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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:51:49 GMT

No Christmas letter this year. It's a travesty, I know. How will all my card recipients survive! For some reason, I just felt rebellious about writing a letter this year (maybe because this year feels so much like last year... or maybe I'm just grumpier this year, who knows?). Dave tried to work his powers, but I obstinately refused to cave.

In a meager attempt at appeasement, I wrote this poem:

Twas the second week of advent, and all through the Berry home,
Many creatures were scurrying and singing and arguing as they roamed.
They hoped to hang stockings someday and maybe get a tree,
But b-ball practice, church choir, and scouts kept them busy as bees.
At least the manger’s up and the lights outside, so we do the suburban blend,
But Christmas cards keep coming, so I suppose ours we must send.

Dave’s still at H------ Blue Shield in charge of reserves,
But their company’s merging and who knows what positions will be preserved.
He’s not worrying much; there’s too much else to do—
Leading tiger cubs, teaching 1^st graders Sunday school, baseball and b-ball coaching too.

Rachel still prays with Moms In Touch and did a Bible study,
But her favorite parts of this year were catching up with friends and family.
We went to Canada this summer, to Dave’s parents’ cottage, for some relaxing living
And spent time with Rachel’s extended family in Nagshead over Thanksgiving.

Abby’s so big—it’s hard to believe it's ten years ago she was born.
She still does Girl Scouts, piano, and switched from viola to French horn.
She’s in her second year of basketball and played on a great softball team.
She’s still the boys’ favorite sister, and keeps her room as clean as any mother’s dream.

Jamie, or James as he’s now known, is catching up to Abby and wears bigger shoes.
He’s eight now, loves to heely, play sports and can’t stand to lose.
He played baseball, basketball, (flag) football, and still does scouting,
But he has moments to read, play Legos, or keep up with his Webkinz’ cat, Yao-Ming.

Jack’s in school all day (first grade) now that he’s turned six.
He loves Tiger cubs, having his dad coach baseball, and learning soccer kicks.
He spends hours drawing and enjoys games and, in play, taking the lead.
Still, he’ll snuggle up to say “good morning” or to sit and read.

Our littlest one, Andy, is now almost four, and like all Berrys, tall.
He takes gymnastics at the Y and started preschool this fall.
He is often attired as Buzz Lightyear or Superman or in just random dress-up clothes
And he and Mommy do puzzles, read, and play Playmobil and dominoes.

The newest addition is covered in fur, from her head to her paw.
We called her Shanti, a Shih-Tzu, who often raises a guffaw.
She speaks barely a word, but has created lots of work.
Still, we’re hopeful for the future as we work out the quirks.

And you know we’d exclaim, should we see you tonight,
“Merry Christmas to you all as you celebrate the True Light.”

But in the end, I lacked courage to send it or the wherewithal to perfect it, so our readers had to be content with a picture.

And these were our picture choices. Notice that we have our own resident Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) who made the whole picture selection rather difficult.

We actually didn't choose any of these pictures, but one very close.

A Matter of Taste

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:53:30 GMT

A few weeks ago, I was climbing the stairs to get Andy dressed and thinking about how nice it was now to bring Andy in to preschool wearing clothes picked out by ME, carefully matching, mostly clean, clothes. This is in contrast to Jack’s preschool days when he insisted on wearing the same pair of camouflage pants and a small rotation of shirts involving Star Wars characters, Spiderman, and possibly Superman or Buzz. I don’t exactly recall.

Of course, that very same day, as I cheerfully plucked a clean shirt from his drawer, Andy looked at it and stated, “I don’t like that shirt!” Forgetting all my training in having lived through three other preschoolers, I began enumerating all the benefits of this particular, basically boring shirt. After which, Andy stated a bit more belligerently, “I don’t like that shirt!” “But it goes so nicely with these pants!” And his eyes started to tear up as he insisted, “But I don’t like it! I don’t want to wear it!”

And then my brain returned, and I dug out Jack’s old Star Wars shirt (miraculously clean!) and peace was restored. So, we dashed downstairs so we could walk out to wave to the other kids at the bus stop.

And then, he saw it.

A crumpled Buzz Lightyear costume, hastily discarded in the front hall the previous day.

