How lonely will they feel in their old age?

My friend Doug wrote a great post called All the Lonely People, Where Do They All Come From? [Update: the broken link is fixed now--sorry about that!] He paints a picture of a lonely gentleman he and his son met on Christmas Day, who reminisced about his own son who has grown up and out of contact.

It's a poignant and thought-provoking post, raising questions about how we relate to our own close and extended family.

It's worth a read.

I'm reminded of the story of the man who decides to cast out his elderly, feeble father because it's too much expense and trouble to care for him. The father requests that he at least be given one of the horse blankets to keep warm.

When the man sends his own son to get the blanket for his grandfather, the boy rips it in half before giving one piece to his grandfather. The grandfather complains to his son, who berates the boy.

The boy says, "I was keeping the other half to give to you when I cast you out in the cold, Father."

That changes everything.

Party Cancellation

Since we are still sick here, and too tired to want to have a crowd here or stay up late, we're canceling the New Year's Eve party we had planned to host. Now if I can just remember the handful of people we tentatively invited, I'll call them and let them know.

Happy New Year, everyone! We're going to celebrate by having a quiet dinner and watching a rented movie as a family, then going to bed early.

Rethinking sleeping arrangements

GOOD morning, everyone! Are we all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today?

No?

Well, that's okay. I'm not either.

Things are very peaceful at the moment, though. AJ is reading a huge stack of "Sesame Street Library" books to MM. Wow, that's nice. And Baby E is in my lap nursing.

After Baby E finally went back to sleep around 4:55 and was up again at 5:51 this morning, the two of us finally got to sleep around 6:30 a.m After all my good intentions of getting her up at 8:30 I let her nurse and sleep until almost 10.

DH had gotten up and read last night's blog post by then, so he fed the girls breakfast and went in to work late instead of waking me. I hope letting E sleep so late doesn't set us up for another night like that tonight.

(Er, I found out when I went to feed the kids lunch that they had milk and a tangerine for breakfast, so I'm not sure if you can really say they "had breakfast." Also, I discovered that DH has been using the baby wipes and putting them back in the container if they're not poopy. But that's beside the point. The point is that he let me sleep in this morning, changed Baby E's diaper and put her in the exersaucer, and turned on some kind of video or audio tape for the kids when he left so that I didn't wake up until after 11 a.m.)

I'm really thinking about changing our sleeping set-up.
#######################

The sidecar crib has been wonderful, and it does allow me to nurse Baby E without either of us fully waking up in the night. But now Baby E is rolling over and tummy-scooting very well, and trying hard to get up on her knees. With her increasing mobility, I'm thinking it's probably time to put the fourth side of the crib back on.

I enjoy having her close, and so does she, but I'm tired of the frequent bursts of "every hour all night long" nursing sessions. She's almost 5 months old and nearly 20 lbs--I really don't think she needs an all-night-long smorgasboard every night, to the exclusion of good sleep for both of us.

Here's the plan I'm considering:

First, put the side back on her crib in our room, so she gets used to it that way.

Next, somehow make room in the "baby room" for a pack-n-play next to the queen-sized guest bed (where DH has ended up sleeping the last few nights because of worse-than usual snoring due to a cold) and the stacks of storage bins. Since the crib can't be moved from one room to another without being taken apart, I'm not sure I want to move it before trying out the separate sleeping arrangements first.

Or we could just put the crib in the baby's room now (since it's half taken apart for the sidecar anyway) and set up the p & p in our room.

Except that I'm not absolutely certain I'm ready to have her farther than arms-length away all night long. I still check on her frequently in the night if she happens to sleep more than a couple of hours at a time. Maybe I'll wait until she hits 6 months and is past the worst danger of SIDS.

The other option would be to forget the crib altogether and just let her sleep in our bed at night. She's doing that for several hours most nights anyway. She loves that, since it lets her nurse and sleep all night long. She could take naps in the 4-sided crib in her own room when I'm not lying down with her.

But I have back and neck problems. The all-night nursing without being able to move much makes me very sore in more than one way, not to mention affecting my quality of sleep. Also, DH is a very heavy sleeper and several times I've woken to find one of his arms across the baby.

What do you think? Any suggestions, thoughts or ideas would be welcome.

P.S. Is the ####### place marker helpful in finding your place after going to the full post from the excerpt on the home page, or is it just annoying?

P.P.S. Is it woken, waked, awoke, awoken or what? None of them look right to me right now.

I need some baby sleeping pills

Yes, it's after 4 a.m. and I'm writing a blog post. Baby E has decided that sleep is old-school and she no longer needs it.

Everyone else in the family (including DH) was in bed by 8 and I started trying to get E to go to sleep shortly after. By 9 nobody except DH was asleep, but I laid Baby E down next to DH, turned on lullaby music for her and sent the older kids back to bed. At 10 the older kids were finally asleep, and I laid down with Baby E to try to convince her to sleep.

Sometime after 11 I finally turned her over onto her tummy and dozed off fitfully while she was still playing in her crib next to me, waking up some 20 minutes later to turn her over after she went to sleep, waking her in the process. I think we finally both went to sleep around midnight--after 4 hours of trying to get her to go to sleep (including lots of nursing).

I fed her twice between midnight and 3 a.m., at which time she woke up and decided it was time to get up and play. I've tried everything--music, feeding, diaper change, laying her on her back, switching to her tummy, lying down with her, letting her cry alone in the room, ad infinitum. Now she's sitting in my lap wide awake and happy to be out of bed. I'm not sure whether to lay her down and let her cry some more or get up and do something productive.

One thing's for sure--I'm waking her up no later than 8:30 in the morning and will do my best not to let her nap in the late afternoon. Enough is enough.

BTW, MM has been up twice since she went to sleep, too.

******UPDATE********

I laid Baby E in her bed and let her listen to a lullaby CD and play by herself in the dark. It's times like this I wish she didn't sleep in our room, because she was not crying, but making just enough noise to keep me awake.

So I had a snack, rebooted the laundry, folded and put away a load and started another load.

Now, at nearly 5 a.m., she's finally gone back to sleep.

Does anyone know where I can buy some of that sleep dust the sandman is supposed to bring?

***5:35 a.m. update***

Now that Baby E is asleep, I'm wide awake. So I'm running some hot water. A bath sounds heavenly and will hopefully induce sleep.

***5:51*** Baby E is up again.

***Further update here.***

Blogroll maintenance

I'm going to un-blogroll some of the blogs that haven't updated in forever. If I unblogroll you and you resume posting, feel free to drop me a note and I will probably add you back on.

Story time--but please, no Junie B.

It's amazing what a difference a little more sleep and timely, healthy meals with no refined sugars can make. Today is going much more smoothly. We even mostly have our sweet, cooperative girls back.

I've been reading to the girls while nursing Baby E. Well, theoretically anyway. More often these days Baby E decides the book looks much more exciting than eating does, so she ends up sitting up in my lap looking at (and trying to grab) the book while we read.

Yesterday we finished the first book in the Little House on the Prairie series--Little House in the Big Woods. It's perfect for the girls' age level. The main character, Laura Ingalls, is about AJ's age and the narration is simple but picturesque.

Today we read the first two chapters of "Little House on the Prairie" (the second book in the series) while our lunch (oven pancake) baked.

