Teach your children well

A very very very fine house

OK, so whenever that was we were having this talk about how to be the most perfectest homemaker and have a lovely home that everyone thinks is so lovely. And there's the, "You never know when the Better Homes and Gardens photo crew might stop by, and who can really be happy if there's grub on the blinds?" camp, and there's the, "If your house looks like a Better Home and Garden and you spend the whole time wiping microinvertebrates off the fridge handle I'm too afraid to visit" camp. And then there's me and my resignation to a house that looks the way it looks (which I think would be something like, not terrible, not great) and an inability to care that much what anyone thinks about it.

But then I visited a house, and it was Cheryl's house, and we had such a nice day even though I brought six kids with me and it was raining and we didn't do anything fancy (except, oh yeah, listen to an unbelievable concert by Cheryl's kids and bum an organ lesson off the Kantor, who happened to be having a birthday the same day a bunch of hungry urchins showed up on his doorstep), and I was like, well what was so great about that anyway?

What was great is that Cheryl is a gracious lady and her husband is a kindly lord and her mother is an honorable matriarch and her children are polite and personable and generous and patient, not to mention that you've never met a more modest group of ridiculously gifted people. I honestly couldn't tell you if Cheryl dusted before we got there or wiped all the hair off the edge of her bathtub (although she probably did). I was too busy having fun, eating a nice lunch, and getting forgiven for all the barbarisms my children were committing* at Cheryl's house to notice.

I know this doesn't totally solve the housewife's dilemma of just how sinful it is not to get the clean laundry put away before you need the basket again, but I thought it was informative.

(PS, Cheryl--I put the Dr. Seuss book on top of the Europe puzzle. Gah!)

*What were they even thinking?

How to talk polite-like

I looked this up because I was tired of feeling like a shlub. Thought you might be interested too, whoever you are.

When introducing two people, the more honored person is named first: Mr. Bigwig, this is Mr. Rug. Use the full names or titles of both people.

Younger people are introduced to older people. Dr. Staupitz, I'd like you to meet Dr. Chemnitz.


Less distinguished people are introduced to more distinguished people. Cardinal Cajetan, this is Dr. Eck.


And since we're old timey types here, men are introduced to women. Katherine von Bora, may I present to you Dr. Luther?

Also for old timeys: when welcoming a couple or a group to your home or an event of your hosting, ladies are greeted first. (Proper Lutherans always flub this. I think we think it threatens headship. :D The use of the husband's first name for the couple should help everyone relax.)

I can't wait for the oxytocin comments

An article of a lactational nature by me at NaturallyBorn.net, edited by the famous Pam:

You Don't Have To Love It

Hmmm, looks kinda boring. Except the London broil part.

Sweet!

Here’s something I was so glad to discover that I can’t believe I didn’t share it with y’all before now:

Last trimester, I was complaining to my favorite midwife-consultant (my very own sil) about my upcoming glucose challenge, and she said that they allow their patients to eat a 50-carb breakfast or to eat the equivalent in jelly beans in lieu of drinking that horrid, horrid glucola.

My small-town GP (who doubles as the town’s OB-GYN) rose immeasurably in my estimation when I floated this plan and she said, “Oh...right; I’ve heard of that…let me look up that equivalence for you.”

What I want to know is, why does anyone still have to choke down that nasty, nauseating orange stuff when there are perfectly good other options out there? Jelly Belly is totally dropping the ball by not jumping on this marketing niche.

 28 in 10 minutes? 

Now there's a challenge I know I can pass!

Makes no sense

I would like an explanation as to why a two-year-old of diabolical calculation, stealth, and capability develops by the age of four into a blubberbawling incompetent.

McGovern Ought-12!

Hanging around with you traditional dorks is hilarious, because we think we're making headway. Maybe Our Beloved Synod is starting to start to head in the right direction, gosh LSB is super swell, Issues is back on KFUO, everybody hearts Harrison, the Witness isn't a joke any more, and does anybody even go to the seminary in St. Louis?

Listen, friends. I am from one of Those Churches. Higher Things didn't exist then, but considering the contempt in which the relevant parties at my church held that bastion of orthodoxy, the LCMS Youth Gathering, I am 100% certain that if HT had existed and they somehow heard of it, they would have laughed their tails off. I loved That Church and the way it did things. I hated all You Churches and your horrible, faith-numbing, convert-repelling, moribund, culturist liturgy. I wanted to you leave, to die, to quit impeding the Gospel.

