Food Fight

I was giving some things some thought and got a bit stumped. Help me out, will you?

Here’s how things look from here:

It started with our mothers, so to speak, as those who actually started this train were not likely literal mothers, at least not mothers of many, who won us women a vast emancipation from kitchens the country over. Goodbye, dishpan hands! Hello, Kraft Macaroni-N-Cheese!

It gained steam with my literal mother, who worked outside the home, because what other choice did she have? My Dad couldn’t make enough to tie two ends together. (Thank you Ronald Reagan.) But my literal mother was not as emancipated from the kitchen as those figurative mothers expected and thus she had dishpan hands AND we kids ate a lot of Velveeta. A LOT of Velveeta.

It continues with me, a mother, married to a pastor, and thus very, very fortunate to be barefoot and pregnant in a parsonage kitchen. I’m home and I have time to labor with real cheese. I don’t think my kids have ever tasted Velveeta or Chez Whiz or that powdered yellow glue you can sprinkle with water, mix with “noodles” and call food.

Hallelujah.

But, here’s “it:”

I do not have a healthy relationship with food. I cannot have either a scale or a full length mirror in my house. My husband has forbidden any and all “appearance talk” within our walls with the hope that our kids will not grow up crazy. I cook everything from scratch because I have to—HAVE TO. I ate a lot of fake-but-fast food growing up and I hate food, so I figure the more time and effort I put into the food my kids eat the better chance they have at escaping social disease surrounding food. Doesn’t that make sense?

I do not know a single person who enjoys food in moderation or with healthy abandon. The definitions of “eating disorder” are expanding every day as every day people are getting more creative at abusing their food. And it’s food, simple nutrition, a basic pleasure of life. When did something so basic become (scary music) THE ENEMY? And why?

I’d really like to blame Velveeta, but I think it may be more than that. I spend a lot of time with our food and use the best ingredients we can afford. My eldest child is six. She is showing signs toward crazy. She's always been picky, but this feels different. I see that now she’s thinking as she pushes that balanced meal around on her plate.

What is going on? I would really appreciate it if someone would join me in blaming Velveeta. I'm already aware that I'm a colossal screw-up.

Thank you.

The no normal

One of the hardest things about CSPP for me is that things are never normal. Pregnant isn't normal. New baby isn't normal. Maybe there are a few months where it seems like things might be approaching normalish (although there are always the constraints of nursing) . . . and then you're pregnant again. It's constant, gradual change. You can never get used to your life, because every month your life is markedly different. Today I went to the dentist and I was supposed to list my weight on the form. What to write? X, but Y before I started getting pregnant all the time six years ago, and I'll probably be back there in another five months but who knows because I'm not getting any younger and maybe this is the time I'll stay fat. Or I should say I'm guessing it's X but I don't really know because my husband won't let me have a scale. It was XXX last time I weighed myself but I had a baby a week after that. Maybe I should just tell you the range of sizes I've been through in jeans over the past year?

I can never do anything consistently. I'm in choir every other six months. I'm in this and that and the other group, but my attendance record isn't earning me any gold stars. I show up where and when I can, but since my entourage is usually with me I always end up leaving early without having really participated. I want to do all the things a good pastor's wife should (I know, there is no "should"--but in a small parish, there sort of is), but the only way for it to happen is for Dad to take time off from doing the things a good pastor should.

I really hate this for the babies. It's troubling enough to me to have such an unpredictable schedule. Then, just when they get used to oatmeal for breakfast and reading marathon at 10 and naps at 1 and games in the evening, everything gets all screwed up again. Even if we do crack the books at 10, I've been known to fall asleep mid-sentence (something I would never dreamed possible a few short years ago) depending on what kind of nights the baby of the house is inflicting on me.

I know there's no getting around it, but I still find myself waiting for things to get back to normal. Uninterrupted nights of sleep, clothes with no peculiar openings or elastic, a quick run to the store, eating or drinking whatever strikes my fancy, playing tennis with Dad--it's been so long since any of this has happened, but I just can't stop thinking of them as normal, and some finite distance from when we are now.

The Art and Science of Bribery

Bribery: A useful weapon in the parent's arsenal. I wish I could gloss this under the more-respectable sounding behavioral science category of "positive reinforcement," but I'm afraid it's not quite that noble.

Case Study: A mother, who happens to be 8.5 months pregnant, bundles her preschooler and toddler outside to play. It's cold but sunny, and a good time is being had by all on everyone's favorite snowpile at the far side of the yard (which, being continguous with church grounds, is quite sizable). But the windchill is turning nasty and Mom's back is killing her. It's time to go in--at least in Mom's opinion. She knows the boys are not of that opinion.

