Mama: You don’t have to worry about making bad scrambled eggs, Ephraim. Lots of times we make bad food. I’ve made bad food lots of times!
Anselm: You don’t make lots of bad food, Mama!
Clive: Don’t lie to her, Anselm.
out of the mouths of babes
Aurick’s mealtime song
For Aurick Virgil, nicknamed Rikki-Tikki, who has developed a habit of shrieking at mealtimes until someone puts food on his tray.
(To the tune of “Just You Wait, Henry Higgins“)
Just you wait, Rikki-Tikki
Just you wait!
You are hungry,
But your breakfast won’t be late!
You’ll have plenty for your belly,
You’ll have eggs and toast and jelly,
Just you wait, Rikki-Tikki, just you wait!
Just you wait, Rikki-Tikki, ’til we pray,
Then we’ll give you something yummy right away.
We aren’t trying to ignore you,
We have lots of goodies for you,
Just you wait, Rikki-Tikki, just you wait!
a day in the summer, 2021
“On my birthday, Mama, I would like a whole lot of Cheetos.” Thus declares the Kransling who is across the table from me; it has been duly noted. His birthday, though, is still several months away. He may change his mind.
reading goals for 2021
I feel slightly guilty for even suggesting such a thing as reading goals. Last year’s goals were never even close to being attained–I never reread the short list of books I wanted to. I did read a ton of other things, though.
However, the new year it is, and new years are for new goals, or really just for lists, perhaps…I don’t think I’d really call this page a goal. It’s more just to organize everything. I don’t think I’ll read all of these books this year. I’m not sure I should read them all this year.
I am not part of any reading challenge, but was inspired by another reading challenge to put my books into categories. Several books overlap categories, so I wanted to arrange them in a way that showed the overlap. Some overlap more than one category, but I couldn’t figure out a way to represent that quickly and easily, so I decided to forego that.
My main categories are:
Essays
Short stories
Female authors
Russian fiction
Translated fiction
Poetry/plays
Non-fiction
There are thirty books in all. A couple are leftovers from last year that I wasn’t able to finish; one is a re-read of one I read last year.
As you can see from the picture, they are arranged as rays radiating from a center. I drew shapes around them showing their common category; they look like petals to me.
I am also trying to keep a “commonplace book” this year of quotes I love.
when I read
I am sometimes asked when I am able to read. The truth is I read during the night while I’m up with the baby, or early in the morning before the kids wake up. Sometimes I read before bed at night, but that’s a little more difficult as I’m usually quite tired then. During the day I read while nursing if I can. Not always–but sometimes. The little bits add up.
good clean fun
It’s December, but the temperatures climbed above 60 yesterday. So what was Anselm to do? Oh, of course–make a mud hole and ride a bike through it.
first night at home
This was typed up Friday evening while the thoughts were fresh. They’re not fresh anymore–most of the paradoxical feelings have been forgotten, so please forgive the rambling nature and abrupt leave-off. I will leave it in its woefully unrefined state for authenticity’s sake.
It’s movie night, and almost everyone is downstairs watching Return of the Jedi. Beatrice is in bed; I am in bed (or, sitting on top of it.) Aurick is in his basket in the “baby closet” I prepared for him.
This is his first night at home. We arrived from the hospital this afternoon, made all the introductions, passed Aurick around, ate dinner, gave baths, put some to bed and some to watching the movie. I tried to watch, but my right hip is still hurting too much. I came upstairs to put Aurick down and to try to ease those sore joints with the massager. They’ve been sore for months now–I am not sure how long the easing will take.
The postpartum period is rife with contradictions and nonsensical emotions. Here tonight I am finally home, which I have been looking forward to being for two days, yet packing up from the hospital always feels very melancholy to me. I think this is because it is the first place I am together with the baby, and it always feels like the close of a chapter that no one saw but me. The feeling of driving home is very surreal–like nothing has changed except the baby and myself. It’s hard to explain.
There is also the stark relief of not being pregnant anymore, and then the slight sadness of not being pregnant anymore. I use the massager on my hip, glad that I don’t have to worry anymore about it somehow hurting the baby when I do. I use the massager on my hip, a little sad that he’s on the outside and not the inside anymore. Why both?
For weeks I dreaded (dreaded) going into labor, giving birth. I almost would have chosen to be pregnant for another month. Then I finally face it, and it’s fine like it always is, and the memory of it stands out starkly in my mind–the pain, the smells, the sounds, everyone in the room. I lie here and I think I would not go through the pregnancy again for anything, but I would repeat the birth. Why?
