Barefoot and Pregnant

Testing, testing

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:01:00 +0000

Just a little reminder, everyone...I've moved to Patheos. Please, pretty please leave comments on new or old posts over there, because the comments left here won't show up over there. See you on the flip side! (Yeah, I did totally just say that.)

Guess Who's Moving to Patheos!

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 02:32:00 +0000

That's right, my new blog is up and running at Patheos! I'm so excited to be joining the awesome bloggers over there, and I hope you guys will come over and check it out. If you do, you'll be rewarded with the tale of how the Anchoress helped untwist my panties.

This blog will get redirected in a few days, but until then, if you want to leave a comment please do so at the Patheos site, since I won't be able to transfer comments left here.

A Cross to Bear

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 15:38:00 +0000

When I was going through RCIA, the Church celebrated a welcome rite. It wasn't the actual conversion, just a rite of welcome at a Sunday morning Mass for those of us planning to enter the Church at Easter. In the rite, the priest asked each of us what we would ask of the Church. I think I said "baptism", but since I wasn't expecting a quiz I could have said "free wine every Sunday" for all I remember. It was a deer-in-the-headlights moment, made worse by the fact that I was eight months pregnant and suddenly had to sneeze, and I was trying not to because I knew that if I sneezed I would pee my pants.

What I do remember was my father-in-law, the aptly named Ever-Teacher, having a long talk with me afterward about what I should have asked. He said that I should have asked to share in the burden of the cross, since that what's conversion really is. Conversion never ends, I remember him saying. You'll be carrying a cross the rest of your life. The only thing that will change is how much of a burden you are strong enough to bear.

I listened, and nodded at the appropriate moments, but what I was really thinking was, "Man, my father-in-law is the biggest joy-killer on the planet. He could take the whitest cloud in the sky and find a threatening darkness in it. Also, I really have to pee again."

I've thought that about my father-in-law for a long time. There is no success in our lives that he lets pass without pointing out the danger therein; but likewise, there is never a failure or a tragedy that he can't find the grace in. I've always taken the latter for granted while being annoyed and rankled by the former. "Why can't he just let us be happy for five minutes?" I grumbled bitterly to the Ogre when we got a long talk on the dangers of Catholic higher education after getting a job at Ave Maria. "He ruins everything!"

This morning I sat down to check some blogs and found an unexpected, delightful surprise. Leah of Unequally Yoked made the announcement this morning that she will be bringing her keen intellect, her fabulous writing, her great sense of humor and her unparalleled charity from the Atheist channel at Patheos to the Catholic channel. In one of the greatest "I've logic-ed myself right across the Tiber" moments ever, she had a conversation with a friend that went like this:

I’ve heard some explanations that try to bake morality into the natural world by reaching for evolutionary psychology. They argue that moral dispositions are evolutionarily triumphant over selfishness, or they talk about group selection, or something else. Usually, these proposed solutions radically misunderstand a) evolution b) moral philosophy or c) both. I didn’t think the answer was there. My friend pressed me to stop beating up on other people’s explanations and offer one of my own.

“I don’t know,” I said. ”I’ve got bupkis.”

“Your best guess.”

“I haven’t got one.”

“You must have some idea.”

“I don’t know. I’ve got nothing. I guess Morality just loves me or something.”

“…”

“Ok, ok, yes, I heard what I just said. Give me a second and let me decide if I believe it.”

It turns out I did.

(Read the rest here)

My first reaction was shock, because I honestly did not think that Leah would ever convert. There are some things about Catholicism that require pure faith, and I always thought those would prove to be the Achilles' heel in her quest for truth. I think I underestimated her belief in objective Morality. I may have underestimated everything about her, actually, because if I were a popular Atheist blogger who decided to convert I'd probably do so under a rock to avoid all the nastiness that would doubtless follow a public announcement. Atheists' ability to be nasty to Catholics is surpassed only by Catholics' ability to be nasty to each other. But she's converting openly, moving her blog publicly, and probably checking her comment box with an unprecedented level of trepidation.

So I was thrilled, right? I saw all the comments from Catholics that said, "Welcome Home!" and wanted to add my voice to theirs, right? I was over the moon, right, and delighted?

Not exactly.

Don't get me wrong, I'm utterly and completely overjoyed to welcome another convert into the fold, especially a gem like Leah. But I read her post and the comments and I winced a little, because...because it's all going to be so painful.

It isn't that it's not worth it. It isn't that truth isn't worth the pain we have to suffer for it. But converting hurts. My father-in-law is a convert too, a convert who lost his family and the wider Greek Orthodox culture that he was raised in when he converted. He is a convert who knows pain, who knows persecution, who knows what it is to suffer for the Truth. And as happy as he was that his daughter-in-law was converting all those years ago, he knew the pain of the journey and the cross that I would have to bear.

I felt the same way when I read Leah's post this morning. Converting cost me a bond with my parents and brothers and sister that I will most likely never get back. Converting put a rift between my family and the family that raised me. Converting cost me friends. Conversion requires sacrifice and suffering, no matter what, no matter who you are or where you come from. And Leah, who has been such a respected Athiest blogger, is probably going to catch hell for this.

