Category Archives: Personal

About me and/or for my benefit

Obsolete Parenting Skills (& One Appeal of Pets)

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The poignancy of my “last” baby phase passing has begun to hit me, but it’s nothing like I’d imagined.

I’m not craving a baby to hold, or wishing for more of my own. Mostly, I’m pathetically disappointed that my acquired skills in that area are now obsolete.

Isn’t that sad?

I’m convinced now that this is why those irrepressible ladies are always stopping to offer advice or books (oops, that’s me) to anybody they see pregnant or with a tiny baby.

They want to prove to themselves (and anyone else who might notice) that they and the skills they worked so hard for are still relevant.

I’m beginning to accept this passing (as I have no other choice), but it’s made me see why pets as objects of affection and nurture are so popular.

Yes, they are individuals, and they all have varying needs and quirks, but the reality is once you get out of the “baby” stage (and the “adolescent” stage, for some species) you have years of nurturing time that you can do the exact same thing with your critter and continue to meet all its needs.

This is just. not. true. of people. Ever.

Yes, Thorin adds to my work-load. It’s impossible that he couldn’t. But the sweet simplicity of him is a relief.

~

Thankfully, even as my former competencies become obsolete, I can trust that God will give me new competencies.

I’ve said before, when talking about children growing, that there’s always things we’re glad to leave behind.

And I could start thinking that way about skills too.

Yes, I know how to soothe a crying baby, but isn’t life more peaceful when I don’t have to?

It is sad to leave behind that first phase of language where I watched them make the delighted connection between symbol and sound, and enter the big world of communication.

But I leave that behind to enter a world that is filled with learning the substance of conversation and encouragement.

This is beautiful, too, and I will bless the Lord for his goodness— that he will continue to teach me what I need to learn.

Resolution Time

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(Bottom revised and a clarifying comment from me.)

Based on these numbers, I estimate that I handled over 500 beautiful books yesterday.

I stripped my shelves in high optimism– Yes! We’re *past* the book-pulling stage. Really we are. — and ordered everything according to a new system. (I have been craving this for months.)

Currently I have more unread books in my house than I think I can read in a year. The amount of money I spent on books in the last 13 months is so high I’m not telling you how much.

They were all good books, most of them used (and, so, serendipitously collected), and I bought them as fast as I found them. Which is faster than I can read them, and the whole reason I bought them was to read them.

So now I have determined (God help me) to take a year off of buying. This in order to focus on what God has already provided for me in this fruitful year. My New Year Resolution/Experiment grew out of this.

I want to see if I can go a whole year without buying anything for me. (Yes, I still plan to eat.) Instead, my fun/ freedom/refreshment stuff must all come out of what I already own.

This includes those purchases that I can blame on other catigories (e.g., children’s books, business) that I know are because I am thinking of them at the moment– not because they are true needs of now.

~ ~ ~

Books is just the easiest example of this goal. I also mean it to apply to projects.

I am too easily attracted to new things, and while eating up the learning curve feeds one of my appetites, that passion also pulls my heart and mind away from digging deeper into what I’ve already decided has value.

Under this plan I won’t be taking any new classes this year, and won’t be visiting any craft or book stores (unless it does somehow prove to be a true need? Then we’ll have to work out a different system of checks and balances).

~ ~ ~

There are two big elements of this 2008 project:

  1. Learning creativity and contentment
  2. Re-training myself to simply not look

These two elements working together have reflexively made me more home-focused (I’ve noticed a mind-shift in just the last 24-hours– check with me again in a week), because I am making myself aware of and planning with what’s here and how to use it.

And if I don’t feed my imagination with all the things I can want (#2), it makes #1 easier.

It also frees up my imagination to focus on much more worthy topics. Like how I’m going to show my children that home is a fun place to be. That leaving doesn’t have to automatically = more-fun.

Because it Made Me Laugh

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And I more-than-half believe it’s true.



I haven’t touched my novel since the end of November (got 10, 908 new words, btw, in case anyone wondered), as I’ve been preparing for a storytelling presentation in the creative free-time I’ve carved out.

January 5th I’ll be giving my first story “concert” in, I think two years. It’s half an hour, so I don’t honestly know if that’ll count as a concert, but it is at least a collection: four tales set in a framing story (Glimmers in the Darkness, from this new page I just put together).

Everything I’ve done in-between has generally been a single story here or there.

Do check out the new page and tell me what you think. I was very excited to see how many stories I have.

