"B" Week at Preschool

Oops. It was "B" week at preschool, and at pickup, I had the feeling I forgot something. Waiting outside the door along with the other mothers, I noticed a construction paper chart on the wall indicating various colors of bears. "I forgot to pack something for him today, didn't I?" I asked no one in particular.

"They were supposed to bring a teddy bear and a toy for show-and-tell that starts with a B," one mom explained. She wore a matching outfit and looked like the type to be on time for all appointments.

"Oh, no," I moaned. It's been hard keeping up with school details for four people. "I guess I Blew it," I said. Heh-heh, my joke fell flat.

One nice woman with gorgeous strawberry-blonde curls that I would like to chop off and paste onto my head smiled and said reassuringly, "Oh, you know, last week I forgot to pack an A toy." She tried to make me feel better, even though I'm forgetful and not funny. I felt grateful. I guess I'll have to let her keep the curls.

Humbled and apologetic, I held out my arms for The Boy, who flew out the door and into my embrace. After we hugged, I whispered in his ear, "I'm sorry I didn't pack a teddy bear for you to bring in. I forgot. Did it turn out okay?"

He looked me in the eye as reassuring as the strawberry-blonde mom and said, "It's okay. I just thunk in my head the color of one of my puppy dogs. It was fine." Then he skipped over to his basket, pulled on his backpack, and headed confidently out into the world.

No teddy? No problem. I wish I were as worry-free as The Boy.

A Small, Good Thing

I did something I haven't done in months: I flipped on a morning news show to catch the weather.

The Boy had staggered down the hall and plopped onto our bed. Only half-awake, he lay across the covers sucking two fingers, staring at the screen through a sleepy haze.

He's an auditory kid, recalling and reciting verbatim long dialogues from movies or radio after hearing them only once, so when the story started rolling about the school shooting in Bailey with words like "death," "dying," "gunman," "shot and killed," I quickly muted it and switched to PBS. The Boy needed to hear about Clifford the Big, Red Dog's troubles, not those of the drifter who assaulted young girls in a Colorado school.

But those words rattled around in my head all day.

Reverting to print sources, I read one story about the Bailey, Colorado, killing that quoted students, families and townspeople saying how random it was. The gunman didn't have a specific motive against a specific person. Apparently he just randomly chose those girls in that school from that classroom on that day at that hour.

Random. It could have been anyone, anywhere, anytime. He could have been in Colorado Springs, where my friends live. He could have driven to Kansas or Arizona. It could have happened in the south or the midwest. It could have happened around the corner. It could have been one of my girls.

The family of the slain girl asked people to do random acts of kindness in her memory.

Small acts of kindness and goodness in a world where violence and death can seem so random...where one breeds fear, the other offers hope.

In the words of Raymond Carver, it's a small, good thing.

In the words of the Bible, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

What one simple act of kindness can we do today?

For Emily Keyes.

Free Book from The Contemplative Book Fairy

Just when you thought life couldn't get any better...

Inspired by some bloggers that are giving away books, I decided this could be an entirely unprofitable but fun and goofy extension of my book fairy offerings.

Unlike the other bloggers, who are giving away hip, new releases that everyone's itching to get their hands on, I'm giving away hand-me-downs. I just plucked one from my bookshelves. The idea for me, of course, is to make room for more books...and if I can offer a little something to my blog-reader-friends while doing so, all the better.

The book is A Search for Serenity: Encouragement for Your Weary Days, by Gigi Graham Tchividjian (Billy Graham's daughter). It's in really nice shape. I must have read it gingerly, because the binding isn't even cracked. It shows infinitesimal shelf wear; it's in very nice shape. Here's what the back cover says:

"Are you 'just tired'...or are you WEARY? As a wife, mother of seven, grandmother, author, and speaker, Gigi Graham Tchividjian has had ample opportunity to learn the difference between the two. Getting tired is part of our humanness, but WEARINESS can be overcome through Him who 'gives strength to the weary, and increases the power of the weak' (Isaiah 40:29)."

Obviously she wrote this before writing in all caps was considered SHOUTING (sorry).

You can get the thing used for 92 cents at Amazon.com. Or you can enter the drawing and get it for free here! Save your 92 cents and apply it to the rising prices of Starbucks coffee. You don't even have to pay for shipping--the Book Fairy will mail this book to the winner!

These two blogs are the source of my inspiration (and are giving away hotter titles)

http://humblemusings.com/archives/2006/09/26/more-free-books/

http://camys-loft.blogspot.com/

If you're interested in Gigi's book, leave a comment on this blog, including your email so I can contact you if your name is plucked from the batch on Monday.

And of course, by all means, feel free to link this to any site or person who would enjoy a chance at a free book.

Refresher Course on Voting

I can't help it. Every day I click over to check how Virginie's doing in the big Pantene Ambassadrice contest. At the moment I checked today, she was only 10 points ahead. The other day, she was a hundred points behind. She's neck-and-neck with Sandrine. It's going to be a close one, folks.

And let me just commiserate with those of you who have had trouble voting: Sacre Bleu! Zut, alors! (two mild exclamations of frustration) It's been hard to figure out the whole click-n-vote thing.

The best thing I've found is to:

1) click on one of the left bars that says: "Voir les candidates"

The three lovely ladies' head shots appear with current votes.

2) Then click on the subcategory with an arrow pointing at it that reads: "Voir les finalistes et voter"

Underneath each of the head shots is the word "voter." That's when I check three times to be sure I'm looking at Virginie, so that I don't do what Jenne accidentally did and vote for one of the others. Then when I'm absolutely sure, I click "voter" for Virginie and watch her number increase one vote.

