October 2009 Reading List

1.  Expressions of the Catholic Faith by Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D.:  I didn’t actually read all of this book.  I read about 2/3rds, though.  I think part of the problem was that the author’s understanding about the construction of the New Testament is completely based on tradition rather than Biblical archaeology or historical criticism.  It just goes to show that a nihil obstat doesn’t necessarily mean that everything in a book is factually correct.  It’s also an example of what you get when you have an art historian writing about religion.  Even though I loved his definition of transubstatiation as being the opposite of transformation, he started losing me when he said that Matthew was the first Gospel written.

2.  Boys and Girls Learn Differently by Michael Gurian:  Having already read his books The Wonder of Girls and The Wonder of Boys, I found parts of this book repetitive.  The book is oriented towards the classroom, and he generally disregards homeschoolers.  He also seems to orient everything with the assumption that all kids come from homes with either single parents or two working parents.  He advocates longer school days, so that kids won’t have to latch key it and will have time to learn extra life skills at school.  It sounds like torture, though, for those who do have a parent waiting for them at home to teach them those things.

3.  You’re Teaching My Child What? by Miriam Grossman:  This book was really great.  It goes over some of the things that are never covered in sex education classes that should be, and exposes how most promoters of “sex education” really promote “sex ideology” that has very little basis in science.  She is hardly unbiased in her disgust of groups like Planned Parenthood, but she makes a lot of good points…especially when it comes to the credentials of some of the people making policies and advising young people about their sexual health.  I highly recommend her book.  The information about pheromones, oxytocin, and cervical maturation makes the book totally worth reading.

 

ETA:  I knew I was missing something…

4.  True Darcy Spirit by Elizabeth Aston:  This Pride & Prejudice sequel follows Miss Cassandra Darcy, grand-daughter of Lady Catherine De Burgh, as a case of mistaken identity followed by a romantic error of judgment, alters her life forever.  This was third or fourth re-read of this book in my personal collection.

5.  Mr. Darcy’s Dream by Elizabeth Aston:  This is Aston’s most recent sequel, and follows two of Mr. Darcy’s nieces (Jane’s and Georgiana’s daughters) as they plan a summer ball at Pemberly so that Mr. Darcy can show-case his new and modern greenhouse.  This is the first book in which Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth are actually seen rather than just referenced.  She keeps their appearance fairly short, though, with only Mr. Darcy having any dialogue.  I think part of Aston’s success  is that she does not risk ruining such iconic characters as Darcy and Elizabeth.

7 Quick Takes (v. 9)

1.  I can’t decide if we’re being prudent or over-protective, but we decided to pull the kids out of gymnastics classes for the next session.  Until now I’ve been pretty much writing off all the Swine Flu talk as hype, but at this point I don’t really know what to think.  So, now are Fridays will be free.  I feel bad that they will be missing their classes when they were both progressing, but I’m also kind of relieved because Fridays were getting so crazy:  wake-up, gymnastics, lunch, Aldi, home, other grocery, gymnastics, dinner.  I’m thinking that when we do sign them up again we’re going back to having their classes on different days.

2. I had already kept our Friday homeschooling plans light, but sometimes we weren’t even getting to what little I had planned.  Forget about doing little extras like our Spanish vocabulary flash cards or math and reading activities to reinforce certain concepts.  I think Bailey really needs extra work with math facts through ten and making ten as well as letter blends.  So hopefully we can take some time on Fridays to go over those things.

3.  As part of our plan of avoiding places where large numbers of children might spread germs, we also decided that we would break our tradition of taking  Bailey to Chuck E. Cheese for her birthday next month.  She was upset until we told her that she could plan her own party at home.  It will still only be family, but she’s been scouring the Party City website and discerning which Hannah Montana plates and balloons and such that she wants for her party.  I’ll have to start scouting out the local bakeries soon about the cake (we usually just bought one at Chuck E. Cheese), and we’ll probably order some Pizza Hut.  All in all, we probably won’t spend too much more than we would at Chuck E. Cheese on food and tokens.  And who knows?  We may even be starting a new tradition.

4.  The girls are looking forward to Halloween.  They’ll be having their own Halloween Party early in the day at Granny’s after spending the night there.  Then we’ll pick them up and take them trick-or-treating around 5:00.  The official time for our village is between 4:00 and 7:00.  That seems so early, and I have to admit that I’m not real keen on it being controlled by the government.  Then again I don’t want kids knocking at my door at 10:00, either.  At least our village has never tried to move trick-or-treating away from Halloween just because it fell on a weekday.  That’s really taking things too far.