The girls listened breathlessly as Laura and her family embarked on a journey Out West in their covered wagon. As the second chapter ended, it seemed that their dog Jack had drowned in a difficult and dangerous river crossing.

It was hard to stop there, but it was time for lunch and quiet time. I can't wait to see how excited the girls will be when it turns out Jack isn't dead after all.

AJ is reading to herself now during quiet time and throughout the day. I'm on the lookout for some good "chapter books" (with fairly short chapters) that would interest an almost 5-year-old who is mature for her age and reading well.

DH and the girls bought some Junie B. Jones books for AJ at Costco a couple of days ago. Unfortunately the 4-book set was sealed in plastic, so DH had to make a decision based on the box and AJ's insistence that these were the books she wanted. After all, we had told her she could pick out her own book as a reward for learning to read.

I had my doubts just from seeing the titles, and after opening them and seeing the stories DH and I agree that they are going back to the store.

They may be funny, but the behavior and language are far from the kind we want our girls emulating.

###################


The main character is constantly calling people fat and dumb/stupid and threatening to punch them or give them knuckle sandwiches, and using words like darned, dang, shut up, etc. That is emphatically not the way we talk in our home.

Also, the books are written the way the author imagines a kindergartener talks: with poor grammar, fragmented sentences, many of the "trademarks of bad writing" they teach you to avoid in school, and lots of misapprehensions presented as if they were true. Worse, Junie B. still talks this way by book 25--Junie B., First Grader: Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! (p.s. so does May.) --halfway through first grade.

Me was gonna have to stop and think if this ain't about the worsest thing I ever readed, or even worser, 'cause I was about ready to holler at the book to shut up!

I don't know how most 6-year-olds talk, but my kids didn't talk like these books are written even when they were 2.

Part of the reason I read to my kids a lot is to expose them to beautiful language spoken correctly. There's nothing wrong with dialogue using incorrect speech to create a character, but I can't imagine reading page after page and book after book of nothing but baby talk and horrible grammar.

And then there are the overarching themes. In my mind, good literature shows the characters' honest thoughts and emotions in a real world, but it also shows consequences for actions and corrections for mistakes--at least the majority of the time.

I think the Little House books do this well. Laura narrates her thoughts of disliking things, getting angry, etc. and is occasionally naughty. But when she is naughty, she knows it and there are usually consequences. The negative things are in a larger context of beautiful narration of a story that promotes right and good things and teaches about the daily life of another time period.

In the Junie B. books, every page seems to be filled with poor grammar, rudeness, anger, and uncorrected brattishness.

Here's an example of illogical fears presented as facts from the first book (which, incidentally is called Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus--yes, yes, I know; I wasn't there when they bought the books):

"And so I quick sat down across from the curly mean girl. And Mr. Woo shut the door.

It wasn't a regular kind of door, though. It folded in half. And when it closed, it made a whishy sound.

I don't like that kind of door. If it closes on you by accident, it will cut you in half, and you will make a squishy sound.

The bus made a big roar. Then a big puff of black smelly smoke came out the back end of it. It's called bus breath, I think.

Mr. Woo drove for a while. Then the brakes made that loud, screechy noise again. I covered my ears so it couldn't get inside my head. 'Cause if loud, screechy noises get inside your head, you have to take an aspirin. I saw that on a TV commercial."

Those thoughts and stories are presented without correction, and would seem to me to be rather disturbing to young children.

Of course, you can stop and talk about each of them, but they're presented so quickly one after another for page after page throughout the book that it would be impossible to discuss them all without ruining the flow of the story or having an hour-long discussion after each chapter.

Here is one of many examples of poor behavior going uncorrected. It's from the third book, Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth:

Mrs. rolled her eyes way up at the ceiling. Then she walked Officer Mike and Dr. Smiley out into the hall.

That's when room Nine started buzzing very loud.

Buzzing is what you do when your teacher leaves the room.

"I'm going to dress up like an actress on Job Day," said a girl named Emily.

"I'm going to dress up like a princess," said my bestest friend Lucille that I hate.

I did a giggle. "I'm going to dress up like a bullfighter!" I said.

Then I ran speedy fast around the room. And I butted that mean Jim in the stomach with my head.

And guess what?

I didn't even get caught!

That's what!

The reader is expected to rejoice with the character that "mean Jim" got his comeuppance and Junie got away with hurting someone.

From Junie B. Jones and Some Sneaky Peeky Spying:

Then Mother picked out some cookie mix. And she gave it to me. And I throwed it in the cart very hard.

"Thank you," said Mother.

"You're not welcome," I said.

After that, Mother took me outside of the store. And me and her had a little talk.

A little talk is when Mother is mad at me. And she says who do I think I am, missy? And zactly how long so I think she's going to put up with me?

Then I have to say a 'pology to her.

A 'pology is the words I'm sorry.

Except for you don't actually have to mean it. 'Cause nobody can even tell the difference.

Oh, yes, that's what I want my kids learning from the books they read.

Apparently these books are quite popular with primary school-age kids. I found several reviews and websites saying that teachers were reading them to their classes. I find that disturbing.

In my opinion these books might be funny for adults or older kids to read, but anyone mature enough to distill the themes and sort through what is and isn't true and admirable is probably also going to be driven crazy by page after page of this drivel.

If anyone buys my kids the books from this series again, me and him (or her) are gonna hafta have a little talk.

Holiday Recovery

Well, the Christmas weekend was nice. We had lots of great family time, which involved lots of traveling, hosting at our home, eating lots of food (most of which I couldn't have) and staying up very late (I was one of the early ones to bed Christmas night at 3 a.m.).

I got to know one or two of DH's relatives better that I hadn't talked with much before. We sang carols, including AJ's very first solo in front of a group. The girls acted out the story of Christ's birth with clay figures they made as DH told the story. We had a fabulous white elephant gift exchange with the family--fast becoming a favorite holiday tradition, as there are too many of us for a traditional gift exchange to be practical. We also had a couple of somewhat funny mishaps around Christmas meals . . . I'll post about them later.

Baby E and I got sick Christmas Eve. We both have miserable colds with a mild cough. Now DH is coming down with it too. Baby E is waking up every hour or so in the night, and is fussy and clingy during the day. Having a cold and cough/sore throat on top of teething must be miserable for her, poor thing.

I'd really like it if we could go more than 2 weeks at a time without getting sick here.

The girls are tired and over-socialized, and are grouchy and testing the limits in every possible way. Part of it is probably that I'm tired and not feeling well, so it doesn't take much to get on my nerves. But do you ever get the feeling that you'd like to run away from home, or send everyone else to Timbuktu? Not that I really would, of course, but the thought does cross my mind.



They got up this morning and helped themselves to potato chips for breakfast. Then they came in screaming and crying over some argument and woke the baby, who had finally dropped off to sleep just before I did, around 5 a.m.--about 30 minutes before DH got up and woke us again.

And thus the day proceeded.

MM is currently testing to see if we can tell whether she's telling the truth or not. It's gotten to the point that I can't believe anything she says, no matter how minor. I really hope she gets tired of dealing with the consequences of this soon.

Tonight the girls ate a pretty good dinner, after eating almost nothing at breakfast and lunch. Rice, carrots, tangerines and just a very small helping of meat.

Mealtime rules are simple here. They must taste at least one bite of everything, and then if they don't want something they don't have to eat it. What we're having for dinner is what they get, and they can eat it or be hungry later. We do have snacks sometimes, but not as a substitute for an uneaten meal.