3) Then I feel very proud of myself and go eat a Belgian chocolate.

P.S. Virginie's husband wrote to thank me/us for supporting Virginie and the Burundi cause.

Marshmallows and Tummyaches

On our way to preschool today, The Boy announced he has a tummyache. This simply means he's tired and instead of going to class, he'd rather go home and play computer games all morning. My usual tactic is to get him thinking about all the wonderful possibilities awaiting him:

"I wonder what activity they'll have out when you get there. I think it's 'B' week. Do you suppose you'll blow bubbles?" (no response) "Or maybe they'll have, hm, b-b-balls. Maybe you'll play with balls today. What do you think?" (nuthin') "Okay, so maybe the babies. Maybe you can dress up the b-b-babies in the home activity station." (no comment)

I noticed the farm field that we pass every day. A month or so ago, this farmer cut down his hayfield and baled the hay in big bales, the oversized round ones shaped like cinnamon rolls. They sat in his field a few days looking very nostalgic, a perfectly pastoral Midwestern Americana scene with the sun streaming across the fields and the cows grazing nearby. Then one day we were surprised to see them wrapped in white plastic and stacked neatly on top of each other in a corner of the field.

"They look like ice cubes," one sister observed.

"Or marshmallows," said another.

"They do!" everyone agreed. "They look just like marshmallows."

"Giant marshmallows for a Giant's cookout," I suggested. "He's saving them to share with his friends. Then they'll have s'mores."

We had fun with that imaginary world of giant marshmallows and every once in a while we'll make a little joke. One day I was driving past having dropped off the girls, when The Boy commented that the cows were eating hay. I said, "Looks like the farmer opened up those bales to feed them."

"What bales?"

"The ones wrapped in plastic. The hay bales." I really thought he knew we were all joking about it. I didn't think he bought into a fantasy giant world. Besides, I was certain he'd seen them in their pre-wrapped state.

"Those aren't hay," he insisted. "Those are marshmallows!"

Now I'm not sure why I stuck with reality. I felt the need to clarify it for him. "They're hay bales--the farmer uses it when he thinks the cows need more nourishment than the grass can provide."

"No!" he started to sound a bit defensive. "Those are not hay. Those are Giant Marshmallows for a campfire."

"We've had fun joking about it, haven't we?"

"Those are marshmallows!"

"Hay."

"Marshmallows!"

"Hay!"

He growled slightly. "They're marshmallows."

I gave in. "They are, aren't they."

"I told you. They're marshmallows."

So this tummyache day, several weeks after the marshmallow/hay disagreement, I was passing the field and proposed, "Hey, why don't I pull over and we'll drag one of those Giant Marshmallows into the van. The girls aren't here, so I think it could fit in the back. You can nibble on it all the way to school today. In fact, you could probably nibble that thing all week and have plenty to share with your sisters. It would last for a long time, it's so huge. What do you think? Shall I pick us up a marshmallow snack?"

He sighed. If I could have seen his eyes in the rearview mirror, I'm sure he was rolling them. "Those aren't marshmallows," he said rather disgustedly. "They're hay."

"Oh. I thought they were marshmallows."

"They aren't. I saw a hole in the plastic with hay sticking out."

"I see."

We may believe in fairies, but evidently I blew it. We don't believe in giants and their marshmallows anymore. I feel bad about it. I do.

But he did go to school and blow b-b-bubbles.

Hallmark Moments...Or Not

I thought we were going to have a Hallmark moment when The Boy asked, "Papa, would you swing me on the swing?"

I looked over and uttered "awwww" as in "how sweet is that?"

Well, The Boy knows how to work it, so he turned to me. "Will you swing me on the swing, Mama? Pleeeaaase? Will you?"

I'm at that stage where I'll say "yes" to almost any childhood request--buying a 25 cent ball of bubblegum from the machines, paying for a race car ride at the supermarket that rocks back and forth for 60 seconds, reading a picture book, singing "Twinkle, Twinkle." If it's something associated with the preschool crowd, I'm in. Will I swing him on the swing? Are you kidding? My heart is like butter. Sure, I'd be happy to swing him on the swing.

"Put on some boots," Papa called out to The Boy.

"Let me grab my shoes," I said.

"Then you'll meet me at the swings!" The Boy shouted with glee.

Begin slow-motion footage of him racing out the back door. Camera shoots from the mom's perspective as she slips on her shoes to join her little boy who is growing up so fast. Music swells as he turns to hop on the swing--screech!

What are those flashes of white?

Socks.

He's run through the soggy, rain-saturated yard in white socks. Brand-new (previously) white socks.

"Are those socks?" I shout.

Papa joins in. "Where are your boots? I told you to wear boots, it's so wet. Get back in here! Sit on the couch."

"Give me those socks," I grumble as he passes.

"Waaaaaa" The Boy wails as he flops on the couch. I toss the socks in the laundry.

"I told you to wear boots, but you chose to ignore that. Now you sit there for five minutes," Papa says. "That'll be your consequence."

Five minutes pass. He's given the green light to try again. He comes up to me. He's wearing old tennis shoes. His tone is humble. "I'll be gooder now," he promises. "I will. I've got these shoes on this time. And I got fresh socks from the sock box. Come on." He takes hold of my hand. "Come on, push me on the swing."