I think I understand, for the first time, where my father-in-law is coming from. He doesn't rain all over our parades on purpose. He doesn't try to squash all our happiness on principle. He just knows that suffering is real and unavoidable, and he wants us to know it too, so we won't be caught off-guard and unaware when it comes for us. Knowing that Leah now has a cross to bear doesn't dampens the joy I feel at her announcement, though, not in the least. I'm so excited to follow her journey at Patheos. Maybe what I feel for her is simple human empathy...knowing the journey will be long and hard, and wishing it didn't have to be.

Nevertheless, I hope you'll go over to her blog and say something kind to balance out the criticism. I've written a few posts where I found myself nauseated every time I got a new comment, unsure whether I should even look because it would either be praise or profound condemnation. Every kind comment was like a balm to the soul, and I have a feeling Leah will need as much support in the coming months as we can give her.

7 Quick Takes Friday!

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 18:19:00 +0000

Yesterday I took the advice of my good friend, bit the bullet, and went back to see my doctor (who I had been affectionately referring to as "Doctor Doom" in my head) instead of running away like the little girl I am.

I dislike confrontation, particularly with doctors. Doctors intimidate me. I've only had two doctors in the course of my adult life that I've loved, trusted and felt comfortable with. One was the doctor at UD; the other was the OB who delivered Sienna and who I still go see every time we're in Dallas. All other doctors somehow manage to make me feel like I'm doing something wrong for being sick/pregnant/migrainous (is that a word? It is now.). So usually when I feel that I can no longer see a certain doctor, I just switch doctors. Like a wimp. Without ever telling them why.

But yesterday, my friend said to me:

and I did, because I didn't want to look like even more of a wimp than I already did.

I'm glad I did, too, because "Doctor Doom" turned out to be not so doom-ey after all.

I told her that the other night was hands-down the worst hospital experience I had ever had, and then explained what had happened when she looked confused. As it turns out, the nurse did not communicate my doctor's instructions (which had included explanations for why she was ordering certain medications) at all, and the nurse also didn't communicate anything I was saying back to my doctor.

My doctor had wanted to start with Imitrex even though she knew it probably wouldn't work because 1) I had never had it before, 2) it's always better to try a non-narcotic first, and 3) she wasn't sure just how bad my migraine actually was. When I started throwing up, the nurse's garbled communications had made my doctor think that it was a result of the migraine, not the Imitrex. The doctor was worried that the migraine was much worse than she initially feared, so she instructed the nurse to offer me the option of more Imitrex (which probably wouldn't work) or morphine (which she felt was necessary). She also explained that it was a very small dose of morphine, comparable to about 2 hydrocodone (which is the narcotic I'm used to being given in emergency rooms), just without the Tylenol. None of which explanations were relayed to me, obviously. She also said she hadn't wanted me to go home with a sleeping pill because my blood pressure was, in fact, elevated (which the nurse did not tell me) and she wanted to keep it down and keep me from driving the hour back to Ave Maria in that much pain, which she didn't think was safe.

So the nurse wasn't exactly the best (though she had nothin' on Heath Ledger's JokerNurse). My doctor was very apologetic, agreed that I likely had a sinus infection, and promptly wrote me prescriptions for antibiotics, first-line migraine meds, and painkillers for breakthrough pain. She also said I could take ibuprofen until 35 weeks (yay!).

All in all, I'm really glad I went in yesterday, because I woke up this morning with a killer sore throat and if I wasn't already on antibiotics I would not be a happy person.

Tragically, though, I can't spend the day on the couch whining raspily about my throat because I pinky-promised Charlotte that I'd take them to the children's museum today, and we need to go to Trader Joe's. So as soon as I finish these quick takes I'll be hitching up the covered wagon and making the long haul into town.

Yuck.

We have a Lincoln Navigator. This is pretty much exactly what it looks like, except ours is way dirtier. Also, we finally decided on what to name the baby. (Well, I decided and the Ogre sort of grunted in a "yes" kind of way.)

Why are these two facts related? Because if we somehow found the money to buy a Sienna minivan, we would have two children named after cars.

I find that disconcerting, but I'm going to blame the car manufacturers for choosing human names for automobiles.

Seriously, what happened to names like "Model T" or "Dodge Ram" or "DeLorean"? No one's going to name their kid "DeLorean." But Lincoln and Sienna are names! Of actual people! Who I grew in my uterus! It's annoying.

I'm totally stoked that this movie is coming out the same year that our Lincoln will be making his appearance. This movie is like someone said, "how could we possibly make Lincoln more awesome?" and someone else said, "I know! We could make him a vampire hunter!" and then they actually did it.

Those sorts of speculative conversations are usually born over a beer or five and then die shortly after. But this one lived, and has become a movie, and made my life better before I've even seen it.

I can't wait.

In case you were wondering, this child will also have an extraordinarily long and cumbersome name. We're just sadistic like that.

It's a nice name though, I think, objectively speaking.

Are you ready to hear it? I was going to wait until after the baby was actually born, but I can't keep secrets. I'm even going to write it in a pretty font because I like it so much.

Lincoln Anthony Jude Alexander

What do you think? If you don't like it, please lie.

Go and see Jen for more quick takes, and have a great weekend!

Snippets

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 15:21:00 +0000

In case you don't frequent Patheos (I'm looking at you, LarryD!) you might not have seen that one of my posts was featured there over the weekend. Personally I love Patheos and was thrilled to be asked to post there, so if you are so inclined, go check it out!

