Update

Well folks, I just can't promise to blog any more, but I wanted to let you know I'm still here thinking crazy thoughts, and to everyone on the cross end of your posterity, at least we've learned that there are like five or six of us out here, and to all y'all who get your jollies from bashing your brothers and sisters in Christ who doubt the wisdom of rejecting what posterity God would offer, I hope your souls don't get too corroded.

  

The confirming of suspicions

Courtesy of BAG online (the first edition of the Greek lexicon your husband refers to all the time while he writes his sermons, or would if he didn't actually know all those words which he totally does):

sumpovsion

sumpovsion, ou, tov ( Theognis +=drinking-party, banquet [so Philo , Op. M. 78; Jos. , Ant. 8, 137; 12,
231]; X. + also=hall where a drinking-party or banquet is held; also pap. , LXX in both mngs. ) a party or group of people eating together (so Plut. , Mor. 157 D ; 704 D ) repeated, in a distributive sense (Bl-D, §493, 2 and app. ; Mlt. 97): sumpovsia sumpovsia in parties Mk 6:39 ( cf. prasiav ). M-M. *

That's right, girls. Symposium does not mean, "A bunch of really brilliant and holy pastors getting together and having profound thoughts and conversations for the betterment of the Church of God during which it is your privilege to stay home with all the kids for 3-15 days and pray for his mind and soul to be cultivated most salutarily." A symposium is a drinking party.

Just kiddin guys. You know we totally <3 you. ;)

It's over!

On Friday, June 14, at 1:41 p.m., God turned my anguish into joy. Our little son was born weighing 8 lbs. 13 oz. He was just about 21 inches long. He has dark hair, a pert nose, and chicken legs. We like him very, very much.

Christ graciously enlarged His Church in the baptism of our son on Saturday morning. Now all that's left to do is sleep off the birth. Thanks terribly for your prayers, dear readers.

Break on through to the other side

This again. But let's look at it from a different perspective this time:

He stood in the next room, his head leaning against the doorpost, and heard shrieks, howls such as he had never heard before, and he knew that what had been Kitty was uttering those shrieks ... 

"Doctor! What is it? What is it? By God!" he said, snatching at the doctor's hand as he came up. 

"It is the end," said the doctor. And the doctor's face was so grave as he said it that Levin took "the end" as meaning her death.

 Beside himself, he ran into the bedroom ... Kitty's face he did not know. In the place where it had been was something that was fearful in its strained distortion and in the sounds that came from it. He fell down with his head on the wooden framework of the bed, feeling his heart was bursting. The awful scream never paused, it became still more awful, as though it had reached the utmost limit of terror, suddenly it ceased. Levin could not believe his ears, but there could be no doubt; the scream had ceased and he heard a subdued stir and bustle, and hurried breathing, and her voice, gasping, alive, tender, and blissful, uttered softly, "It's over!" 

He lifted his head. With her hands hanging exhausted on the quilt, looking extraordinarily lovely and serene, she looked at him in silence and tried to smile, and could  not. 

Falling on his knees before the bed, he held his wife's hand before his lips and kissed it, and the hand, with a weak movement of the fingers responded to his kiss. And meanwhile, there at the foot of the bed ... like a flickering light in a lamp, lay the life of a human creature which had never existed before, and which would now with the same right, with the same importance to itself, live and create its own image.

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

Sentence fragments

Not actually sentences.

Nope.

The game of global domination

No matter what one is doing in life, there are people who know what one ought to be doing instead. Once people give up on talking you out of having so many kids, they will change tactics and try to talk you out of having kids when you're old (unless, of course, you have no kids and are old; then it is still OK for you to have a kid and actually not really OK for you not to). 

Since we are very knowledgeable nowadays, the reason old people with kids should not have kids is that it's dangerous for old people to have kids. All your kid making components are rotting (and so are his, even), so you're going to have rotten kids, and having a rotten kid would be really bad and actually even selfish and pretty much almost immoral.

This is basic eugenics, and we are all naturally eugenicists in our own ways. It's just one of those things we have to recognize and learn our way out of. Here are the basic lessons for dealing with this particular line of eugenic thought:

--God puts an end date on each woman's fertility. When she's too old to have kids, she can't. If she can still have kids, she's not too old. (I mention this just to help us keep from mixing biology with ethics or morality.)

--Every human life is worth living, no matter how miserable it looks to the strong, the healthy, the gifted, the intelligent, the rich. To consider another life and say that it is not worth its own cost is nothing but prideful condescension. This judgment does not happen in a vacuum. To say, "You shouldn't risk having a Down's baby" is to look at a living person with Down's and say, "There should not be another person like you." There is only one person of whom God ever said, "It had been good for that man if he had not been born," and it wasn't because that man had a genetic defect.

--There is no person so un-rightly made that he does not show forth the image of God. There is no human so poorly endowed that she cannot receive the gift of forgiveness and salvation. There is no one so ugly, so weak, so sick, or so empty that he is beyond our risen Lord's power to make all things new.

--You don't know what baby you're going to have until you have it.

To avoid the increased risk of genetic problems or whatever other harms to which the children of older parents are more subject is to take the wrong gamble. So here is the general answer I have on hand for the caring people who want to make sure I know there's a bigger chance now that a baby I have could have something wrong with it:

"Thank you for telling me about that risk. I read an article about it too. If our Lord sees fit to give old people like us another baby, the greatest likelihood is that that baby will be healthy and well."

Practice it in your head so you can say it instead of what you're really thinking.

Law as mirror

The real reason to dress modestly is not to smother another's lust, which is impossible, but to cover one's own pride. That's why the notion makes ladies angry.  