Gooder. Oh, my butter-heart oozes (cue the strings). Too soon, he'll learn to pump those legs on his own and ride a bike without training wheels. Before long, he'll be driving. Next thing you know, he'll be packing for college.

I've really got to go. Someone wants to be pushed on the swing.

(Music swells as mother and son stroll to the swing set, hand-in-hand....and shoes on feet.)

National Geography Bee: Sign me up!

At the church we visited last weekend, two people got up and spoke vaguely about their ministry in a country in northeast Africa. For their safety, they couldn't say which one. Scary. On the drive home, my husband and I speculated which country it might be, and he said, "What's the one west of Egypt?"

"Uh...there's that little country, what's it called?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I read about it in Runner's World. They profiled some elite runner from a tiny little country. Oh! Eritrea! Is that it?"

"No, west of Egypt. It's the one that America bombed back in the '80s."

"We bombed someplace in Africa in the '80s? I have no memory of that."

"Of course you don't. In the '80s you were sitting around writing poems about dirt."

"Hey! Those were good poems!"

"And before that, you were digging in the dirt that you were going to be writing poems about in the '80s."

"Yah, well, you can't remember the country, either."

I looked it up when we got home. It was Libya.

One of the poems was "Field Hands," and it won two prizes. So there.

We Believe in Fairies

You may recall from my belated 9/11 post that I made a decision that I've second-guessed for five years: I brought in the three older kids to see just one time the footage of the Twin Towers. They didn't see it over and over that day. Only once. As I mentioned in that post, only the eldest daughter remembers it, but she does seem to be somewhat affected. Maybe it was a mistake.

I normally shield them from quite a bit. My husband and I get our news from print or online sources, and if we watch it on TV, it's usually late at night when the children are sleeping. My tendency is to preserve innocence as long as possible. In fact, Saving Childhood, by Michael Medved, made quite an impression on me several years ago when I read it. Its subtitle reads: How to Protect Your Children from the National Assault on Innocence. That's what I tend to do--buffer the realities that could steal the joy and wonder of childhood. I use the word "buffer," because we don't drive around in an impenetrable bubble like the pope. My children will see and hear ugly, scary stories. They'll catch a segment on the news at someone's house and may see war footage or a kidnapping update. Sometimes they'll read a disturbing headline on the front page of the newspaper. They know that our 16-year-old friend has cancer. They attended my aunt's funeral.

But most of the time they construct wings out of cardboard and dream of flying. They spend a lot of time planning how to catch a rabbit under the boobytrapped shoebox baited with carrots. I encourage them to construct blanket tents in the living room, switching on flashlights to create a secret hideout. And I've been known to suggest that someone build twig-houses for the garden fairies.

I love this personal essay post. It captures beautifully this longing I have to stretch innocence out as long as possible.

Rocks in My Dryer...plus an unrelated story

I'm really enjoying this mom-blogger/writer. Her site has so many things to look at, click on, read, explore, ponder and laugh at, you may never return to sit with the Contemplative Mom!

Meanwhile, an unrelated story:

One of my girls said, "You know how some people can't wait for the weekend and don't want it to end?"

"Yes?"

"Not me! I want to hurry up and rush through it so we can start next week at school!"

"Really? Why? What's happening next week?"

"Book Buddies!"

Each student in my daughter's third-grade class pairs up with a first-grader for Book Buddies, when they sprawl out on the floor and read to them. My daughter loves this opportunity to share her love of books with her reading partner.

From what I can tell, my daughter's been given very little direction on book selection. Several times, having forgotten to pack an age-appropriate book to read to her buddy, she simply pulls out from her backpack a collection of Calvin and Hobbes that she's been re-reading for the fifteenth time. She figured the little first-grader would enjoy the comic-book style.

A few weeks ago, when I heard that she was reading from C&H, I suggested, "Maybe you should pick something else for Book Buddies. I mean, some of the words are big, and some of the jokes would be hard for a first-grader to understand."

"Okay, I'll take something else."

She pulled several picture books from our shelves and stuffed them in her backpack, only to find out that she was off-schedule. She removed those books and replaced them with C&H for her own free-reading pleasure, intending to pop the stack of first-grade books into her backpack the following week. Unfortunately, the next Book Buddies took her by surprise, and the picture books were left at home stacked up on a table. All she had was C&H. She read it yet again.

"Does she laugh at them?" I asked.

"No, not really. Well, sometimes. A little. But not very much. This time she asked me how Calvin jumped out of his skin. I didn't know what to say, so I just told her it was a made up story and not to worry about it."

Hmmm. . .something about this comment made me wonder. I asked her to show it to me. Calvin was shown literally jumping out of his skin: a creepy, Calvin-shaped skull and upper-body skeleton bursting out of skin that was peeling away and falling to the floor.

"You read her that?"

She laughed nervously. "Yes."

"Oh, my. You cannot take in Calvin and Hobbes any longer!"

"Okay, but it's not our copy. It's the school library's."

"It is?"

"Yes, so anyone can check it out. But it's okay. Next time I'll just take in The Butterly Collector."

"Good idea. It sounds better for a first-grader."

"It is. I've read it. It's just about a guy who goes around catching butterflies."

I hope so.

Regarding Calvin's skeleton: my daughter and I talked briefly about idioms--we'd discussed them last year, so she knew what they were. "Oh! I get it! It's an idiom that he's doing literally, but the joke comes after that, when he says, 'Now I'll see if Mom will jump out of her skin!' Then it's back to being...uh...."