And I was confident, because you were dying. You were small and old and in small, old places. You had more congregations, but not more people. When we went on vacation, my family could always find what was to us a "good church." Sometimes we'd hit one that still did some of that hymnal junk, but it was all in good fun--jokey and comfortable; sure this is church wink wink nudge nudge, but we're normal and like to have a good time and not take ourselves too seriously. The proof was right there. If traditional was right, why weren't there any really traditional churches full of stiffs? They were dead (see, stiffs). Anybody who didn't want to die changed. If they weren't shooting for full-on awesome like they should be, they had at least undone their belts and a button or two to give their Lutheran beer-guts some air.

Now that I've got myself all converted and such, vacation over a Sunday is a biannual headache. Where will we go, and what will we tell the kids about the shameful goofiness they are almost certain to see in the house of Yahweh Sabbaoth? (Disclaimer: the church we visited this past Quasimodo Geniti was ungoofy. Thanks!)

We're all like whoever it was who couldn't believe Nixon had won because she didn't know anybody who voted for him. Wake up, people. The Synod where it is not contemporary (and where is it not?) is not traditional either, because traditionally people treated church like something that deserved respect instead of joshing and redwhiteandblue flower arrangements and pastors with dirty shoes or, better yet, a haughty pseudo-acumen that would rather sniff out the possible errorist five states away than the schismatic next door but is totally fine with the smell of her own sweatpants.

Stillwell Angel

One thing I've never read in any article about childhood obesity is how there is some portion of the child population which is easiest simply to feed constantly rather than employ, entertain, or discipline.

Especially since bludgeoning has fallen out of fashion.

Usage you can't use: Great Grains Cranberry Almond Crunch

Recently someone gave me a box of fancy cereal. This made me very happy because I love cereal*.

But the box I did not love. I did not love it because all I could think was, Someone got paid to write this box. 

Someone got paid to write, "Less processed nutrition you can see." (But I want less processed nutrition I CAN'T see! Or MORE processed nutrition I can see! Or best of all would be MORE processed nutrition I CAN'T see!) Someone got paid to write, "Natural Flavor With Other Natural Flavor."

I blame everybody who never told me I could be a food box writer when I grew up.

*I eat cereal. Would you like to hear about my weight, my health, my sense of personal vitality, my powerful toenails, my glistening eyeballs, the penetrating insights my personal somatic functions have given me about how everyone should eat? Huh, weird.

It's not as bad as it looks

(At least, I’d like to think it’s not.)

It can be hard when someone that you respect, but who comes from a totally different life situation and background (read: fewer kids, or maybe just fewer boys :P) sees you struggling with a disciplinary situation, or simply with an everyday child- or household-management routine. My skin is a lot thicker than it used to be, but I still care too much about what people think when they see me wrestling in the pew, negotiating a social situation with kids in tow, or dealing with things that come up in the privacy of my own home (and oh my, it does seem that things tend to come up when someone’s there to see). 

It’s tempting to allow myself to be discomfited by looking through someone else’s eyes at what appears to be household chaos, or to cringe through their ears at the domestic crescendos, or to wonder along with them whether all that brotherly jostling couldn’t really be prevented—or at least minimized!

That’s when I need to remind myself of a few things. For instance: Due to the sheer volume of bodies and attendant personal possessions, clothing, and projects, the house often looks less organized than it did back when I had only two kids—but I’m actually waaaay more organized now than I was then. There are always dishes in some state of cleanliness in or around the sink—but I have usual times to deal with them, including a commitment not to go to bed with dirty dishes in the house. Contrary to my visions of a happy, harmonious, homeschooling family, there are more interpersonal conflicts than ever—but when you remember that the potential for such is by now nearly exponential, based on number of persons together for endless hours, well, maybe that’s only to be expected. All the more opportunities for everyone to grow in consideration, communication, and negotiation!

And another thing (not highly original, perhaps, but helpful to keep me on track): if you walk into a carpenter’s workshop in the middle of a busy day, you’re going to find tools off their hooks and wood chips on the ground. You can’t build anything worthwhile without making at least a bit of a mess. Any project worth doing, no matter how carefully planned, requires a temporary suspension of the usual order—a state of affairs which is itself a part of the Greater Order of things. We moms are perpetually in the midst of a grand design that encompasses all of the littler daily ones. The mess in the workshop testifies not to a failure of vision or order, but to the in-progress status of a long-range project—a willingness to submit temporarily to wood shavings (or oatmeal and fingerpaint) in one’s hair in joyful hope of an eventual, eternal masterpiece. 

Lest we forget: Some people have to pay for the privilege of having someone else cover them in oatmeal. Because they find it relaxing.