Another Holiday Horror Story

This Halloween was quite a fiasco. It was really all my fault. I build up my hopes for events without really thinking them through and planning for all contingencies. This combination of high expectations with low planning can really only have one result: bitter disappointment, weeping/wailing/gnashing of teeth, and an overwhelming sense of failure. Halloween 2008 did not provide an exception to this formula.

So this it what I had imagined would happen:

Soren would be dressed in the adorable lion costume I purchased for him earlier this summer at a garage sale. We would go as a family to the ward "Trunk or Treat" activity, where Abe and I would fraternize pleasantly with the adults in our neighborhood while Soren frolicked adorably with the other be-costumed children. Afterward, he would skip delightedly from car to car, leaving a stream of delighted exclamations in his wake ("How adorable! " "What a dear little boy!" "Such a cute little lion!") while he collected a large round of Halloween candy which would later be generously shared with his favorite Daddy and Mommy and unborn little brother.

What happened instead was this:

Mommy and Daddy returned from work and picked Soren up from Auntie Collette's house, where he had spent the day wearing a series of princess dresses chosen by his cousins. He was loathe to exchange a fluffy violet dance outfit for the jeans and t-shirt I had selected for him that morning, so we brought him home dressed like a little girl, wondering if we should, in fact, simply allow him to go to the Halloween party as a princess. I decided against this course, as I thought it might confuse people about our child's actual gender, and also because I had spent $1.50 on an actual costume that I wanted him to wear this year.

Upon our arrival at home, Soren immediately started whining. Abraham had claimed a headache and threatened to stay home from all Halloween activities, so I sent him downstairs to take a power nap in preparation for the evening's festivities, which I did not want to participate in without my sweetie. I then turned my energies toward the little boy, wrestled him out of his leotard, and found some warm clothes to put underneath his costume so he wouldn't freeze to death while begging for candy in the church parking lot. I tried to add the body-portion of his costume, but his protests, twists, and screams reminded me that he hadn't had dinner yet and might be somewhat more pliant with food in his belly.

So I plunked him in his high chair, checked the clock (we had forty-five minutes), and smeared some peanut butter and jelly in a tortilla while he impatiently rocked back and forth, whined, pointed, and grunted. The high chair seems to bring out his autistic side. And then I remembered that I needed to decorate our trunk in some sort of cute Halloween fashion in order to keep up with the Brother and Sister Joneses. So I elicited a "please" out of Soren, plunked his meal unceremoniously on his tray, poured him a glass of milk, and then ran off downstairs to gather supplies.

We don't have a single Halloween decoration in the house, so I thought fast and grabbed a patchwork quilt that looked kind of harvesty to me. I brought that back upstairs and checked to make sure that Soren was till breathing. Then I remembered that the light bulb in our trunk had worn out. So I ran back downstairs, dug through Abe's tool room, and came up with a portable light that we could use for our trunk. I brought that upstairs and did another quick choke-check. Next I realized that, if Soren were unwilling to wear the lion mask that came with the costume, I would have to figure out how to paint Soren's face to look lion-y. So I ran back downstairs to check the internet for ideas. Then I ran back upstairs.

Now, this wouldn't have been so bad if pregnancy didn't turn me into something akin to an elderly hippopotamus with asthma. But it does. So every time I made it back to the top of the stairs I had to sit down and put my head between my knees until my heart rate slowed to something reasonable--like maybe 120 bpm--and I could breathe without gasping. Through my final bout of post-stair-climbing vertigo, I had a vague awareness of Soren in the kitchen, flinging pieces of milk-soaked peanut-butter-and-jelly smeared tortilla at the wall, at the counter top, and at the kitchen table. He was done eating.

So while I was scrubbing Soren's little face with a washcloth and directing him in the fine art of wiping milk off the floor, it came to me that he still needed a tail for his costume. This was something I had considered vaguely throughout the past month but never taken steps to rectify, always telling myself, "Halloween is so far away. You'll have time to do it later." But now Halloween was upon us. I darted into my bedroom, found some brilliant orange yarn, and, after some digging, came up with the only crochet hook I could find: one of those gigantic ones a person might use for crafting a rag rug. It would have to do. Only, it didn't. After several vain attempts at crocheting a tail that might be passably cute, I gave up, flung the crochet hook across the room in the same way that Soren might fling a cup full of milk across a room, and decided that the %&$*#$ costume didn't need a (@!*$& tail anyway.

And now it was time to get Soren dressed. This time around, I was allowed to pull the body portion of Soren's costume on without too much struggling. The mask, as I had feared, was another story. Soren would not have anything to do with it. If I even so much as got the thing within 3 inches of his head, he would commence screaming. So I moved on to plan B: makeup. I was able to successfully draw one half of one whisker on Soren's face before he started grabbing at the eyeliner I was using, shaking his head back and forth, and crying when I wouldn't let him have the pencil. I had a lipstick that I was going to use to pinken his nose, but that was also grabbed at and cried about. So after about three minutes of my desperately swiping at Soren's face with various cosmetics while he desperately thrashed, rubbed, and grabbed at said cosmetics, he looked less like a lion and more like a burn victim in ICU. So I gave up on the idea of his looking like anything but a little boy in tan fuzzy pajamas, rubbed the make-up off as best I could, and hollered down the stairs at Abraham to wake up.

Exhausted, I plopped into a chair. Soren, who was really just a tired little boy who hadn't been home all day, grabbed a book and brought it over to me. "Story?" he asked hopefully. "Story?" So I picked up book, pulled my little tyke into my lap, and started to read. And I also started to cry. I had failed at Halloween. I hadn't decorated. I hadn't bought any candy. I hadn't signed up to bring food to the Trunk or Treat. I couldn't get my child to wear his costume.