"Figurative."

"Figurative! Now it's even funnier. I didn't totally get it before."

And I'm sure the poor, haunted first-grader didn't get it, either.

I should probably confiscate our copies of Calvin and Hobbes from her backpack and require them to stay at home.

I should probably preview The Butterfly Collector.

I should probably phone the mom.

New and Improved

Not sure if all this Pantene business got me thinking about my "look," but I just got my hair done. Once I saw the outcome, I knew I had to switch profile photos.

Advance your French for free!

Well, last time I checked, Virginie lost her lead. Sandrine moved ahead a few votes. But all is not lost, because it looks like we can vote once a day, every day, until October.

Visiting the Pantene site reminds me how much I've neglected my French. When I married my Belgian-born-and-raised husband, I knew I would have to learn his mother tongue. After all, his parents and most of his siblings are still there with their families, and some of my nieces and nephews know very little English. If I wanted to get to know his side of the family, I'd have to learn. When we married, I knew nothing. Not a word. Okay, I did know a word: "oui." But I wasn't even sure how to spell that correctly.

By the time I got serious about learning the language, I was already seriously a mom. Too busy with the children to sign up for a class, I came up with a patchwork plan I could do from home while the children rolled around on the family room floor. By pulling together numerous used textbooks, tapes from the library, French music and websites, I managed to develop basic communication skills. I did, after all, have a built-in coach in my fluent, native-speaking, Belgian-born spouse. He'll be the first to tell you that he's not a very good teacher, but he can tell me if I'm pronouncing my "r"s correctly. I rarely do.

My goal was basic communication, which is about all I've managed to pull off on my own. To this day, my French is limited. Rudimentary. Bare bones. But I can ask for the correct number of baguettes at the bread store if need be--unless it gets up into the 80s. When you hit the numbers between 80 and 99, it gets confusing. Those of you who have taken French in high school and college know what I'm talking about...with the whole "four-twenty-ten" thing. Jiminy. Math is hard enough without having to perform multiple operations every time you say the number. Fortunately, I have never needed more than a few baguettes, usually in the single digits, and have avoided big purchases when visiting family overseas. Heaven forbid I have to pay for something that cost 90-some-odd euros. First of all, that's a lot of euros. Second of all, I'd have to decide if I need to say it the Belgian way, or the French way, and by then I'd be too tired to count my change.

I digress.

At some point in my linguistic journey, I discovered a video series called "French in Action." My sister-in-law said that her university's language lab used it ("All the guys love watching it when the heroine of the skits is wearing her white sweater," she said. I considered the sweater--it provided ample coverage...I'm not 100% sure what the appeal is, but then again I was pretty focused on developing my vocabulary).

University Professor Pierre Capretz put it together, so his name is attached to the series he produced using: "the Capretz method." It's a little cheesy, but I love it. He uses an immersion style, multi-media approach. After the first two or so episodes, the professor switches to French exclusively and doesn't return to English at all. Instead, to get his point across, he uses gestures, movie clips, cartoons, and even--gulp--a mime.

Yes, I'm sorry, Jenne, he does use a mime. But you know, it is French. It seems that if anyone is entitled to include a mime in his resources, it's a French teacher. Between the mime's antics (he helps with a lot of verbs, willing to slip, fall down, knock on doors and walk in or out of a building as many times as it takes to learn "enter" and "exit"), the commercials, magazine ads, and the ongoing skit starring the French girl in her white sweater and the American boy who looks a tiny bit like an old boyfriend, I learned a lot. I diligently watched the videos, which were at the time available to me only on an obscure cable television channel. That was back in 1996 and 1997.

I'd forgotten about them for a few years until, lo and behold, a friend found them as Video on Demand at a website for free! One must sign up to access them, but if you want to learn French, watch them through and just listen, repeat when they ask you to, and you will probably walk away from them able to confidently order dozens of baguettes from any boulanger! Watch them through twice, and I'll bet you could carry on a decent conversation with Virginie, when hopefully you're congratulating her on becoming Pantene Ambassadrice 2007!

It'll take a while, however, as there are enough lessons to cover the coursework of an actual French class--52 half-hour sessions!

If you've ever wanted to learn French, this is your chance.

(This is hardly a "reflective blog." Mais, c'est difficile d'ecrire quelque-chose profond chaque fois que j'arrive ici, en ligne. Quelque-fois, je voudrais donner de l'information pratique. Ca va?*)

* edited with help from the Built-In Coach

The Last Pomato

Many of my posts have been about the linguistic charm--at least we think it's charming--of our preschool boy. You've heard my melancholy over the fading faux pas that tickle us. You've read about "opa-meal," the "fledge" of allegiance and "pampakes." For a long time he's said "pomatoes" for tomatoes.

We're working on letter sounds with him. Studying black-line drawings of nouns that start with the "t" sound, he understood that each word began with that hard "t-t-t." "T-t-tire" he said while looking at the picture, then proudly glancing up for affirmation.

"That's right."

"T-t-turtle."

"Yep."

"T-t--what is that flower?"

"A tulip."

"Oh! It's pretty. T-t-tulip."

Keeping the rhythm, he looked at the next picture and said "P-p..." He stopped, realizing that he wasn't making the "t" sound, even though he was pretty sure he was looking at a pomato. He started again, "P-p..." He stared at it. "What is this thing?"

With the pang that accompanies "lasts," I reluctantly said, "A t-t-tomato. It's a to-ma-to."

"Tomato?" He was perfectly capable of saying it.