5.  This year we luck out with the Feast of All Saints, though.  It falls on a Sunday, so we don’t have an extra day that we’re required to be at Mass.  I know that is the completely wrong attitude.  And in fact I really like going to Mass, but it is also really stressful with the kids sometimes.  I think I am still traumatized from having to attend the Easter Triduum last year.  It was a very long three days at the Church, even though it was totally worth it.

6.  For the past few months we’ve hit about three or four different churches besides our regular parish.  Ok, mainly we’ve been hitting the ones that have an evening Mass on Sundays.  What has really amazed me, though, is the high quality of homilies I’ve heard at almost everyone.  (Sure, the last priest should have stopped after point two or three, but it would have been an excellent homily if he had.)  I don’t know if the quality of homilies has gotten way better since I was a kid or if it’s just a symptom sign that I am getting old more mature.

7.  We finally dropped our land line and switched to cell phone only two weeks ago.  The biggest problem is that the cell phone just isn’t as loud as our land-line phone was (and we used to have two land-line phones).  I pretty much have to carry it on me all day long because I can’t hear it at all if I’m upstairs doing something and I can barely hear it over the usual din of three children when I’m on the same floor with it.  I definitely need to get a belt clip for those days when I don’t have a pocket to put it in.  I also need to find a higher place to keep it when I’m not holding it, because Katie keeps scooting a chair over to my spot on the counter so she can grab it.  She’s the queen of scooting chairs around to get into stuff that she shouldn’t.  This is what I get for not having a kitchen gate in place before she became mobile.

Catholic Bones

For those of you who haven’t seen the show Bones, the basic premise is that the forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan and FBI agent Seeley Booth work together to solve murders.  One is all brain, and the other is all heart.  Together they make an unstoppable team.  The two characters represent the battles between evidence versus intuition, academic intelligence versus social skills, and reason versus faith.  Because we know that in today’s society the two things are considered mutually exclusive.

It’s this last battle that I find particularly interesting, as Agent Booth is a Catholic.  It is always interesting to see how Catholics are represented on television.  Like most  people who adhere to a religion, they are not usually portrayed in a flattering way.  The underlying assumption is that a person of faith is either a fool or a hypocrite.  Overall Bones does a better job of handling religion than many other shows.  For instance, a recent episode centered around an anthropology intern who has been faking an Arab accent so that the other scientists won’t harass him as much for being a devout Muslim.  He makes the very good point that you can still believe that God created the world in all of its mysteries and and also believe that science can help us to understand His work even better, sometimes.  Even science doesn’t have all of the answers.

I find Booth’s Catholicism particularly interesting, because in some ways he represents the “average” Catholic.  You know the kind that would probably be referred to as Cafeteria Catholic, one who picks and chooses which tenants of the faith they want to follow.  For instance, he doesn’t  seem to follow the Church’s teachings on chastity.  He has a son out of wedlock and there are references to other non-marital liaisons.  And in a last season episode, he is willing to be a sperm donor for his work partner Dr. Brennan even though the entire process goes against Church teachings.  However, you get the impression that he does attend Mass somewhat regularly.

Since Dr. Brennan is atheist, she often makes comments about Booth’s faith.  The most recent one that inspired this post revolves around the vow of poverty.  Brennan and Booth are riding along when she makes a reference to a long standing argument they have been having about the Pope’s hat.  I was just waiting for some crazy reference to it being designed to represent an obscure fish god, but instead Brennan offers the just as misguided, “I’m just saying it’s pretty ornate for someone who made a vow of poverty.”

The fact that Booth didn’t offer a rebuttal just goes to show that he is as ignorant about it as she is.  You just don’t know if this ignorance is intentional or reflects the ignorance of the writers.  Many Catholics today are very ignorant when it comes to the tenants and inner-workings of their faith.  They don’t know which things are essential to know and believe and which are optional.  They don’t really understand Church history or what things are or mean.  Welcome to the break down of Catholic religious education since the 1960’s.

Now, despite the deficiency of my Catholic religious education in some areas, I would have at least been able to point out one thing her comment.  She is misunderstanding what a vow of poverty is.  It does not mean that you can not own any possessions.  As Sister Rose explained it to us, due to her vow of poverty her paychecks went directly to her order where it was redistributed based on need.  She then received a stipend each month to cover her rent, food, and any other minor expenses that she might have.  If she needed extra one month in order to replace clothing or some other necessity she would have to apply for it.  Anything left over each month was hers to do with as she wished, and she was also allowed to keep presents.  She was always given enough to live comfortably but not extravagantly.

