…but here they are.  You might wonder what I’ve been doing with myself lately, since I clearly have not been posting here.  (Besides telling my Latin students that the preceding sentence is an example of an indirect question, and would require and accusative-infinitive construction in Latin.  If that doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry, it doesn’t mean anything to my students either.)  Here are a few pictures to help you imagine what we have all been up to.  I’m a little embarrassed by the blurriness, but I’m still figuring out these digital thingys.

The garden has been busy.  I don’t have a picture of the garden itself, but here are some of the things which were growing before we left for Baton Rouge and Easter:

Jalapeno, somewhat blurry, and much larger now, since this pic is a week old.

Strawberry, the only one we got to eat before the birds.  It was very yummy.

A rose and a flower whose name I forget, but it grew from hand-me-down Dollar Store seeds.  That’s hard to beat.

While we were in BR, Craig’s parents got Lucy a car to play with there, which happens to match JJ’s (next door) car.  They also enjoyed playing on the hammock.

While we were in BR we also picked up our first portion from the CSA we joined.  It was small, because it’s the start of the season, but we got lettuce, greens, turnips, and some herbs.  (My mother is wondering who hijacked her daughter’s blog…turnips???)  Craig almost immediately purchased a turnip at the grocery store for comparison, and the CSA turnips won by a landslide.  The herbs are pictured below.  Besides looking nice on the counter, the mint went to tabouli (or however you choose to spell it), the garlic chives (which were amazing) joined some mashed potatoes, and the oregano (somebody please tell me if that is not oregano – I didn’t ask!) is holding out for spaghetti tomorrow night.

Yesterday we got Samantha (or me?) a belated Easter present, so that she can swing with Lucy.  (And so that I don’t have to hold her while I swing Lucy.)  This required a trip to Wal-mart to use last Easter’s gift card.  I guess it is good for me to go every once in a while to remind myself why I hate going to Wal-mart.  But at least now we have a swing.  Lucy likes to swing Samantha, also.  And I’m sorry I haven’t figured out how to turn the picture.  You’ll have to turn your head, I guess.

So we’ve been busy, sort of.  I have also been sewing a little, indulging in gardening blogs (although if anyone knows a good one for this area, let me know, I keep finding people in England!), and trying to crawl out from under the never ending piles of laundry and dishes.  At least they’re seperate piles, I guess.  

Things to look forward to (I have much more to say than time to write at the moment):  from the reading list, I See Far; my new diet (and it’s not to lose weight!); more antics of Lucy and Samantha (who now has two teeth, did I mention that?); why heirloom vegetables are really, really cool, and much more.  Christos anesti!

So, rather than folding laundry, I thought I would spend a few minutes updating you on the goings-on around here, other than my haphazard reading, which is taking up disproportionate amounts of blog space.

Samantha has a tooth, on the bottom in the front.  I have not seen it yet, as she guards it jealously with a strange tongue-curling manoeuvre which makes her look like a turtle.  She is happy to chomp on anything near her mouth, however, so we have established that it is sharp.

Samantha has also learned to grab.  Hair is one of her favorites, right up there with whatever happens to be on my dinner plate.  This led to our finding out she is allergic (apparently only a little, so don’t worry) to eggs.

Lucy is getting very verbal, as her grandparents are learning from repeated (semi-intelligible) phone calls.  She also “wrote” her first story a couple of weeks ago, which went something like this:

“Once upon a time, I had a doggie, and cows, and mommy.  Samantha.  The end.”

Various permutations of this involving the store, birds, etc., have followed over the last two weeks.  Samantha is also getting more verbal, but she mostly says different versions of “blah”.

Lucy is enjoying spend as much time as possible outside, particularly on her slide.  I enjoy spending this time in the hammock with Samantha.  She also likes to make “snails” out of play-doh and put various stuffed animals (and other inanimate objects) to bed in various parts of the house.  Furthermore, she can now do somersaults.

We only thought Lucy was into her independent phase.  Now we are getting more “I do it by self!” statements every day.

Exams finished at Chapelle, which means I am one quarter away from official stay-at-home-momdom.  I have not started a countdown calendar, unlike our seniors.

