It's beginning to look a lot like Advent!

I'm not one to rush the holidays. I love Christmas trees and lights and wreaths as much as the next guy. I enjoy decorating my house with evergreen and Nativity sets, baking Christmas cookies, and opening presents. I dream of sitting by a fireplace and listening to Christmas carols as the evening comes.  Heck, I'd even throw a campout party in the living room and sleep under the tree if I didn't fear my husband would look at me cock-eyed for suggesting it.  Christmas has a place in my heart.

Christmas also has a place on calendar.  I respect its place at the end of December, and I leave Thanksgiving to November.  We also spend the four weeks leading up to Christmas celebrating Advent.

Something prompted me, however, to give a little bit of premature thought to the December Holidays, however.  The dear ladies over here have started a little party, trimmed in purple (or blue, depending on your church), and cloaked in patience.  It's an Advent party.  Since Advent begins in a few weeks, I thought I'd join in a bit early in case anyone wanted to use my ideas.

Here's what advent looks like at our house:

If you think that's a dead branch hot-glued into a stump I found in our wood pile, you'd be right.  It's our Jesse tree. ("There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit." Is. 11:1)  Each day, beginning on December 1st, with our evening devotions, we read a Bible story that tells the story of Christ beginning with Creation, and add one ornament:

As this refuses to rotate, no matter how I try, you'll have to go with it.

Throughout Advent, we walk through the stories of the Bible and see why Christ had to come. Most of the ornaments are well-known Bible stories.  The last eight before Christmas are the O Antiphons.  As the ornaments are added to the tree, it becomes lovelier.

You can do a search for "Jesse Tree" and find many great resources. There are kid-friendly symbols, or elaborate designs; some simple black-and-white coloring pieces, some cut from foam.  The stories even vary from resource to resource.  Some include the O Antiphons, others don't.  I'm partial to great art, and love stained glass, so I used the resources found here for ours. She has the ornaments available for free in PDF.  I simplified her procedure, mostly because I didn't have all the cool stuff she did, and I was a bit frantic. It was December 1st.  I don't recommend waiting that long to start making them.

However, last year, I did make up a Jesse Tree program for the Advent Tea the ladies do at church. While many of the stories are the same, I based it on Christ's lineage and the Jesse Tree stained glass windows in many great cathedrals. The stories toward the end include some lesser-known stories of the kings from David to Zerubabbel, before switching to John the Baptist, Mary and Joseph.  Also, I only made 18 of them, which leaves room for the O Antiphons. (We only had 45 minutes for the tea). The ornaments are quite large, as we were hanging them a Jesse Tree six feet high in the front of church.  If you're interested in seeing it or using it, I can send a copy your way.

Of course, we do a number of other things to celebrate Advent (fasting, noon prayer services at church, decorating the house slowly over the weeks, baking and freezing cookies, deep cleaning the house, listening to Advent hymns, etc.), but I think the Jesse Tree is sufficient for one post.

Check out the Advent Link-up party at Sister, Daughter, Mother, Wife.  There are some great ideas!

50 Shades of Weird

Well I've gone and done it.  I took time today to write out preschool objectives for math and language arts, and started drafting lesson plans for next week.  Guess this means I've officially joined yet another "weird" circle- "The Homeschoolers."

Feel free to ignore me next time we're at the grocery store together.

Milestones

Before my son was born, someone gave me a lovely calendar for me to track the first year of his life.  Each page had ample space for me to add pictures of him, and included stickers to mark all his milestones, significant events, and even visits from grandparents on their appropriate date.  While I haven't yet added any pictures to the calendar, I was able to get those stickers on the approximate day each one occurred.  Approximate because I updated the thing once every few months. Grandparents were updated a bit more regularly, but usually in a nonchalant manner a week after the fact, and only because they asked.