In other news, the Pioneer Woman's Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever really is the best chocolate sheet cake ever. I love it. I make it in times of pregnancy, weakness, emotional turmoil and Tuesdays. Full disclosure: yesterday I made it because I was craving the raw cake batter. Which I ate several (thousand) spoonfuls of while praying that God would protect me from salmonella poisoning. I am the worst pregnant person ever.

Not me

Totally me (nota bene: the Ogre does not have a mullet (thankfully))

It could be worse, though:

Also not me

Speaking of pregnancy and pregnant things (because when is a pregnant person not?), have you guys seen this? It's so cute. Watch it.

I'm sorry for all the pregnancy things. I'll stop that. It's kind of annoying me too, actually.

Here. Palate cleanser. Also, language warning. But, Jim Gaffigan! Worth it.

Happy Wednesday!

I Suck at Suffering

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 20:05:00 +0000

The rest of us whine about it

I was hoping to make it through this pregnancy without those horrible migraines I had with my first and third pregnancies. Things looked good for a while, too; I started getting the migraines at about twenty weeks with Liam, and until yesterday I had made it to just over 24 weeks with nary a sign of impending migraines.

Then I got one. And it hurt. And Tylenol, as expected, was about as effective as the incessant whining I was doing, so I called my doctor.

I've been a little unsure of my doctor up until now. She seems nice but I don't get the feeling that she likes me much, and I don't get the feeling that I like her much, which doesn't do wonders for my trust in her. Yesterday she decided that I needed to come to the hospital to have my blood pressure monitored, which was annoying but pretty standard, so I went.

They monitored my blood pressure for an hour and a half before deciding that perhaps I should be given some medication to help me stop feeling like the main character in PI.

That was extremely annoying. Also annoying was the fact that my current doctor felt that the best medication to give me was Imitrex.

If you've ever had a migraine, you'll understand why this is annoying. That particular medication is a triptan. I've never had Imitrex before but I have had a different triptan. They don't work very well for me, and they don't work at all for anyone unless you take the medication at the first sign of a migraine. Five hours in, when you're seeing floating lights and trying not to puke on the nurse, they're not going to be particularly effective. But at that point I was so desperate that I didn't even argue with the nurse, except to say, "I've been told by every OB/GYN I've ever had that this medicine is absolutely unsafe in pregnancy. Are you sure it's okay?"

The nurse gave me a withering smile and said, "Well, your doctor does this for a living, so I imagine she knows what she's doing." Reassurance with a massive side of condescension. Just what I needed.

I took the pills, then settled back and dug out my rosary to offer up some of the suffering. Or to attempt to. I've never been good at offering things up, because I spend most of the time mentally retreating from the pain instead of embracing it, but I was determined to make a go of it last night.

My internal monologue went something like this:

Dear God, please unite my suffering with Christ's, for all the women who have true complications in pregnancy. Please, God, bring them comfort, and also please make this medication start working because this really, really hurts and I don't want to suffer anymore, even for a noble cause. I'm not Christ. I'm just me, and this frakking hurts. (Yes, I said frakking during a prayer. I believe God will forgive me.) Sorry, God. Okay. Please accept this Hail Mary as contrition for my terrible attitude. Now, please help me offer this suffering up whole-heartedly, and embrace it as a gift I have been given, that I might have a chance to suffer with Christ. Please owowowowowowowowowowowow this hurts Oh dear God just make it stop! I don't care about offering it up! I don't want to suffer anymore! Take it away!

It was just about at this point that the medication kicked in and made me feel as if my head had been disconnected from my body and was spinning around in space, which in turn made me start throwing up, which in turn made the pain in my head so intense that I started sobbing.

The nurse came in and said, "Oh, well it looks like the meds kicked in!" and I had to physically stop myself from punching her in the face. She handed me a vomit bag and cheerfully said, "Does your head feel better now?" With tears streaming down my face, I shook my head and moaned, "nooooo. wooooorse."

She pursed her lips and looked at me doubtfully. "Are you sure?" she asked, which I answered with a spectacular second round of vomit and tears.

She went to call the doctor, who ordered an IV drip with anti-nausea meds. The nurse failed to tell me that the meds would make me feel like I had just shotgunned an entire bottle of tequila, so I was sitting up, utterly unprepared, when she put the phenergen into my IV drip. Five minutes later the room spun dangerously and I nearly slammed my head against the railing of the bed as I fell sideways off the bed. The nurse sort of pushed me back so I was laying down, and I managed to slur out, "Z is nurrrmalll?" The nurse smiled and said, "Oh, yes, this medication always does that." I really wanted to thank her sarcastically for the warning, but at that point the sledgehammer drilling into my brain made everything else seem pointless, even pointed sarcasm.

The nurse left the room and I stared at the swirling ceiling, convinced that I was actually dying. Gone were any noble thoughts of offering up my pain or my obviously impending death. Instead I spent a half-hour feeling good and sorry for myself, thinking how sad and terrible it was that I was going to die here, alone in a dingy triage room, with my family sleeping soundly an hour away, blissfully unaware that they would be short one wife and mother when they woke up. I thought about how no one in the entire hospital except my nurse even knew I was there, and how she probably wouldn't even bother to revive me when she came in and saw that my brain had exploded from the pain. She'd just dump my body out behind the building and go on with her evening, not caring that my life had ended so pathetically. I thought about my poor little unborn son, who wouldn't even get to live because his mother died from a migraine that no one seemed too keen on ending.