The garden is, sort of.  We have tomatoes, bell and jalapeno peppers, cucumber, okra, and onions so far, as well as mint and basil.  Something is already eating the basil.  I suspect slugs.  We’re planning on some beans, melons, squash and whatever else sounds good at the time we go buy plants and seeds, as well.  The iris are blooming in front of the house, apparently the “lollipop” and “Sunday morning” varieties which Fr. R.B. gave us after we moved here.  If we ever get new batteries for the digital camera, there will be pictures of some of these exciting things for your visual enjoyment.

Craig got a new lawn mower in the mail today.  It’s the reel variety, which doesn’t require a motor or gasoline.  He is very excited.

We had a wonderful visit from Taylor and Rob recently, for those of you who know Taylor.  Lucy still asks for “Aunt Taylor” every day or two.

Housework and sewing are pretty much on hold, although I make an attempt  at each once or twice a week.  I have been decluttering by giving one thing away each day of Lent, which I’ve been fairly consistent with.  But I think I need Lent to go several hundred more days for that to do much good around here.

I guess that’s pretty good for an update.  And the little natives are getting restless, so I guess it’s back to the laundry…or more likely chasing Lucy around while Samantha drools on me.  The laundry can wait, it’s hammock time.

There are schools of thought which encourage children be fed by having several different foods (including dessert!) set before them at the beginning of a meal, and the child will naturally choose the foods which his body happens to need at the moment (and not necessarily dessert).  The thought is that a small child, not yet driven by mere routine, not having been taught simply to finish his plate, is still connected to voice of her body.  We haven’t implemented this totally into Lucy’s world, but we don’t force her to make a “happy plate” either.

I bring this up not because of our eating habits, but because of what I’ve been seeing from Lucy the last day or so.  She is coming down with a head cold, and last night the girl who never goes to bed without screaming curled up next to me saying, “I going to sleep.”  Then she let me get up and leave the room and went to sleep without a snuggly parent.  Unheard of.

This morning she slept late and even when she woke up, didn’t want to get out of bed but claimed, “I going to sleep.”  And she laid there for close to an hour by herself.  My rambuncious two-year-old does not spend extra time in bed.  But today, she recognized that what her body needed most was rest, and made sure she got it.  

So I guess my job now is to stay out of the way in hopes that she will keep being able to respond to her body’s cues like this when she’s five, and fifteen, and thirty-five.  And maybe along the way I can learn a little from her (and Samantha) about listening to my body well, and trusting what I hear.

[Warning: This is graphic.  If you don’t like a little potty humor, do not read on!]

I am now, after two years, almost used to poop.  I am used to spit-up.  These rarely phase me.  I am not, however, used to chocolate throw-up in a car seat.   (more…)

Allow me a lenghty quote, and a few (less lenghty) comments. ? Is it me, or does anyone else wonder why it is taking so many Americans so long to realize some of the things Montessori mentions below? ? (More on this later – I think I can combine some of my readings!)

“But let us think, for a moment, of the many peoples of the world who live at different cultural levels from our own. ? In the matter of child rearing, almost all of these seem to be more enlightened than ourselves–with all our Western ultramodern ideals. ? (more…)

This great post was on Veronica’s blog about their baby (which could be here any day now!) ? It’s the second one up at the moment, called “Vulnerability: open self to suffering and to joy.”? ? I thought it was beautiful, and applies amazingly well to two-year-olds. : ) ? The link is below. ? Enjoy!

http://tomandveronica.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=4

I was on my way to pick up Lucy and go home from work today, when I wandered by the chapel at school. ? (How great is it that I work at a school with a chapel and on-site daycare in the building!) ? I glanced into the chapel and there were four seniors sitting/kneeling there, and one of them had a guitar. ? I started toward the daycare, then turned around and went to the chapel and sat in the back row. ? Not only were they singing praise and worship, but songs that I knew! ? Samantha was sleeping in the wrap (after a fussy spell) and I got to spend fifteen minutes reliving those days at Tulane when we would stay up to all hours singing in the TCC chapel. ? It was so refreshing, and to hear those beautiful female voices was truly holy. ? In fact, it was one of the holiest moments I have experienced in some time. ? I came out of it so calm. ? These girls always manage to be an inspiration to me when I least expect it.