Last year I learned of a second misconception in Dr. Brennan’s comment.  Not all priests or religious women make vow of poverty.  Diocesan priests in fact do not make a vow of poverty.  They get a small, regular paycheck to do with whatever they wish.  As a diocesan priest Joseph Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict XVI) would not have made a vow of poverty.  This is a very common misunderstanding out there that I regularly came across while doing research to verify my knowledge on the subject.

Now as Pope, he probably does not have to live off of his paychecks.  As a head of state, his personal needs and expenses are probably taken care of much in the same way as those of the President of the United States.  Also, like the President of the United States, there are probably many extravagant things in his keeping that do not actually belong to him personally but to the office he is fulfilling.

Personally, I think it was a rather idiotic statement for Dr. Brennan to make and not just because it was based in ignorance.  Of all the things to criticize for being too costly, she chooses the Pope’s hat??  The Pope most often wears a zuchetto or a mitre, which are both made from cloth.  It’s not like those things are encrusted with priceless jewels.  Unless she is making a reference to the now defunct Triregnum, or papal tiara.  Either way it seems like a rather silly criticism for someone of her purported intelligence and reasoning skills.

I will continue to watch and enjoy Bones despite its sometimes anti-Catholic banter.  I understand that this is sympotomatic of media in general.  And I will not hold Booth’s “cafeteria” Catholic ways against him.  Because, you see, you just can’t see inside a person’s heart.  I don’t know if Booth disobeys Church teachings out of ignorance, misunderstanding, willful disobedience, fear, an inablility to resist temptation, misplaced priorities, or more probably because he is written that way so that on one hand he can represent a religious viewpoint without crossing that line of being considered kooky.  Because the general assumption is that anyone who truly tries to allow their religious beliefs to guide all aspects of their life must have something wrong with them.

Life Unplugged

About two months ago, my husband and I started looking at some ways to shave some money off of our expenses.  Some unexpected repairs and expenses over the summer prevented us from putting as much back in savings as we had intended.  One of our goals is to have all of our credit card debt paid off by the end of 2010 and keep it off, so we were just looking to build a little cushion in our budget to avoid using our credit card if possible.

I started by suggesting that we cut back on our cable package.  My husband wasn’t keen on that idea.  He suggested getting rid of our land-line and switching to a cell phone, but I wasn’t keen on that idea.  And once he realized it would mean giving up our alarm system, he wasn’t either.  Once he started looking at the cable bill and realized how much we were paying for cable television and how few channels we as a family were actually watching, he suggested that we completely dump our cable, land-line, and alarm system.

I had secretly been wanting to ditch the cable for awhile.  And we were both having concerns about some of the attitudes the girls were picking up from Disney and Nickelodeon shows.  We started looking into how much an antenna would cost and what to expect from it.  After a experimenting with three antennas, we found success with this Clearstream 2 Long-Range HDTV Antenna by Antennas Direct.  It’s an indoor/outdoor antenna, and after a few different scans found a good place for it near a living room window.  We get all of the major networks (although CBS and NBC are more finnicky), WGN, Fox, all four PBS stations, a few other local channels, and three channels out of Chicago that feature old television shows and movies with awesome picture quality.

How are we all adjusting to life without cable television?  Much better than I would have expected even six months ago.  Rick realized he mainly used the television as background noise while he worked on other things, and he now fills that void with DVDs, podcasts,  and music.  The girls have been rediscovering PBS Kids, but they have also been learning about “new” shows like Star Trek and The Munsters.  The first week Bailey and I watched Ed Sullivan music highlights on PBS.  They have also been getting more use out of their DVD collection and enjoying a big box of VHS movies my parents passed on to them.  We also have the entire library system to tap as we catch up on our VeggieTales viewing.

As for me, the biggest thing I missed at first was the DVR.  It was a bit of an adjustment for the girls to not be able to pause in the middle of a show for dinner time or a bathroom break.  However, I almost never watched any of my shows when they aired.  And my biggest concern about getting rid of the cable was losing the DVR and making myself a slave to the television schedule.  Let’s just say that Hulu has become my new best friend.  It offers me the same flexibility to keep up with Bones and Hell’s Kitchen as the DVR did.  Come January/February Lost may be a whole other story, though.

Overall we’ve been watching less television, which can only be a good thing.  The first few weeks we spent a lot of time outside enjoying the last of the warm weather.  A recent visit from my parents kept us busy and introduced some new toys.   Internet use has been on the rise, but it can be more easily regulated.  And being able to access Disney.com has eased Bailey’s withdrawal from the Disney Channel.  For me and Rick it was worth it just to avoid watching five hours of Hannah Montana, Zack & Cody, and Wizards of Waverly Place every day.