"Yes, a tomato."

"Oh. T-t-tomato."

The end.

A Vote for Virginie is a Vote for Burundi

Three beautiful young women are vying to become the Pantene (yes, the shampoo) Ambassador 2007 in Belgium. Well, many women tried, and now they are down to three finalists. The three are listed here.

One of them is Virginie. If she wins, she is going to donate the prize money to a humanitarian project in Burundi that our family and friends of our family have been deeply involved with creating and supporting. The project is basically building an entire village from the ground up for the Burundi people who have absolutely nothing. Called "Imuhira," meaning "home," the village will have an orphanage, school and health center among other things. They are using innovative energy sources such as a wind-generator and solar panels to boost the unpredictable national power grid. This report I found on the Internet is in English and explains it in detail (you can read the report as a pdf file by clicking here--it's easier to read with a nice layout, but takes a few seconds to come up). Several names listed as the organizational group are close, trusted Christian friends of the family with an incredible vision. We believe in this project.

Thus, I'm sure that the other two Pantene finalists are perfectly lovely, but if you vote for Virginie, you're also voting for much more than lustrous hair; with one click, you're potentially contributing to something that is changing a nation, improving and even saving precious lives.

You can do it in a matter of seconds, but let me walk you through it. When you get to the site, you'll see that it has one small challenge: the information is all in French!

Here are your simple steps to voting for Virginie and Burundi (If need be, open two windows and toggle back and forth to perform these simple steps):

1. Click here to get to her profile (For fun, click on any of the photos in her photo gallery and it brings it up in a new window. You can click on the arrow to see each one).

2. Click on "voter" and a screen comes up asking for your "prenom" (first name), "nom" (last name), and email address. The little square underneath is asking if you want more information from Pantene, and I left it blank.

That's it! A screen comes up thanking you for your vote.

You can only vote once a day...but you can vote tomorrow, and the next day, and so on. In one section, they warn you not to vote more than once a day or you could jeopardize future votes.

When I voted today, "Isabelle" was ahead of Virginie.

Wouldn't it be cool if we all pitched in and Virginie got to be the Pantene "Ambassadrice"? Wouldn't it be amazing if Virginie's money helped finish off a portion of the health center, where orphans could get some of the medical attention they desperately need?

Sometimes it takes only a few small things to bring about major change. As my sister-in-law has pointed out, achieving critical mass takes less than you think.


Link people to this one post so that they can follow the instructions and vote for Virginie, too.

Let's go for it. Let's reach critical mass and send Virginie's votes over the top.

Vote for shampoo and save the world!

New User Photo

It only took two years for me to figure out how to post a picture to this thing.

Even with my newfound technological genius, however, I've debated whether or not to post my picture. I finally did it, but I'm not sure if it's the right decision.

Mr. Dawn Treader on "Reflective Blogging"

Found a link to "Mr. Dawn Treader" where he posted about "reflective blogging." By that phrase, he means, "posting on a blog with reflective (i.e contemplative ) posts. In other words, posts which reveal how and what a blogger is thinking about God, life, truth etc. These posts are often spawned by interacting with God's thoughts through reading His word."

Ah, I thought, this is what I am attempting to do. From time to time I have lamented that I don't have a clear vision or mission statement, if you will, for my blog; but this came close to capturing my intent (whether I realized it all this time or not).

I offered him this comment:

Your description of reflective blogging is exactly what I attempt to do, though how effectively I do it remains to be seen, read and commented upon. Your broad definition, "posts which reveal how and what a blogger is thinking about God, life, truth etc...often spawned by interacting with God's thoughts through reading His word," captures my overall blog mission exactly. You've inspired me to write more directly from interacting with God's Word, showing, as JA Greer commented, the anthropological aspect of one mom living out her life in Christ. Thanks for the inspiration and in a way, affirmation.

Sticky Moments in Language Development

Each morning at my son's preschool, the class recites what he calls "The Fledge of Allegiance." Pretty appropriate, I'd say--the thought of those fledgling citizens vowing their allegiance with none other than the "fledge."

For an AWANA club that he attends each week, he coincidentally had to practice the fledge along with the well-known Bible verse John 3:16. Despite repeated correction, he persisted in making the same error: For God so loved the world....(everything correct until)...whoever believes in Him shall not worry, but have returnal life." We finally got him switched from "worry" to "perish," but I had to explain that it meant "die"--quickly adding that because of Jesus we won't die, we won't perish (he's starting to worry about dying). But as much as I tried, I couldn't get him to switch to eternal. He stuck with "returnal life." I hope that the AWANA leader doesn't think that we're promoting reincarnation.

Another language story pertains to my third-grader. She writes like a third-grader, loses her papers like a third-grader and plays on the playground like a third-grader, but reads at a higher level. The teacher and I agreed that from time to time, we'd look for a more advanced book so that she'd be a little more challenged. When the class was assigned an animal book report, my daughter and I found a detailed book on the Giant Panda that was much more interesting than the early reader versions comprised of a few large-print sentences made up of single-syllable words. On the back page of her report, she was supposed to write out three new vocabulary words she learned, look them up and write out the definition to share with the class.

We were discussing possible words for that section, and I suggested "altitude." "Last night," I pointed out, "you weren't sure if that had to do with temperature. You should look that up, because then you'll know exactly what it means. Did you come across any other words you didn't know?"

"Well, there was one," she said. "It was...(she paused to work out the pronunciation) 'defecate.'"