Now, she has two options:
1)Simply inform the kids that it's time to go in, at which point a happy situation will quickly degenerate into a worst-case scenario: whining, protests, coaxing, threats, screaming, culminating in the attempt to haul a 75+ lb. boy-octopus across the snowy yard.
2) Offer a bribe that will result in cheerful compliance.

Can you guess what I did? I brightly announced, "All right, boys, pick up your shovels and buckets. It's time to go inside and have some...[drumroll]...chocolate milk!" Immediate, cheerful cooperation did indeed result.

Before anyone gets too excited about me abdicating proper parental authority in favor of shameless, thoughtless bribery, allow me to point out the crucial nuances here. Then you can render your verdict:

1)It's still Mom, not the kids, deciding when the activity will end. The decision is handed down as a statement, not a question. The statement is not weakened by the tacking on of an "okay?" at the end. Actual, as well as seeming, parental authority is thereby upheld.

2)The picking up of one's toys is assumed, not optional. No negotiation there.

3)The terms of the bribe are thought out beforehand--again, no negotiation. Such an offer is never made in response to whining or a tantrum. (For instance, a tantrum in a checkout aisle will never result in candy being purchased there--though we've had very few incidents of that sort, once ground rules were established and understood.)

4)Had protests ensued after all, I would imemediately have clarified that chocolate milk is a privilege, not a right, and I would have somehow hauled them back inside sans treat.

5)Also note the benefits of regularly and un-American-ly depriving your children of food items that other kids misguidedly consider to be an on-demand right (other examples include gum, cereal with marshmallows, fruit snacks, American cheese slices, and other processed snack foods). Hence, food becomes a useful tool.

We are teaching (well, attempting to teach) our children to obey, not for expectation of reward, but because it's the right thing to do. That will mean occasional quite public humiliation. Case in point: Mr. Almost-Four and I had a heart-to-heart in the women's restroom during Wednesday evening's church service. I had to usher him out with a firm grip on his arm, with him saying, "but i don't WANT you to spank me!" all the way. I could have appeased him into quietude in the pew (thereby depriving the parishioners of their week's amusing topic of conversation) but that would not have been an artistic, scientific application of bribery and hence was eschewed. (For the record, I was not intending to and in fact did not spank him.)

The byzantine psychology of husbands

I've heard from various Sulvan friends that they'd consider having more kids, but their husbands are resistant. When I asked why, a popular rationale was that he doesn't want her to have to go through all that again. Wow, what a great guy! He loves his wife so much that even though she's theoretically up for it, he can't bring himself to subject her to more inconvenience and pain, sleepless nights and chaotic days. I'm not really being sarcastic here. Every wife wants to be cherished and protected and the object of her husband's adoration, which is exactly what this scenario indicates. So everybody wins. Mom is adored, Dad's sensitivity earns him all kinds of admiration, and nobody has to get up in the middle of the night.

But wait! My husband isn't a jerk, yet he somehow musters the strength to put me through the baby wringer on a regular basis! What gives? I decided to ask some hard questions.

He laughed. "They're just afraid she'll get fat if she keeps having kids." Really? That's it? "Yes."

I don't know, it seems to me there could be other motivations. But he was pretty insistent on the point.

Shelf-snatching, ct'd.

Another sufficiently satisfying snag from a recent high-speed chase through the library:
Sandra Boynton's "Dog Train" book and cd.

Boy1 will actually SIT and listen to the cd, turning the pages at more or less the proper places. Not what we'd want to listen to every day, and it leads to some questions that are hard to answer, such as "Why are they looking for Cow Planet?" but in these long winter days, we can't be too picky. And that's the beauty of children's library books: Just when you think your head will explode if you have to read "Muck's Muddy Day" one more time--oh look, it's due back. (Never mind that whole renewal thing; they haven't figured it out yet.)

Anyway, I've found a favorite in this Boynton book. It could be today's theme song, actually, for those of us who went to bed too late after church last night and got up too early this morning.

"I Need A Nap"

Well, the sun is still high in the afternoon sky,
but the morning seems so long ago.
I was happy before and I'm not anymore,
though why there's a change I don't know.

I'm so tired of this day and I don't want to play
and I don't want a story to read.
But I look in your eyes and at once realize
that I know what it is...yes, I know what it is...
now I know what it is that I need--

I NEED A NAP!

I just can't take anymore.

I NEED A NAP!

Can't stay awake anymore.
No more running around--
I just need to lie down
and sleeeeeeep!