I always try very hard to put things in order before a baby comes. Cleaning, organizing, decorating. This time I was in so much physical pain that I left most things be. I remembered that I won’t really care so much once he’s here how organized things are. (It’s true.) Now we’re home, and the desire to totally order things looms still in the back of my mind. This is “The Machine” that I fought against with Beatrice. Aurick is the Seventh, the Day of Rest. I have made him swaddling blankets with the edges fringed to remind myself to leave margin and not exhaust myself with ordering everything, which consistently renders me unable to see people as anything but tasks. I am a little concerned I will not be able to remember very easily.
the seventh kransling – aurick virgil
Seventh Kransling is a boy, and he has a name!
[Read more…]the seventh kransling: month three
I will attempt to be better at documenting this pregnancy. This is how the third month of pregnancy (weeks 9-13) went for me.
sickness
This month was the very worst for morning sickness. It just seemed to get worse and worse, and my resolve to bear it with dignity withered with each passing day. I hit a huge wall at around 10 weeks. Emotionally, I just couldn’t cope with trying to keep up with life and feeling so miserable all of the time. The knowledge that I was only halfway through the worst part compounded my frustration. Dizzy spells, “noodle-arm syndrome”, nausea and food aversions all intensified. I spent a lot of time crying this month. I just wanted to feel better and be able to do the things I needed to do.
paradox
In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet is led before officials of the city by the priests and others seeking his death. They cannot find reason to condemn him, yet Jeremiah places himself in their hands to do as they will. In any case, he tells them, he has said the words that God has given him, and his death won’t change the message.
Christ also is led before the court with false accusations by religious leaders. He also submits himself to their rule, despite His innocence and the Divine nature of his message.
In Isaiah it is prophesied that the wolf will lay down with the lamb. Then follows a series of things all diametrically opposed to one another. They are paradoxes; things that should not be together but nevertheless are. These images are touted as symbols of peace, and maybe they are, but there is much tension in a paradox. “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” says Christ.
That tension seems to be the sum of my days recently. Keeping balance is an ever-present task. Sometimes we talk about balance as if when we reach the balancing point, we can relax. I do not think that moment ever comes.
Jeremiah surrenders his life; he is saved. Uriah flees to save his life; he is captured and executed. It is a paradox. Whoever finds his life will lose it; whoever loses it will find it.
Motherhood is a paradox. When my first was born, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to go back to normal and keep ahold of “myself” as separate from motherhood. The more children we added, the more difficult that became, and the more stressed I became. After my sixth, I finally yielded that. It’s not that I stopped taking care of myself. It’s that I stopped caring so much about it. Everything still happened as normal, but I could breathe.
When we reflexively strive for peace, will we find it?
the lure of slow living: on paying attention, part ii
I started writing about paying attention several months ago. It was an unfinished thought, and I knew it, and I wasn’t sure how to complete it. It wasn’t entirely clear in my own head; I wasn’t sure how to articulate it in its half-formed state.
I am still not entirely clear, but I’m giving it my best try, anyway. Over the past few months I have attempted to clarify the thought that precipitated a total paradigm shift for me this year, the former way of thinking and the feeling of being bricked in, and the change and the relief and peace that came and what all else was lost in the process.
Yes, there was loss, but it was a good kind. It was throwing off of “things that hinder.”
That loss can probably be most accurately summed up as myself.
Lose myself? That can’t be good. One is not supposed to lose herself in motherhood. She’s supposed to work very hard to establish herself as separate, to care for her own needs first, and not forget herself while she cares for her children. And to a certain extent that is true; there is danger in focusing all of my energies on my children. It’s unhealthy for them and for me–but I think we confuse symptoms with cause, here.
It is not the hyperfocus on children’s care that is of chief danger to me as mother–it is the fact that, more than likely, I do what I do out of a deference to myself and my insecurity. It is how I convince myself that I am a good mother, something of which I desperately need to be convinced. Because I am motivated, ultimately, by my own self-interests, counseling me to move from focusing time and energy on my children to focusing time and energy on myself only allows the root cause–an over-preoccupation with myself–to flourish, unseen. (I call the result of this the Pet/Pest Situation–something that has its own post in the works and will be published “eventually”.)
When I say lose myself I’m not talking about a loss in practice, where I bolster my self-image by passing over my needs to become a martyr to my family’s needs. I’m talking about a loss in principle, where I no longer judge what I do by how beneficial it is for me personally. Pay attention, Beatrice told me. And I tried to. And when I did that, I couldn’t pay attention to myself. I quit worrying about me. In practice, everything stayed the same. Our days actually looked the same. My work and my rest looked the same. But I stopped paying attention to myself and I started slowing down and paying attention to somebody else. And, suddenly, I could breathe.
the lure of slow living:
on slow living + on busyness + on rest i / ii + on routine + on paying attention
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