Now that he's three, I find myself doing all sorts of little happy dances over milestones, and have to refrain from announcing to everyone I see that my kid understands that we use letters to make words.  Or that he just memorized a book so he could read it to me.  Or that he picked up a new book and told the story by looking at the pictures.  That he has phonological awareness.  That he draws people with eyes, mouths, arms, legs, and necks.  That he can draw a recognizable train.  That he can identify 5:30 on an analog clock. That he can represent the number of people in a room with his fingers.  That he can put the silverware away. That he memorized the First Commandment and it's meaning.

I shouldn't be surprised by any of this.  After all, I sat through four good years of teacher education studying how children develop and learn.  Yet, it astounds me to watch all of this unfolding.  It astounds me more than any of those other important first year milestones ever did.  My kid is an early emergent reader.  My kid is doing simple math.  My kid is understanding his faith.

I'm sure it merely reinforces the fact that I'm a complete nerd, but really, why can't we get some stickers for these exciting times?

The American Frugal Housewife on the Education of Daughters

Besides giving some useful advice on how to create the perfect pie crust, clean the feathers in your bed, and keep those eggs fresh for up to three years (it seems all you need is a properly mixed bucket of lime-water!), Lydia Marie Francis Child has some insightful social commentary in her book:

One great cause of vanity, extravagance and idleness that are so fast growing upon our young ladies, is the absence of domestic education.  By domestic education, I do not mean the sending of daughters into the kitchen some half dozen times, to weary the patience of the cook, and to boast of it the next day in the parlor.  I mean tow or three years pent with a mother, assisting her in her duties, instruction brothers and sisters, and taking care of their own clothes.  This is the way to make them happy, as well as good wives; for, being early accustomed to the duties of life, they will sit lightly as well as gracefully upon them.

. . . 

Instead of representing domestic life as the gathering place of the deepest and purest affections; as the sphere of woman's enjoyments as well as of her duties; as, indeed the whole world to her; that one pernicious sentence [Let her enjoy herself all she can, while she is single!] teachers a girl to consider matrimony desirable because 'a good match' is a triumph of vanity, and it is deemed respectable to be 'well settled in the world;' but that it is a necessary sacrifice of her freedom and her gayety . . . they have been taught to look for happiness where it never can be found, viz. in the absence of all occupation, or the unsatisfactory and ruinous excitement of fashionable competition.  

The difficulty is, eduation does not usually point the female heart to its only true resting-place.  That dear English word 'home,' is not half so powerful a talisman as 'the world.' Instead of the salutary truth, that happiness is in  duty, they are taught to consider the two things totally distinct; and that whoever seeks one, must sacrifice the other.

Hoopde doopde! You'm genuis!

Though I haven't (yet) been able to locate any scholarly articles on the subject, I'll take this as a reassurance that I ought not worry so much that my son still doesn't sleep through the night.

Ruh-Ro, Raggy!

It's not rocket science

When I was in 7th grade, my school started a new extracurricular activity for girls only.  We would meet during our lunch period, and have special woman visitors come and speak about their lives, their jobs, and what it meant to be a woman.  The sole purpose of the group was to encourage young girls to think of themselves as special- special in their own ways, with their own talents, and their own gifts, free to pursue those gifts in any way they decided.  I joined.  I didn't want to sit by myself in a cafeteria full of boys.

This idea of being "special" has really got us duped.  I don't mean to say we don't have different gifts and talent, most assuredly, we do.  But we've taken this notion of specialty a bit too far.  So far, in fact, that we now think that it takes it special kind of woman to stay at home, caring for it and her family.  And that taking care of the children, house, and husband require special tools to make up for the gifts we lack.

Think of all the products we bring into the home to make up for our lack of talents-- magazines divulging the secrets the child-rearing and husband-pleasing, special mops and brooms promising to clean the floors better than the old varieties, packaged meals pledging to bring a tasteful, healthy entree to your dinner table--all because we believe that only a special woman could figure out how to do everything a house and home require, and we are not that woman.