If there's dessert (usually fruit or some other food they particularly like), we set a minimum amount of the other foods they have to eat to earn it. If they don't eat it, fine, but no dessert and no snacks later.

One of DH's sisters baked cookies as a Christmas gift for us, so I told the girls that if they ate all of the small helping of food on their plates, they could have one. AJ quickly complied and earned her cookie.

MM soon stuffed the last of her meat in her mouth and joyfully proclaimed, "I did it, Mommy! It's all gone. Now I can have a cookie?"

As she finished her cookie and went upstairs to have Daddy help brush her teeth, I put the baby down and went to clear the table.

There was a pile of chewed-up meat in the middle of MM's plate. She must have stuffed it all in her cheeks and waited until I wasn't looking to spit it out--after I gave her the cookie.

Because she lied about eating it all in order to get her cookie, there had to be a consequence. So I did what my mom did when I committed the same crime around that age. It made me gag, but the idea didn't seem to bother her as much as the fact that it was dry and hard to swallow by that point.

She sat there and ate it--every last little bit.

Including the bits which she surreptitiously managed to drop on the floor.

And no, she didn't get another cookie when she finished it, even though she thought she should.

Then I had to go upstairs and deal with AJ for reading after I'd told her it was time to put the book down and go to sleep.

"But Mommy, I really love to read!"

"I'm glad you love reading so much, but you are supposed to be sleeping."

It's payback time for all the things I did as a kid, I guess.

Oops, gotta go. Baby E is waking up screaming after being asleep for about 15 minutes.

Happy To You

A greeting from the archives . . .

AJ's greeting with background music by MM (February 2003):



Merry Christmas, everyone! And happy holidays.

Denim & flowers

Baby E is wearing one of my favorite baby outfits today: a little pair of denim overalls with flowers on them. I bought pairs to fit both of the girls at the Carter's outlet when AJ was 2 and MM was almost a year old. Baby E is wearing MM's pair now.



I took the girls to Wal-Mart in June of 2003 to get pictures taken as a Father's Day gift for DH. It was the perfect gift.





I think I'll pull out a few pictures of the girls when they were Baby E's age to post. They don't look much like this any more, but they're still just as cute. At least we think so. :)

Reading about. . . myself?

My sister Amy wrote the nicest happy birthday post to me. What a nice birthday surprise!

Thanks, Amy! I love you too.

29 years ago today (Eleventy-One Things #36)

I was born here in my hometown.

Twice.

I came out blue. The cord was wrapped around my neck and the doctor had to push me back in.

This was after a very long painful labor in which my mom had just completed many hours of being flat on her back, being told not to push because she wasn't quite dilated to 10 and the doctor wasn't in the room yet.

She was so miserable my dad kept telling her to go ahead and push, but she wouldn't disobey doctor's orders. "I can't! I don't want to hurt the baby."

Finally my dad went out in the hall, literally collared a nurse, and informed her that she was going to go in there and tell his wife it was okay to push. The nurse, after protesting several times that she couldn't do that, finally did.

I was born almost immediately after that.

Now that I've given birth three times, I really feel sorry for my mom. Also, the longer I've been a parent the more I appreciate the job my parents did.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Eleventy-One Things About Me #36.

Busy holiday weekend ahead

AJ just looked over my shoulder and said, "Mommy, what's a Blogger?" I have to watch what I have on the computer screen now that she's reading so easily and well.

We're having a hard time getting going today. Baby E is fussy and teething, which means she wants to nurse a lot. It's raining and dreary outside. MM has a rash near her mouth which I'm trying to figure out the cause of (dairy or raspberries, it seems), I have some kind of wierd dermatitis going on, the girls are grouchy, and I'm tired and lazy. But things are looking up!

Sis J is on her way over to visit, so that will be nice. Then my friend Elementary Schoolteacher is coming over to watch the two older girls tonight so DH and I (and Baby E) can go to a concert. We're celebrating my birthday a day early and hope to have time for dinner out as well.

Tomorrow our friend Morning is coming over and we're putting up Christmas decorations (yes, I know we're a little late on that). Friday and Saturday we'll have family gatherings at BIL and SIL's house, and Sunday and Monday more family gatherings at our house.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!

Wednesday Whining Venting.

This "whine" isn't really appropriate for the Wednesday Whine thread, but I feel like venting so I'm posting it here. (Oh, and speaking of Wednesday Whine, don't miss the first ever Grand Whining Carnival--I have a post featured in it too. :) )

Okay, please understand that my intent with this post is not to start an argument. But can I just whine about how disagreements are often treated?

I don't mind it when people disagree with me. It happens often. That's fine.

What I do mind are the constant insinuations from some people (and this happens on both sides) that anyone who disagrees with them must be either (a) brainless or (b) heartless or (c) careless. Or all of the above.


You see, I disagree.

[If you'd rather skip the specifics and go straight to the point, click here.]

I don't think President Bush made up the idea of Saddam Hussein having or trying to make weapons of mass destruction out of thin air to start a war on a pretense.

I don't think the type of surveillance the current administration is doing is anything all that new or shocking. I do understand why people are upset, but I am not yet convinced that laws were broken. I'm not sure why anyone actually thought their cell phone calls and other activities done in/through public mediums were completely secure and private.

I also don't think the President caused the hurricanes by not funding enough research into global warming. I also don't think he caused the disaster in New Orleans.

I think an unborn child is just as human as anyone else, and that the issue of when abortion might be necessary is more akin to the issue of conjoined twins in jeopardy than to a decision about doing cosmetic surgery, although that's still not a perfect comparison.

I believe disabled people are also just as human as anyone else--even severely disabled and unresponsive or minimally responsive ones. I think decisions about end-of-life care should be made according to what would or wouldn't benefit the person and what is humane, not according to some arbitrary judgement about whether the life of someone who isn't dying is "worth" living or not. I think witholding food and water to cause the death of someone who isn't otherwise dying is murder, just as it would be murder if I purposely stopped feeding my baby and let her die.

My opinion is that Darwinism is a theory (which, I might add, does have some flaws and missing information) and should be taught as such in schools. I think it would be beneficial to kids to point out that there are other theories out there also, including intelligent design.

Yes, I believe God created the earth. I'm not sure exactly what method he used, but I believe He is real and is the source of all life.

I believe right and wrong exist. I believe there are absolutes, along with the possible grey areas.

On the other hand, I don't think that everything Republicans do is right, or that questioning anything "the Right" does is bad.

To me, the current President and Administration are neither the devil incarnate nor the greatest thing that's happened in recent history.

[And the point:]

I disagree on theology with many of my friends; on morals and principles with others.

I also believe in respect and compassion for everyone, whether I agree with them or not. I believe everyone is of value and should be treated as such.

I generally believe I could be wrong, and am willing to look into and explore things more. But I don't automatically agree with any one camp or believe everything I hear without questioning it.

There are lots of other things I disagree with friends and acquaintances about. This doesn't mean I don't care, am brainless, or don't think about these things.

Interestingly enough, both my husband and I frequently are accused of following a party line on one side or the other, of being too liberal or too conservative, too right or too left, too fundamentalist or too lenient, too opinionated or not opinionated enough. In fact, we tend to be accused of being on each side of the fence, by different people, at the same time--sometimes in the same discussion. Personally, I think that might be a good sign.

