Eldore turned twenty-two months on September the 19th.
Since I have missed a couple of months, this update will encompass more changes in Eldore than an almost-two-years-old update usually would.
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The Great Sleep Fiasco And How It Was Reconciled
The Developing Conversationalist
Miscellany
I think it was when we were walking the trail in the field, when I was in labor with Beatrice, and Jeremy and I had a brief conversation about gardens and planting and growth and fruit. Namely, about the timing of the harvest of some plants versus others.
Our garden last year had been brief and exciting. We plowed, we tilled, we planted, we watched eagerly. Then plants sprang up, the fruit grew, and the harvest was bountiful. All of this happened in the span of a handful of months.
Miss Beada turned four months on the fourth of August.
If she knew how tardy this update is, she would most assuredly growl at me. She’s a most accomplished growler, brazenly grumbling at her hands (invariably clenched during this exercise) or at her feet (she’s just realized they’re down there) or at the doctor at her four-month checkup (“Is she growling??” The doctor asked, and I nodded.) I am not sure why she does it. It is probably because she can.
[Read more…]
I am drowning, I wrote to myself in my journal. No, that’s not right. I’m being bricked in. It was a few weeks after Beatrice was born. I was already back in the swing of things–I had been since her second week. Schooling, housekeeping, childrearing, everything. I had sent a text a friend saying I felt “thin”, like Bilbo with the ring. To another, I confessed, Number Six may be the one that does me in.
[Read more…]Eldore turned thirteen months on the 19th of December.
I will try to remember what he was like then, and not what he is like now, after Christmas and New Years, when he’s really thirteen-and-a-half months old. At this age, change comes constantly and rapidly, and if you’re a couple of weeks late on an update (as I am now) you almost have a different child on your hands than you would have if you had written said update when you were supposed to.
A friend asked me one morning: is homemaking archaic, or does it have value? I answered yes and yes–that we’ve made it archaic by losing both the home and the making, but it does have value. This is part three; you can read part one here, and part two here.
…but Aragorn went forth again to danger and toil. And while the world darkened and fear fell on Middle-earth […] Arwen remained in Rivendell, and while Aragorn was abroad, from afar she watched over him in thought; and in hope she made for him a great and kingly standard, such as only one might display who claimed the lordship of the Númenóreans and the inheritance of Elendil.
The Tale of Aragron and Arwen
A friend asked me one morning: is homemaking archaic, or does it have value? I answered yes and yes–that we’ve made it archaic by losing both the home and the making, but it does have value. This is part two; you can read part one here.
The baby gear industry is a huge and profitable one, especially for first-time parents who have no idea what to expect. But my father’s eldest brother came a month earlier than expected, and my grandmother used to love to tell me that all they had for him was ten diapers and a couple of shirts, and they pulled out a dresser drawer for him to sleep in. Somehow he turned out alright.
The more children we’ve had, the more I’ve found myself becoming a baby stuff minimalist. We bought a swing with Ephraim (which I never turned on) and sold it when I was pregnant with Clive. By the time Elvie and Eldore came along, I wasn’t even using our bouncy seats or baby bath. I’ve never had an exersaucer or jumparoo, and even my trusty Johnny-Jump-Up wasn’t useful for all the kids. We survived!
A friend sent me a text one morning, before the children were up, after my eggs and toast and coffee had been made and eaten but not cleaned up after, with this question: is homemaking archaic, or does it have value?
I answered yes and yes. It’s archaic because we’ve both intentionally and unintentionally made it obsolete (by destroying the two things that make up the term–the home and making–rendering them both disconnected and useless); but it is valuable, whether we as a society will recognize it or not.
Is the home valuable? What is the message of the home? Why does it exist? Why make one? Why make one? Why must it be made? Can’t it make itself?
I want to work through my thoughts on this topic. It will probably take more than one post–and I will try this time (I really will) to finish the posts and thus present a complete and coherent thought. I want to apologize in advance for referencing works while assuming you, my reader, are familiar with them; it would take too much space to explain everything thoroughly.