Several of these you may recognize from Tuesday Tales (I didn’t link all that I could). What do you think of the one-liner explanations? Do they “give away” too much or over-simplify in a distracting way? Do they make you more interested in the story?

~

And just because we all know this blog isn’t eclectic enough, I’m planning a little two- or three- post series on my experience living in, then parenting in, a fostering family.

In the meantime, if you want a more experienced voice, I’d like to point you toward Mommy Monsters Inc., the blog of a foster-adopting mom.

I especially appreciate her latest post, Adoptive Family Planning: A Wise Choice. Very thorough and thoughtfully written.

Blessings on your day!

40 Reasons to have Children

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As Karen Edmisten did, I wish to respond to this woman’s 40 Reasons not to have Children with an equal number of reasons to have children.

I appreciated that Karen chose hers to respond to the original 40 complaints. It freed me to simply examine myself and make this personal.

For any who protest that some of these are benefits rather than reasons (I can’t imagine I’ve the only personality that would make that quibble), I’ll point out that when enough benefits accrue they tend to become reasons, and the dividing line becomes a bit hazy. So here they all are.

I first saw this on Sarah’s blog, love meaningful lists (I’ve already done a couple– like those about about my husband and someday-dreams), and thought this was a beautiful opportunity for reflection and encouragement.

My 40 reasons to have children.

  1. Small warm snuggles
  2. Seeing marital love incarnated
  3. Countless useful images and analogies to the family of God
  4. Newborn-hair softness
  5. Finally learning the words to all the songs and rhymes we’ve only half-remembered for 15-years
  6. Understand your own parents
  7. Become the measure of all things wonderful
  8. To learn grace– because now you *know*
  9. The fresh motivation to “live in a manner worthy of our calling”
  10. Invest in the future
  11. A glimpse into the heart of God, as His heart aches for those who are still separated from him
  12. An inkling of the rejoicing He feels when a child accepts the sacrifice of His son
  13. Spontaneous smiles
  14. Finally learning delayed gratification
  15. Sharing delight with others– learning and teaching simultaneously
  16. They grow into friends
  17. Proving to those pre-child that children aren’t scary
  18. Finding out how strong you really are
  19. A reason to reexamine any assumptions you may have held
  20. An automatic (and captive) audience for your cooking and humor experiments
  21. Grocery shopping and going for the mail become moments of wonder and high adventure
  22. Little mirrors to show us what we really look like (no more kidding ourselves)
  23. The delight of hearing them read
  24. Knowing you’re being the right kind of obedient
  25. Keeps you young (if you let it)
  26. Creates more opportunities to admire your husband or wife and marvel at how perfectly different God made him/her from you
  27. Teaches you to get over your feelings of self-consciousness
  28. Warns you what complete self-centeredness looks like
  29. Mind-reading is an acquired skill
  30. Who wants a hobby that’s not challenging?
  31. Teaches a type and level of maturity that is otherwise unattainable
  32. To play around and have yummy things (Natasha’s contribution)
  33. Because it’s fun to love them (Melody’s contribution)
  34. Because them can run and play in the snow in the yard (N). Because they can play (M)
  35. Fun clothes for everyone
  36. To convince the unenlightened that, yes, it is possible to have too much of clothes
  37. Baby-dancing
  38. Real social security
  39. Creating your own photography subjects and opportunities
  40. Learning countless things from their elemental components– conversation, logic, reading… peacemaking

A sign of the times we live in.

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I was at a musical production about the Christmas story tonight, and was a little shocked to watch the young woman playing Gabriel at the annunciation to Mary.  The surprise wasn’t that the angel was a girl, but the fact she was shimmying.

While informing Mary that she (Mary) was God’s “favorite virgin.”

More than a little weird and an odd beginning that distracted (me at least)  from other, better, elements of the program.

It didn’t help that the angel took Mary’s hand and “taught” her the shoulder-shimmy through the last series of “favorite virgin” repetitions in the chorus.

Story-sense

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The sense (usually from long familiarity) of what’s about to happen in a particular series or genre of stories. Examples range from guessing who’s going to end up with whom in a romance, to guessing how the detective will solve a crime, sometimes before s/he does.

In its most-refined form it applies the general principles of creative storytelling, and imagining what could be, to extrapolate the next thing in less formulaic stories or even real-life.

I have a highly developed story-sense. Which is funny to say because it doesn’t “turn on” automatically. There are times I’m so observant it seems unnatural, and other times when I’m nearly oblivious.