“Mom! Mom!! I want to be Buzz!” And I dreaded the future I saw quickly unfolding. I briefly and hopelessly try to talk him out of it, but ended up helping him climb into the costume with rips in both knees—big rips through which legs have accidentally protruded in the dressing process—and dirt and stains all over. I bought it at a consignment shop for Jamie five years ago, and it has seen lots of use.

And so, I whisked my little Buzz off to preschool. The thing is that I’ve decided long ago that clothes don’t matter. I mean, of course, I love when my kids are dressed beautifully, but I can’t think of any reason why dressing according to anyone’s standards should be important. So, I let my kids go off to school wearing whatever bizarre attire they put together. And I regularly take a Buzz or a caped figure or an obviously Brave and Courageous Man wearing a sword stuck in his pants to the store or library storytime. But I had never actually seen any other child in all my years of taking kids to preschool come to school in costume (when it wasn’t a specially designated day). I'm pretty sure most moms aren't lenient in this matter.

Still, the next preschool day, I was prepared and had at least washed the hole-ridden costume. And I complacently accepted Superman the next time. To think I used to dread camouflage pants.

Andy and I had just happened to go to the mall to meet a friend, and Andy just happened to be dressed in this attire when he saw Santa. There was no question of sitting on his lap. "Do I get to sit on his lap now? Will he be so happy to see I'm a Santa, too?" This Santa's brain apparently had addled a bit from all his sitting and smiling for the camera because he asked if Andy was a fireman. "No? But you're wearing a fireman's coat?" Isn't it obvious he's a Santa, maybe just a bit younger, with no beard? Notice the boots, several sizes too big which he deemed requisite enough to clomp around the mall in.

Family Gatherings

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:53:28 GMT

When we still lived in our old neighborhood, I remember talking with a neighbor at the park. She was saying how relieved she felt, now that her parents were finally back from their month or so in Florida. Her parents lived on our block of the neighborhood; she was on the other side. She elaborated on how cooped up she felt having to be with her kids all.the.time, and what a relief it would be to drop them off that afternoon and do the grocery shopping kid-free. Her parents did seem like really wonderful, involved grandparents. And I listened, murmuring agreement, completely sympathetic.

And yet, since we are now living the closest we’ve ever lived to parents (a mere 2.5 hours from mine and 9 hours from Dave’s) and no other family closer than 1.5 hours, I really have no concept of what it’s like to have family in town, much less in the same neighborhood. It sounds heavenly--not having to shop for groceries with tagalongs, going on dates without having to call around for a babysitter or feeling disappointed by the quality of care later, going Christmas shopping together, making hair appointments during the day. All novel ideas.

I suppose if I were more extroverted I could quickly make new “family” in our new locations, and certainly, before our four blessings appeared, there were people we could just hang out with at the drop of a hat. But somehow, with our busy schedule and our reserved natures, I now find finding that “family” more difficult.

And since my parents moved away from their parents (in New York and Pennsylvania) and Dave’s parents moved from theirs (in Canada), it seems natural for us (and our siblings) to have all relocated.

Still, I wonder if the giddy anticipation of family gatherings makes up (some) for the long distance. When family is close, do you still eagerly await the times everyone gathers together? Do your kids exhaust reams of paper making notes and cards and who-knows-whats for the next time they’ll all be together?

We spent Thanksgiving in North Carolina in the Outer Banks. We rented a huge house with my mom’s two sisters and their kids and my brothers and their families. The house was beautiful, right on the ocean and enormous enough for the 22 of us to fit more than comfortably. Our kids and their four cousins (all boys) ran all over, wreaking noisy havoc wherever they touched down. We grownups played lots of games, watched movies, baked scrumptious food, and ate (because it wouldn’t have been Thanksgiving if we hadn’t tried to finish off at least 10 or so pies among us). That is, unless you were sick the entire time (which Dave was). And we missed my sister, who was still recovering with little Peter in New Jersey.

And we are now looking forward to the descent of Dave’s family upon us for Christmas—24 to be added to our six for our Christmas celebration, with 11 extras staying over for several days. Dave’s sister said in her blog that once Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is in 2 seconds. So, I’m trying to prepare… and feeling very excited….

Welcome, Little Peter!!