Defying the laws of physics and mathematics

Some universal laws are upheld quite regularly around here. Like gravity: We’re always dropping stuff. And the second law of thermodynamics: Yeah, entropy always increases. Always. Then too, we’ve got the fourth law of thermodynamics down pat. (Didn’t know there was a fourth law of thermodynamics? Wikipedia helpfully points out that “Murphy’s law” has been referred to as such. Heehee.)

But Newton’s third law of motion? Reach back into your high school physics memories and recite it with me now: for every reaction, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. That one, we’ve got beat. By which I mean, for every action in this house, I can nearly guarantee you that there will be multiple and disproportionate reactions. I guess that means my kids have some kind of superpower…

Also, the math problem: If there’s technically a 50% chance that a toddler will put her shoes on the wrong feet, why does it happen 89% of the time? (Mind you, I’m thrilled to have a toddler who can put on her own shoes and who does so cheerfully. But I’m just askin’.)

The old Must Be Nice

You know, you work real hard on something basically pointless like your kid's braids or a cake or the Valentines or some other mother's child's costume for the play and every once in a while some jerk comes around and takes a look and then compliments you by saying, "Must be nice to have time for stuff like that!"

Flrblkjtlimbbb.

Garowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwk

Xchamu! XCHAMOOOOG I SAY!

But actually, it is nice to have time for stuff like that. Thank you God and, to the extent that he will allow me to credit him,  husband. 

It's not my fault people like that are jerks, and if they dropped off their kid at my house in the morning I'd braid that scraggly kid too (solely as a favor to the kid, however).

Part the last of a long story about a broken leg

As promised, here is the inspiring conclusion of this pulpy rag. But you don't have to take my word for it.  

I hobbled in the boot for about three weeks. Every day, the pain got a little less poignant and the swelling a little less colorful. At the end of these weeks, the bottom of my foot was still noticeably bruised, but my shin stopped throbbing whenever I stood up, and my ankle got downright comfortable.

My mood was … mercurial. My husband still listened to a lot of crying and soothed a lot of panicking. But I had good days, too, especially once the sun started shining more and our asparagus patch started producing.

It also helps that this baby I’m carrying is a really good baby. This has been my easiest pregnancy. If I hadn't broken my ankle, I would have nothing to complain about. Which is probably why I needed to break my ankle? Yes, insane self. That must be it.

Moving on: We went to see the surgeon again, per the appointment made for us by the nurses on surgery day. My X-rays looked tolerably good. Progress was progressing. Everyone was sort of confused about my being there. Wasn't I all better already?

Surgeon: So, have you been walking on that ankle without the boot?

Me: No.

Surgeon: You haven’t?

Me: I was waiting for permission.

Surgeon: Huh. Well, go home and try walking on it and see what happens.

Me: Like, just stand up and walk?

Surgeon: Yeah. And we’ll see how it goes.

Me: Do I need special shoes or anything?

Surgeon: Oh, whatever (his phone rings, so …) Nice seeing you.

So, I went home, took off my boot, and ... yeah. I tried to walk, but it was very frustrating. My entire leg felt frozen. My range of motion was embarrassingly poor. And with the exertion, my ankle no longer felt comfortable. It had only been kidding about that. In reality, it was both wasted and somehow so swollen I looked like a Cabbage Patch doll. Purple cabbage. Which was rather appropriate, depending on your perspective.

But, full steam ahead and daum the torpedoes, right? The surgery-man had said to walk, so I figured I’d better just do it. I went back to the crutches for a day or two, which amounted to a lot of pretending to walk. Every once in a while, I double-dog dared myself to stand up and go for it, and then I would make a short trip down the hall and back, using the wall to keep myself upright. Getting around was possible, but for the most part I was really torturing myself. My brain must have figured that since we hadn't been using that left foot for so long, it just as well jettison any information it had stored on its function and purpose. Sin, man. It’s bad.

After a week of this, I called the surgeon’s office and begged for some help. They referred me to a physical therapist, whom I've been seeing for about two weeks now. She’s been immensely helpful. She’s given me tools to fight back against my specific problems, and she provides an objective gauge to help me see where I am progressing and where I am not. Because of her efforts and the exercise program she’s prescribed, I can put one foot in front of the other and move under my own power. I am not walking normally, but I am upright and bearing all my own weight. Which is rather prodigious just now, so good job, stupid ankle. But, you know, try harder next time.

I can’t expect things to start really normalizing until after this baby is born. For instance, I cannot very often fit my foot comfortably in a shoe even a whole size larger than what I am used to wearing. My OB tells me that because a full 30% of my blood volume is being directed through my placenta, my ankle is not being flushed of fluids as it should be. Then there’s the extra relaxin in my system. And the extra weight. And the 95-degree days. All in all, I’m as barefoot and pregnant as I can get. I still need to wear the CAM walker whenever I leave the house. And I can’t yet trust my ankle to carry me up and down stairs.

However, while I am still operating under an artificial light, I can finally see the sun shining on the other side of the curtain. The pain is gone. Any discomfort I have these days is just a pitiful little band of rebel soft tissues trying for control. We’re quite safe from their friends here. The bruising is mostly gone. When I am diligent about stretching and exercising my ankle hourly, my gait is almost sort-of normalish. I can make my children breakfast. I can lift my toddler son into his crib at naptime. I can fetch the cinnamon off the high cupboard shelf. I can drive. And as this parsonage isn't all that big, I can usually catch up to people in time to stop most naughtiness. Not too bad for having broken myself a mere ten weeks ago.

In five or so more weeks, this baby will be born healthy and well (God have mercy) and the real healing on my ankle can get going. Even so, it will be another nine or so more months until my ankle can be called reborn. About a year, then, of general weird living and not hiking and getting through it. But what’s one year in the greatest scheme of things? Christ is coming back. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.