I may have been feeling just a touch melodramatic

Just as I was imagining our headstones, the nurse came back in to tell me that the doctor had ordered another dose of Imitrex for me.

That did it. Right then, I was convinced that a) I was not dying and b) my doctor hated me and might in fact be trying to kill me. I decided not to go quietly, and I informed the nurse in no uncertain terms that I absolutely was not going to take another dose of a medicine that not only hadn't helped, but had made me feel twice as bad as I did when I came to the hospital. She frowned at me disapprovingly and went to call my doctor. I sat up, trying to ignore the pounding in my skull and the swirling letters, and tried to text my husband to tell him that I was going to make them release me and get a cab home.

The nurse returned to tell me that the doctor had said that if I wouldn't take the Imitrex, they could give me morphine.

Morphine.

I swear, I would have been less surprised if she had come in with a bottle of laudanum and said, "This'll cure what ails you!"

Seriously, this isn't Civil War America. The last time I checked (which was the last time I was pregnant and had severe migraines) there are like six different grades of painkillers between Tylenol and morphine. I asked the nurse if the doctor could please prescribe something significantly less strong than morphine. The nurse said that there was nothing available, that my only choices were Imitrex or morphine.

By this point I was in pain, nauseous, dizzy and pissed. This was not my first rodeo. I know damn well that there are other options for pregnant women, most of which are much less drastic than morphine. So I told the nurse I'd like to go home.

She said perhaps it would be best if she sent me home with a sleeping pill and that perhaps if I were able to sleep the migraine would be gone when I woke up. I agreed. She went to call my doctor.

By this point I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at the reaction, but I was still kind of stunned when the nurse came back and said my doctor had "not wanted to send me home with any pills, and if I wanted to sleep I could take Benadryl, but if I wanted to get rid of the migraine I could stay there and take the medicine she prescribed."

I knew that there was no way Benadryl was going to make me sleepy enough to drift off with the Empire State Building being constructed in my temporal lobe. I wanted to ask for another doctor, or a second opinion, but I also just wanted to go home. Most of all, though, I wanted my head to stop hurting. Exhausted, defeated, and sinking back into an acceptance of my impending melodramatic death, I said I would take the morphine.

Unsurprisingly, the medication put me to sleep fairly quickly. Also, it did not kill me. The nurse woke me up a few hours later and said I could go. My headache was gone, but so was any lingering trust in my doctor or faith in my ability to suffer nobly.

But now I have a new type of suffering to endure: the search to find a new OB midway through pregnancy. Here's hoping that I tackle this one with slightly more grace. And if you feel so inclined, I would love some prayers that I make it through the rest of this pregnancy with no migraines. Because, seriously, morphine?

Political Campaigning

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 16:57:00 +0000

I tallied up the votes from my last quick takes, and the black and white photo won by a huge majority. So that's the one that's going up. Thanks for voting, y'all! Now, on to more important business, also related to voting.

I hate election season. I hate politics, period, even though I read Drudge Report and Hot Air daily. I hate politics because people seem to think that it's perfectly fine to act like a bunch of whiny and/or violent middle-schoolers when they don't get their way, and that insulting the other side is a totally acceptable form of debate.

But most of all, I hate politics because all the politicians are so unbearably dull. No one is particularly good, and even the evil ones aren't deliciously, villainously evil. They're just evil enough to drown us in bills and despair.

That's why I'm starting my own campaign. Harold Saxon for President, 2012! Why, you ask? Well, let me explain it to you.

First, Saxon (a.k.a. The Master) brainwashed everyone on earth via a rhythm (incidentally, the same rhythm that made him go completely psycho) embedded in the Archangel Network (a series of satellites that formed a low-level psychic field). Here, let me show you:

(This is kind of a long clip, so just start it at 2:40 and go till 3:40 to see what I mean)

Now, why would I prefer this man, who literally brainwashes people, to our current Hopenchanger-in-chief or Mitt "I'm not even as interesting as the mind-numbing sport from which I derive my name" Romney?

Simple. It would restore my faith in humanity if we actually required hypnosis to brainwash us, as opposed to being perfectly amenable to brainwashing via nonsensical campaign slogans. ("Hope and Change", anyone? Did anyone know how Obama actually planned to implement all these hopeful changes, or did college students across the country just say, "he sounds...good. Like you can trust him"?)

Second, Saxon had chutzpuh. No backhanded or accidental insults from him, no sir. If he didn't like someone, or even if he was just a bit bored, you'd know it.

Because he'd blow them up.

See what I mean? He doesn't vaguely insult the overbearing American president. Nope. He just kills him.

But most of all, I'd vote for Harold Saxon because this was a man with a plan. Granted, his plan was to destroy humanity using future humanity via a paradox machine, and then use future humanity to conquer the universe with lots of neat rockets, but damn it, he was gonna see that plan through. He wasn't about to ruin his country slowly through a series of incomprehensible laws and gradual chipping away at the economic infrastructure; no way. He was going to take everyone out.

Look at that! That is not a world going out with a whimper; that is a world ending with a bang. The bangiest of bangs.