We are still in the process of getting our phone situation straightened out.  We get a great cell phone deal through a good friend who works at Sprint, but we’re being held up by the process of switching our land-line phone number to the new cell phone.  I know it will be a bit of an adjustment using a cell phone in the house.  My biggest concerns have been keeping the cell phone charged, keeping the cell phone on, and keeping the cell phone where it can be found easily at all times (with three small children this last one really concerns me).  I will probably need to get something to keep it on my body most of the day as I work on different floors of the house.

We were less sure about getting rid of the alarm system, and we had heard that systems with a cell phone back up were available.  So I called our security company and asked about cell phone-only systems.  They said the technology was available but would cost $230 for installation and raise our bill about $25 a month.  There were no discounts for loyal customers.  Rick and I talked about it and agreed that was too expensive and counter-productive to our goals.  So I called them back in order to cancel our service.  However, this time I got a different representative who offered us free installation and only a $1 increase on our monthly bill if we signed a five-year contract.  Since our chances of being here and wanting an alarm for the next five years were high we took the deal.  It just goes to show how much these things can depend on catching the right customer service representative.

So these days we’re feeling kind of smart.  We’re getting high quality television for free.  We’re off the grid a bit and saving some money.  Next thing you know we’ll be hooking up gas-powered generators to supply our electrical needs, growing our own food, and trading in our car for a horse and buggy.  NOT!!  And as you can tell, giving up our high-speed internet was non-negotiable for both of us.

Piper on her 4th Birthday

Today we are celebrating the 4th birthday of my second daughter, Piper.  Our big plans for today include swimming at Memaw and Papaw’s hotel and going to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner when Daddy gets home from work.  These are two of her favorite things to do.  Piper has many other favorite things, though, like butterflies and flowers and rainbows and unicorns.  (She describes such things as “Princess Puffy” and “Girl Techie”.)  She loves pasta with tomato sauce and anything involving chocolate or peanut butter.

It’s been an interesting year for Piper.  This time last year she was still in diapers until she decided on Christmas that she was pretty much done with them.  It was about a month after she turned 3 that I realized that she could write most of the alphabet.  Now she likes to practice writing words.  She’s very good at counting and even some simple addition (even though she doesn’t know what addition is).  She is so smart, and has an excellent vocabulary.

There were some rough periods, though.  She definitely went through the Terrible Threes. For close to six months, Piper became very picky about every little thing and expected me to be a mind reader.  There were many temper tantrums, and many trips to time out for hitting, rudeness, and general kid craziness.  Thankfully, most of that seems to be behind us now.  She’s even starting to warm up to a few hugs and kisses on the cheek after denying us these things for almost two years.

Piper loves her sisters.  She and Bailey play together a lot, and she and Katie are always hugging and kissing on each other.  Piper enjoys playing with other little kids, too.  I’ve noticed that she seems to prefer small groups, though, and gets a little overwhelmed in large ones.  This may be because Piper also likes her quiet or “peace” as she calls it.  But she is not shrinking violet.  She can be just as loud as the rest, especially when she is singing her favorite songs or making up her own in her deep voice.

She still loves the drums, and Ringo is her favorite Beatle.  She enjoys gymnastics classes and riding her bike and going to and in places with Mommy and Daddy even if there is nothing there for her.  And everywhere she goes she brings a smile to people’s faces.  She is just so adorable with her big, expressive eyes and long eye-lashes.  Even when she is angry, she looks so cute.

I can’t wait to see how she grows and develops over this coming year.  She won’t be a pre-schooler for very much longer.  The thing that is scariest about Piper turning four is that next year she’ll be turning five.  My girls are growing up too fast.

7 Quick Takes (v. 8)

1.  Every where I go I see signs to get flu shots (only $24.99).  I am not a big fan of flu shots, and not just because I don’t like being stuck with needles.  From what I understand is that the flu shot makers take their best guess as to which strands will be going around and use those for the vaccinations.  However, there are many other strands out there that you can still get after having a flu shot.  And it always seems like every person I know who gets a flu shot ends up getting the flu anyway and infecting people around them.

2.  Speaking of needles, it’s amazing to think that non-tattooed people may be the minority someday soon.  It seems like everyone has a tattoo these days.  I am not anti-tattoo, exactly.  Actually, I probably have more reverence for tattoos than the average person.  My feeling is that you should not have anything permanently tattooed onto your body unless it has deep personal meaning and long-lasting significance.  So, I just can’t personally understand cartoon characters as having deep and long-lasting personal significance.  I love Belle from Beauty and the Beast but not enough to have her inked onto me.  I always thought that if I ever did get a tattoo it would be a small Chi Rho on my inside ankle, where it could easily be covered with long pants or socks.   Maybe  I’ll get one when I’m 70, so I won’t be like a plain-bellied Sneetch in the old-folks home.  By that time they can work with the wrinkles and saggy skin to make a more lasting image.