Abraham found me and Soren sitting in the rocking chair in Soren's bedroom, crying together. He immediately declared that this was no time for going out. Instead he sat down on the rocking ottoman and rubbed my feet while I read stories to Soren. It was really what our family needed: a quiet evening at home together. Halloween or not, we were worn out from a long week and really just needed to wind down. I wanted so much for Halloween to be fun for us, but I suppose wrenching a tired child, be-headached husband, and pregnant self around like holiday fun automatons was not the way to go about it.

(We did end up having doughnuts and cider at my sister's house later that evening. Her children were all costumed delightfully. I'll post about that next.)

This is a picture of me at the end of a harrowing Halloween day. Abe calls this the "Rachel doesn't want to be touched" pose. I really should post a more flattering picture of myself sometime soon. I don't always look so haggard and hunch-backed. Really.

Newsletter: Month 22 1/2.

Bubba,

You have--at long, long last--finally started calling me "Mommy." Grandma says you learned it watching "Tom and Jerry" with her one morning last week. Daddy and I stopped to pick you up after work and there you stood, at the bottom of the stairs, gazing up at me from under long lashes and saying, "Mom..mom...mommy?" I was, of course, enchanted. I ran down the stairs, scooped you up into my arms, and got you to repeat it for me a couple of times. So entranced was I, in fact, that you took advantage of the moment to snake a pair of scissors off the nearby bookshelf. "Mommy!" you said, reaching out and grabbing the scissors, while in my mind little bluebirds fluttered around your head. "Mommy!" you said, separating the blades, while while my brain's full symphonic orchestra rolled into a swelling musical phrase of joy. "Mommy!" you said, while I attempted to phonetically transcribe your unique pronunciation of the word. And then I noticed that you were holding scissors and could perhaps at any moment jab out one of your eyeballs. The phonetic dictionary snapped shut, the birds stopped twittering, the orchestra screeched to a halt. And the moment I was able to wrench the scissors out of your tight little grasp, you mutated into a flopping fish, writhed out of my hands, and began screaming and thrashing around on the floor. Grandma looked up to see if I was, indeed, extracting your toenails without anesthesia.

Soren poses in an outfit he found in Daddy's bottom dresser drawer. This was, apparently, the only non-blurry picture we've taken of him during the past six weeks.

This month you've also taken to referring to Jesus as "Ceecee" (pronounced "see-see"). Every time you see a picture of Jesus, you're quick to point out that it's Ceecee. Your father and I marvel at how quickly you little people pick up on the concept of Jesus. We imagine herds of little toddlers following him around Jerusalem, all referring to him with their own garbled little versions of his name. I'm thinking about starting up a new church and calling it "Ceecee's Place." It would be a very casual sect.

Other linguistic notes from this month:

-You learned how to say "anckoo" ("thank you") at a recent family home evening. So now you say "eese" and"anckoo." Next up, I suppose, is "erelcum."
-Many of your words are pronounced in a backwards sort of way. For example, "Truck," "duck," and "stuck" are all pronounced "Kkkuh!" Similarly, "Rock" and "Sock" are both "Kkkkah!"
-Also new in the vocab this month: "Oy" ("toy") and"O-oy" ("story"); "Beebee" ("Baby") and "Peepee" (the liquid, not the part").

Observing your language development up close has been fascinating for me. It's such a complicated process-- learning to associate objects, people, and abstract concepts with specific sounds; developing the motor skills necessary to form these sounds consistently; stringing the words together into grammatical structures. It's a miracle of the mind, and I hope you don't mind my obsessive documentation of every step you take in this process.

Another aspect of your development that has changed during the past six weeks is your playing style. You've begun spending more time focusing on individual toys, figuring out everything they can do and experimenting with them. The gear board your Grandma Skousen sent you several months ago has long been a favorite-- but this month you've really started focusing on it, building towers on the spinning gears, finding ways to stop the spinning of the gears, matching colors, and pushing buttons until the toy plays a song you want to hear. You've also really started to be interested in "helping." You want to push the vacuum. You want to sweep the floor. You want to mop. You help combine ingredients in baked goods. You drag the table bench over to the kitchen sink when you see that I'm doing dishes. I had heard other moms complain about this stage and always wondered why. Wouldn't it be great to have a little helper instead of a little hinderance? But now I'm discovering that little helpers can be little hinderances. Everything gets done more slowly and less thoroughly with a 22-month-old on your team. You've got your own ideas about how things should be done (the vacuum needs to be turned off to really be effective; the dirt needs to be spread out by the broom, not gathered together; the dishes in the drainer need to be put back in the rinse water and the dishes in the rinse water need to be returned to the dirty dish pile) and no amount of explaining on my side seems to impact your opinions on such matters. Though I don't want you to misinterpret: I'm not complaining. I enjoy having you there with me while I work. I'm glad that you want to help and I know that you're developing a sense of autonomy and self-confidence from your practice. You're my little sweetheart and there's no way I would rather do the dishes than with your little body standing on a stool next to me.

In other news, your biting problem has diminished significantly this month, thanks to a series of family home evening lessons about what teeth are supposed to be used for (eating and smiling) and are not supposed to be used for (biting people). Unfortunately, you forget yourself from time to time. Sometimes at very inappropriate times. For example, Auntie Loriann, who had just been laid off from her job, came over to visit. You ran over to her and hugged her legs in a gesture of warmth and welcome that would have been just what she needed-- had you not then turned your head and chomped into her upper thigh. She was then forced to wind up an already-rotten day by screaming "SHIT" very loudly, spending a little time crying in the bathroom, and then passing the remainder of the evening with a pack of frozen peas pressed against her crotch. You seemed largely unrepentant, despite a brief stint in time-out and a quick refresher lesson about how Ceecee wants us to touch each other nicely and not bite other people's crotches.