It's no wonder that women are running from their homes and families so quickly.  When we're frustrated that our children pester us all day, mess our floors moments after mopping, and interrupt us when the dinner's almost finished causing it to burn, it's easy to look longingly at the neighborhood's We-Have-All-The-Answers! Child Daycare Center and dream of picking up take-out on the commute home from a job where children won't interrupt us.  But if an ordinary woman decides she'll stay home, she most certainly must invest in expensive equipment and purchase the specialized knowledge of child psychologists, or she will be a failure.

What we've forgotten is that ordinary women have been doing these ordinary tasks for centuries without Parents magazine, Swiffer Wet Jets, and Voila! dinner entrees.  I'm not saying these products are bad, in and of themselves.  They can most certainly be helpful in a pinch, and stave off frustration from time to time.  But what they've caused us to believe is that women, on their own, aren't sufficient to be running a household- that failure isn't acceptable. But to look back through history, we must acknowledge that ordinary women have been gardening, sewing, washing, quilting, cooking, nursing, pie-making, and canning.  They did it, not because they had been granted some unique insight on the workings of needle and thread, garden fertilizer, stain-fighting, or food preservation, but because their families needed blankets and shirts, food in their stomachs, and a place to eat that wasn't crawling with larvae.  And their husbands were busy making sure they could give their wives the tools they needed to carry out their tasks.

Now certainly every woman wasn't accomplishing every feat with the same amount of success.  Some were better stitchers, others made prize-winning pies.  Some were regarded as exceptional mothers, others grew beautiful produce.  But these woman continued to do the things their families needed them to do, even if they didn't do it very well, and they passed on their skills to their daughters, so that when their time came, they too could run their households.

Today's homes do not require more of a woman than they did before.  In many ways, they require less.  They do not require any more exclusive skills or knowledge than they used to, though my great-great-grandmother may have stared questioningly at my dishwasher and marveled at the frozen chicken breasts in my freezer.  Homes ask one thing of women, as they have in the past: that they be there, doing they best they can to care for their families.  For it is in the home that a woman becomes special-special to her children and her spouse, not because of the work she does, but because she does it.

Perhaps I'll get the hang of this yet!

Ever since my son was born, I've second-guessed everything I've done.  Have I encouraged healthy sleep habits? Did I introduce solids too early?  Should I have weaned him months ago? I suppose it's a direct result of all the magazines and internet sites I used to browse, and all the uber-opinionated babyologists who claim that if I didn't follow their child-rearing instructions exactly, my child would end up in juvie before he turned 10.

I've stopped turning to Google with every baby question I have, and instead rely on my own intuition, the advice of seasoned mothers I personally know, and (most importantly) what my husband and I know about our child.  I still have my misgivings, and I doubt they'll ever fully go away.

So it was quite a treat when I found my son sitting on the floor, holding a book, pointing at the pictures, and saying the appropriate words.  For the first time in motherhood, I can honestly say, "There! I did something right."

How the 60s failed us

When Karen Owen first appeared in the news, I decided not to take up the debate.  Rather, I would leave it to the people who were more gifted in wisdom and words.  My wait was worthwhile.  From Caitlin Flanagan in the most recent Atlantic:

 "As I read the woman's report, and imagined the tones of outrage and hurt and violation in which it was surely given, and as I lingered on her account of how drunk she'd been, a very old-fashioned phrase suddenly floated through my mind.  It was a phrase I hadn't thought of in years, a simple formulation that carried within it a world of assumptions and beliefs, 'She's angry,' I thought to myself, 'because he took advantage of her.'

. . . In those days, we relied on our own good judgment to keep us safe, but also--and this is the terrible, unchanging fact about being female--on the mercy of the men around us."

While I may have used a word other than "terrible" to describe the truth of women relying upon the mercy of men, I believe Flanagan has hit upon a truth we have ignored.