Maybe, just maybe, it means I'm a reasonably intelligent, thoughtful and caring person who *gasp* thinks for myself. Maybe I actually considered the issues, and came to a different conclusion about them than someone else did.

Maybe it doesn't mean I'm stupid or don't care.

Maybe it just means I disagree.

Working to protect the . . . rapists?

Planned Parenthood Golden Gate recently posted a letter from a young girl on their website. In that letter, the girl praised Planned Parenthood for keeping her secret and not telling anyone when she was raped at age 11.

The page on the Planned Parenthood GG website [cached version here], which has now been removed after a number of bloggers drew attention to it, read:



Shared Stories:
It Keeps Us Safe

I was raped at 11, by my 17 year old boyfriend. I chose not to tell my parents because I didn't think their involvement would help, that was the right choice for me. Planned Parethood helped me deal with the aftermath of the rape allowing me to deal and cope as best as I could in my own way. I was 14 when I decided to start having sex, the day I made that choice I made an appointment to get birth control pills. I'm 17 now, I've been with my current boyfriend for about two years. During that time i've been HIV and STD tested four times. Right now I'm sitting in the waiting room while my boyfriend gets the results for his HIV test. We love each other so we're responsible and Planned Parenthood helps us to do that.

- name withheld -

People have for a long time been claiming that PP helps to cover up both forcible and statutory rape, but the fact that Planned Parentood would post it on their website is surprising. They are essentially bragging that if a woman (especially a minor) comes in and they know she has been raped, they will help cover it up.

The problem with this [besides that it's against the law] is that it helps rapists get away with it, as well as leaving people like this little girl to "deal and cope as best as [they can in their own way]" without real help. And be raped again.

Planned Parenthood allowed a rapist to get away with and continue this kind of behavior. Because, of course, an 11-year-old who has been raped is certainly mature enough to decide what should happen to her rapist and whether her parents' "involvement would help." If there truly is a case where the girl's parents are abusive, there are ways to protect her. But this doesn't appear to have been that type of situation. And even if the parents should not be involved, that doesn't make it necessary or right to let the rapist get away with no consequences.

If this PP chapter had obeyed the law and made a report to the proper agencies, this letter would never have been written, much less posted on their website.

Here's an article that seems to be fairly balanced about it. The writer has had a basically good opinion of PP in the past and is not a pro-life activist, for those of my readers who would be wondering that. More here.

[Note: I haven't forgotten my intention to follow up on the Planned Parenthood debate here and here (comments here), but then life kind of happened, and then PP and Teenwire revamped their websites and removed some of the things I had mentioned. So I'm not sure what's going to happen with that. I do still plan to eventually post about at least a few of the items.]

E-mail issues

I've been having problems with my e-mail, especially the hotmail account; it seems that not all messages are getting through. It seems to have especially been having problems with replies to e-mails from my Y! newsgroup (for people who receive my blog posts via e-mail--if you clicked "reply" I may not have gotten your message).

I'm switching over to a new e-mail server for blog reply notifications and Yahoo! groups to see if that works better.

If you've e-mailed me and haven't received a reply, please try again via the new gmail address linked in my profile: purplekanga(at)gmail.com

Thanks, and my apologies if I've missed your message.

Melted away

The half-inch or so of snow we got yesterday was mostly gone by this morning; by tonight, the weather was mild and well above freezing. Disappointing for those who wanted a white Christmas, but a boon to those of us who will be driving long distances this week.

It's snowing!

We're having our first snow of the season here, and it's sticking and piling up fast. The kids are excited, and we're wishing we had a sled. :) We have so few occasions to use a sled here that we never think to buy one except when it's snowing and we don't want to drive anywhere.

DH got to sing the special music in church today, and had a solo part in addition to his normal participation in the choir and worship team. It was fun to see him do that, and they sounded great.

Our plans for this afternoon: nap, and then put up Christmas decorations and do some baking.

A note from Baby E

; .ytjkked lhuojk u hin kiio,..

vvvvvvvvvv vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv 7g......................HUGYYGhjtuymuj
vbghjhug5

Baby E is making it more difficult to type with her in my lap.

It must be time to get out the keyboard pounder.

Musings about society, weight and health

I am wearing . . . drumroll please . . .

My pre-pregnancy jeans! Most of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit me now, and today I arrived at my "target" weight. It's nice to actually be able to wear my favorite clothes again.

Now the real challenge will be making sure I don't lose too much weight. I won't worry unless I get below my "low-normal" weight through most of high school and college. But I'm really going to have to watch it, because I haven't really been trying to lose weight, and I've lost about 40-45 lbs. since right before Baby E was born 4 months ago.

After AJ was born, I very quickly got far too thin.



By 4 months after she was born I was at 99 lbs. and dropping, no matter how much I tried to stop losing weight. For me at 5'2" with a medium frame, that was at least 15+ lbs. underweight. It was the most frustrating thing. Part of it was that I kept forgetting to eat and had trouble finding easy things to eat with my food allergies, and part of it was just that nursing tends to raise my metabolism to the point where my body has a hard time keeping up with it.

People mostly seem to know that it's unkind to comment on people's weight if they're overweight, but there seems to be no such social taboo against comments about people who are underweight. People felt free to tell me how skinny I was and to make comments like, "You need to eat more, girl! You're a toothpick!" Yes, thank you, I know. You try nursing a baby and being unable to eat any dairy products or anything else fattening, add a high metabolism in there, and see how you do. A few people even told me they "hated" me for being so thin so soon after having a baby. Well, excuse me, I didn't do it on purpose. I would prefer NOT to be so thin.

Some of those comments hurt.

I felt like I was eating and eating and couldn't gain weight. My energy levels and health were suffering. I felt awful. It was so discouraging. It's at least as unhealthy to be underweight as it is to be overweight, and the battle is just as difficult and frustrating trying to gain weight when your body doesn't want to.

When I get tired or stressed, I often stop feeling hungry, which means I literally have to force myself to eat. I enjoy food okay in general, but when I'm not feeling so great or when I'm really busy, it often just doesn't taste good or seem appealing to me.

At the same time, I have the mental battle that maybe it's not really so bad to be so thin . . . after all, that's what everyone seems to be striving for, isn't it? Along with the people telling me how I was too thin, there were a lot more telling me how great I looked and how much they envied me. That didn't really help, because in a way it was a mental battle to convince myself that I really did need to do something; that I was truly unhealthy.

It could far too easily become almost a power trip. Not eating much and losing weight can give you a feeling of being strong and in control (ironic because you're really NOT in control)--but that feeling of being in control by not eating is the basic driving force of anorexia, for those who've known someone fighting that type of battle. I've walked alongside friends who've had severe, life-long struggles with anorexia and bulemia, and it's not something to take lightly.

Poor nutrition and an unhealthy lifestyle can make you very sick or kill you, no matter which end of the weight spectrum you're on--or even if you're a "normal" weight. I think it's sad that as a society we have so much emphasis on weight and body appearance rather than on just being healthy. Health and a healthy lifestyle is so much more important than what we look like or the number on the scale.

No matter which end of the spectrum you're on, it is difficult. It can become a real struggle in our society, trying to identify what a "normal" serving size is (no, an apple is not dinner! but the "serving sizes" most restaurants serve are far larger than an actual serving) and what "healthy" really looks like.