"Defecate!" I exclaimed. I imagined her sweet, loving, soft-spoken third-grade teacher asking my daughter to share with the class her vocabulary words...I exploded in laughter! I laughed really hard, harder than was really called for, at least 20 full seconds. Every time I thought of how to answer, I laughed again with that whole scenario flashing through my head: 15 kids sitting cross-legged on the floor, my daughter at the front of the room reading "defecate" and defining it for them.

None of my children knew what it meant. I told them it was a fancy way of saying p--p. They thought it was funny enough, though they didn't imagine the look on the teacher's face, like I did.

"Does that fit with the sentence you read?"

"Yes," she said, "yes, it does. The sentence said that Giant Pandas spend the majority of their day eating bamboo, sleeping, and defecating."

"That fits," one of her sisters agreed.

"Don't use that word, okay? Find another word for your report. Don't you agree that you should hunt for something else?"

She grinned and nodded. "Yes. Definitely."

"I mean, I know my laughter made it seem hilarious," I continued, "but it really would be like potty talk, so don't mention it to your classmates. You can just have the pleasure of knowing it yourself. You won't tell anyone will you?"

"I won't," she promised.

"I won't, either," another vowed.

"Me, neither," said the third.

The five-year-old was silent, so I don't know when it will pop out of his mouth. Probably at the end of the Fledge.

Belated Thoughts on 9/11

My son turned 5 this year. Five years old.

The five-year anniversary of 9/11 was this week. Five years.

That's how I'll always know the anniversary. I was nursing a newborn baby less than two weeks old when my friend Susan phoned and a few minutes later my mom, both with the same panicked message: Turn on your TV right now! They knew I wouldn't be watching. They knew I'd be cycling through the usual routine of feeding, burping and changing my newborn baby boy. I rarely took time to watch the morning shows, and they knew it.

Susan said she had a premonition of sorts. She hadn't watched any morning shows for over a week because of her schedule, but something inside of her told her to switch it on.

I flipped it on and watched, cradling my newborn, rocking him to sleep during the eerie chaos and horror of television coverage.

Eventually I called in my older children, who weren't all that old. I told them that they were going to see something scary that just happened far away from our house, but it was a big event. They should know about it, because people would be talking a lot about it. They came in and watched. They asked questions; only a few could I answer. Most were questions impossible for me to answer then...questions I'm barely able to answer today. They asked details about the planes. Who was flying them? Why would they run them into a building? Did anyone die? They wondered why. I don't remember what I said, but I remember the dilemma of being honest while not filling them with dread.

Meanwhile, we had our own family concerns. My mother-in-law was flying to the United States from Europe. She was in the air when the historic decision was made to halt all flights and land all those in transit. Her pilot landed in Canada, where she was cared for by the generous people of St. Johns, but there were hours of confusion and concern as we tried to locate her. She was able to borrow someone's cell phone long enough to let us know she was alive and in Canada. The city set up an extremely efficient emergency set-up with phones lined up on tables for people to use free of charge to contact family and friends. They brought toothbrushes and toothpaste as well as clothes for passengers to borrow--all checked luggage was sealed off in the belly of the plane. No one could get to their stuff.

The Canadian citizens brought food and showed them around the city. Gracious and kind, they sacrificed for strangers, providing a powerful contrast to the events that pulled them together. The evil and destruction that prompted planes to land unannounced on the landing strips of their otherwise sleepy airport couldn't hold back the goodness possible in the human spirit.

Countless stories in New York overshadow the simple ladling of soup and grab bags of sweaters and blankets offered from the people of St. Johns. Still, it's another story. And with stories, we remember.

It's not my story so much as my mother-in-law's, however. My story still left me sitting on my bed, staring at the television, while three of our children played in the living room, and the new baby, fed and content, lay sleeping on a pastel fleece blanket spread out on the carpeted floor.

On Monday of this week, our three older children participated in a special service at their school. The choir sang two songs. One was called "I Remember." When the choir director first introduced the song during class several weeks ago, she asked if they remembered anything from 9/11. My oldest remembered coming into the bedroom and seeing the towers fall. The second had a vague recollection. The youngest of the three had no memory of it.

We talked about it in the car on the way home from school that same day.

"Was I scared?" my five-year-old boy asked.

"No," I said, "no, you were just a baby. You had a full tummy and slept through the whole thing."

"Oh. So I wasn't scared?"

"No, you were safe with us," I assured him. "Your mama was holding you and your sisters were nearby. There was no need to feel scared."

They reflected on this as we drove along. I did, too. Always intending to be honest with the children, I struggle with how to reassure them. After all, people died that day. Families wept. People were grieving five years later on Monday as the names were read.

My eldest broke the silence. "That's why I don't like to fly," she said. She was the one who remembered the most.

"They've made all kinds of changes in the airports and airplanes now," I said. "They've made it really safe for us to fly. That's why we can't meet Grandma or Grandpa at the terminal anymore. It's one of the changes they made to keep us all safe."

She nodded slowly. I doubt if it was very comforting, because she can't help but remember.

We all remember not just the day, but the way it changed us.

Whenever flight patterns shift for our airport and planes fly low over our house, I think about 9/11. I wonder if that plane is going the direction it's supposed to go. I try to reason with myself--of course it's going the way it's supposed to go. I try to ignore the uneasy concern, but I can't. Because, like my eldest daughter--like all of us--I remember.