And the other super bonus to electing an overtly, obviously and horrifically evil leader is that we would all know who to fight against. I can't see anyone defending the toclafane's right to slaughter humanity, can you? (Yes, maybe PETA, but let's pretend in our alternate universe that they don't exist.)

Harold Saxon as President would really help us band together as humans. Look:

(I apologize for the extreme cheese you just witnessed. It was not one of Doctor Who's finest moments.)

Would we likely be totally slaughtered if we tried to defeat a common enemy with only the power of our thoughts? Uh, yeah. But we're Americans, you know, so we'd probably have the good sense to bring guns too, which would definitely up our chances. Humanity banding together with guns to fight against a common evil sounds like just what we need right now. Clear, identifiable evil, a common goal, and a guilt-free outlet for our collective pent-up rage.

There's a reason why Melody Pond is the most cheerful companion, in her every incarnation. It's because she always has a gun.

In conclusion:

Trust me, when we're standing side-by-side with sawed-off shotguns and nothing to lose, you'll be glad you did.

Blah

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 20:21:00 +0000

I've got a case of the Tuesday blahs, which I'm sure is being caused by the perpetually overcast Florida summer sky. I have SAD, therefore clouds make me sad. And grumpy.

Nevertheless, one of my children did manage to make me crack a smile and an almost-laugh today when I was perusing Pinterest (because what else are you supposed to do when you're feeling lackluster?) Charlotte saw this picture:

and screeched in a highly alarmed tone, "Mommy, what is that holding the phone? It's a WORM! A WORM holding the PHONE! Ewwwww!"

My post-modern children.

Grace had the best idea ever to celebrate her two-year blogiversery (yeah I see what you mean, Grace. Typing that word makes me feel like an ass-hat too). Click over to the Camp to see a link-up of extremely brave bloggers who are willing to reach into the recesses of their blogs, dust off their first post ever, and present it to the world in all its cringe-worthy glory.

See you tomorrow. Hopefully the sun will reappear in my part of the world by then and I'll be feeling a little less glum.

7 Quick Takes Friday!

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 21:19:00 +0000

Teehee

Lately I've been having an existential crisis over my About Me page. (I know, could I get any more navel-gazing? If you're thinking not, brace yourself for the next paragraph...s.)

See, I have two family pictures I can use for that page. One is a pretty good picture of everyone in my family except me and Sienna (and Sienna has been refusing to do anything but make ridiculous faces lately so she doesn't count). The other is a mediocre-to-bad picture of everyone else except me.

Two days ago I put the one that's a better picture of me up. I also like it slightly more because it's in color and so are all the other pictures on that page. But the last two days I've been dealing with this nagging feeling that perhaps I shouldn't sacrifice the visual appearance of my entire family on the altar of my own vanity. I realize this is probably the stupidest and most ironically self-absorbed train of thought I've ever had, wondering if I'm being too vain in my handling of the "About Me" page of my blog, but I'm still having it, and it's still bugging me, so I'm blogging about like one would suck the rattlesnake poison back out of a wound. (Not me. I would never do that. But someone else might, if they lived in 1890 or were a character on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.)

I've decided to let you guys decide which picture looks better, and I'm bracing myself for the very real possibility that my inbox will quickly fill up with variations of "are you effing kidding? No one cares but you, pick a picture and get over yourself," which is advice I should probably take ahead of time and erase this quick take. But I've already spent time writing it, so it's gonna stand. Plus I can use the picture comparison for quick take #6.

(I'm sorry for the huge gap between these pictures. Blogger sucks lately.)

Picture #1, in color, with my chin tilted at the appropriate angle to minimize photographic evidence of double-chinnery

Picture #2. Charlotte and the Ogre are the big winners in this one, looking cuter than cute (Oh, sorry, I guess the Ogre looks "distinguished and professorial")

Cast your votes below, or chastise me for my vanity, but either way, know that I am in no way responsible for Sienna's rockin' side-ponytail in either of these pictures. That was my mom's doing. She's got a thing for side ponytails. I'm convinced it's a direct result of trying to raise little girls in the 80's.

Tired of hearing about the things that keep me up at night? Then don't click on the link attached to the above picture. Also don't note that all this crazy shiz is happening within a one-to-three-hour radius of our current location.

Also, why would you be tired of hearing about the things that keep me up at night? If you're a reader of this blog (which I assume you are, otherwise I'm not sure how you got here but I deeply apologize for it) you know I'm slightly-unhinged-bordering-on-legitimately-crazycakes. And you either love me in spite of it or find my particular brand of crazy amusing.

And anyway, it's not like I've ever done a full-blown post on the things that keep me up at night.

Alas, since I have literally no idea where else to take these quick takes and my children are hovering around me anxiously saying, "are you done yet? Are you done yet?" I'm afraid that today is the day in which that post shall become a reality.

At least it's in the form of quick takes.

So without further ado, here are three other things that keep me up at night.

Shudder, shudder, shudder, shudder, blech.

I hate spiders. I know they're part of God's creation and keep like, some sort of insect population in check or something but seriously, did God have to make them so creepy?

Guuaaahhhhhh.

This is made even worse by the fact that we moved from a place where the only poisonous spider was the brown recluse to a place where we had to worry about black widows and brown recluses to a place where we have to worry about brown recluses, black widows, red widows and brown widows. Add to the fact that Liam suffered what several doctors identified as a "necrotic spider bite" from an apparently invisible spider, and yeah. I have nightmares about spiders.

