Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Copyright (c)1991, 1996 by Context Institute

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Grab Bag: Laundry Baseball

First of all, let me say thank you for all of the encouraging comments on my last post. I have been so touched by the way that many of you have contacted me and shared your common experiences; depression can be a messy thing to talk about, but it is wonderfully comforting to know that there are other sojourners on the road. So thank you!

And now, onto something lighter. I mentioned some time ago in my Alignment post that I have a little "grab bag" (for lack of a better term) of things that I use to *attempt* to manage my life. I thought it might be fun to share a few of these things from time to time---simply because I am nosy and like seeing what other people are doing that works, ha! So I'll let you take a little peek into my home. And if you like, you can join in the conversation and add your own Grab Bag ideas, and I will come peek at yours, too!

So here is Laundry Baseball--an invention that came about in our old house, when my laundry system was completely unmanageable. Our old house had STEEP stairs into the basement--and in the basement was the boys' bedroom, their playroom, and my laundry room. And I NEVER went down there. Meaning--as you well can imagine--that their room and playroom was a Pit Of Despair and that my laundry was perpetually overflowing. Occasionally I would go into a whirlwind and wash a ton of clothes, but I have this fault of loving to wash & fold, but hating to put away. So the "clean" piles would get knocked over and stepped on and put back into the dirty, and the laundry room would continue to overflow, and it was a sad, sad cycle. Enter: Laundry Baseball.

Laundry Baseball is a way of dealing with laundry when you have multiple loads of clean clothes that are in Grave Danger of being attacked by the one-year-old and strewn all over the house...and this is how it goes...

1) The Pitcher (aka Mama) clears off a large, clear, clean space in the middle of the living room.
2) The Pitcher gathers up every stitch of clean laundry and DUMPS it in one spot--a pile on the carpet, the couch, whatever suits her.
3) The Pitcher yells: "LAUNDRY BASEBALL!" at the top of her lungs and children come skidding from every corner of the house (this is true, I promise you. Even if you have never played and your children have absolutely no idea what Laundry Baseball is).
4) The Pitcher instructs each child to find a place to sit on the afore-described clean floor.
5) The Pitcher explains the game (if necessary).
6) The Pitcher begins pulling items out of the monstrous pile of laundry, one at a time. Any item that belongs to The Pitcher, The Pitcher's spouse (unless spouse is playing), The Pitcher's baby, and the Pitcher's linen closet get dropped into a pile on the other side of The Pitcher. Any item belonging to a child over the age of 18 mos. gets hurled at said child at top speed, while The Pitcher simultaneously shouts the child's name.
7) Children giggle uncontrollably as they try desperately to snatch their laundry items out of the air (and avoid getting beaned in the face).
8) Children drop each item of their personal laundry into a pile next to them and continue to listen for their name to be called.
9) The Pitcher continues through the laundry mountain, trying to catch each child unaware (to solicit more explosive giggling).
10). Children inevitably begin to devise their own "point" system (1 point for each caught item, 0 points for each missed item) so that there can be a "winner" and a "goal".
11). At the elimination of the laundry mountain, begin Phase II: Each player folds their own items and puts them away. Older players and The Pitcher help the younger players after completing their respective piles.
12). Breathe a sigh of relief that the clean laundry is finally caught up and Out Of Danger.
13). Be prepared for future requests for Laundry Baseball!