I'm told that you are an unusually active child. I believe it. I am sometimes amazed when I observe other people's children your same age. They're allowed to do things like sit on the kitchen counter while their mommies work, wander in and out of the bathroom with adult supervision, and eat at the table with grown-ups. You, on the other hand, are not.

If I were to put you on the kitchen counter, you would immediately grab everything in sight, examine it, cling to it passionately if dangerous and throw it away if uninteresting. You would want to empty/squeeze/splash in/sample anything in any nearby containers. You would then attempt to crawl over to the sink or the stovetop. This would all quickly dissolve into my putting you back on the floor and your throwing a fit about not being allowed to do anything fun.

The bathroom is completely off-limits to you because, even with close adult supervision, you quickly find ways to empty the comet containers onto the floor, unravel the toilet paper, shake the over-the-toilet cabinet so that things fall off, splash in the toilet bowl, and sample the toothpaste.

The kitchen table provides similar opportunities: cups and pitchers to sample from and dump, plates and bowls to grab, napkins to eat, an entirely new surface to crawl/walk/dance on. Despite our best efforts to show you you to sit nicely at the table, I'll admit that there are times when-- after you've finished your meal in your highchair--we'll set you outside the kitchen, move the hope chest in front of it, and exclude you our dining experience. This usually results in your crying, which makes me feel like a big fat meanie.

My friend Holly tells me that when her little Aubrey sees a cabinet door open, she'll close it. You, on the other hand, will pry cabinet doors open and scatter the contents of said cabinet as far around the house as possible. If I'm ever foolish enough to leave the pantry door open, your trouble radar immediately beeps, and you're there as quickly as your little legs can carry you, hoping to throw several handfuls of flour and sugar on the floor before an adult notices what's happening and apprehends you.

One of your favorite activities this month has been unlocking, then opening, the oven; using the door as a step; and unplugging all the heating coils on the stovetop. I left Nanny Q (aka Uncle Quentin) to watch you for a few hours one morning and later discovered an entire jumbo pack of batteries that had been emptied into the stove. There was also a package of chalk in the oven. And several unusued diapers in the trash can.

I say this all with chagrin, but also with a note of amusement. You certainly keep things lively around here. I love your curiosity and activity. I love your stubborness, intrepidity, and individuality. Sometimes these characteristics make me pull my hair out and scream, "How long until the gypsies come to town and I can trade you for a bag of magic beans?" But that's okay. It's good for me. I like a challenge. And you're such an adorable challenge.

I love you, baby. Happy 22 and 1/2 months.

Mommy

Pumpking Walk 2008: Shelley, ID

For Family Home Evening a few weeks ago, Abe, Soren, Loriann, and I attended the 2nd Annual Shelley Pumpkin Walk. It was a delight. Here are a few of the highlights:

Auntie Loriann allowed us to see her true identity as a storybook princess.

People throughout the community prepared artistic displays using pumpkins. This was a recreation of Grand Wood's "American Gothic."

And we finally found out how to get to Sesame Street.

Soren was a little hooligan, as usual. I spent most of my time trying to keep him from tearing down all the displays. It's a shame people are so picky about keeping things whole.

Soren brushing up on his afghan techniques.

"And then you treble crochet underneath the post! Ah! Now I see! It's all clear now!"

Book Reviews: Atlas Shrugged, Earthly Possessions, Elantris

Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand

If someone asked, yes or no, if I liked this book, I would say yes. I did like it. It was the size of a dictionary and, despite that, I read every durned page of it. It consumed my life for weeks, leaving me with a filthy home and a neglected child, but it was definitely worth the sacrifice.

So what makes this month-long reading project worthwhile? There are a couple of things:

First, the philosophy. Ayn Rand’s books are all attempts at illustrating the principles of her personal philosophy, Objectivism. Her firm, no-nonsense defense of libertarian politics and laissez-faire economics appeals to me. The novel is a neglected source of philosophical discussion, one that Rand tapped into with great ingenuity. Her works clearly illustrate that, where simple explanations may fail to persuade, contextualization in a story can significantly boost an idea’s air of veracity.

Second, the language. I found myself frequently pulling out my own writer’s notebook to jot down phrases that warmed my writer’s senses, glowing gems like these: “His eyes were shrewd without intelligence, his smile good-natured without kindness.” “The glow was red and still, like the reflection of a fire: not an active fire, but a dying one which it is too late to stop.” “It meant nothing to him any longer, only a faint tinge of sadness—and somewhere within him, a drop of pain moving briefly and vanishing, like a raindrop on the glass of a window, its course in the shape of a question mark.”

There are some things that bothered me a little about the book, however:

Ayn Rand was clearly a feminist, but she fell short as a feminist in a couple of ways. First, her primary female character, though shown a strong, competent, and commanding, lacked some of the strength and competence that her male protagonists displayed. Also, sexuality was clearly illustrated as being a male dominated activity; for the time period, I suppose Rand was stepping over the line for even acknowledging a female sex drive, but all the sex in the novel was very much along the lines of “Thor see woman. Thor takes woman. Woman submits. Woman happy.” Which isn’t to say that the sex scenes weren’t tastefully written and sexually appealing—it’s just that, in both Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead, sex always more closely resembles rape than a consensual act of love.