On that note, I turned in my notice at the end of last week. ? I’ll be staying home with my girls next year, and I am very excited. ? There are a lot of things I will miss (and some – cellphones, dress codes – which I won’t), and I’m sure it won’t help my Latin any, but I can’t wait to get my house in order and start homeschooling in earnest. ? The countdown has begun – four more months!

“…love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science.”

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

?

Was Dostoyevsky referring specifically to motherhood?? ? I think he certainly could have been. ? Motherhood is love in action. ? (more…)

So we started reading Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television the other day…out loud, in the evenings. ? (I know it seems a bit extreme, but bear with me.) ? The thesis is that television, by its nature, is destructive to human lives and communities, no matter how nice or educational the programming tries to be. ? I’m sure I’ll be revisiting that idea later, but I think we’re already trying to benefit from one of the observations included in Mander’s first argument. ? He points out how disconnected we, especially we who live in the city or suburbs, are from the earth and its workings. ? Our food comes from stores, not plants in the ground; our water comes from faucets, not streams or rain showers; the greenery we do see is chosen and arranged by humans, not nature. ? Many, if not most, of us have lost our connection to the natural world, the world essentially unmodified by human hands (and machinery). ?

So tonight Craig and Lucy sat outside on the hammock and watched the moon play hide-and-seek behind the clouds. ? It was the fullest, brightest moon I have seen in a very long time. ? They looked at the stars, the few you can see through all the New Orleans light pollution. ? It was so simple, but somehow so profound as well. ? This is the kind of experience I want my children to remember when they are thirty-five. ?

When was the last time you noticed the moon?

Craig stumbled on an interesting article the other day about the damage screen time (TV, computer, etc.) can do to the developing brain.? You can read the rest of the article here, but I’d like to share just the conclusion for its insights:

“We human beings are a strange bunch. We grind up grains that appeal to a dog’s extremely sensitive sense of taste and press these into shapes resembling cartoon bones. Then we package these cartoon bones in colorful boxes that appeal to human adults because dogs would never do such a thing. The same is true of babies. Babies would never buy Baby Einstein videos. They are too busy playing and learning from the real world. The real consumers of Baby Einstein products are not babies. The real target is parents and grandparents who want their little darlings to be the next Einstein. I’m quite sure that Baby Einstein products are well produced, colorful and captivating. But the medium is the message, not the program flashing on the screen. I prefer to squish peas in my mashed potatoes, thank you.”

-“Just Say NO to Baby Einstein”
By Michael Mendizza

His main point is that the real world is a much better educator for a child than anything PBS can dream up, but there are so many places to go with this!? First of all, it does say something about a society that views intelligence as a commodity.? We all want to get ahead, and we want our children to get ahead in their turn, and the best way to do that is for them to go to college, preferably on scholarship so we don’t have to pay for it, so we had better have them well prepared for preschool.? I want my kids to read early as much as the next parent, but because I want them to be able to enjoy books and grow from their own ability to investigate what interests them in these books, and if they end up at the top of the class, that is only lagniappe.

More importantly, the difference in Lucy, our two-year-old, between a TV-full day and a TV-free day is dramatic, at least in those little details we mothers tend to notice.? Like tantrums.? It would seem that less TV = fewer tantrums.? And as easy as it is for me to get work done while she sits mesmerized by hours of Elmo and friends, at the same time it is disappointing to realize that she is not interacting, or really acting at all, but mostly absorbing flashing lights.? (Sometime I will write about how close the “interactive” shows are to Ray Bradbury’s vision in Farenheit 451, but not today.)? Maybe it would be better for that load of laundry to stay unfolded if it means she gets to spend more time painting, playing with bread dough, or running outside.

So, for the time being, our TV has taken up residence in the bottom of our bedroom closet, and in the newly-cleaned out space next to its dark screen, Lucy has established a new place to hide and pretend.