I also check everyone's sheets and the undersides of beds obsessively before anyone gets in, shake out blankets, rustle curtains daily, and bang shoes against the ground before we put them on.

And freak out regularly when I see anything even remotely resembling a spider, even though they usually turn out to be either crumbs or fuzz.

I hate spiders.

When I'm not laying awake freaking about spiders or listening intently for zombies to come crashing through the glass doors, I'm usually terrifying myself by imagining some version of In Cold Blood.

Really, the idea that a human being would slaughter an entire family for basically no reason at all is incomprehensible to me. But it happens, and it's not exactly rare anymore, thus I lay awake at night listening for noises and check on my children obsessively anytime I happen to wake up. I'm not sure what I hope to accomplish by losing sleep over a hypothetical and extremely unlikely situation that is entirely out of my control, but...well, crazycakes, remember?

Most nights, though, I lay awake mentally berating Stephen Moffat for what he did to River Song.

I'm sorry if you're not a Whovian (no really, I am sorry for you, but you can fix that by going to Netflix right now and making your universe infinitely better and brighter), but Moffat took a character who had sparkling, limitless potential and just...murdered her. Worse than murdered her. Made her just a side-show, a footnote (and a pretty deranged one at that) in his tale of Amy and the Doctor.

I can never forgive him for that. All the good things he brought us...Matt Smith, the fez, the Weeping Angels, vampires and Van Gogh, even Rory, glorious Rory...all of it combined cannot outweigh the hideous injustice done to one of the most remarkable characters (sadly, only in potential now) to ever grace the Whoniverse.

I actually think I'm going to cry now.

For more coherent and far less navel-gazing quick takes, go see Jen! Happy weekend, everyone. I'll just be over here, bitterly cursing Stephen Moffat all the way through the zombie apocalypse.

Adventures in Swearing Sewing

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Thu, 31 May 2012 16:44:00 +0000

Well, I'll be going to confession this weekend.

Yesterday I learned two important things about myself. First, I am not utterly hopeless and bereft when it comes to all household arts aside from cooking. Second, that creative bastion of colorful swear words that I gleefully collected in college was in fact not eradicated from my vocabulary. It was merely being stored away for a time of need, like when I spent half an hour trying to thread a needle, finally got it, and then promptly snagged the thread and pulled it back out.

Our dear neighbors across the street, to whom we've become quite attached, are moving back to their northern home next week. I don't know what we'll do without them. They're both retired, and while their son is at school down the street they spend their days hanging out in the garage, playing cards with my kids and keeping an eye on my front door, out of which Liam occasionally likes to escape. His life has been saved several times by Uncle D, a cigarette-smoking, beer-drinking, bicycle-fixing gem of a man who has become my husband's go-to confidante and a stand-in uncle/grandpa for all three of my children. He has the patience of a saint, and when he doesn't he just goes inside and closes the garage door. Aunt G taught Sienna to play Uno and Skip-Bo, and she offered to teach me to sew and let me borrow her sewing machine, which she'll be leaving behind. In typical fashion, though, I waited until the last minute, and yesterday she was kind enough to give me an hour-long lesson even though they left for a wedding at 5 a.m. this morning.

I was really surprised to find that what makes sewing difficult is not the actual sewing. If you have a sewing machine, the actual sewing part is simple. A trained monkey could do it, and could probably stitch straighter lines than I can. What a trained monkey could most emphatically not do, however, is make sense of the heavily encrypted codes they sell at fabric stores under the dubious guise of "patterns".

The internets and I spent well over two hours yesterday trying to crack the cipher. We watched video after annoyingly cheerful video, all promising to make pattern-reading "simple" and all failing miserably. I learned some valuable lessons, but not one internet video answered the burning question that drove me there in the first place: which way does the fabric go? Wrong side up or right side up? I got so frustrated that when the Ogre called to see how it was going I was basically incoherent. "It's ridiculous going, that's what! This stupid thing says the (expletive) thing should be color-coded and it is shaded but they have it all...all....like, folded, sort-of thing, so I can't even tell which side to (expletive) fold over and cut the (expletive) out!"

Proper English was murdered during the pinning on of this pattern

Worried about my complete inability to form a coherent sentence, the Ogre came home for lunch and figured it out in ten minutes flat. (He claims this is due to his superior intellect, but I have it on good authority that he was forced into taking a home ec class in the sixth grade.) Once the pattern was finally cut out, Aunt G came over and showed me how to use the sewing machine, how to stitch seams, and how long of an edge to leave. I managed to get the basics done last night while the Ogre hovered around me taking pictures ("to document your descent into housewifery"), but unfortunately Aunt G neglected to show me how to finish an edge and do slipstitches and topstitches. I can't really blame her, since Liam spent almost our entire sewing lesson unplugging the machine, unraveling spools of thread, and trying to eat the pin-covered pincushion. Her attention was necessarily divided.

Here's a mercifully blurry photo, in case you (and by you I mean everyone who's ever met me) also need photographic evidence that the apocalypse is nigh and hell has frozen over

So today it looks like I'll be diving back into the wonderful world wide web to try and figure out how to finish this dress, while repeating mentally, I will not swear. I will not swear. I will not swear.