Everything in Rand’s novels (maybe even in her eyes) is exhaustingly black and white. She doesn’t leave any wiggle room for the humanity that lies within us all, our foibles and inner conflicts, our personalities and histories; in fact, if she were to read this review, she would probably say that those who allow for the humanity within themselves are simply failures allowing themselves to fail. For her, there is only one acceptable type of personality; there is only one acceptable goal.

The repetition. Halfway through the book I began to feel insulted at the frequency with which Rand felt that she needed to explicitly restate her philosophies. There was even a fifty-page chapter near the end of the book in which one of her characters does nothing but lay out the whole of the objectivist philosophy. Gee willakers, if a reader hasn’t figured out the basics of the philosophy after 1000 pages of 4 pt font, I think they’re probably a hopeless case and should be cast off as a sacrifice made in the name of capitalism. I wanted more credit as a reader.

Earthly Possessions
Anne Tyler

Ah, sweet Anne Tyler. Earthly Possessions was a nice follow-up to Atlas Shrugged, a simple story with more a more subtle style and quietly poignant message. The story is about a woman who goes to the bank to withdraw enough funds to leave her husband--and winds up being taken hostage by bank robber. In Tyler’s novels, however, the plot isn’t nearly as important as the people. Her Pulitzer-prize-winning writing style is gentle; her characters are quirky and multi-faceted. Her world is full of wobbles and bumps, but never any real violence or darkness or evil. Just people. Regular people stumbling along, trying to live together, doing their best to make sense of their lives.

If you’ve never read any Anne Tyler, I probably wouldn’t recommend beginning with this particular novel—it’s a bit strange— but I would recommend reading something written by her.

Some of my favorites include:
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Breathing Lessons, Back When We Were Grownups, Saint Maybe, Ladder of Years, A Patchwork Planet, Searching for Caleb.

Elantris
Brandon Sanderson

Abraham checked this out from the library for me. I was a little hesitant to pick it up because it is, after all, a fantasy novel, and a rather thickish one at that. I’m not really a fantasy reader and also have a limited amount of reading time, but I finally consented to give it a try, telling him, “Fine. I’ll give it 100 pages.” I didn’t notice when I reached the 100 page mark, however.
Elantris is a good novel for people who don’t usually read fantasy because the world Sanderson creates, while definitely different from our own, isn’t so foreign and complex that it takes several years to figure out. The characters are witty, interesting, and believable; the plot is engaging, full of twists and turns and loops that are surprising and satisfying; and the writing style is crisp and unobtrusive --though I did find a few editing errors!
If you enjoy Orson Scott Card’s work, you’ll probably like Elantris. Sanderson’s characterization and plot formation is similar to Card’s. A bonus is that Sanderson is a BYU alumnus and also currently works at the Y as a creative writing instructor. Go Cougars!

Note:
If you’re one of those people who can’t stand the thought of reading a book containing swears or sex (bless your little heart), Anne Tyler and Brandon Sanderson are both good sources of quality “clean” writing.

Hints from Heloi...er, Cha-cha

During Documentary Night several months ago, Soren mistakened Nicholas for a washcloth and wiped his blueberry stained fingers on his Uncle Sue's brand new t-shirt. For a minute, we were frozen in horror. How would we ever get the blueberry juice out? Isn't that one of those dreaded stains, like wine or chocolate? Would Nicky's shirt ever be the same? And then we remembered that, in today's world, the answers to all the big questions are never far away: ChaCha would know the solution to our problem. Nicholas quickly shot out a test message begging ChaCha's next Available Representative for help with this urgent laundry quandry-- and before five minutes had passed, ChaCha had sent us a reply: "Stretch the material taut. Secure it over a bowl. Pour boiling water over the stain from a distance of several feet."

This solution did not really make sense to us--isn't hot water supposed to set stains?--nevertheless, we moved forward with faith, feeling a little silly, but believing that ChaCha would not lead us astray.

(As with most endeavors of this nature, there was lots of giggling involved.)

The sad truth, however, is that this method was less than effective. The boiling water presented several obvious safety hazards, for starters. Also, it was difficult to accurately aim the water stream from such a distance. And at last, even after being inundated by several pots of boiling water poured from a great height, the stain had merely been reduced, not eliminated.

So the question is begged: from whence had ChaCha derived this strange and ineffective solution? Why, out of the many options presented by a quick Google search (white vinegar, white wine, baking soda, oxiclean, tide sticks, rubbing alcohol), did The Available Representative at ChaCha choose to torment us with boiling water and reckless heights?

The answer is: I don't know. But I'm now seriously questioning my life's premises.

The Exterminator

Abe believes that fly swatters are "really gross," so he's gotten a little innovative in the insect removal department.

He really hates flies. Note the half-crazed look in his eye.

The book-related cuteness continues.

Books: more than just an excellent source of fiber.

Abe found Soren in his room like this. He'd gathered up the blankies for snuggles and settled down with one of his favorite books, "Peek-a-Boo!" by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, a title that I, too, would recommend. At this point, he was so absorbed in the plot that he didn't notice his daddy lurking in the doorway with the camera. This is the first time we've caught him alone with a book that he wasn't furtively gnawing on.

It's......

a boy!

We're so excited.

Father and Son

Soren and his daddy.
Top: Soren's favorite lounging place. Middle: Fixing the vacuum. Bottom: Doing some evening reading.
I sure love those two.