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 21:30:32 GMT

Yesterday the phone rang somewhere around 9:00 a.m.

I checked the caller ID, grabbed the phone, and shrieked (just a little), “Are you having a baby?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure I’m in labor” came back my sister’s matter-of-fact voice.

“How far apart are the contractions?”

“They’ve been about 5 minutes apart for the last two hours. I started having contractions yesterday evening, but they went away late in the night. And then, started when I got up again.”

Completely ignoring the end of the statement, I definitely started shrieking, “Five minutes apart??? Why are you calling me? Mom can call me!! Go to the hospital.”

“Well, I’m going to eat breakfast and call a few more people. Then, I figure we’ll go,” she answered back almost lazily. “They aren’t very painful.”

“Eat breakfast???? You’re not supposed to eat when you’re in labor!”

“Do you really believe all that?”

“Oh," momentarily sidetracked. "Well, I don’t know. But I got nauseous with Andy, so I don’t think I’d have wanted to have a full stomach. Maybe just toast.”

And so, we continued talking excitedly about having babies, and before we hung up, I told her to tell Mom to call me when she went to the hospital.

***

At 1:30, I still hadn’t heard anything, so I called Mom and got Dad.

“So, are you at Lucia’s yet?”

“Um, no, we had a bit of a late start because we had to drop some CDs for church off at ___’s house, and we needed to stop the mail and we had to pack and everything.”

“So, has she gone to the hospital?”

“Well, we haven’t actually called to check.”(!) Maybe we aren’t the most communicative family alive, or maybe this is how my sister acquired her mellow attitude toward life. So, I called Lucia, and she was still having contractions about 3 minutes apart when she stood up, but slowing down to 8 minutes about when she was resting, so she was going to take a nap.

So, I took a couple of breaks during promising lulls from the seven children running around creating havoc (early dismissal at school) to call my parents and Lucia to see if she was considering homebirth or did she think she might just go to the hospital. (There was lots of shrieking and gesticulating from my end, and even-keeled responses from the other end. We’re mostly a phlegmatic, unexcitable family.)

Lucia said she thought she’d wait until my parents arrived. Then, she and Jerry exited quickly, arrived at the hospital at 6:55 and gave birth to her little boy at 8:12 p.m. (naturally, of course, because they couldn’t get that epidural in quick enough).

Her version of the story is much more exciting, but I’ll let her tell it. Crazy. I don’t think I could have stood waiting it out so long. What do I mean “don’t think”? There’s no way! I pretty much couldn’t stand Lucia waiting! If I could have figured out how to get someone else to watch my seven young charges, I’d have gone and sent her to the hospital, but I couldn’t persuade Dave that his work was really the unimportant, piddly stuff I’m sure it was. Still, there are advantages, I suppose, to having to walk and talk and fill out papers during your most intense contractions. And Lucia speaks glowingly of this whole labor experience, so I’m glad it all worked out so superbly. I was certainly praying—and that seems to have significantly better results than shrieking and gesticulating.

Lucia and little Peter Sur-Yuan are doing well. (That Chinese middle name probably isn’t spelled correctly). He was 8 lbs. 4 oz., and I’m sure he’s beautiful.

And wasn’t it thoughtful of him to arrive on my mom’s 60^th birthday? Happy birthday, Mom!!

Our Greatest Right

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:51:47 GMT

I have a confession….

I’m not entirely sure my 11^th grade government teacher would have been proud yesterday.

I voted. I did. And have to thank my civic-minded husband for that. Which is funny, when you consider that both his parents were Canadians living right outside Phillie for his whole existence (and they just became US citizens a couple years ago), and so, he never actually saw his parents vote. But he is proud of the fact that since he’s turned 18, he has never missed an election, a claim that I cannot make—it was something about moving and having children and I can’t remember what that made me miss one (or was it two?) minor elections.

But yesterday, we voted and dragged along all four kids, to help instill patriotic duty into their souls. I knew this was going to happen. That same civic-minded person had mentioned on several different occasions that election day was November 5^th. So, I should have been prepared.