3.  Speaking of needles yet again, Bailey bravely endured two shots of Novocaine to have that front snaggle-tooth pulled last Saturday.  Bailey looks absolutely adorable without those two front teeth.  She keeps getting mad that we just stare at her mouth when she talks.  Within a few days of having that tooth pulled, though, her adult teeth really started coming in.  We totally made the right decision to get that tooth pulled, even if it did set us back $30.

4.  There are two dentists in our office.  One checks for cavities after the hygienist does cleanings and handles adult tooth issues.  Dr. C. ,who has pulled three of Bailey’s teeth, mainly handles the kids’ issues.  Apparently when she had her check-up three months ago the other dentist couldn’t be bothered to examine her mouth for anything but cavities.  Dr. C. took me aside, though, and said that Bailey should probably see an orthodontist soon because her bottom arch or palate or something is not growing enough to handle all the adult teeth.  He wasn’t sure what exactly an orthodontist could do at this point, but they might be able to come up with a game plan before big issues arise.  Small mouths tend to run in my family, but so far she doesn’t seem to be getting my buck teeth (knock on wood–can we do that as Catholics?).

5.  Of course, as you may know, I am not really keen on our dental office and had high hopes of switching from the HMO to the PPO next year and finding a dentist closer to home with more accomodating hours.  After talking to the human resources manager at my husband’s job it looks like we’ll be staying where we are.  It turns out that the PPO not only has a higher premium, but it also has a one year waiting period for major work and doesn’t cover any orthodontics.  (Banging head against desk!!)

6.  I didn’t go back with Bailey when she had her tooth pulled; she usually prefers her Daddy for that.  Apparently, as soon as she hopped in the dental chair she informed everyone that she had some “concerns about her molars”.  They had been sore on and off, and she didn’t know if one of them could be just rubbing a “mouth ulcer”.  Dr. C. told her that it was probably her adult molars trying to break in.  However, the dental assistant asked my husband, “Is she homeschooled?”  When he answered in the affirmative, she replied, “I thought so.  No kid her age talks like that.”  I’m assuming that is a good thing.

7.  Speaking of homeschooling, I learned a new word this week.  Have you never heard of a word before in your life to have it pop up twice in a matter of minutes?  I went to one of Catholic websites that used the word narthex withing 10 minutes.  A few minutes later got around to reading the weekly parish bulletin and came across the same term.  I had gone through 32 years of my life, 12 years of Catholic school, and 4 years of college focusing on Christianity in my major without coming across the word narthex once.  It’s really just a fancy name for the lobby before you enter the nave of a church.  I had heard the word nave before, but I had to look that up to.  (sigh.)

September 2009 Reading List

1.  All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque : I don’t know what to say about this book.  I am glad that I read it.  It takes a very deep look at the insanity of war, but not quite in the fun way that Catch-22 does it.  It gave me a much better understanding of World War I, but it was especially interesting to remember that it is written from the perspective of the “bad guys”.

2.  Star Wars Fate of the Jedi:  Abyss by Troy Denning:  The plot thickens…and after all these years I still love reading Han and Leia tease each other.

3.  Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman:  I totally agree with Klosterman’s assessment that everyone wants “fake love”.  I also tend to agree that all probability is really 50/50.  I had to really push myself to read through the chapter comparing everything in life to a Lakers/Celtics rivalry.  I did find it amusing that he asks people what kind of speech he would give if at a party whose entire guest list include former sexual partners especially since I’ve only had one partner who happens to be my husband.  Something tells me he doesn’t hear that a lot.  Overall, it’s a very fun book to read.  One thing that struck me (being me) is the influence of his Catholic upbringing in ways that Klosterman probably doesn’t even realize.

4. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh:  I’ve heard this book recommended in Catholic circles but I’m not exactly sure why.  It does center around a wealthy Catholic family between WWI and WWII, but I don’t know that I would really call it a “Catholic book” thematically.  There were two things I found interesting. 1) Lady Marchmain was more concerned about her daughter marrying a non-Catholic than her son having a homosexual affair.  I find this interesting given the idea that society was more unforgiving of homosexuality back then than it is today.  Secondly, there’s a part where Sebastian Flyte (I wish I could find the exact quote) where he explains to Charles that Catholics see the world in a completely different way than most other people.  Charles argues otherwise because he just can’t see the world as Sebastian and his family do.  Interesting book; I’m glad I read it.

