Sorry, I have to wash my hair that day.

I have questioned my husband and learned that at his various conventicles, conferences, and clambakes he is never expected to sing songs with actions or props, make foam crafts, pray prayers used by a host church's preschool, wrap a colleague in toilet paper, smell some viscous mass out of a diaper, or share factoids about himself by means of a vacuous anagram while wearing a stupid hat.*

So tell me: do women actually like doing these things? Or are we being enslaved by an oligarchy of crazed female event planners who either truly enjoy puerile diversions themselves or, more sinisterly, enjoy watching other women being forced into such performances?

Because pregnancy needs more indignities.

*Even men must beware; there are entities in which it is considered good form for them to share extremely personal information with groups of acquaintances, possibly facilitated in the endeavor by weeping.

Making one's toilet

I hereby defy whatever person came up with the idea of cramming toilets into intimate nooks and between bathtubs and counters and behind privacy walls. That person obviously never had to clean a bathroom. I would also like to know if the arabesque sculpting at the base of toilets, a grace enjoyed only by those charged with removing the filth which accumulates daily upon it, reflects some practical necessity of plumbing. If it doesn't, whoever came up with it is another jerk.

I'll wipe that up right after I finish my cake.

Deal with it.

We all think we're not that weird lady, and we all totally are.

And it really doesn't have that much to do with this.

In an old girl's brain

I weary of the mysticism attributed to various parturitional phenomena. Why does it have to be magic*? These things just make sense. Call it hormones if it makes you happy, I guess; I'd rather imagine that I still have some capacity for a valid analytical response to stimuli.

1. Nesting: a completely rational reaction to knowing that one's house will be mostly neglected for something like a year after the baby is born. No, this shape I'm in is not the most practical for some of the random projects I find myself undertaking in trimesters 2 and 3. But if I don't do them now, they absolutely won't get done later.

2. Post-delivery "high": again, a totally reasonable and predictable reaction to having a healthy baby, having L&D over with, and not being gordo pregnant any more. Freakin duh. (Not to mention that if the alleged nursing "high" were more widely or meaningfully experienced, more people would nurse for longer than three weeks. Oxytocin, the least effective miracle hormone in the universe.)

3. Pregnant/postpartum brain: The BSG "33" sleep schedule alone accounts for this; why even mention the other variables?

*I know, it's not magical, it's brain chemistry. Magical brain chemistry!

OK. But, why?

Baby clothes with words on them. Words like, "cutie pie," or "Daddy's biggest fan," or "Mommy's perfect pumpkin." Perhaps these little epithets are necessary because I would not otherwise notice how very like pie, or how windy, or how gourd-shaped the wearer is. Or perhaps they are prophecies? Or imperatives! Yes! Go! Pie!

I just know these are things I am expected to understand in order to be a good mother. Alas, I have the dumb.

Except the ones I'm wearing, of course.

The incurable lameness of moms

SOLID COMPLAINT FOLLOWS.

One of the things I find most depressing is that everyone else gets the joy of blissful irresponsibility with my children. In fact, this is one of the things that makes it most difficult to leave them in the care of others. So often when I return to relieve the beloved someone who has given me some time off, I find the babies gathered around a TV or its technological equivalent eating bowls of cheez balls with marshmallow fluff. All this means for me is one less time that I get to be the one who busts out the TV and the cheez balls and the marshmallow fluff. I have to be the one who never gives them anything but carrots and walks around the block and book-reading and hair combing. Thus do they cruelly love it when I leave. NOT FAIR.

Earnesty and honestness

Thanks to Aubri for linking to this essay from the famous but not yet well known Dort Preus, mother of 12 and inspiration to us all (to all the people who probably already sent me this a million years ago--sorry, I was busy for the last million years). I particularly appreciated this:

I remember visiting with a vicar on our side porch in Racine . He was about 40 years old and single. He was asking me, with admiration in his eyes about different experiences as a mother of, I think at the time, 11 children. He had asked if I had to do it over again would I? I told him if I weren't a Christian I would not want to have any children. The vicar was shocked. "But why?" he asked. I answered with " Children cost money, give you grief, and break your heart, are ungrateful no matter how you try to care for them.” And I went on and on. Poor guy stared at me. The admiration in his eyes faded away. I was in a low mood and discouraged. I had about 3 or 5 teenage boys at the time. I went on to tell him, as a Christian I took great comfort that as I teach my children the forgiveness of sins that they will forgive me all my failings as a mother. I could have confidence in raising the children God blessed us with by teaching them the Gospel. It is a hard job to raise children and I don’t really think I'm very good at it.

Ha ha ha, Dort! We all know you've got it figured out and we're the poser screwups. Thanks for trying to make us feel better, though. ;)

(In addition to not understanding why non-Christians have kids, I've never known why non-Christians bother getting married.)

HUGE PROBLEM

Other parents taking pictures getting into the picture I'm taking of my kids.

Bitter hours

How can one both look forward to another white cap in her ark and weep at the same thought?

Well, she can.

One of those things my husband says is, "Don't be more pious than God." God, as it turns out, was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. When his soul heaved in Gethsemane, no one told him to quit being so negative, to man up and do what he was born for and be glad about the privilege of being the Savior of the world.

Distress over the cups we are given to drink does not mean that we do not also cherish and cling to the joy set before us. It is only that promise of joy which strengthens us to receive yet another blessed cup of pain and hardship.

So Easter is coming, but Friday is also Good. We do not turn our eyes from the betrayal, the slander, the violence, the shame, the horror. The agony and humiliation? Not even God looked forward to that, not even knowing the full and holy cure it would pour out on eternity.

"If it be possible . . ."--the craziest prayer. As if a child could be born in sin or a world saved from sin without pain. How kind is our Lord to teach us that it's OK to ask anyway. In our Gethsemanes he will watch with us, when others sleep or spit the suffering back in our faces or just don't care.

Six

Here is how I understand family size (with the caveat that among Christians who have given no indication to the contrary, I am so mired in my own reality as to consider non-contraception to be the default practice. Terribly naive of me, I know, though I mean for it to be charitable):

1=small (may indicate fertility problems)

2=Normal! Way to go!

3=trying for a boy or girl, or a "mistake"

4-5=bigger than normal (indicates mild or moderate parental zaniness, or twins)

But six is where it gets serious. Six kids doesn't happen by accident. Six kids is beyond zany. Six is full-on crazy. Six kids very likely means a weird vehicle. Six is Big.

Six is also where some people (not all) seem to begin considering themselves major parenting experts and get real annoying. I promise I'll try not to do that. (It would be hard to come off as a parenting expert when my oldest kid is eight, anyway--lots of critical stages still not even touched.)

I think six will have some advantages, though. No odd box of raisins left to fossilize in the cabinet. That's been a huge problem with five.