Still, when he called at 5:00 last night to say he had left work a tad early to vote and that I should throw the kids in the car and meet him, I was thrown into a mild fluster. “But who are we going to vote for? I don’t even know who’s running!” He made some joke about voting the straight party ticket that I did not appreciate. I don’t want to be a straight-party conformist; I want to be a thoughtful, intelligent, well-informed voter…which, obviously, I am not. So, I ran to the internet and googled voting guides and the newspaper and Family Research Council… and got nothing. Well, not literally nothing. There were lots of responses, but no articles that gave me any information on the judges who were running for election or re-election or what their stances were on anything.

So I abandoned the Well-Informed Voter guise and decided just to appease my husband and try to make a sort-of-in-the-vicinity-of-timely appearance (which is all I ever shoot for). And I thought that really they ought to have a big list posted on the walls of the voting halls that tell what each candidate stands for, in his/her own words, of course. Or am I the only person who missed last Wednesday’s voter guide in the paper and only listens to the news as I race to piano lessons or soccer practice? I guess that is somewhat the purpose of those kindhearted people who stand outside, freezing and handing you loads of information on how great their candidates are. So, I showed up, stared blankly at this list of completely-unknown-to-me judges or judge-wannabes, touched the screen in touchable, blinky spaces, and pushed my button to vote.

Voila! Democracy marches on. I’m not entirely sure that that actually qualifies as voting. I was just hoping as I made guesses for these judges that all of you are so much more informed and full of integrity and civic-mindedness and stuff and are making a great difference. Or at least that Dave would vote completely opposite me on some of them, so we could cancel each other out, and then I wouldn’t be directly responsible for the downfall of society.

Is it a moral issue?

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:52:26 GMT

My sister called me years ago to tell me her woes of her baby not sleeping through the night. And I listened and passionately argued with her not to let her baby cry it out, that there were so many better solutions. And then, she told me about talking with my brother’s wife (whom I love, who now has four fun, boisterous boys whom our children adore) who told her about her crying it out method. And then, my sister, with only one child to endow her with wisdom, said, “You know, Rachel, it’s just where your limits are. You can’t stand to hear babies crying. And after six months, Alissa couldn’t stand to keep getting up at night.”

And I struggled with this answer because I can’t stand getting up at night either, and I’m a person who needs my eight hours of sleep, who starts feeling panicky at 10:00 if I’m not close to going to bed. But more I struggled because I wanted to be right. I want to be confident that my way was absolutely the best, most correct, stupendously righteous method. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my little sister was probably right.

And the more I dwelt on this little statement about limits, the more I started to think that so many of these mothering issues, these positions that we take that divide us into staunch camps espousing our morality, are really just preference issues. That the moral issue isn’t whether you breastfeed or bottlefeed. The moral issue is whether you responsibly nourish your children, and both breastfeeding and bottlefeeding can do that. That children aren’t morally better or worse because they use pacifiers or thumbs or blankies or nothing. Those are simply preferences, like whether you wear a cocktail dress to a neighbor’s cocktail party or dressy pants or jeans. I might not choose to wear what someone else wore, but it’s simply a preference, a question of taste (or, in my case, probably the lack thereof)—as long as you are decently covered, there is no morality involved.

And could it be that even the homeschooling, public schooling, private schooling debate is just, really, a matter of preference, too? This isn’t to say that there aren’t pros and cons about all these issues and things for each family to consider and that we shouldn’t make an effort to make wise, thoughtful decisions to fit us and our children most appropriately. But wouldn’t it be more freeing if it we could accept that these superficial decisions are just preferences, not moral issues, and that the matters of morality—feeding and comforting our children and teaching them self-control and empathy, integrity and compassion, and providing an education—can be done with or without a nightlight, whether your child sleeps with you or in a crib?

I don’t know. I still want to hold on a little bit to the moral superiority of my breastfeeding, non-pacifier, non-thumb-sucking, non-blankie-wielding children (who, of course, padded into our bedroom regularly until they were five or so and refused the church nursery for ages). But more, I want to let go of those initial reactions of judgement or guilt when I meet moms and be able to know I don’t have all the answers for everyone and yet to be confident in how I’ve chosen.

What do you think?

Can you name this building?

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:20:40 GMT

Has it been almost a month? Ugh. Well, October has been a completely crazy month.