7 Quick Takes (v. 7)

1.  It’s amazing sometimes how one small thing can lead to much bigger things down the road.  For instance when we first moved into our house, we started recycling newspapers and milk jugs.  Three years later we now recycle grocery bags (paper and plastic), aluminum cans and foil, plastic and glass bottles, and various food boxes.  I have two recycle boxes in the house:  one for sheets of paper and this wonderful one I bought for tossing everything else.  Three years ago we put out one recycle bin each week; most weeks we now set out two or three.

2.  When it came to healthier eating, that one small thing was buying fruit spreads with no added sugar or sugar substitutes.  Now I constantly check labels hoping to avoid things like MSG, high fructose corn syrup, and food colorings as much as possible without completely killing our desire to eat.  This is how I happened to have a jar of Polaner All Fruit Orange Marmalade in the refrigerator (not something I would expect to have in my refrigerator).

3.  For the past few weeks I’ve been really trying to stick exactly to my grocery budget of $140 or even come under.  So, when it came time to get a new jar of sweet & sour sauce to go with my Aldi-brand chicken egg rolls, I decided to save a few dollars and try them with the Polaner Orange Marmalade.  Since the sweet & sour sauce I had been using was apricot based and it looked kind of like  jelly, I figured the orange marmalade wouldn’t be that big of a stretch.  And, ya know?  I think I actually liked using the orange marmalade better.  It added a touch of flavor but wasn’t quite as sweet.

4.  I can’t get Katie to try any fruit spreads or cream cheese or regular cheese or peanut butter or pasta or anything that isn’t a close cousin to junk food.  She’s eats the following:  crackers, cookies, yogurt, bananas, fruit and cereal bars, french fries, and various cereals like honey puffs, fruity rice, and fruit loops.  That is pretty much all she will eat.  She will also drink some whole milk and apple juice (mixed with water).  So, I’ve been hesitant to wean her because I figure she needs all the vitamins she can get from the Mommy Milk.

I don’t know if I will be able to survive the eruption of her top molars, though.  She doesn’t sleep well, waking up sometimes every hour.  And she insists on nursing.  By insists, I mean Katie throws the biggest temper tantrum and claws at my shirt if I try to resist giving her what she wants.  The older two might have whined a little bit, but Katie gets really pissed off.  Of course, the one down-side of co-sleeping is keeping her from waking up Piper or my husband.  I’ve nursed Katie slightly longer than I did the other two, but I think her time is almost up.

5.  I have a feeling, though, that in order to make the weaning process less tortuous I am going to have to do two things.  First of all, I am going to have to be less lazy about feeding her.  I’ve fallen into the bad habit of putting her in her feeding chair with things she can easily self-feed  while I do other things.  So, I need to make a more concerted effort to feed her myself and snuggle with her when she is drinking a cup of milk.  Maybe then she won’t just connect nursing as her only intimacy.  Secondly, I think I need to starve her a bit.  Maybe if I only let her eat every two to three hours and give her a chance to build up a real appetite she’ll be less picky about eating a wider variety of foods.

6.  There’s a third thing that I really need to do, too.  I need to start getting Piper out of the family bed.  I think not nursing Katie at night would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to worry about her waking up Piper.  I meant to start the process months ago, but then Piper got in this habit of snuggling with her head on my chest.  Since she’s not been big on physical affection for the past two years, I really hated to give that up.  But the snuggling has turned more into bucking around while pretending to snuggle, leaving me with a sore arm and shoulder much of the time.  She has recently conceded that I can kiss her on the cheek a bit as long as I’m not wearing lipstick (which I rarely do anyway).

In two weeks, Piper will turn four and two days later I will be separating the twin bed and the queen-sized bed to prepare her to move out.  I am still a little unsure about whether to move her into the bed with Bailey (the original plan) or put her and the twin bed in the play room.  The past few times I’ve tried putting them into the bed together it’s only lasted about 30 minutes before they’re both crying that they want her out.  Bailey is a late to bed/late to rise kind of person and she also feeds off of conversation to stay up later.  Piper tends to be an earlier riser, and when she’s ready to go to sleep she’s ready to go to sleep.  I think there will be lots of trial and error and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

7.  Speaking of teeth, we’ve been calling Bailey “snaggle-tooth” for the past couple months.  Her two front teeth started getting loose and the one on the right turned sideways and slid behind her other one.  We finally got it to come out a few weeks ago.  Well, the one on the left shifted dramatically once the right one was gone.  It’s looked like it was dangling by one root for weeks.  The sucker won’t come out, though.  Now her two adult teeth are starting to come in right behind it, and it is actually less loose than it was before.  We’re kind of worried that if it doesn’t come out soon it might damage her permanent teeth (leading to a lot of extensive and expensive orthodontics work).  So, we’re off to the dentist again tomorrow morning…