Newsletter: Month 21

Dear Little Puppy,

This month your dad saved your life. We were camping and someone (whose name and relationship will be withheld in this forum) gave you a chunk of carrot to gnaw on. Now, as an aside, I need to mention here that you've got this habit of keeping food in your mouth for a very, very long time. I'll feed you breakfast at 7:30 and at 11:00 I'll ask, "What is in your mouth?" only to discover a chunk of blueberry pancake or bit of granola cereal that you'd apparently kept tucked away in a cheek in case of an emergency hunger situation later in the day. So on this particular occasion I (er...someone) had given you a bit of carrot to eat, and you'd been running all around the campground, attempting to suck out every last vitamin before swallowing. Then Daddy did something that displeased you--I think he took you off his shoulders and asked you to walk. You responded in typical fashion: you began screaming. Your screaming turned into gagging, and you were screaming, then gagging, and then--suddenly--not doing either. Instead you were looking up at Daddy with big scared eyes and your face was beginning to turn a reddish purple.

Daddy's heart stopped. You weren't breathing.

He quickly picked you up, turned you downward, and performed a child-sized Heimlich maneuver until chunks of orange flew out of your throat and into the dirt and you began to wail-- the wail of a newborn child first trying out his lungs. I heard that wail from across the campground and came to see what was happening. You were coughing and crying. When I asked what was wrong, Daddy stabbed a finger in my face and said, "Don't you EVER give him a carrot EVER again."

We cuddled you together for a long time afterward, giving you sips of soda to help make everything better. It seemed to work.


I'm so grateful we didn't lose you that day.

Although in many ways, I've found that having a small child is like being in constant mourning anyway. And constant celebration too. They're wrapped together. Every thing about you is so precious and so fleeting that I spend much of my time trying to hold it close to me, trying to memorize it all, celebrating it, trying to will it to stay longer. But I know it won't. So I try to keep it all, hold it close, smell your hair and the groove in the back of your neck; watch how your little fingers gently stroke Daddy's neck when you're sleepy; hold your squishy smooth hands in my grown-up hands, marveling at the tiny perfect creases in your fingers; tickle your strong but chubby arms; nibble your curled-up toes; thirstily suck up the liquid gold of your hearty giggles; memorize how your stubby arms look folded against your chest, clutching against your little heart as many rocks as you can get to balance on them.

I love your eyes, so round, so open, so uncolored by experience, so unafraid. I love to watch you smell artificial flowers and then shove them under my nose, your eyes sparkling with expectation, just knowing that I'll think they smell as good as you do. I love the sweet shape of your naked body--long lean legs with chubby knees, a neat little bottom, a protruberant Buddah belly. (You usually run when you're naked, throwing yourself onto things, like it's the most joyous experience of your life and you needs to grasp it all at once, quickly, before your spirit is entrapped again by the cruel adhesive of a diaper.) I love your little arms wrapped around my neck, knees tucked against my belly, little fingers running through my hair, torso relaxed and perfectly safe in my arms. I love that my touch can cure you of almost all your fears and ailments and frustrations. Sometimes when we're wrestling, I let you pull my hair and chew on the ponytail elastic so that I can lay my head on your chest and listen to your heartbeat -- a sound as magical and as rapid as the first time I heard it, all those months ago in the OBGyn's office.

You bring so much color into the world. On the radio recently I heard a poet, Breyton Breytenbach, talking about what it was like to be freed from prison after spending many years locked up in South Africa. He said he was amazed by the beauty of the world around him...and the numbness of the people living in it. "I felt like I was moving in a complete world of zombies," he remarked later. "These people don't really know what life is about. They don't feel walking in the street. They don't see the colors. They're not alive. Their antennae are not vibrating." But your antennae, little one, are definitely vibrating. Every day is full of new and interesting experiences for you. Flowers, weeds, pine cones, lawn ornaments, rocks, sticks, tires, cats, bugs, mud puddles, drinking fountains, pieces of garbage, apples rotting in the gutter, children playing, the wind blowing: they are all things that I had learned to tune out, to pass without noticing. But you brought them back to me, like so many fistfuls of dried leaves, and have taught me again how to take joy in all of them. You laugh out loud every time I spread a blanket on the floor. You stamp your feet just for the joy of feeling them pound against the pavement. You hold your hands in the warm air of my blow-dryer and smile at the miracle of its warmth. You have shown me how important the little things are, have forced me to slow down, have helped me readjust my radar to a more sensitive frequency.

This month I stood at the kitchen window and watched you playing outside with your dad. Daddy showed you how to blow the white seeds off a dandelion stem. Together you blew, cheeks round, lips round. Then you rolled a big yellow ball back and forth. The ball was almost as tall as you, and every time it bumped into your little body, you would grin, and little curved lines would form around your cheek, behind your eyes. Then Daddy picked you up and showed you a sunflower, its head bowed under the weight of ripening seeds. You reached out to feel its bumpy texture and pull at the petals.

A month or two ago I took you out to the raspberry patch in Grandpa and Grandma's garden. I showed you the berries, picked a few, and fed them to you. With a twinkle in your eye, you began reaching through branches and leaves for raspberries ripe enough to come off without a fight. One by one, very slowly, you pulled them off and, pressing your face against mine, placed them into my mouth.

I shouldn't let you go thinking, however, that life with you is one endless dance on a rainbow. The following is from my journal this month: "Today Soren is driving me crazy. He has been very demanding of my attention and the littlest things throw him into fits of whining and tears. He grabs at my legs, fusses, bites. I tell him, "It's OK." I tell him, "Don't bite." I tell him, "Maybe you just need a cuddle." I tell him, "Maybe you could use some time alone." But all the cuddles and reassurances and remonstrations and time-outs in the world seem powerless to appease my grumpy little dictator. It's driving me crazy! How much longer 'til naptime?"

Other things from this month:

-I was cutting Daddy's hair in the bathroom one morning when you toddled by, then stopped to observe. You were not pleased with what was happening. "No!" you said sternly. I continued cutting, and after a while, you burst out with a new word: "Stop!"