Enjoying...and Coveting The Human Guinea Pig's Writing Life

I was feeling melancholy, and something reminded me of the Human Guinea Pig, Emily Yoffe, who writes for Slate magazine. I heard her on NPR a couple of years ago and laughed until the kids grew concerned about my ability to maneuver the car through traffic.

Perhaps on that melancholy afternoon years after my introduction to Yoffe via the airwaves, my psyche instinctively knew I needed to laugh, and that Human Guinea Pig guffawing would be just the thing to shake me from blue to a brighter yellow.

The tag line in the heading of her columns reads "humiliating myself for fun and profit." She describes the goal of her efforts as doing something Slate's readers are curious about but have too much dignity to do themselves. She's been a street mime for a day, posed nude for art students, gone ice fishing and slinked around Hollywood as a paparazzo armed with nothing more than a digital camera.

I logged onto Slate.com to select some of her columns (this link takes you to her list). When you're midnight blue, it's hard to guffaw. That day I tittered at some, I suppose. Maybe a chortle. Eventually I was experiencing the cathartic, gut-level laugh that is hard to come by during these manic days of parenting-in-fall. I loved her comparisons and comical descriptions mingled with some lighthearted self-deprecation. I coveted her job.

That first day I heard her on NPR, I thought, "Why didn't I think of that? I'd love her job!" Taking on some crazy assignment just so I could write about it? That's livin'!

I tried to invent some variation on the idea, but never really came up with anything that wouldn't seem like, well, just another human guinea pig...only in the Midwest instead the East Coast. Of course, I suppose the same concept with a different name wouldn't be much different from all the American Idol spinoffs. It's always the same concept, slightly repackaged, with a different logo, theme song, host and set of judges. Maybe I should just become another human guinea pig, writing a slightly different column topped with a barely disguised title change and suspiciously similar tag line. Blog readers could send me ideas to try out. It could have some kind of a mom-twist, even though Yoffe's often do, as well. It would be fun. I draw the line at modeling nude for art students, however. So my own twist on the concept would have to build in natural limits.

Meanwhile, I read what she does and grin.

Her recent post about training her beagle using Cesar Millan's dog whisperer techniques was interesting--not as humorous as most (perhaps because she didn't actually make a fool out of herself), but well done. http://www.slate.com/id/2149364/

Nicholas Kristof in Christianity Today

Flipping through Christianity Today magazine, I paused on a Q&A column spotlighting Nicholas Kristof, columnist for The New York Times who has walked us through refugee camps in Darfur, reporting haunting stories that should stir us to action. I've tried to keep up with Nicholas online at The New York Times, but they've reserved some of his stories for the "select" feature that I'm too cheap to pay for. So I've missed those.

Anyway, I respect him. So I read the interview. And after that, I decided to share it with you. Click on the link above for the entire text. It's short. You can read it in five minutes if you aren't interrupted.

I can't resist highlighting the opening:

Answering a question posed about faith-based activism on Darfur, he said, "Evangelicals have a special responsibility to take action and lead the way, because they have influence in the White House that New York Times columnists do not. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are alive today in Darfur because an outcry has galvanized the White House. But there are hundreds of thousands of others who are dead because we all didn't do more."

At this time in political history, calling oneself an Evangelical Christian and writing to the administration may actually be an advantage. We might be heard. Maybe. Enough voices to form critical mass, and maybe a few more could be saved.

Hundreds of thousands are dead....hundreds of thousands.

I'm writing the president.

Mary DeMuth in France

Author Mary DeMuth fascinates me. You see, she's moved to southern France. Ah, yes, the land of bottled sunshine (olive oil), great vats of red wine and competitive truffle hunts. Peter Mayle's books like A Year in Provence delighted me with stories of the pace of life; hilarious village festivals; tourists from various countries, each with their distinctive cultural personalities; and his search for the perfect olive oil. Ah, southern France with its rich yellow, blue and green patterned tablecloths snapped and smoothed over tables heaped with fresh Mediterranean dishes--can you taste the tomatoes, olives and cheese? Pass the baguette--I'm ready to eat!

My husband and I began our honeymoon in Nice, not far from Mary's new life. I'd love to go back...not only to spend some time by the sea, but also to visit this lovely woman who has uprooted from all she's known to live in a place where she barely speaks the language.

I almost lived that life.

Okay, so I wouldn't have landed in Provence. Several years ago our little family of six almost relocated to Belgium (back when we were a family of five), to be near extended family. It's a long train ride to Nice from Belgium, but I might have struggled with some of the same cross-cultural issues that Mary is sorting through even as I write. I've visited overseas enough to predict what might have unnerved me, and one big aggravation would have been the washing machines.

Oh, those European washers! I've experienced them firsthand, stuffing clothes into the diminutive tubs and trying to set the temperature in Celsius. In fact I shrank a hand-knitted sweater I borrowed from my mother-in-law's neighbor, setting the temperature too high at the well-meaning advice of my sister-in-law. She didn't know the woolen sweater was going in. How humbling to hold up the generous neighbor's sweater shrunk to fit a Barbie doll. I tried to apologize profusely in my grammatically choppy French. I almost cried. I think that translates into most languages.

Anyway, enough about me. I'd love to share with you Mary's article that captures an American view of a European washer (among other things) with lovely prose.

Just when you think you might feel a twinge of jealousy at her spectacular views of the Mediterranean Sea, read this article about sending her daughter to school. If you're a mom, it'll sober you up right quick. I read this and decided that maybe it was best we never moved to Europe. You just try reading it without tears balling up along your lower lid.