7 Quick Takes (v. 6)

1.  In an attempt to save some money, I finally took the time to fill out some of those surverys on the White Castle receipts.  It took about two to three minutes, and you get a code good for three free cheeseburgers.  I had been hesitant to do it for a couple reasons.  1) I’m lazy.  2) I have other things I’d rather be doing.  3) I don’t even really like cheeseburgers.  However, in the interest of frugality, now that our fat summer paychecks are a thing of the past, I filled out the surveys.  It should save us a couple dollars at least.  I’m hoping, though, that they’ll let me trade in each receipt for three free White Castles (no onion, extra pickle) instead.  After all, it would save them money since the cheese is always so expensive.  Or I could see if they would give me two of the three plain cheeseburgers without the burger, since that’s how Piper eats them.  Bailey usually opts for one plain cheeseburger and one plain fish sandwich.  Or I could pass on the fruits of my hard work to my dear husband.  After all they were his receipts for his cheeseburger purchases.  We’ll see.

2.  Katie has been kind of ban from the kitchen.  Bailey and Piper were rarely allowed in the kitchen before the age of three.  This rule started not only as a safety precaution about having babies underfoot while cooking, but because when we had a cat his litter box and bowls were in the far corner of the kitchen in our apartment.  This kept little baby Bailey was eating the cat food or worse.  When we moved to our house, we kept up the tradition even though we no longer had the cat.  However, I can’t tell you how many times we knocked down the gate in a rush, and it did a bit of damage to entryway walls.  So, when Piper got old enough, we just put the kitchen gate away in the garage.

Katie has had free reign of the kitchen since she started becoming mobile about six months ago.  When she was crawling I just had to make sure everything was swept up, which I needed to do a better job at anyway.  When she started walking, it wasn’t too big of deal.  We started having problems when she started climbing up into the kitchen chairs.  I can’t tell you how many times she has fallen out or almost tipped them over.  Then she started pushing kitchen chairs over to the sink and dumping my drying clean dishes in the sink with dirty dishes.  And the front of our utensil drawer broke a while back, so she kept pulling out forks and spoons and licking them and putting them back.  Then she kept pulling stuff out of the garbage can.

Tuesday morning I wiped all of the cobwebs off of the gate and put it back up.  Katie has not been very happy about being shut out, especially since I spend a lot of my time in the kitchen between my chores, homeschooling, and the computer.  I think she may be starting to adjust, though.  She’s only allowed in to eat or get a diaper change in the office area unless she is being closely supervised.  It’s a bit of an adjustment, though.

3.  My parents are taking a two-week bus tour into the Wild, Wild West.  Their trail takes them from Louisville, Kentucky to Las Vegas, Nevada and back.  I had my dad send me their rough itinerary, so that the girls and I could track their progress during their trip on our big U.S. map in the kitchen, taking advantage of a teachable moment.

4.  Isn’t it funny how a person can feel two completely different emotions at the same time?  Relief and Disappointment.  Fear and Excitement.    I’ve been feeling very conflicted about a lot of things lately.

5.  I haven’t been reading as many books lately.  I’ve had many other things to do with the start of the school year and trying to do a better job of keeping our home funk free.  Usually by mid-afternoon I spend my time playing around on the computer instead of relaxing with a book while Katie naps.  I’m beginning to wonder if I wouldn’t be better served by doing the latter instead.

6.  Unfortunately, the cooking class that Bailey was supposed to start this week was canceled.  She was the only person who signed up for it.  On one hand, I was disappointed for her because I know that she was looking forward to it, plus I had signed her up because I don’t feel confident in my ability to teach her how to cook since I’m not really good at it myself.  However, I was kind of having second thoughts about bending our “1 activity per child per period” rule.  We really only have so much time and money to go ’round, and once Piper turns four she’ll have more class options through our parks district as well.  This cooking class could have really been opening a can of worms.

But, my mother-in-law is teaching both girls how to sew at her house.  Since I don’t even know how to sew on a button or do basic repairs, this is a really blessing.  This is a much more important knowledge than the majority of things they would learn in any type of school.  Bailey keeps offering to teach me what they have learned, and maybe some day I’ll let her.  I like the idea, though, of them having a skill that I don’t.  I think it could be very confidence boosting as they get older.  Plus, if I learned then as they got older they might turn to me to sew on their buttons or mend their garments instead of taking the time to do it themselves.