"We've made a culture for our college women in which they have been liberated from the curfews and parietals that were once the bane of co-eds, but one in which they have also shaken off the general suspicion of male sexuality. . . "

And not just our college women, but our young daughters as well, as evidenced by the alarming fashions available in the "girls" section of any clothing store.  We have not taught our women and girls to guard themselves, but encouraged them to be seductive in the name of beauty, and therefore have left them vulnerable to the pain only a man can bring upon a woman.

God grant us wisdom as we teach our daughters what is good: to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Flanagan's full article here.

I know I'm fakin' it

In pondering the question of motherhood loneliness, I have come to realize two things.

1.)  If I want to find other mothers with young children, I have to go to them.  They won't come to me.  Many stay-at-home-mothers are busy running their toddlers to activities such as Kindermusic, swim lessons, story hour, and tumble camp.  They have carefully arranged schedules, and plan play-dates with like-minded mothers. I do not.  I do pack the bags and head for the library each week for story time, and check out a week's supply of new books to entertain the kiddo, but my life doesn't revolve around him.  Not entirely, anyway.  Most women today stay home to take care of their kids.  I stay home to take care of my home--the bathrooms, the laundry, the dishes, the floors, the dinners, the husband, and the child.  I feel just as much obligation to scrub my toilet and wash the windows as I do the change the diapers and put my son down for a nap.  Therefore, I need to spend the majority of my time at my home.

2.)  Friendships will be difficult for me, because I'm becoming increasingly weird.  On top of my uber-conservative Lutheran values, I've been influenced by the Wendell Berry school of thought.  I dream of raising chickens and pigs, and canning the vegetables I've grown in our garden.  I intend to homeschool my children, and am skeptical of current trends in higher-education and women wearing pants.  I've planned to teach my daughters the womanly art of housekeeping, sewing, and cooking, and my sons to be wood-chopping, door-holding gentlemen. Add to that my opposition to feminism and birth control, and you've got yourself a certified weirdo.  Well, at least a certified weirdo in the works.

But for right now, and probably for the next couple years, I can fake it.  We have no chickens, pigs, or garden.  My child is too young to swing an ax or go to school, and I only have one.  I attend story hour because I have time to do that and the dishes.  The inner weirdo is covered up by what appears to be your run-of-the-mill stay-at-home-mom, gallivanting off to toddler events, chit-chatting with other moms, and desperately wishing for a play date.  But soon enough that weirdo will come shining through- either in words or actions or number of children, and I won't be able to contain her.  Perhaps by then, she'll really be stuck at home dictating sentences and boiling jars for homemade jam so that she has no time to ponder her loneliness.

Children as Idols

Issues, Etc.'s roundtable discussion on the challenges and joys of motherhood made me wonder how I would respond to the same questions.   Are children idols? From my classroom experience, yes, quite often.  Parents run their lives according to their children's sports teams and spelling tests.  It's no wonder we often choose to limit our families to one, two, or three children.  They seem more like personal assistants, neatly scheduling their children's lives, being careful not to double-book practices with family dinners or neighborhood playdates; gathering needed items for these neatly scheduled appointments; and personally accompanying them to every activity, checking with the adults "in charge" to be sure that they didn't forget anything their child might need.

What happened to responsibility?  When did we decide that children were too young to think and make decisions for themselves?  Our schools bend over backwards to deliver homework lists to the parents, rather than having the students write the homework in the assignment notebook.  (Surely you remember those- handy little inventions of spiral-bound calendars, plenty of blank space for filling in assignments, due dates, and lunch money reminders.)  We forgive late grades on assignments parents forgot to do.  We put the "OK" on the assignments done in (rather obviously) adult handwriting.  We call home when the child forgets the permission slip for the field trip, or the much-needed lunch money.  Why? Becaue parents always come to the rescue.  And if we don't give them that opportunity, we are to blame.

I just have a hard time picturing June Cleaver or Clair Huckstable running forgotten lunches and backpacks to the school to save their children from grumbling tummies or late grades.