“Those who love God should attempt to preserve or create an atmosphere in which He can be found.  Christians should have quiet homes.  Throw out television, if necessary — not everybody, but those who take this sort of thing seriously.  Radios useless.  Stay away from the movies — I was going to say ‘as a penance’ but it would seem to me to be rather a pleasure than a penance, to stay away from the movies.  Maybe even form small agrarian communities in the country where there would be no radios, etc.

“Let those who can stand a little silence find other people who like silence, and create silence and peace for one another.  Bring up their kids not to yell so much.  Children are naturally quiet — if they are left alone and not given the needle from the cradle upward, in order that they may develop into citizens of a state in which everybody yells and is yelled at.  (pp. 301-302)

“…When you gain this interior silence you can carry it around with you in the world, and pray everywhere.  But just as interior asceticism cannot be acquired without concrete and exterior mortification, so it is absurd to talk about interior silence where there is no exterior silence. (p. 302)”

-Thomas Merton The Sign of Jonas, excerpted in Henri Nouwen’s Pray to Live, pp. 118-119.

Quiet children.  Now there’s an idea…   Not just shut up, but naturally peaceful and quiet.   But how to go about it?

On that note, Samantha is now crawling!  It’s not perfect crawling, she uses on knee and one foot, but it gets her across the room, and she can now crawl up to me and pull herself up a little on my pant leg and express that she wants something.  Along with crawling has come a banshee baby sound, which tends to mean, “Lucy took my toy from me again!”  But for the moment they are actually sleeping, and I can think about silence.

Lucy woke up last night (after she had come to our bed) saying, “I need my coffee!”  I told her to go back to sleep, but she got up, went to the living room (where Craig was still on the computer) and got her sippy-cup of chocolate milk with a splash of coffee and brought it back to the bedroom.  The she got up again and announced that she wanted water.  Before Craig could get it, she was saying very loudly, “No, I going to sleep!” but she had closed the bedroom door on her way out and couldn’t open it again.  All this woke up Samantha, and thus ended my half-hour or so of comfortable sleeping.

In other news, I am officially and thankfully unemployed.  (But, also thankfully, my paycheck doesn’t stop coming in until August!)  On Friday, Craig helped me clean out my classroom, we went out to lunch to celebrate, and then Craig went up to Shaw to do some of his own work.  Everyone at school gave me hugs and told me how sorry they were to see me go.  When I got home, Samantha was angry because she was still suffering from the cold she caught earlier in the week, and Lucy was angry because, well, she’s two.  And it was naptime, and she had already had a busy day.  And I thought, “Why am I leaving the company of kind adults for that of screaming children?”  Certain Roman bird-watchers might have something to say about this.

And yesterday I read several posts pointing out how wonderful motherhood is.  And today we tried (unsuccessfully – it rained) to take the girls to the zoo.  We got ice cream instead.  Lucy threw no fits until after 8 PM.  We napped well.  We ate well.  We played well.  We ate tomato and basil from our own garden.  This is why I’m staying home – so Lucy can paint in the back yard, and Samantha can sit on a blanket under a tree while I hang out the laundry.  So we can go to the zoo on a Tuesday.  So I can put band-aids on cuts, snuggle sleepy infants, and spend half the day with a child on my hip.

I think it will be a good life.  I am really, sincerely, looking forward to it, however much I may fear the responsibility.  Because now if something goes wrong, I have only myself to blame.  Two little souls have been entrusted to me so that I can help them find their way to their eternal home.  All those blogs I’ve been reading are right, what a privilege!  What faith God has in me to entrust two of his most prized possessions into my hands!  It is all making me very aware of all my own shortcomings and all the work I have to do to set even a decent, let alone a good, example for these little ones.  So I’m working on my prayer, and I’m asking for your prayers, because the enormity of this task feels overwhelming sometimes.  But what joy comes with this work!  I now work every day, all day, for joy incarnate.

My mom will be having both knees replaced this Friday (5/29) at 7:30 AM.  Please pray for a sucessful surgery and a speedy recovery!  (If you want to leave her a message here, that would be cool.  I know it would make her feel better to know there are lots of prayers being offered for her on Friday morning!)

She’s sick (again), which seems to slow her down and make her more grown-up in her speech and wittier.  Two very funny quotes from this weekend:

Craig arrives in the bedroom, and entices Lucy to take some cough syrup so she can sleep better.  She drinks it without protest.  We compliment her on her (uncharictaristic) compliance with our wishes.  As Craig starts to go, she says, in all seriousness,

“That wasn’t very good.”

The next morning Lucy stayed home from church since she still wasn’t feeling good.  Uncle Sean tried to tease her and get her to play, and she responded with a curt,

“Go to work!”

Which Sean quickly did.

I’m looking forward to lots more posts like this. : )

Lucy set up a tea party for us this morning.  The cups are for Mommy, Daddy, Josh, Ashley, me (Lucy), and “Man” (Elijah?).  Only Samantha and I were present to partake, however. 

The day’s laundry is already done.  This is a good day. : )

And yes, the fat little leg in the corner is Samantha.

…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.

“The focus of our days is the dinner table, whether, as often happens in the winter nowadays, it is just Hugh and me or I am cooking for a dozen or more.  When the children were in school I didn’t care what time we ate dinner as long as we ate it together.  If Hugh were going to be late, then we would all eat late.  If he had to be at the theatre early, we would eat early.  This was the time community (except for the very small babies) gathered together, when I saw most clearly illustrated the beautiful principle of unity in diversity:  we were one, but we were certainly diverse, a living example of the fact that like and equal are not the same thing.”

-Madeleine L’Engle, Glimpses of Grace (emphasis added)

I don’t have much time to write lately because of a swamp of school work, but I found this worth sharing.  This is sort of the ideal I hold up of my family in ten or fifteen years – gathered around dinner, discussing sports, theology, nature, literature, and whatever interests my children will quite literally “bring to the table” of which I now have no concept.  It is a daunting goal, but the beauty of this “unity in diversity” makes me want to strive towards it. 

More on this as relates to communal living beyond the family later, perhaps.

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…)