-Auntie Collette checked on you during a nap at her house, only to discover that, before falling asleep, you had removed your pants and diaper. You slept in your usual position: arms and legs tucked under your body, bum pointed high in the air. But this time, it was a totally bare little bum. We could've taken a picture and sold it to Anne Geddes for big money.

-We took you to the Spud Day parade, which you enjoyed, except for the part where fire engines drove past honking their horns. You particularly liked the free candy.

-New words: You say "jooose" in describing any liquid refreshment. "Crah--" with a throaty pronunciation on the "c"-- means "cookie" and "cracker." You sometimes say, "Yes peese" (yes please!). And you can identify three major facial features: "Ice," (eyes), "No," (nose), and "Bababa," (mouth--maybe for "blahblahblah?")

-You have begun to take pleasure in beautiful women. Particularly blondes. I took you with me to a doctor's appointment and you were immediately attracted to a blonde woman in the waiting room. You hovered around her legs, brought her toys, and babbled at her. You even followed her out of the office. At Daddy's company picnic, you immediately made friends with a little blonde girl of about three. We recently spent a day in Pocatello recreating with our friends the Keddingtons. After visiting the zoo we went to a little water park. We passed a delightful afternoon swimming and playing, and you seemed to have a lot of fun in the water and with Aubrey, who is almost your exact same age, but I'm pretty sure your favorite part of the visit was the bikini babe lounging on a blanket nearby. Every time you could break away from our party, you'd make a beeline to this college-aged woman. You lay down on the blanket next to her. You stroked her calves and looked lovingly up into her eyes. You spoke to her in your own language.

And I must admit, I think that all three of these women were thoroughly charmed. You little lady killer.

Love,

Mommy

Family Reunion

Recently my family (minus Scott and Amanda, much to everyone's sorrow) got together to camp at Iron Bog, which is found in the mountains near Arco. (Arco, I just learned, has a rich cultural history. It is not only the first town to be lit using nuclear power. It is not only the home of Pickle's Place Restaurant, the restaurant with the best fried pickles this side of the Mississippi. It was also originally named Root Hog, which I'm pretty sure wins some sort of world record for Worst Named Cities. I'm glad they rectified that situation before Pickle's Place moved in.

Anyway, here are some of the highlights from the trip:

-Soren traveled up with Grandma and Grandpa on Friday morning, a little earlier than Abraham and I, who both had to work until 2. Abe and I both missed our little toad and were happy to see him at 6:00 when we finally arrived at camp. Grandma and Grandpa were also happy to see us. One bonus for me: the morning of the trip, I asked Soren to wait to have his daily bowel movement--which can often get quite out of control-- until he was alone with Grandma and Grandpa. I told him I would let him have a raspberry cream soda in exchange. My child, who will do anything for a sugary beverage, including back up his own colon, happily complied. Bless him.

-Little Marty helped Abe set up our tent and did a darned good job of it.

-After eating a delicious creamy soup provided by Collette, we all sat around the campfire and talked. No one would sing camp songs with me, though I know they all secretly wanted to.

-Seth and Karen are madly in love. On Saturday morning they cooked breakfast together: Karen cooked french toast, Seth fried up some bacon. That evening, when I made tinfoil dinners, I heard Karen tell Seth that she would be happy to assemble his meal for him. He said, "I was just about to say that I would make yours for you." They genuinely care about each other and enjoy one another's company. Early on in their relationship, Seth introduced Karen to the joy of fishing and she's become very good at it. They spent a lot of their time on the trip with lines in or near the water. Check out Karen's blog for more details.

-Arielle and her daddy were out until after dark on Friday night, scouting for elk.

-On Friday, Grandpa led Tessa on a private fishing expedition. She caught 6 fish. The first thing she said upon awakening Saturday morning was, "When do I get to go fishing with Grandpa again?"

-We camped next to a beautiful mountain creek. Both Calysta and Tessa gave me a tour of the fallen-log bridges that crossed it.

-Soren nearly choked to death. See his 21-month newsletter for more details.

-It was astounding to me how dirty one little boy can become in just a few hours in the outdoors. It's a phenomenon that I believe needs more attention from the scientific community. I wish I'd gotten pictures.

-Abraham, Soren, and I braved the nighttime sub-zero temperatures in our 4-man nylon tent. We brought his Pack-n-Play for sleeping purposes and bundled him up in multiple layers of clothing, a hat, and approximately 5 quilts. He fell asleep happily there, but awakened several times in the night. I was afraid he was cold (I was cold,) so I finally brought him into our sleeping bag, where he found that he could only fall asleep if he was draped across my head, a fistful of hair clutched in each hand. I let him fall asleep this way, then wedged my way out from underneath him so that I could fall back to sleep. This would work for maybe an hour, and then he would wake up, realize that I had moved, and cry until I let him climb back onto my head. It was not a restful night. In the morning, Soren was crotchety. He whined while we tried to talk him into snuggling with us, fussed while got him dressed, cried while we got ourselves dressed, and complained while we cleaned things up. Abraham swore an oath that Soren would never camp again, not so long as he (Abe) was alive.

Abe looks handsome in the great Idaho outdoors.

-On Saturday, Abe and I put Soren down for his nap and left Grandma, Calysta, and Tessa at the campground while the rest of us hiked up to Iron Bog Lake. Abe told Grandma we would be back in about an hour and a half. It was a beautiful hiking path, about 1 1/2 miles up, leading to a lovely deep glacial lake in which I desperately wanted to swim. I mentioned that to my father, who declared, "You'll have your baby if you get in that water." I agreed that it did look a little chilly and so, solely for the safety of my unborn child, refrained from recreating in the mountain waters.