We spent last weekend in Williamsburg for my 15^th college reunion. Hard to believe I’m that old! And yet, not so hard when I was there mulling around with college students and realizing I am closer in age to their parents than to them. And with rainy weather for most of it and my hair sticking out in all directions, I did not at all resemble anything young or even sightly.

The night before we left, I called a college friend who had always been in the know on where everyone is, and of course, it turned out that he wasn’t going and really wasn’t keeping up with anyone any more. Which made me remember going to a function for my fifth college reunion and seeing a man there with his family, roaming around asking random people if they were there for their 15th reunion. I then realized that probably no one actually appears at these 15^th-and-so-on reunions. So, it was a good thing I was lugging along my family.

But I knew one of my roommates from my senior year would be there, and she had made arrangements for us to get together with my Intervarsity staff worker’s wife. And it was great--so fun to reconnect, to see that we are still a bit of who we were a hundred years ago. Another good friend said she had figured that she wouldn’t recognize anyone anymore. But, you know, we were all pretty recognizable—not as young as the thirteen-year-olds they appear to let into college nowadays—but not radically different. Or actually, maybe I just don’t think aging is such a terrible thing anymore. I look at women with lined faces and think maybe I can relate to them because they’ve experienced some life, lived long enough to succeed and to fail and perhaps to have a little grace; they look like people with whom I can be friends.

We talked about kids and churches and friends and how we’ve changed and how the campus and colonial Williamsburg has changed. (How dare it?!) My college roommate was stunningly thin after having had five children. So, I came home motivated to get rid of my extra pounds. (And I did really well for three days or so, until the kids brought home at least 15 pounds of chocolate from trick-or-treating. Not so helpful.)

It was fun to visit our old Intervarsity chapter, a Christian fellowship that meets on campus, and to see that some Christians still go to secular campuses and love God and want to live vibrant lives for Him. And I enjoyed talking to our campus staff worker and seeing how he has continued to be able to relate to 18-22-year-olds for ages now. Actually, just to have thoughtful conversations with real live people over the age of ten was novel and exciting.

The lugging the family along part of it was a bit exhausting. Dave drove separately after the kids had gotten off school, so they arrived late, which made everyone tired and grumpy the next day. But Williamsburg is a fun town, seeing all the costumed guides and old buildings. We wandered through the Governor’s Palace. (Did you know that Patrick Henry was the first governor of the state of Virginia and Thomas Jefferson was the second?) And we only lost one kid once (a teary, heart-stopping experience for at least half of the family). Jamestown was fantastic! Ships to climb on, a mock settlement to roam around, and a neat, large museum. And we now have a new collection of muskets, swords, tin whistles, and a slateboard. Still, it would have been nice to have made it a bit longer of a weekend. Maybe for my twentieth...

Happy Days

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:49:26 GMT

Yesterday, we ate lunch at a park with some of the women from my Moms In Touch group. The kids were all off school Monday and Tuesday, and the thermometer reached somewhere around 80 degrees, so it was idyllic outdoor weather. My oldest two kids don’t really know any of the other kids, but still I thought it’d be fun, and I’d like to get to know these moms better. I still feel a bit like a fish out of water in this group—you know, because they are so involved in the school and always thinking up energetic ways to help out and because their houses are perfect. I mean, literally, perfect, like they could go on the house market anyday now. Even the one time we had to switch houses last minute, and we ended up at the other leader’s home (I’m helping to lead this year), and every room was freshly vacuumed, crumbless, with no stacks of magazines tottering dangerously on a table, no toys visible. I’m just not sure how I can relate.

Well, one of the moms had brought a camera and ran off to take a picture of all the kids gathering “berries” (cranapples) from a nearby tree to pile on the big stones. I looked at her, trying to comprehend who brings cameras to spur-of-the-moment gatherings (and doesn’t have a blog—or who knows, maybe she does).

Then, another mom said, “Great. I didn’t even brush H‘s hair this morning.”

And I said, “Oh, me either. No one’s hair gets brush when there is no school. I usually arrive at church, look back at my rumpled children, and try to dig out a brush from somewhere.”

“I made taking care of hair one of my New Year’s resolutions,” stated another mom of four.

“And how is it working out?” someone asked.

“Well, I was pretty on top of it for about a month.”

And just like that, I realized that maybe we all do have some things in common. Discovering people's failings make them so much more likeable, I think. Which is exciting because they are all very fun people with whom I’d like to be friends.

