Merely bragging

As much as I'd like to have another kid running around my house, there are some good things about only having the one- such as having the time to work on something so amazingly awesome I'd play with it myself when he wasn't looking.




And I thought the guitar I made was cool.

All of the buildings were hand appliqued, the rest was done on machine.  I even attatched a pocket so when it's rolled up, the cars have a place to be stored.  Of course, there's a train depot, because in this house, trains rule.

I suppose I ought to point out that the gas pumps and car wash (the red strips in the bottom left are the "brushes." They didn't get smoothed down for the picture.), were not my idea.  I found them somewhere (or everywhere) on the great world-wide-web, but I can't determine where they originated.

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.

X is for Xantham Gum?

I won my husband through pie. Buttery crust stuffed with thickly sliced apples, cinnamon warmth and a touch of nutmeg.  I suppose the pork roasts, mustard chicken, and meatloaves played some roll in all this, too, but I'm certain it was the pie that finally won him over.  Even now, I can win him over with some culinary delight- handbreaded fried chicken, the perfect taco seasoning, a winning rib rub, a steak sandwich with goat cheese, a pecan pie. 

I'm not about to claim I'm the next Iron Chef, or Pioneer Woman, or Martha Stewart, (though I have been called two of those on several occasions).   I just like to cook.  I know enough about the ingredients that I rarely follow a recipe as it's printed, but subsititute and modify with abandon, even creating new dishes according to my whims.  I've subscribed to a magazine simply for the five or six new recipes I would get each month, and stuffed a binder full of my favorites.

However, I've recently been paralyzed when dinner rolls around.  I find myself longing for a muffin, but too nervous to mix anything up.  Suddenly, everything I knew about baking has become null and void.  Things that would have been simple- casseroles, meatloaf, cookies- are suddenly overwhelming.  I'm scared to make a pie. 

I found out I have a gluten intolerance.  No wheat, no barley, no rye.  No breadcrumbs, no croutons, no pizza crust, no cans of cream soup, no spaghetti, no tortillas, no pie crust.  While I'm usually up for a good challenge, in many ways I feel like someone has handed a cookbook written in Ænglisc.  I'm suddenly looking for products whose names I've only seen on the ingredient list of dressings or packages of birdseed, and following directions that feel so backwards and wrong.  So flop after flop (think cranberry-orange muffins with an uncooked garbanzo bean aftertaste, and cookies gritty enough to have come out of the Dust Bowl), I'm slowly figuring it out.  I think.  I'm nowhere ready for pie crust.




Why must you be so disagreeable?



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?

In the time it's taken you to forget about this blog,

I've
  -lost my computer to a virus
  -lost my phone to St. Louis humidity
  -got blocked from my email
  -moved to a new state
  -settled into a new home
  -found three snakes in the house
  -joined a book club
  -watched the dog chase a cow out of the backyard
  -repeatedly bribed my child with gum to get through church services.
  

What I haven't done
  -updated this blog.

 
Consider it done.

Thrifty? Or just hopeful?

Part of this year's move is downsizing.  I've acquired a piano (it was Great-Grandmother's, how could I say no?), and I intend to make space for it in the moving van by ditching it's cubic-foot equivalent in boxes of other stuff.  So it's out with the extra tongs and rarely-used spatulas, vanilla scented candles and flower vases, lidless Tupperware and tired-out clothes.  I'm even sorting through boxes the boxes we we left in the basement labeled, but unpacked.

There's one corner of the basement, though, that pains me each time I walk past.  It's the corner where we've piled up the bins of clothes our son has outgrown, the supports for the cradle we no longer use, the baby toys he doesn't like anymore, the box of maternity clothes I haven't worn in years.

In saving them, I had no question I would need some of them again- at least the maternity clothes.  But possibly those baby clothes as well.  We could have another boy!   So we kept them.  A year passed without a pregnancy, and therefore no baby to wear the clothes.  I moved them that summer, thinking they'd save us money if we had another boy on vicarage.  But the year passed without a pregnancy, and therefore no baby to wear the clothes.  I moved them again.  Another year has passed without a pregnancy, and therefore no baby to wear the clothes.  Now they sit in the corner of the basement, reminding me all the while that there still is no other baby to wear the clothes, despite all of our prayers.

I can't help but wonder if there ever will be another baby to wear those clothes.  I can't help but wonder if I'm missing the small wonders happening around me with the son I do have by holding on to those clothes and moving them one more time.  I can't help but wonder if I ought to let someone else get some use out of them, and trust that God will provide should he see fit to give us another child.  Perhaps letting go of those clothes would help ease some of the pain.

Market to market

In a few short weeks, I'll be moving home.  Home, I say.  Home.  As in, the place where memories meet futures and I can sit for long evenings at my mother's table and share with my son the stories of our lives.  As Call Day approached, I had imagined I would end up feeling a bit like Sarai or Ruth; but like Naomi, I get to go home.  While I'll still be 75 miles from my mother's kitchen table, I'm certain I'll find it's a rather short distance for my homesick heart.

What's more, I'm not just returning a place where my mother is.  I'm returning to a place whose stories have become intertwined with mine.  A place whose customs and traditions have influenced my view of the world, and set me apart from so many others I've met along the way.  A place like no other place; the good life.  I am content.