My doctor was threatening to "x-ray" me if I didn't stop losing weight, like that would scare me into gaining. People telling me that my bones were showing didn't really help, either. I finally recruited a few friends to call me off and on and remind me to eat, and that helped a little. Now I have children to fix meals for, so it's a little easier to remember to eat when they do. Getting enough rest and general self-care makes a huge difference too.

With Baby E's food allergies added to mine, though, it's been even harder to find things to eat. I'm working very hard at it, but I can tell I'm not doing well enough. I need to make sure I'm taking my vitamins, too . . . I'm seeing signs of not getting enough vitamins and nutrients in my skin and the way I feel. This time around, I'm really trying to stay on top of it before it becomes a serious problem. That's why I'm posting about it. It's a way of helping myself to stay accountable.

The battle for good health is no picnic.

Company and Cleaning Fun

Today one of our neighbors and her 1-year-old daughter came over to play. We'd been talking about getting together with this family for ages, but just hadn't done it yet.

I kept thinking I'd start inviting the neighbors over as soon as my house was clean enough not to be totally embarrassing. Last week it dawned on me that I've been waiting for my house to be "good enough" for more than 3 years. Three. Years. FlyLady calls it CHAOS--can't have anyone over syndrome.

It would be nice if someday my house is presentable enough that I can invite anyonne in without worrying and being embarrassed about it. But life is too short to wait to get started on important things like getting to know the neighbors until then.


So I stepped out of my comfort zone and invited these people over. We had a great time. The girls loved having a "baby" to play with that was actually old enough to walk around and roll a ball back and forth with them. They played and played, and all three of them had a blast. I enjoyed visiting with the mom too. And she didn't seem to mind my house. She shared with me that she's had to decide having time for other things is more important than having her house as clean as she'd like, too.

Now that the ice is broken, I'm hoping we'll get together often. As the girls get older, it will be wonderful to have another little girl close to their age two doors away. We really like this family and I hope we can be good friends rather than just friendly acquaintances as we have been until now. There are several other neighbors I'd like to invite over as well.

My sister J got home tonight, and my parents and sisters came over for a little while. It's so nice to be all together for a little while. Hopefully they'll all have time to get together several times while Sis is home.

A couple of days ago, I discovered a great activity that the girls loved--scrubbing the kitchen floor! I got out a mop bucket and rags, and all three of us got down on the floor and scrubbed while Baby E took a nap.

I was amazed at how happily and hard the girls worked. We talked and I told them stories about helping my dad on the jobsite as a kid. Washing the floor held their attention for a good hour or more, and they were quite a big help.

They got the linoleum good and wet, then I came along behind and wiped up the mop water after it had a chance to soak off the dirt. I let them dunk their rags and splash in the puddles on the floor. We all got dirty and soaked, but it was fun. The floor was really clean when we got done--for about 10 minutes anyway.

Yesterday when I asked AJ what she would like to do after her nap, she said "help you clean up!"

I'll enjoy it while it lasts. :)

Thankful Thursday Thirteen

I'm really thanking God tonight:

1. That my sister J is safe. She was supposed to walk to the Dining Common at her college tonight with some friends. At the last moment, Sis needed to run an errand and decided to take a quick detour and meet up with them at the commons. She and another friend (the sister of one of the girls she was supposed to walk with) were waiting at the dining common when another girl came running with awful news.

A tree had been downed by the ice storm, and had fallen on the other three girls. They were rushed to the hospital, all three injured and one in critical condition.



2. We think all the girls hit by the tree will be ok. One had a severe head injury and a broken skull (I think), but has been upgraded from critical condition and may even be able to go home in a day or two. Another ended up with three staples in her head, and the third had scratches and bruises.

Sis J is pretty shaken up, but is helping out and supporting her friends.

3. Lord willing and weather permitting, Sis will be home tomorrow for a month-long vacation from school. My youngest sister Amy should hopefully have some free time during the Christmas break as well. We have lots of great Christmas activities planned with DH's side of the family too, including what's becoming the annual tradition of a white elephant party at out house. I'm really looking forward to lots of time with both sides of the family, as well as friends.

4. My husband was so good to me this morning. I was up until about 3 a.m. last night trying to get some Kolache rolls and other goodies baked for the Mom's group party this morning.

DH got up with me and the kids at 7 and got all three kids dressed and ready to go while I got ready. Then he put coolant in my car, fixing the problem with the "broken" heater. He also warmed up the van and scraped the frost off the windows so the kids and I could just hop in and go. I felt so cared for and nurtured--thanks, DH!

5. I was able to find a recipe for the poppy-seed-filled traditional Czechoslovakian kolache rolls that my grandmother used to make. Baking them made me feel so connected to her somehow, even though it's been several years since she passed away suddenly.

6. This is the first time in over a month we haven't been sick and unable to attend the bi-weekly mom's group. The special speaker this morning gave a presentation about storytelling. It was great, and I had fun interacting with the other moms.

7. We got to go out to lunch afterwards with a friend from church. We've been trying to get together for a month now and kept having to cancel because of illness. Our kids had so much fun together, and we enjoyed visiting too.

8. I'm so glad we're not sick. I really hope we continue to stay healthy.

9. The two older girls were actually in bed by 7:35 tonight, and asleep by 8. It's so much better for them to get to bed earlier now that they almost never nap during afternoon "quiet time."

10. Baby E was asleep by 9, hopefully for the night! She's been going to sleep around midnight, and then I frantically spend the next hour or two trying to finish up household chores before finally crashing into bed in the wee hours of the morning, knowing I'm going to have to wake up to feed her at least once or twice before the two older girls wake up around 7. The last couple of days, I've forced myself to wake her up at a reasonable time instead of letting her sleep until 9 or 10 like she wants to. Between that and keeping her awake after 4 or 5 in the afternoon, she's finally starting to go to bed earlier. Hooray!

11. We don't have to go anywhere tomorrow. On the way home this afternoon, I became acutely aware that I was too tired to be driving safely. I skipped the errands I had been planning to do and went straight home. I'm very thankful we got home safely, with no mishaps.

The most horrifying thing is that when we finally I got home, I discovered that somehow only two of the three kids were buckled in. What an awful, horrible sinking feeling. I was in shock, just wanting to cry. I could not believe it--that's one of those things you hope as a parent that you never ever do! I'm so glad we got home safely.

I am not driving anywhere again until I'm more rested, and you can bet I'll be triple-checking the car seats. That really, reaally scared me.

12. My friend "Morning" came over this afternoon, and stayed for dinner and a movie since DH had a choir rehearsal. We hung out and relaxed, and I put my feet up and took it easy. I felt so lazy, but it was wonderful.

We watched the first part of Fiddler on the Roof, which Morning had never seen before. Even all three girls enjoyed it as we all snuggled on the couch, and then when we started getting to the more intense part they reluctantly went to get ready for bed.

I let them come down again briefly to watch the magnificent wedding scene. It was so poignant sitting there with all three of my girls in my lap, watching the wedding scene and hearing the song "Sunrise, Sunset" . . .


( Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset . . . )

Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?
I don't remember growing older,
When did they?

When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he grow to be so tall?
Wasn't it yesterday when they were small?

Sunrise sunset, sunrise, sunset,
Swiftly flow the days,
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers,
Blossoming even as they gaze . . .

Sunrise sunset, sunrise, sunset!
Swiftly fly the years,
One season following another,
Laden with happiness and tears . . .

( Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset . . . )


~ from the Broadway Musical Production "Fiddler on the Roof"
Music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick
Sunbeam Music Corp. BMI

13. I'm going to bed now, and am going to concentrate on getting as much rest as possible in the next few days. There will be several gatherings with friends and neighbors during that time, and I have some fun things planned to do at home with the girls, but I don't have to drive anywhere until at least Sunday.

Home and diapers

Maybe it's the time of year, or maybe it's just where I am in my life right now. I'm feeling lately like I just want to hunker down and not go anywhere. I want to be home. I haven't gotten to stay home nearly as much as I'd like--I really wish I didn't have to go anywhere or do anything right now.

Actually, maybe it's more that I don't have the energy to get all three kids ready to go, drag them out to the car, make several more trips for all their stuff, and buckle them into their car seats only to do the same thing in reverse a few minutes later, and then again at the end of the outing. :)

Fatigue, of course, must have something to do with my lethargy. I'm really starting to think seriously about trying to get Baby E trained to go to sleep before midnight. It's messing up her schedule and mine to have her going to sleep so late. What I need to do is start waking her up earlier in the morning, I think, so she naps earlier and hopefully goes to bed earlier too.

But, really, I am feeling more of a focus toward home and family. I have very little drive to go out to do things, go shopping, attend meetings, etc.--unusual for me. My interests tend more lately toward things like organizing my home, reading to my kids and sewing diapers. That and resting. I feel like I hardly have time to take a breath, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing.

My blog and e-mail correspondence are suffering because I haven't taken the time to sit down at the computer, and I don't have the mental energy to think of anything interesting to say. I've hardly even gotten online lately, except to shop for diaper making supplies.



I'm becoming quite the diaper junkie, I'm afraid. It started out with prefolds, which I do like. But, although I have fewer blowouts with them than with the disposables, the diaper cover tends to get messy often. Folding the diapers a particular way helps with that a bit, but I decided to try making a fitted diaper or two just to see what they're like. I was hoping the elastic around the legs and back would help keep the covers cleaner.

First, I made one trial diaper from a free pattern by Mamma Bird. It was so much easier than I expected. And it was so much trimmer than prefolds, and so absolutely cute! I didn't think I'd care what they looked like since they're under the diaper cover anyway. But there is something so aesthetically pleasing about a super-soft diaper that fits well and is actually beautiful. After the first one I was hooked.

That first diaper wasn't really absorbent enough, so I made another one with more padding and more layers of flannel. Then I tried making one pocket-style with a removable soaker. Then I had to try one with a different kind of sewn-in soaker. And then I started playing with the pattern, adjusting it and making changes. I want to try a variation on this pattern by ottobre too, as well as several others including an all-in-one (AIO) with the diaper attached to the wrap. I really want to try making this diaper (called PooPockets), but I don't think I can justify buying a pattern when I can make or modify one for free.

It's become the quest for the perfect diaper.

Now I find myself browsing fabric supply websites drooling over the microfiber terry and the sherpa fleece. I'm even contemplating the idea of making fitted cloth diapers as baby shower gifts.

My Aplix (like Velcro, but softer and stronger) arrived in the mail yesterday, and my waterproof fabric (similar to PUL, but cheaper and more durable) and polymer elastic for making diaper covers should be arriving any day. I may have to buy a diaper cover pattern, as there doesn't seem to be a free one online. Maybe I'll be able to figure it out by looking at some of the covers I have and playing around with it myself.

The biggest problem I'm running into is that I don't know much about my machine. I can't figure out how to get as many layers of fabric as I need to fit under the foot for sewing. There doesn't seem to be any way to get the foot to adjust higher, and I haven't been able to find a different kind of foot yet.

I bent a needle and had to go and buy new ones. I didn't even know that most (or all?) sewing machines take the same kind of needles, and that you're supposed to change the needle every 8 hours or so of sewing. This needle probably hadn't been changed for many years on the machine I got from my mom. Of course, it didn't get used much in those years.

Even though I'm far from a talented seamstress and don't know how to use my sewing machine all that well, I'm having fun.

Too much fun, maybe.

Sitting Pretty

Baby E is definitely not a newborn any more.

We got our family photos back this week; they turned out pretty well. I'll be sending out an e-mail to family and friends with copies of the pictures. If any of my regular blog readers would like a copy, let me know via e-mail (e-mail link in my profile).

Stocking up on dental floss

Well, I haven't cleaned out the refrigerator or scrubbed around the edges of the kitchen faucet yet. But I have done quite a bit of decluttering in the kitchen, as well as staying caught up on dishes and laundry. And, over the last couple of days I've done crafts with the kids and cut out some fitted cloth diapers to sew. So that's something, right? We've been staying very busy, working hard, and staying up far too late. :)

I just got home from getting three fillings done at the dentist. I can't feel my upper lip, nose or cheek. But my mouth, jaw and neck hurt. The underside of my tongue is as sore as anything else, from the little vaccuum tube attempting to suck my etire tongue into it. The novocaine hasn't even worn off yet, and I'm miserable. I took two Advil, but they don't seem to be having a whole lot of effect.

My teeth didn't hurt before I had them worked on. How's that for irony? Make your teeth hurt now so they won't hurt later. Also, only one corner of one top front tooth now touches the bottom front teeth. Actually, it's a corner of the filling, not the actual tooth, that's the only thing making contact if I try to bite with my front teeth. Is that a problem?


I hate going to the dentist. I've had a number of pretty bad dental experiences and I tend to get pretty nervous. I picked this dental office specifically because they advertised chairside movies, needleless shots, and air abrasion technology. But apparently it's only the other dentist in the other side of the building that uses these things. The dentist I have doesn't do any of them. He's very nice and seems pretty good at what he does. But I feel a bit like it was false advertising when the only doctor they have that's taking new patients doesn't do any of the things mentioned in the ad.

They did tell me that if I made the request ahead of time, they could borrow the movie viewer from the other dentist. So I made sure to request that when I made the appointment on Wednesday. Both the hygienist and the scheduler assured me I would be able to have the video apparatus. When I got there this morning, nobody knew anything about it. No note in the chart, no request put in, no video. So we listened to a radio talk show about misheard Christmas song lyrics.

Two of the three fillings I had done today (the two worst cavities) are spots I was concerned and asking about at my last couple of appointments. Which means they've been going on for at least a year.

They kept telling me they were fine and nothing to worry about, and never even made a comment in my chart about them. Now all of a sudden they're really bad cavities that are close to needing a cap or a root canal.

Wouldn't it have been better to take care of them a year or six months ago when I first noticed them? One might think so.

The biggest cavity, the dentist didn't actually spot this time. The hygienist saw it and pointed it out to him.

The cavities were between my teeth, so I guess I really need to floss more than the few times a week I usually do. I do brush well, but don't floss as often as I should. I also think I'm not getting enough calcium for pregnancy and nursing along with my own body's needs.

When I sat down this morning, I reminded the hygienist that I can't have epinephrine in the novocaine. It's written in big red letters on the front of my chart, too, along with notations of several other allergies I have. We discussed the need to avoid epi with the dentist as well. Epinephrine, because it constricts the blood vessels, causes me to have migraines.