And then, I dragged the kids off to Hershey Gardens, almost kicking and screaming. Wailing, “I just want to go home!!” “I don’t ever want to go anywhere!” “All I want is to play with my friends” (which is precisely why we were going somewhere). “I hate Hershey Gardens!” “It isn’t going to be any fun at all.” Do you get the general idea? It was not an encouraging start. But I pulled into McD’s, got everyone a McFlurry, and doggedly drove them off to their doom, feeling that I must have failed or missed some particular course in Making Kids Do Something They Don’t At That Exact Moment Want To Do.

But once we got to the gardens, and they saw the musical stones to jump on and the xylophone to bang and the Wigwam to play Indians in, and the fact that they were the only kids in the Children’s Garden, they loved it. Jack ran over and hugged me, “This is the best place in the whole world. Thank you for taking us here!” So, maybe there was a silver lining to my Parental Moral Failure Cloud.

All About Me

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:37:06 GMT

So, a friend of Dave’s from college has awarded me a Rockin’ Girl Blogger Award. About a hundred years ago, more or less. Now, the woman who gave me this award is an obviously Rockin’ Girl Blogger. She has lived a nomadic existence for a several years as they try to figure out where exactly God wants them. Right now, it’s plunked down in Texas, via a long road trip from Virginia and through California. Any mom with three small children who can make this sound like an adventure deserves, at the very least, the title Rockin’ Girl.

I’m not exactly sure how I qualify. It obviously isn’t because of the frequency of my posts. And I’m pretty sure it’s.not my rockin’ clean house, unless you mean that feeling you get as you stumble over toys and dog en route from one uncluttered seat to the next (which is usually not too nearby). That is pretty rockin’. Or maybe someone told her that I still rock my baby to sleep (my three-almost four-year-old baby). That must be it because we have been rockin’ babies to sleep for a good ten years around here. We are so rockin’!

But if I had to pick Rockin’ Girl Bloggers, these are my picks:

1) Duckabush Blog: My roommate from college, a mom of five kids who homeschools and manages to find humor and wisdom in her daily existence. Just the sheer volume of blogs/week is Rockin’!

2) The Gang’s All Here: A friend who used to attend our church a long while ago with four kids and an adoption in process who can still find the humor in life.

And just to make sure you don’t get off scot-free, also consider yourselves tagged for this meme (if you can make time for it) with which an old neighbor friend (by which I mean that I used to live her neighborhood, not of course, that she is aged) tagged me. Here is the meme:

Your mission: Give one or more these questions a stab in a post (or series of posts), and then tag three more writers. If you don't mind, please link back to this original entry—we'd LOVE to track the progress of this meme with trackbacks.

1. Go back to first or early post. How would you describe your voice back in those early days? Who were you writing to? What was your sense of audience (if any) back then?

2. Do you remember when you received your first comment? What was it like?

3. Can you point to a stage where you began to feel that your blog might be part of a conversation? Where you might be part of a larger community of interacting writers?

4. Do you think that this sense of audience or community might have affected the way you began to write?

Okay, so here goes:

Well, here’s my first blog . Beautiful, isn't it? I definitely started blogging to connect to my family and friends who are scattered in far-flung places and because I loved reading my cousin’s blog and hearing her everyday thoughts. I think I followed the lead and vein of the bloggers I was reading from her blog, which were mostly lighthearted portrayals of life with a few heavy thoughts thrown in (or maybe they were mostly deep and Aristotle-worthy but I just ended up being petty because the reality of my life often feels heavy enough and I was craving an outlet to find the humor in it all). And I don’t think that’s changed much--my pettiness, I mean. My frequent commenters did change, though, as family wearied or couldn’t spare time to comment, so I ended up with my faithful few.

I deliberately avoided joining the many blogging groups out there because frankly the thought of being read by the world and feeling responsible to correspondingly read the millions of bloggers in the world was too much for an introvert like me. And I was reading some phenomenal writers with whom I didn’t feel I could compare. That's me, the big wimp. But I’m a bit more settled into blogging now (after 1.5 years, I should hope so!), and the bloggers I now read regularly—sorry, I can’t figure out how to do a blog roll in xanga—feel like friends now. And I love those friends of mine who regularly read my blog but aren’t into the whole blogosphere.