Years and Moments

In today's Writer's Almanac, a writer named Ann Beattie is quoted as saying, "People forget years and remember moments."

Is she right? When you think back, is it moments that help you recall the years?

If so, are the big moments--the ones photographed and slipped into albums--the ones you dredge up, or the small ones that unfolded around the breakfast table or on a hike in the woods?

Saving a Worm

Jogging along the sidewalk, I noticed a long worm stretching out across the concrete. It wasn't a rainy day when thousands slide out of the soil and onto hard surfaces. It was a normal, sunny day, and he seemed displaced. I decided to turn back and assist him with returning to his appropriate habitat. It was, after all, a few yards from where the ducks were hit. I figure I should do what I can for all living creatures in the vicinity.

I picked him up and tossed him over the fence into the rather estate-like front yard of an old brick home that I've always admired--at that exact moment the homeowner was slowly turning into his driveway. We made eye contact, and I realized that the driver only saw my hand coming back down--he didn't see what I released. He didn't smile; he just slowly moved up his driveway.

I wanted to shout, "It was a worm! A worm!" I'm just certain he thought I chucked some chewing gum or a cigarette into his yard. I felt terrible that he might think of me as a litterer. On the other hand, I'm not sure I should make too big of a deal about saving a worm...not to someone who lives in such a grandiose setting. I assume he hires someone to do the dusting, so he surely wouldn't stoop to save a worm--or appreciate someone who does.

Brain Loss

After my son was born five years ago, my brain turned into a bowl of cold oatmeal. You know how congealed and useless oatmeal gets when it's been sitting for a couple of hours untouched? Well, maybe you clean up after breakfast before I do, or your kids finish their oatmeal, but at my house, we actually get to return to the bowl and see this useless, unappealing blob. It's dried on the sides of the bowl, hardened like cement, and then the bulk of it is stuck to itself like homemade paste. I can turn the bowl upside down and it'll stay in place, immobile, flat across the top, lifeless. Like my post-partum brain.

I was scared. I thought I had early-onset Alzheimer's and frantically researched it--as best I could employing the sluggish synapses of cold oatmeal--in hopes of preserving whatever was left of my deteriorating mind. I couldn't remember names, places, directions, reasons for entering a room, what number I was about to dial and why.

My friend Jenne, Cancer Girl, wrote a post about Chemo Brain, that so closely resembled my postpartum brain loss experience, I wanted to share it with you here.

(The last comment, which was probably the first comment, has a four-letter word in it...in case you'd be offended you can stop reading at the end of her post and ignore the comments altogether.)

By the way, see what you think when you read Jenne's post, but I think the sketch in the upper left looks like a chicken leg attached to a thigh, like it comes when you buy a whole chicken cut up.

Be Glad We Aren't Your Neighbors

When I drove back home from dropping off my daughter at a sleepover, I couldn't help but mentally review the beauty of her new friend's house: a big, new brick home with modern, sleek interior perfectly clean and void of clutter. Dreamy. When my husband came back from picking her up the next day, he was equally impressed. We both spent a few moments wishing we could upgrade to a new lifestyle, a new neighborhood, a house like that and a car to match.

Now, this may not seem to relate, but it's taken us a few years to finally break down and order a recycling bin from our trash service company. Prior to that, we'd load up the back of the van and haul it up to the county recycling center once a month.

Not long after our envy-driven discussion about houses and lifestyles, my husband came back in from the garage where he'd dropped an empty milk carton, several bottles, two cereal boxes and some empty cans into our new container. "We're going to fill that recycling bin pretty quickly each week," he reported after inspection. "We'll have to be sure to crush it before we put it in there. Otherwise we'll have to get a second bin, like the neighbors."

"Crush it?"

"Well, crush the cans, mainly."

"Oh, I was imagining you could get in it and jump up and down. You could do that. It might even be fun!"

He burst out laughing. "You're serious aren't you?"

"Wouldn't it be fun? We could do that. It'd be like crushing grapes."

"Oh Ann," he shook his head. "Just the fact that you seriously consider jumping up and down on the recycling--and think it would be fun--shows that you don't belong in a house like that one!"

You think he's right? You think it's never occurred to that dreamy-house mom to jump up and down in her recycling bin to avoid ordering a second one?

Heavens, now that I think about it, maybe I don't even belong in this house! What would the neighbors think if they caught me sticking halfway out the top of the recycling bin, stomping, laughing, packing everything down before rolling it to the curb?

Maybe it's good we have a privacy fence.

Recording Life Moments

We met my parents for brunch on my son's birthday. Cracker Barrel. They know the waitress. We told her he turned five that day.

At some point she asked if he would want ice cream and confirmed his name. Afterward, I returned to chatting without really thinking about what was about to happen. Soon she arrived at our table with at least five, maybe seven other waitresses, and they started singing "Happy birthday" to my boy. His eyes widened as all those ladies sang. When they came to his name, his little hand flew up to his mouth and he gasped. They finished the song and a few people who were watching turned back to their bacon and eggs. My son stared at the waitress choir as they dispersed, his hand finally coming down to the table. He giggled and said, "I didn't know they knew my name!" He took a bite of his ice cream and giggled some more. "I didn't know they could sing!"

Sometimes I wish I could just have a camera running all the time, like life surveillance, to record every precious moment. Instead, I miss a few beautiful images that I wish I could save forever. I guess I just snap a mental picture or run a mental video and hope it sticks forever in my memory. I never want to forget that moment his hand flew up. Or that gasp.