My migraines aren't really headaches; they're more like small seizures--visual and speech disturbances, shaking, numbness/tingling, loss of motor skills, disorientation, etc. Certainly not something to mess with. They're caused by a constriction of the blood vessels in my neck and brain, which causes electrical short-circuits in the brain. So a vasoconstrictor like epinephrine, which is intended to constrict blood vessels, is an obvious trigger. Thankfully, I haven't had a really bad migraine in years, but I'm not interested in causing one.

The dentist kept having to give me more and more novocaine. For some reason, the shots weren't working well. The shots themselves hurt, and then he'd start drilling some more and that would hurt too. It takes a lot to numb my teeth, but then it takes days for the effects to wear off on my facial nerves and muscles. Last time I had novocaine couldn't fully blink one eye for about 2 days.

I think I must have had 7 shots, at least two of which were actually in the roof of my mouth instead of the gums. My gums kept bleeding, the worst cavity turned out to be nerve-deep, and the dentist was having trouble getting the fillings to stick. So he had to take them out and redo them. It took a long time. Then the novocaine that had finally taken effect started to wear off.

At one point, the dentist asked the hygienist for more novocaine and she said she had to find some more without epinephrine. He said, "Well, I just gave her a shot of epinephrine."

Lovely.

I said, "Well, if I start getting all loopy on you, you'll know why."

The dentist said he "had to" give me the epinephrine to "control the situation" (i.e. bleeding). Actually, I think he forgot. All I could say was that it was a really good thing I wasn't allergic to it to the point of being anaphlactic.

I was really dizzy and shaky when they got done. I had to sit there for quite a while and drink some juice before I could walk. I still feel like I'm fighting a migraine, so I really hope it will just go away. I'm thankful for spell-check at the moment--i keep garbling my typing in really odd ways. It's a good thing that only one of the shots had epi in it--I'd be in really bad shape if I'd gotten 7 shots of epinephrine.

The fillings look good, and the dentist seems to have done a couple of extra little cosmetic things which are nice. But I just found a sliver of one filling in my mouth and now there's a funny little gap or edge there. So I'll have to ask about that when I go in for the fourth filling that needs to be done. I'll have to wait for a few days to see if the worst one still hurts badly. If it doesn't get better, it could need a root canal.

What fun.

I can't believe my father-in-law gets all dental work (including root canals) done with no painkiller whatsoever. I can't imagine putting myself through that much pain on purpose.

I really think I'll start flossing more, and work especially hard to make sure the kids are flossing and brushing well.

Stovetop challenge

***Post Your Mission Accomplished!***

If you needed motivation to do the FlyLady daily mission or some other task you've been neglecting, here it is. It can be your stovetop, your refrigerator, or something else. Post about your mission when you're done and link to it in the comments, or just tell us about it in a comment under this post. I'll make a list of the tasks accomplished with a link to the relevant blog.

There will be prizes! I'm not sure what the categories will be yet, but there will probably be one for the most interesting job and the most improvement, among others. Interesting stories and humor used in telling about the task gain extra points. Before and after pictures are encouraged. I'll do before and afters of my refrigerator today. :)


Last night I tried to go to my women's Bible study at church, but I got there to a dark room with a note on the door that study would resume the middle of January. Hmmm. So, after checking in with DH, I decided to take advantage of a couple of child-free hours to have some quiet time to myself and do a little shopping. It's amazing how just a small chunk of time away from the house and kids can restore some semblance of sanity.

We were gone all day yesterday, so I hadn't gotten any of my regular chores done. By the time I got the baby fed, groceries put away, and dishes and laundry done it was after 2:30 a.m. But I really want to start doing FlyLady's daily zone mission, so I decided to go ahead and do it last night. What difference could 15 minutes make by that point, anyway?

FlyLady sends out an e-mail each day with a 15-minute task to do in the current zone. This week we are working in the kitchen.

I actually did Monday's challenge yesterday, which was to take apart the stovetop and wash the drip pans and knobs, and wipe down underneath them.


I've never taken apart my stovetop before. I've taken out the burners and drip pans, but it never even occurred to me that the knobs might be removable. So, with some trepidation, I pulled on a knob. It came off. Nothing seem to be broken or damaged, so I put the knob in the sink full of hot soapy water along with the drip pans and pulled off the other three.

Then I started looking at the glass panel and the little white buttons. Some grime had gotten down underneath the panel and the buttons, and especially in the holes under where the knobs might be. Hmmm, I wondered if the buttons came off. Easing a couple of fingernails under the rubber edge, I wiggled the button and experimentally pulled a bit. It popped out. Wow! Maybe now I can figure out what's wrong with the one that's always hard to push. So I pulled out all the little rubber buttons.

The glass panel was harder to figure out, but eventually I found the little clamps and popped it off. I put it in the sink and washed it, then dried it carefully. The area underneath was really fascinating to look at, with all the little electronic panels under the buttons. It didn't look like something that should get very wet, so I just wiped it down very gently.

You're supposed to set a timer and spend only 15 minutes on the job, but once I had the stovetop apart I didn't want to put it back together without finishing cleaning it. It had 3 years' worth of grime built up inside--ick!

The cooked-on grease under edges of the drip pans was the hardest thing to remove. I ended up using one of those non-scratch green scrubby pads around the edges, and that worked quite well. The drip pans themselves are still soaking; I'll probably end up using the green pad on them too.

After soaking the buttons and knobs in soapy water all night, I just gave them a quick wipe and they were clean. I want to make sure they're completely dry before I put everything back together.

It definitely took me more than 15 minutes, but once I got started I didn't want to stop.

Yesterday's mission was to take a toothbrush to the kitchen faucet, and today's is to spend 15 minutes cleaning out the refrigerator. I'm going to try to see if I can do both today, even though you're not really "supposed" to try to catch up--just do that day's task. But now I'm on a roll. I think I'll actually use the timer this time, though.

It sure feels good to accomplish something like this!

I'm going to be tired later today, though. By the time I got to bed and then fed the baby again, it was at least 4 a.m. before I went to sleep. DH was already gone for breakfast with a friend when the kids woke me around 7.

At least I have some good craft projects to keep the kids busy today.

Decluttering and dancing animals

The girls are dancing around the family room to music as I type. They love to dress up, and it's an easy way to keep them entertained (and the baby, too--she loves watching).




DH and I got a lot of work done around the house yesterday. The living and dining room areas, since we rarely use them, had once again become a staging area for clutter. An hour or two of hard work later, I feel like I can breathe walking through them. We've done a lot of picking up and vaccuuming in other parts of the house over the past week or so, too.

This morning I set the timer and spent 15 minutes working on our room and more working on laundry. This afternoon I plan to work downstairs.

I'm packing up boxes and bags to throw away, give away, sell and put away. It's starting to feel much less cluttery to me. I woke up this morning feeling eager to get downstairs and back to work, and looking forward to walking into the rooms and seeing how much progress we've already made. Such a great feeling!

The kids are enjoying the extra space, too. DH packed up most of their toys into storage bins, and they like having more room to play and fewer toys to choose from. AJ came up with the idea, all on her own, to give some of their toys to kids who don't have very many. So we're going to be sorting through their toys and thinning them out, and then we'll take some down to the rescue mission in our town for the kids there.

Exersaucer

Baby E was 4 months old yesterday. The outfit she's wearing is supposedly a size 12 months. Well, I did have to roll up the cuffs on the pants.