Nothing new under the sun: syndicated columnist edition

Of course pregnant women shouldn't read Ellen Goodman's columns. (Maybe most other people shouldn't either.) But Sunday's paper--what was left of it after our collage project--was lying on the table where we were industriously making, unmaking, and "recycling" Play-doh objects this morning. So, since my blood pressure has been holding steady and the headline said nothing about babies, born or unborn, I read one of her recent columns.

The gist of this column: we Americans are into "shopping" for religion, "U-Hauling our beliefs off [from one church to the next] in search of a better fit." Not surprisingly, Goodman presents this trend in a postive light.

She quotes a Donald Miller (religion prof. at U. of Southern California): "You are the artist of your own life when it comes to religion."

Now, my brain hasn't been working too well lately, but it seems to me this is an echo of something I read somewhere once...wait...it's coming back...some drama set in a Garden, maybe?

Wow. Once again, the relative poverty of the human imagination is demonstrated. We can't even come up with new sins and heresies; we just keep recycling the old ones, reshaping them a bit. (Kind of like that Play-doh.) I guess that's why pastors, after a few years of confidential counseling, start to feel like they've heard and seen it all. Sure, there are variations on the theme. But go ahead: try to invent a new sin, so awful that it's never been done before. Or try to indulge in some heresy that hasn't already been tried. (Um, on second thought, please expend your time and energies in a different way. But you know what I mean.)

That's why it's such a shame that so many people who are really hurting let fear and shame stop them from taking advantage of private confession and absolution. The women in the home Bible study that I (more or less) lead are just discovering the immense relief that follows the "you too?!" or "I'm not the only one who struggles with that?!" moments that sometimes occur, and the grace that follows. For many, it's only then that they will finally allow themselves to begin to hope and to heal. Knowing that others sin in some of the same ways that I do doesn't decrease my horror of my own sin, but opens opportunities to bear one another's burdens, uphold each other through tempation, and encourage each other with the truth of Scripture.

Sorry, Prof. Miller. I've often yearned to be more artistically inclined, but when it comes to my life, I'm sure glad Someone else is holding the paintbrush. I can't resist grabbing it sometimes, but all that makes is a big, ugly mess.

This just in

I'm going to be an AUNT! At long last, someone else starts contributing grandchildren to the family! Big congrats to My Own Sister and brother-in-law!

Can you or I or anyone know?

I know I'm just showing my ignorance here, but it seems counterintuitive to me that whole grains cost more. Shouldn't they be cheaper since there's less processing involved? I understand that bread, tortillas, and other finished products made with whole grains cost more due to lower demand. But isn't it easier to leave rice brown? Doesn't plain old whole wheat flour take at least one step fewer between the silo and my pantry than the white stuff does? It shouldn't cost any more to make the grains themselves available--just take them off the assembly line earlier. I protest.

(Completely reasonable explanations offered by blond, blue-eyed Nebraska farm girls will be accepted only with deepest begrudgitude.)

Tinkle, tinkle, cymbal star

We have a family custom of giving a thank offering when our gracious Lord blesses us with a baby, and it's happened in the past that this offering takes the form of some special item for the use of the parish. Somewhere over the course of this most recent pregnancy I got it in my head that our church should have a zimbelstern. I fell in love with these thingamajigs when I heard one at a church I visited in first or second grade. If you've heard one, you know why. I set out to find one and learned that they were well out of our price range. But I also read about a dude who built his own out of an old record turntable and telephone bells. We hit some flea markets and found what we were looking for after this conversation:

Husband (not having found record player, but not convinced there isn't one to be had in this massive den of chaos): Do you happen to know if there's an old record player in here somewhere?

Flea Market Lady: Yes, but it's broken.

Husband: Does the turntable work? We don't need it to play records as long as it turns.

Flea Market Lady: You don't need it to play?

Husband: No, we just need it to turn. We're going to use it to build a zimbelstern.

Flea Market Lady (deadpan): Oh, a zimbelstern. Everybody needs one of those.

Next we stopped by our local Buddhist Supply and picked up the luckiest little bells in the world, rescued from their intended pagan purpose to be consecrated for holy use. Then we turned the project over to my mother-in-law, an absurdly skilled crafter of just about anything (I should have skipped college and apprenticed myself to her for four years). She fixed us right up and even managed to package the thing so that it didn't break in the mail. Easter will be the maiden voyage. I am still laughing over the idea of our little church with its little organ having a zimbelstern--ha! We're indebted to the Elephant's Child and the Mad Musician for advising us on zimbelstern etiquette for the Lutheran Mass, a definitive source for which I was unable to locate online. Now, when I come into my money, we're going to get some decent stained glass windows around here . . . .

Marriage: another definition

...there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy.

--G.K. Chesterton