After that I'll be dashing off groveling apologies to the neighborhood mothers for when my six-year-old inevitably decides to make my many lapses in linguistic judgment public fodder for the neighborhood children.

Maybe I should bake them cookies, too.

Memorial Day and the Zombie Apocalypse

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Mon, 28 May 2012 19:50:00 +0000

Memorial Day always makes me sad. I see the way my friends and family talk about our soldiers and respect this day when we remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice, and I am sure that there is still goodness in America, that all those things that made America great have not been lost. Then I see the crass disrespect shown by politicians, television pundits and public figures, and I fear that the public message that our troops will receive today is, "We don't appreciate you, or your sacrifice, or even the sacrifice of those who died for us."

So for any of our military or their families who happen to stumble across this today, know that we, at least, are deeply grateful for you and your immeasurable sacrifice, and we are raising our children with that same gratitude.

Also know that since the zombie apocalypse has begun, I am hoping to see you all back here shortly in full force to defend us from the zombies, and don't tell me that the risk that you'll be changed into highly-trained tank-wielding zombies is too great. I know the government has developed a secret anti-zombie vaccine for the military. The threat of a zombie apocalypse was always too great to ignore.

For those moms and dads who are wondering how to protect your little ones from the legions of the undead, click over to Ignitum Today and read my latest post about how NFP (or the failure thereof) will help us survive the zombie apocalypse.

7 Quick Takes Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:04:00 +0000

So doing this next Halloween

I know I promised to be back, but about ten minutes after I hit publish I heard a desperate whine from the bathroom. I ran in just in time to see Sienna standing in front of the toilet, hear her say "Mommy, I feel like I'm going to be sick!" and then turn her head away from the toilet and vomit spectacularly all over the rug, the walls, the floor and the shower.

It was so special.

It was also weird, because she'd been eating fine and acting fine all morning, she had no fever, and after she threw up she showed no signs of being sick. I was trying to re-trace what she had eaten to figure out if something could have made her sick when I realized that she had drank quite a bit of milk that morning. I picked up the nearly empty carton, which we had opened for dinner the night before, subtracted the four sippy cups Charlotte and Liam had consumed in between dinner and breakfast, and was horrified to realize that Sienna had basically drank most of the gallon herself in the three hours since she'd been awake.

Lessons learned: 1) pay attention to how much milk your kid is drinking if you don't want to spend the next hour cleaning up puke, and 2) the gallon challenge cannot be won.

I put a moratorium on milk for the rest of the day and the next for her, and she's fine now. She was fine ten minutes afterward, actually, but I kept her inside for two days anyway because I didn't want her to get the neighborhood kids sick, if she was sick. Today she can play outside, and I'm not sure which of us is happier about that.

Yesterday we had our neighbors over for dinner and in a fit of whimsy I attempted my first-ever cheesecake.

I used a recipe from Smitten Kitchen, even though I've had inconsistent results with her recipes before, because it contained massive amounts of cream cheese and didn't require me to bake it in a water bath. Despite early alarm at the quick browning of the top, it was a smashing success. It really was delicious, and had the most perfect flavor, courtesy of orange and lemon zest. Yum. And the best part is, our neighbors weren't really big dessert-eaters, so there's over half of the cheesecake left! Hello, lover.

(What can I say? I'm pregnant.)

(And fat.)

I beg to disagree, Frontenac Baptist Church

It's hot here. It's really hot. It's so hot that we're already having to run the A/C nearly 24/7, and my ankles are starting to swell well before my third trimester. (I'm blaming the temperature, not the cheesecake, and don't tell me any differently!)

Yesterday, my lovely neighbor said to me, "I hope you don't think this is hot. This is not hot. It will get so hot this summer that you will send your children outside to play and they will come back five minutes later, having melted."

Kill. Me. Now.

Luckily the flies here are trying to do just that. Get this: the flies in Southwest Florida bite.

What. The. Hell.

No, really. I didn't know such creatures existed, but they do, and now instead of merely being annoyed and slightly grossed out by flies, I have to also be in pain because of them.

And those little suckers can bite. For real. It's not lingering pain, like a fire ant bite, but it frakking hurts and they are everywhere, so you don't get bit by one at a time, and there's no way to avoid them. Basically if you go outside near dusk or after dark or in the morning or at all, you're going to come back in covered in welts and cursing like a sailor.

Note to self: swamps were considered uninhabitable in decades past for a reason.

Even Laura Ingalls Wilder, that hardiest of hardy pioneer girls, was freaked out by Florida. She and Almanzo moved to Westville, FL to improve Laura's health, but they were so miserable in the heat and humidity and she was so afraid of snakes and her redneck, backwoods neighbors that they moved back north pretty quickly. And during the months they did spend in Florida, Laura insisted on carrying a gun everywhere, mostly because of the neighbors, not the snakes.

Know what that means? I'm tougher than Half-Pint! Hurrah. Something I never thought I would be able to say.

I bet she didn't whine as much as I do, though, but in my defense, she had a gun and got to shoot things and I don't.

I kept hoping Ma Ingalls would show up and say, "Laura, the sun will make your cleavage all leathery! Put those puppies away, in this handy high-necked blouse I just whipped up for you."