I think I always felt like part of a conversation, though, because of the comments, and because I was commenting on other blogs. But there are definitely some discussions I read on other blogs that still create a feeling of me just looking in. Ones I wish I had the time and energy to be a part of but I just don’t. Still, I enjoy having something stimulating to think about and picking up book tips and throwing in my two cents when I have time.

I definitely became part of a larger community of bloggers when I finally hooked into the bloggers at my church through MIA. And that was a scary change, one that I dealt with my usual over-analyzing angst because …oh, too many reasons to list (Christians are sometimes scary that way). But I’ve been grateful for the women I’ve started corresponding with through that group as well.

Hmmm. Does that at all answer the questions? At least some? Or any?

**Lynette, I liked this book, but it's a little crass so I don't know if you'd like it, but it had some really interesting ideas. The last book I read, 'The Kite Runner', was an incredible look into Afghanistan, but I think it's a bit too gruesome. Read 'Three Cups of Tea' if you're looking for something. Or 'Divine Nobodies'. They were both great. Kent might like 'Divine Nobodies', too--it's by an emergent church pastor. Did I already recommend 'The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency' books? They are pretty light, fun reads.

Preschool and then what?

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 21:42:46 GMT

“In times of war, you often hear leaders—Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—saying, ‘God is on our side.’ But that isn’t true. In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans.” --Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea

Andy headed off to preschool two weeks ago. I had been preparing myself ever since I signed him up that there was a strong likelihood he wouldn’t actually do it. Because he’s still somewhat wary of church classes, and he’s only three, and none of my other kids went to preschool until they were four. So, if he didn’t want to stay, fine, we could wait for another year… but it would be helpful for my Moms In Touch group to not have to worry about childcare. And he seemed much more interested in Preschool than he ever had in church classes. “Do I get to ride the bus?” “Oh, no, sweetie, that’s not until you’re five years old. Mommy’ll drive you to school.” “Oh…. do I get to ride the bus home?” “Um, no. Mommy’ll pick you up for that.” “Oh.” “But you do get to bring a backpack!” and I trotted off with a very interested fellow to dig up the Buzz Lightyear backpack Jamie and Jack had used. (Poor third-born sons have to deal with many castoffs. Still, it was new to him, and he has just discovered Toy Story, so it was beyond great!)

But on the first day of preschool, he went off with his teacher bravely to find the apple with his name on it and hang it up and then cautiously approached some boys playing Legos and soon was engrossed. And I watched in the hall, as other moms chatted, feeling choked up and slightly stunned that it had been that easy.

And all of sudden, I realized that I could see the summit, that this journey I’ve been on for more than ten years now is someday, in the not too distant future, going to end, or at least round a bend. Now, it’s just two mornings of two and a half hours with just myself, but at some point, I am going to gain seven hours of time a day where I am not overseeing children. And what am I going to do?

So, I’ve been thinking. I mean, I certainly want to leave a legacy of well-raised children who, you know, rise up and call me blessed (and beautiful and kind and any other well-intentioned flattery). But I don’t think that’s the end of it. I’ve been so blessed in my childhood, in my marriage, in pretty much every way, that somehow I want to touch other people with that. And I think this bend, beyond this approaching summit, the time for that will appear.

I’m fortunate to have been able to watch my mom. And if I can just attain to raising kids as well as she did I will have accomplished so much. But she didn’t just stay home to parent us. She headed up our PTOs in elementary and middle school, knew all the principals and many of the teachers, and tutored kids on the side. Eventually, she became the head of the community association in our town where she managed to start up a free tutoring service. So, twice a week the school bus drops off kids of all ages for help and substantial snacks from an impressive collection of volunteers. And then, she goes in with parents or grandparents of these mostly poorer kids and helps mediate discussions with the teachers.

Of course, last Monday, Andy declared he didn’t want to go to preschool, so we took a day vacation. And who knows maybe I’ll get crazy or something and start homeschooling or have another baby. But it’s exciting to think about the possibility of changing the world a little bit in some new-to-me way.

** And I know that quote has nothing to do with anything, but it was so thought-provoking, I just thought I'd throw it in.