A little place for our stuff

There's fitting everybody in the car, and then there's fitting everybody's PILLOW in the car.

Deep, slow breaths . . . .

Motives, multiple and mixed

Babygirl has passed the seven-month mark. (What?! When did that happen?)

Babygirl has yet to be offered so much as a spoonful of rice cereal.

In light of the rather surprised reaction I got from someone who inquired about Babygirl’s eating habits the other day, I was just musing on the potential interpretations of this situation. Why might I have a seven-and-a half-month-old who’s yet to taste “solids”? Here are just a few of the motives that suggest themselves:

1) I’m some sort of lactavist who’s trying to make some sort of point.
2) I’m one of those holistic earthy (glossing “wacko”) types who sincerely believe in the mom-and-baby benefits of exclusive breastfeeding for the first year.
3) I’m too cheap to buy baby food and too lazy to make it.
4) Breastfeeding is my hobby.
5) I’m reluctant for this sweet stage of my daughter’s babyhood to end.
6) I’m concerned about potential food allergies.
7) I’m struggling with one of the following vices:

a)Gluttony, since a largish parasite makes the skinny jeans a lot more likely during the Christmas season.
b)Sloth, since those first few months of force-feeding solids are nothing but a messy hassle that adds yet another task to the daily routine.
c)Cowardice, since the more the baby nurses, the less likely she is to have a sibling anytime soon (in my humble experience. Not true for everyone, as we are all well aware).

I wish my motives were simply and sweetly multiple, rather than severely mixed, but was there ever a CSPP whose mind didn’t stampede anxiously on ahead, no matter how sternly she bid it be still? On most days, were I to untangle the web of motives behind that empty highchair tray, all of the above would be among the sticky strands. Excepting #1, because I’m really not interested in using my baby’s nutritional needs to try to make some kind of dramatic point that nobody is really interested in anyway. ‘Cause you know what? Everybody else is also busily caught up in the drama of her own multiple and mixed motives.

So. Feeling ever more Adventish, we pray ever more fervently. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. And while we wait, tease out the snarls of our knotted, fearful foolishness. Left to ourselves, we tangle, we fray, we come undone. Weave our loose threads securely into the grand tapestry, until the Day when we can finally, finally, finally see the intricacies of the Master pattern for ourselves.

Next question?

How best to answer the question, "Are you going to have any more?"? With a pious witness to God's gift of life? With a droll rejoinder pointing out the question's invasiveness? With a note of weariness to head off the theology of glory?

I have run out of energy for such rhetorical finessing when there is an answer which is both simple and accurate (and I must thank My Own Sister for sharing this profound insight with me): "I don't know."

Chemical despondency

Should the day come that no other person is forced to metabolize everything I consume, I can't promise not to become a junkie.

I biss you so buch.

Apocalypse soon

Some say the couch will end in slime

Some in art

From what I've tasted of wintertime

I hold with those who favor slime

But if it had to twice depart,

I think I know enough of crayon

To say that for destruction art

Pities no divan

And would do its part

(For extra credit: where did I grow up?)

D'oh

Bottles have their place. They sure got Baby 1 and me through a tight spot. But they also have their time, and folks, that time just wasn't the last six months BC.

Thanks to Father Hollywood for providing the day's amusement, and to the local Sunday school program which was rehearsing the Christmas program rather than distributing this poorly thought out thingy to the children of our parish.

Per Pacem Ad Lucem

by Adelaide A. Procter

I DO not ask, O Lord, that life may be
A pleasant road;
I do not ask that Thou wouldst take from me
Aught of its load;

I do not ask that flowers should always spring
Beneath my feet;
I know too well the poison and the sting
Of things too sweet.

For one thing only, Lord, dear Lord, I plead,
Lead me aright—
Though strength should falter, and though heart should bleed—
Through Peace to Light.

I do not ask, O Lord, that thou shouldst shed
Full radiance here;
Give but a ray of peace, that I may tread
Without a fear.

I do not ask my cross to understand,
My way to see;
Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand
And follow Thee.

Joy is like restless day; but peace divine
Like quiet night:
Lead me, O Lord,—till perfect Day shall shine,
Through Peace to Light.

HT: Starck's Prayer Book

Purgative speech

Some people are jerks for not blogging any more. No need to mention names. At least we have our memories:

"Maybe it is gossip, but I need to vent." No you don't. You don't need to say evil things about people. You are not a pressure cooker. It is not building in you. Gossip does not "get things off your chest." It puts things into your heart. It is what comes out of the mouth that makes a man unclean.

There is purgative speech. It is called confession. It unburdens a man. It is never about annoying co-workers. It is about the penitent's lack of love and patience. It is not about the inequity of life. It is the envy of the penitent. The difference between gossip and confession is the difference between date rape drugs and anesthesia.

Fa la la la la! La la la BLAT!

Another poem for the season:

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.

--Ogden Nash

I really hope you, dear reader, are having a far less messy week than I.

What if everyone just stopped talking?

The Elephant's Child recently posted her frustration regarding the harassment received by couples who are given few, if any, children. She's right to be frustrated. And she's right to expect kindness from her fellows who confess as she confesses that Christ is Lord; that He has died, risen and ascended; that He is coming again.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky once wrote, "To love someone means to see him as God intended him." This simple notion is anything but simplistic, for what God intends is often beyond what makes us comfortable. There are those of us who have and continue to receive children as a matter of faith; there are those of us who cannot receive, also as a matter of faith. It is the Lord, let Him do what seems good to Him. From thence, might we His children receive one another in peace, and speak what is True in kindness and love, for all have fallen short and our time is not long upon this earth. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

That is all.

Joshua commanded the children to shout!

I no longer have an abdominal wall. I have an abdominal concept.

Matchmaking

I hear talk occasionally about matchmaking on behalf of one's children. While it's not a topic that particularly excites me in any direction, it does make me wonder what poor schlump I'd be married to now if my parents had been into it.

Hope you like spaetzle!

The good mom

Where does she come from? And where does she go?

A simple something for your Adventide

I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December.

A magical thing

And sweet to remember:

"We are nearer to spring

Than we were in September,"

I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December.

--Oliver Herford

Sing it, Mom. Sing it every day. Christ is coming! He is coming soon!

And everything you do in the meantime matters.