She really likes to play in the exersaucer, which is a good thing because today I'm getting the house ready to host a baby shower. We went to the early service at church this morning, and the baby shower (for a friend from church) is this afternoon. I did get some vaccuuming and decluttering done over the last few days, but still have quite a lot to do. Other people are taking care of the food, decorations, etc. so all I have to provide is the house. :)

My favorite cake and the easiest bread ever

Here are a couple of recipes I've mentioned recently in my posts: brown sugar cake and swope bread.


The brown sugar cake is a recipe from Tastes of Country, a cookbook by Frances A. Gillette. Almost every recipe I've tried from this cookbook has been fabulous--I highly recommend it if you can get your hands on a copy.

Quick Cake
A rich brown sugar taste. Rose Merne makes this cake often.

1/2 cup softened butter
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 2/3 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla

Put ingredients into bowl in order given and do not stir until all have been added. Beat 3 minutes. Bake in buttered pan for 35-45 minutes at 350 degrees. Nuts or raisins may be added, if desired.

I sometimes cut down on the sugar a bit, and always substitute rice milk. It's wonderful by itself or with vanilla frosting, ice cream or whipped topping.

If you like homemade bread but don't have time to wait for yeast bread to rise, try this recipe I discovered on the back of a Bob's Red Mill flour sack. If you make it with brown or turbinado sugar, it has a sweet, nutty flavor slightly akin to the flavor of Raisin Bran without the raisins (although it would be quite good with raisins added!). It's very nice toasted, with butter and honey on it.

A long-time customer of Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods shares her "so easy it's laughable" recipe with us. It makes wonderful bread for toast. She calls it:

Swope Bread

4 cups Bob's Red Mill stone ground whole wheat flour
2 cups Bob's Red Mill unbleached white flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt
1 quart buttermilk
4 tsp baking soda
2 bread pans, greased

Preheat oven to 375° F. In a large mixing bowl mix first 4 ingredients. In a separate bowl mix baking soda and buttermilk. Stir wet ingredients into dry. Pour into bread pans and smooth tops of loaves. Place in center of oven. Turn oven down to 350° and bake approximately 50 minutes. Turn out and cool on wire rack.

I substitute rice milk soured with a bit of lemon juice for the buttermilk. You can do the same thing with regular milk--put in about a tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar per cup of buttermilk you need and fill up the rest with milk or your milk substitute.

Be careful when you mix the baking soda with the acidic milk--it will foam up!

If you decide to try these recipes, I'd love it if you could post your experiences in a comment. I like to hear what you think of them or what variations you come up with.

Toppling towers of blocks

Sis (a.k.a. Aunt J) gave Baby E these soft blocks for Thanksgiving, and the girls have been having so much fun with them. The two older girls stack them and then Baby E knocks them over. All three laugh hilariously and then do it over again . . . and again . . . and again.

If we could just have relationships without the people element complicating things . . .

Several people I know are going through really tough relational situations right now, and I really feel for them.

Life is such a messy, unpredictable thing--especially where people and relationships are involved. The more I experience it, the more I realize it's impossible to have real friendships or deep relationships without pain, conflict, and lots of hard work involved.

Sometimes we hurt people or they hurt us without even realizing it. Often it's just the little things, that we have to decide whether to talk about and try to work through or just let go. Is it a "confront one another in love/leave your gift at the altar and go talk to your brother" and "forgive seventy times seven" thing, a "love is not easily offended" thing, or a "take the plank out of your own eye" thing? Or maybe it's more than one of those. Sometimes it's hard to know.

Sometimes I wish I could just hibernate for a year or ten and not have to leave my home or interact with anyone. Or at least keep things "safely" at a somewhat superficial level. It's easy to think life would be less complicated that way. But in my heart I know the potential for richness and depth outweighs the potential for hurt.

I just wish it wasn't so hard.

Just journaling

We were supposed to get several inches of snow today, but I haven't seen a flake yet. Just more rain. We stayed home from moms' group because we're all still sick. We're just sick enough to be contagious, tired, grumpy and draggy, but not sick enough to actually be in bed.

I'm sitting on the sofa with DH's laptop, listening to Christmas music and drinking a huge glass of water.

This is an introspective, personal post . . . very much a journal entry. So if you're looking for humor and insight or helpful information, well, you might want to skip the rest.



All three girls are quiet for the moment. Baby E fell asleep on a blanket on the floor at my feet. She's snoring, poor thing; she can hardly breathe with her nose so stuffed up. AJ is in bed, reading an "I Spy" book and finding the objects hidden in the pictures. She's gotten so great at reading lately. And MM just came down to inform me that she found her special blanket and tell me something about a toy; whereupon she immediately got sent back to bed. :)

The girls and I have been reading "Little House in the Big Woods" during the day while I nurse the baby. My sister Amy gave us the set of Little House books for Thanksgiving, and we're enjoying it immensely. It makes me want to simplify life and enjoy the small things. Sometimes I think we have so much "stuff" and so many activities that they keep us from really appreciating the little things that make life so rich.

I made some swope bread and did laundry this morning while the kids did puzzles and colored. We ate the bread with chicken lunchmeat and baby carrots for lunch. Then we did about 30 minutes of an exercise video. It was fun watching the kids laughing and trying to follow the instructions as we all tripped over our own feet.

I'm hoping to incorporate regular exercise into our routine several times a week, especially with the weather not conducive to the kids' playing outside. Maybe it will help everyone's mood and energy levels. The girls have been getting on each other's nerves (and mine in the process!) and being unusually whiny and grouchy the last few days. I'm sure being sick has something to do with it.

I'm tired and lethargic, especially with being under the weather. But I'm starting to wonder if napping when the kids do is actually helpful or not. I wake up so groggy that I'm not much good for the rest of the evening, and then I'm not sleepy at bedtime. The older kids don't really nap any more, so their quiet time is flexible. Maybe it would be better to just go to bed earlier instead, or at least take shorter rests earlier in the day.

We're so far behind on housework it's ridiculous. The floors haven't been vaccumed and thoroughly mopped for probably at least a month. I can't remember the last time I dusted, and we have piles of disorganized clutter everywhere.

I always have such big plans for getting organized and getting a consistent routine, but I allow things like illness and busy-ness to derail me. We have people over anyway, but I feel embarrassed about things like the books and papers piled in the dining room and the crumbs on the floor. There are a few things we generally do well at, though . . . at least we always have clean clothes to wear and clean dishes to eat and cook with. Sometimes I wonder exactly what it would take to not feel like I'm always behind and a failure at housekeeping.

Mainly, I'm just tired of being sick and tired and not having the energy to keep up with even the minimal goals I set. This time of year, with young kids in the house (and around crowds of other kids in Sunday School, mom's group childcare, home group, etc.) it seems like we catch every bug that goes around. The combination of fatigue, illness and dreary weather isn't the greatest for a perky mood and great energy. :)

I think I'll lie down to rest a bit while feeding Baby E, who is waking up, and then try to get at least the main areas of the downstairs vaccuumed instead of taking a nap. I'm sure Baby E would love to ride in the sling while I vaccuum. Then, if I still have the time and energy, I'll set the timer for 15-minute increments and work on the kitchen, laundry, and another zone. Maybe I'll even get to a 27-fling boogie. The girls would probably like to help with that when they get up, before they do some schoolwork.

As FlyLady says, "You can do anything for 15 minutes" and "progress, not perfection."