7.  We’ve kind of had a Beatles week this week.  On Monday we came across Beatles Trivial Pursuit at Barnes & Noble.  When we learned it had three different challenge levels, we couldn’t resist buying it.  We played the basic game (skipping the extra outer track) with Bailey answering questions from the easy level and Rick and I doing a mix of medium and hard questions.  The hard questions were really hard and asked for extremely obscure facts.  Even on the easy level, though, Bailey answered a lot of questions that a six-year-old would not be expected to know, like which Beatles album starts with the sound of a jet plane (The White Album).  When I tell you that Bailey won it probably sounds like we just let her win, but she answered all of the questions herself with just the occasional hint from us.

Then on Wednesday we picked up our copy of Beatles Rock Band.  Last Spring when we bought our Wii we specifically chose Rock Band over Guitar Hero based on which program would be compatible with the Beatles game we heard was coming out.  Bailey and her daddy decided that we would start at the Cavern Club and work our way through the Beatles career in order instead of just skipping around to different songs.  Bailey and Piper took turns playing the drums while Ricky and I took turns playing guitar and singing.  Piper and I tired out first, though, and left the other two to keep playing some.

It’s really nice.  We got through entire song list in two nights, and both of the girls were getting really high scores for their drumming.  I don’t know if it’s because the Easy setting is so much easier on this compared to regular Rock Band or if the Ringo’s drum parts were really that much easier.  (Poor, Ringo.)  They each got to play on some of their favorites (Bailey-Octopus’s Garden, Piper-Birthday) and I got to sing on a couple of my favorites (Something, Here Comes the Sun).  We see this being a family fun-time favorite for many years to come, especially as Bailey and Piper get old enough to try out the guitar and Katie grows into the drums.

The Wonder of Boys

Even though I don’t have any boys, I decided to check out this book by Michael Gurian.  While I didn’t feel the need to take extensive notes like I did for The Wonder of Girls,  I thought I would jot down a few things that caught my attention or made me think.  For instance, I did learn some interesting things like that most boys/men hear better out of one ear than the other and process information better through their left eye.  He talks about how male empathy is more task-oriented.  A boy won’t allow empathy for others to interfere with completing a task at hand unless he has been given responsibility to look after a certain person who requires empathy at that moment.

Gurian talks about the importance of male role models to the proper development of boys into men and puts a big emphasis on the importance of competitive and team activities to fulfill a boy’s natural need for competition, physical exertion, socialization within a large group, and meeting other male role models.  This made me think a lot about male-only schools and clubs.  Having gone to a single-sex school I always heard that studies showed that girls did better academically in a single-sex environment than boys.  However, perhaps single-sex education is good for boys in other ways besides academics; perhaps it fulfills other develomental needs.  And maybe some all-male clubs were less about just trying to keep females down but more about just offering places where men could just be men.  Of course, the problem was that these all-male places sometimes had the side-effect of holding back female businesswomen when business deals were made at a place they couldn’t access.

One thing that I thought was kind of sad even though I understand it was when he talked about how mothers must be prepared to hand the emotional and moral training of her son over to his father or another male around age 10.  A boy needs a good man to teach him how to be a good man.  I couldn’t help think about one of my friends who lived with his father after his parents divorced when he was in early adolescence.  I couldn’t help but think about how hard that must have been for his mother to let her only child go live away from her.  And I wondered if she had agreed simply because that is what my friend said he wanted or if she somehow knew that it would be in his best interest to go live with his father at that time in his development.

A lot of what Gurian said really resounded with things John Taylor Gatto and David A. Alberts have written about the necessity for real work for adolescents, especially boys.  And I also couldn’t help thinking about how the Amish put a great importance on work that keeps the father with the family all day so that boys have a constant model of behavior and mothers aren’t given a disproportionate amount of responsibility for discipline.  Sometimes the Amish have an amazing understanding of things that us Englishers lost a long time ago.

I don’t care for the set-up of this book as much as I did the other-one.  Of course, having written this book first maybe Gurian realized that a structural change was needed.  He also seems to twist himself into a pretzel trying to emphasize that while boys need spiritual direction that doesn’t necessarily mean they need a religion.

I think the two biggest flaws of the book, though, are that he doesn’t even mention pornography and he condones masturbation.  Pornography is a huge problem for men, especially in this internet age.  These are huge missing pieces of the puzzle that I hope has/will be remedied in later editions.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to the parents of boys.  And if I ever become the parent of a boy, I will probably add this to my book collection.  It does have certain lessons that parents need to learn.