Me, clutching my belly and leaning way back. Look at that HUGE pregnant lady! Apparently I was feeling much bigger than I actually am. Karen and Collette, in the background, try to look away from the drama.

-Little Marty was the most amusing to observe hiking. He started out kind of slow, then ran up ahead of everyone, then became utterly exhausted and declared to his mother, "I never did like hiking," and fell behind. He then dashed up front again, became discouraged, and almost quit altogether. The last stretch was a slow but monumental effort for him. He did finally make it, though, with Grandpa carrying his backpack and tackle box for him.

Little Marty dashes ahead (dot, top left) during a burst of energy on our hike to Iron Bog Lake.

-Abe and I enjoyed the break from the baby but we were worried about those we had left behind to watch him (Grandma, Calysta, and Tessa), particularly since we had been gone for probably twice the amount of time we had anticipated. We managed to connive my daddy into letting us borrow his Diesel pickup truck (there was pain in his eyes when he handed off the keys), hiked back down the trail, and drove back to the campground. Sure enough, when we arrived, Grandma looked as though she had perhaps been attempting to tear all of her hair out by the roots. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. New wrinkles cut across her face. She walked with a definite limp. "That was an awfully long hour and a half!" she hollered at us. Soren was running around without pants or shoes. His mouth was black. He was caked from head to toe with dirt. A diaper, oozing with toxic-looking wastes and covered by flies, festered on a picnic bench. The little girls had long since become exhausted and had fled elsewhere for refuge. I found some pants for Soren and handed him over to his father so that I could take the diaper down to the Idaho National Laboratory's nuclear waste disposal facility. Grandma disappeared into her camper.

We drove home that evening, feeling that it would be better for the entire family if we could all actually sleep during the nighttime hours.

It was a lovely reunion, and I would really recommend reading Karen's description of the reunion. It is much more lucid than mine. Also, it contains much better photographic documentation.

Our Budding Artist

Sometimes I can persuade Soren to stop bothering me for one or two minutes by taping a piece of paper to the table and handing him a couple crayons. I think he's really showing a lot of potential.

The Old Man

On July 23, 2008 Abraham turned thirty. No, you didn't misread. He turned thirty. Three - Zero. Don't worry. I can't get over it either. I'm married to a geezer. Sheesh. He seemed young enough when I married him!

To help take his mind off his impending mortality, I took Abe to see "The Dark Knight" and fed him delicious Johnny Carino's food. That evening we had a little family party at Jensen's Grove. I didn't take pictures because I hate bringing my camera on fun excursions. Who wants to waste time worrying about the expensive camera while you're trying to teach your child how to avoid broken pop bottles in a polluted lake? So instead I've posted a picture of the gift bestowed upon Abraham by the Smith family, an "Old Person Kit." I thought it was pretty funny. Not pictured: a pair of reading glasses and a pair of dentures, both of which met an untimely fate in the hands of The Old Man's son.

And Soren? Soren wasn't content to merely wade on the periphery of the lake. He wanted to dive in and try out his crawl stroke. Also, he was so excited about his dad's birthday that he ate so much cheesecake he barfed. Honestly, I don't know where all his extreme behaviors come from. He's certainly not related to anyone who has a hard time with moderation....

A Bevy of Brief Book Reviews

This is what I've been reading lately:

David Copperfield
Charles Dickens

This one I read during the deepest throws of morning sickness.

In lieu of an original review here, I'm simply going to copy-and-paste from a letter I wrote to my mother-in-law, who loves Mr. Dickens, around that time:

"It's funny that you've been reading Dickens lately, because I, too, have been engaged with one of his books. But with a different response than yours, I am sad to admit. I'm reading David Copperfield, which I bought years ago because it was a required read for an English Novels class I took in college. I only got about halfway then, and -- fortunately for me -- my professor didn't like Dickens enough to test very heavily on that novel. I picked it up again just recently because I wanted something to read that I didn't mind associating with nausea. Well, I've again read through about half of it-- happily, but not lustily-- and am again contemplating laying it to rest. Dickens' prose is delightful and his characters endearing, but delightful and endearing can only get me so far -- about 400 pages of teeny print far-- before I start wishing that there was something more meaty to the text. Perhaps I should try one of his other novels."

(I didn't finish it.)

Long Quiet Highway: Waking up in America
Natalie Goldberg

Long Quiet Highway is the spiritual autobiography of Natalie Goldberg, who has most famously written "Writing Down the Bones," a book about writing that I adored. Unfortunately, I did not adore this book-- though I did, at least, read the whole thing.

In LQH, Natalie Goldberg details her journey from life as an a-religious secular Jew, to years lived openly as a spiritualistic hippie, and ultimately to her discovery of and integration into Zen Buddhism. The primary insight I gained from this book is that a daily spiritual practice is the central core of any sustainable spirituality. The two things that kept me from really enjoying the book were as follows:

1) Goldberg's spirituality seemed to degrade from an awareness of truth and light to an intense hero worship centering around her Zen Master. I wanted to shake her and be like, "This isn't about Katagiri Roshi! This is about sitting sazen! Aren't you listening to yourself?"

2) The writing style started to wear on me after a while. Goldberg is really big on concrete details, which can be charming, but after hundreds of pages of, "My friend and I sat in an rusty brick restaurant with black-and-white-tiled floors and shiny red booths. The waitress had puffy blonde hair and wore pink lipstick. We drank cups of black coffee and licked the dry crumbs that fell from our Danishes while we talked...." I started to get really sick of concrete details. Again, you might chalk this up to the fact that I was just plain sick.