Unfamiliar or threatening situations provoke the most scrutiny, and in that way (as for the zebra storyteller) story-sense has been very useful to me

The “Hidden Rules” of Moms’ Groups

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The presentation I mentioned a month ago had a lot of blog-worthy ideas– to the point of over-load. So I never took it anywhere. Recently one element has come up and I spent some time thinking on it while trying to sort myself out.

Hidden rules was the resurrected element. The authors of Bridges out of Poverty describe how every human group has unwritten rules that all “true” members of the group follow, just because they are a part of the group; sometimes to keep the peace and to prove they belong to the group.

When different groups collide, or a person is new to a group, mistakes can be made that damage relationship– not because the offending party desires to offend, but because s/he doesn’t recognize the land-mines.

In a spirit of community-service and a healthy effort to avoid future explosions, I have compiled the following list.

I must point out that some of these will seem infinitely *duh!* to some of you, and my pride compels me to say I did not learn all of these the hard way. But All of them are based on interactions I’ve observed since my first moms’ group two years ago.

Some might just get you a cold shoulder or a nasty look, and (adding to the confusion) people with similar strengths– e.g. a good marriage– tend to overlook similar rules as unnecessary.

If you know them all without thinking, Congrats! You’re already “in”.

I have never spent a lot of time with groups of women. I’ve always been the “loner” (the type with just a couple close friends), never one to run with “the herd.” In high school this had its uses, but it also inhibited my picking up some key rules.

My current collection of The hidden rules of Mothers’ Groups (mostly what you shouldn’t do), beginning with “The things I can’t say:”

  • “I really have to be careful about what I say when I’m with you.”
    • Says “You don’t understand me.” or “I can’t be myself around you.”
  • “Wow, you raise your kids really differently than I do.” (Not a criticism!!!)
    • Any comment that’s not a complement or asking for advice can make people defensive.
  • “That time/activity doesn’t work for me.”
    • Can make it sound (arrogantly) like I and my availability carry some great weight.
      • This is tricky because on the one hand I’m supposed to be quiet rather than negative, but other I’m supposed to participate. One of many balancing acts.
  • “Hanging out with a group is not my most favorite thing to do– even if it is a break away from the kids.” (Did say this one once– to a very cold reception).
    • They could’ve heard, “I don’t enjoy being with *this* group,” which, for me at least, isn’t true, since I wouldn’t be there. ;)
      • Should treat it like a date: i.e. don’t let on there’s anywhere else you’d rather be.
    • It can be taken as devaluing those who find getting-away is their favorite recreational activity.
  • Anything to contradict a contradiction. It’s like a white elephant gift exchange. You can only turn things around so many times or it looks ugly– like you’re fighting or something.
    • It’s too bad people have a hard time disagreeing without taking offense. Too often the rejection of an idea is taken as a rejection of the individual or her experience (see “contradicting experience” below) and there’s no ‘clean’ way to do it.
  • Any unsolicited advice when someone is under pressure. Continue reading »

30-20-10 (Years Ago)

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So it’s a meme (Kaye tagged me), but it’s a story too, so I’ll have it here.

Where were you 30, 20, and 10 years ago?

30 years ago I wasn’t even a twinkle in my father’s eye. Not even old enough to be a big sister’s wish.

20 years ago I had been in Alaska for two years, loved homeschooling, and was a new believer.

While I have vague memories of “asking Jesus into my heart” any number of times before (I remember once nodding knowingly as another boy explained he had to do it more than once– because Jesus was always going out of his heart to go into the hearts of others), it was at 8 that I knew I knew what I was doing.

I remember laying under a small quilt someone gave me when I was a baby, and talking awkwardly into the dark, Jesus, I want to accept you because you’re You– not just because of what you’ve done or *can* do, but because of *who you are.* I’m sure this had been the focus of some sermon or talk shortly before, and my developing intellect was just becoming able to make the distinction in motivation.

In the end it was (to some extent I think all things must be) by reflecting the concept through the prism of myself that I *got* it.

I have, several times in my life, been very performance driven. That is, I found too much of my value in what I did or how I thought others perceived me. Already at 8-years-old I was realizing I didn’t want to be accepted or loved because of what I could do. I wanted to be loved for *me,* because someone found me love-able.

And I could really imagine God feeling the same way. So that was the best way I knew to honor Him.

Continue reading »