Cold Sassy Tree
Olive Ann Burns

Excellent. I am a sucker for a good Southern novel. And this was a really good Southern novel. It had an excellent premise, fabulous writing, and very real characters. I can't describe it any better than the book review on the front of the cover: "Rich with emotion, humor and tenderness...A novel about an old man growing young, a young man growing up, and the modern age coming to a small southern town."

Two thumbs up for Cold Sassy Tree.

The Shell Seekers
Rosamunde Pilcher

One of my college roommates--an English major, even--really loved this book. She would vehemently defend its merits against the attacks of my other two English major roommates. My mother has had a copy of it sitting on her paperback shelf for as long as I can remember, and I finally decided to pick it up and give it a go. Fifty pages in I decided to give it a pitch.

It read too much like a cheap romance novel. There was a whole bunch of "telling" vs. "showing," long paragraphs of background information that would have fit better in flashbacks and hints, lots of fakey details you could tell were included by the author as a bit of wishful thinking--a childless career woman who slept with men like they were bed pillow, an apartment decorated all in white, a mother who spent her days feeding strangers in her warm kitchen while she mended at the "freshly scrubbed table." I kept getting the distinct impression that this book was not so much an attempt to tell a story as it was an attempt by the author to escape her own reality. I decided to endure all this, however, and see just what it was that English Major #1 liked so much about this book, but when I got to this scene, I hit a wall and couldn't make myself go any more:

(The following describes a woman who randomly met a man at a boat party in the middle of the Caribbean, spent two days frolicking with him on an island, and decided to leave her life in London as a successful magazine editor in order to live with him.)

"She finished The Mill on the Floss and started in on Wuthering Heights and then Jane Austen. She read Satre, Recherche du temps perdu, and, for the first time in her life, War and Peace. She read classics, biographies, novels by authors she had never even heard of. She read John Cheever and Joseph Conrad, and a battered copy of The Treasure Seekers.

"And as these books were all familiar old friends to Cosmo, they were able to spend their evenings deep in long literary discussions, usually to the background accompaniment of music; the "New World," and Elgar's "Enigma Variations," and symphonies or operas in their entirety."

Because every straight guy that you meet randomly at a boat party in the Caribbean is going to feel that he could include Middlemarch and Mozart on his list of old familiar friends. The entire image that came to my mind at this point--I could just see the two of them wearing matching turtleneck sweaters, Cosmo waving a pencil blithely in the air to Ein Klein Nachtmusik while pointing out a significant passage in Bronte --was so utterly repulsive to me that I actually slammed the cover shut. I felt brain cells draining out of my head and, though I frantically tried to stuff them back in, it was too late. They were gone forever. Don't let the same thing happen to you, my friends.

Loser
Jerry Spinelli

This was donated to my workplace and, after giving our clients ample opportunity to pick it out of the donation bin, I finally decided that it was meant to be mine. Loser, like every Spinelli book I've ever picked up, was a delightful read. Spinelli hasn't forgotten what it's like to be a child, and his novels really show that. Each one provides fresh insights into the innocence, vulnerability, and wounds of childhood.

Because everybody wants to hear, in great detail, about every time I've thrown up.

This second trimester has been a little weird. I do feel better--more energetic and less nauseous--and yet, I've been throwing up a lot more. I threw up once during the entire 13 weeks of my first trimester; I've thrown up 4 times during the 1 1/2 weeks that I've been in my second.

This is something I feel that I need to note on my blog because I am not a thrower-upper, which means that puking is a little traumatizing for me. Before this pregnancy, the last time I had up-chucked was 2004. The last time I barfed before that was 1998. The last time I blew chunks before that was was 1992.

Over the course of this pregnancy, I have thrown up in the following places: some lilac bushes, a gutter, my mom's bathroom sink, my kitchen sink, and on my kitchen floor.

My favorite occasion, if such a term could be used for so unpleasant an activity, was the lilac bushes. I was out for a walk with two friends--Nick and Nathan--when I suddenly started to dry-heave. I ran over to the nearest bushes, where, after much gagging and great effort, I deposited the entire contents of my stomach: 1/2 cup of bean-with-bacon soup, 1 prenatal vitamin, 50 mg of Zoloft, and 50 of Vitamin B6. The entire time I was retching, Nick and Nathan huddled in the background, horrified, and discussing what should be done.

"Do you think she needs some water?"
"Rach? Can we get you something? Do you need some water?"
"Rach?"
"Maybe we should run home and get her something to drink."
"Rach? Is there something we can do for you?"

I wanted to say, "Please just let me heave in peace!" But I didn't have the strength. When I finally got the situation under control, however, I was glad to have them. Nick gave me a hug while Nathan ran across the street to ask some strangers for a drink of water.

"Hi," said Nathan to the lady who answered the door at the house where he'd knocked. He was wearing knee-length dress shorts, blue canvas boatshoes, and a v-neck t-shirt with striped pastels. "My friend over there, across the street?" he pointed across the road, "She's pregnant. And, um, she just threw up. Could we get a drink of water?"

"Oh, poor kid," said the lady, squinting at me. "Of course she can have some water," She retreated into her kitchen and returned with a bottle of water. "You let me know if we can do anything else for her."

Nathan ran back across the street with the water. "She says let her know if they can do anything else," he said. The lady and her husband were both standing in the doorway of their home. I waved. They waved back. "I need a Kleenex," I told Nathan. "I threw up out my nose." So he ran back across the street and, after some gesticulating and animated explanation, returned with a Kleenex.

I blew the excess crap out of my nose, timidly swallowed some of the water, and waved gratefully again at the people who were still watching from behind their screen door. It made me glad to live in Shelley. And glad to have friends. Even friends who talk while you barf.