Speaking of Laura Ingalls Wilder, was anyone else scarred for life by Melissa Gilbert's presence on Dancing with the Stars? I only watched a few episodes of the season, but it was painful.

I feel that I can never go back and watch old Little House episodes again, knowing that buck-toothed little Laura will grow up to dance in age-inapproprately-skimpy outfits, cry like a 5 year old when she thinks Maks (who is mean to everyone) is being mean to her, and make extremely awkward and creepy cougar-ish comments about Maks and his brother.

Thanks a lot, Dancing with the Stars. You're systematically ruining my childhood memories, one iconic and desperately aging actor at a time.

Go see Jen for more quick takes, and have a lovely weekend!

Check It

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Really, this is how I feel about having finally updated that over-a-year-old page

I finally updated my About Me page! I'm not a big fan of the family picture since I have a goofy weird laugh/smile on my face, but I'm happy to have updated pictures and blurbs...even if I did have to do it twice, since our stupid computer shut itself down randomly right after I had finished it but before I had published it. Grrr.

Be back later with a real (ish) post. In the meantime, go read The Crescat's post from yesterday. Just when I think she can't get any more amazing, she does.

Distracted

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:24:00 +0000

We've been a little distracted this past week with a ballet recital, a visit from my sister, a trip to the beach, an exciting sonogram, and shiny objects. I've missed the internet, though, particularly the great discussion that sprang up in my combox on my last post! I've been really interested to hear the differing opinions and the valid points brought up to support them. I'll be diving back into the blogosphere tomorrow, but today I thought you might like to know that our fourth minion, coming in September, is a boy! Little Lincoln Alexander is healthy, happy, and, based on his behavior during the sonogram, eager to show the world his penis.

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

See you guys tomorrow!

Violence, Children, and History

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:58:00 +0000

The most common parenting issue I find myself disagreeing with friends and family about is whether or not children should be exposed to anything violent. We let our daughters, 3 and 6, watch the animated Justice League movies. One of our favorite family films is Miyazaki's Spirited Away, which is both violent and, in the words of my mother, "creepy and weird". I took Sienna to see John Carter even though I was warned it was too violent, and I'm glad I did; I didn't find it too violent for her (although a lot of credit for that goes to the unreality of the blue-blooded aliens...had the blood been red and the aliens been humans, it might have been a different story). We're not cavalier about violence, though, however it may seem; rather, we probably pay closer attention to violence in its various forms than most parents who place a de facto ban on violence in books and movies. The reason for that is simple. Human beings are capable of committing violent acts, both in defense of good and in service of evil. To ignore or deny that facet of human nature is dishonest.

This morning, Mrs. Darwin directed my attention via facebook to a story about a French priest who is racing against time to try and bring to light the truth about yet more hidden Nazi atrocities. The generation who witnessed the mobile Nazi death squads, the Einsatzgruppen, slaughter hundreds of thousands of Jews and Gypsies in the Soviet Union is dying out, and Fr. Patrick Desbois is desperately trying to record their stories before it's too late.

You really ought to read the article. It's fascinating, in the same horrific way that all the tales of those atrocities are fascinating. I have less trouble understanding the willing submission of the victims in the Soviet Union than I do in Western Europe, because the Jews and Gypsies had been subjected to pogroms in Eastern Europe for centuries. I don't even have trouble swallowing the cooperation of the townspeople, even going so far as to dig the graves and watch in silence for days as those buried alive struggled beneath the fresh earth, because what choice did they have? As I understand it, life in Eastern Europe, particularly those remote villages of the Soviet Union, was unimaginably bleak and cruel, due to both the government and the weather. These were not a people accustomed to anything other than trying to survive. (This is not to say that there weren't heroic acts of self-sacrifice; I'm sure there were, I just understand why they weren't the norm.) What I truly cannot fathom, though, is why no one said anything after the war, or after the oppression of the Stalinist regime had lifted. Were they afraid? Were they trying to forget? Did they think it didn't matter, that the past was the past? Why did no one think that these atrocities needed to be recorded, the victims remembered, and history set straight?

After enduring the horrors of the Nazis and Stalin during their lives, the villagers have never posed themselves the kind of questions of guilt and complicity that so often bedevil the conscience of the wealthier and more privileged, believes Father Desbois.

I can accept that explanation, that questions of guilt and complicity have been pushed out of the minds of the villagers in the desperate struggle to simply survive. But I can't understand why they didn't think the victims ought to be remembered, and the atrocities recorded so that future generations would know.

Holocaust deniers are incomprehensible to me. I cannot understand people willingly ignoring vast swathes of evidence for the purpose of a political or religious agenda, or because they cannot comprehend and accept the depths of evil that humans are capable of. I'm so grateful that Eisenhower foresaw the possibility of future generations dismissing the Holocaust as "propoganda" and ordered meticulous photographic records to be made of each camp. And I agree wholeheartedly with the assessment of Fr. Desbois:

As for those who question the existence of the Holocaust, whether they are politicians or within his own church, he sees them as the direct inheritors of Himmler and Heydrich. They are, he says, the "deniers of the inferno".

Not too long ago, I had an altercation in my comment box with a reader who was horrified that I, as a Christian, would read The Hunger Games. She saw it as promoting gratuitous violence. I see no such thing. The violence in The Hunger Games is horrific and destructive. It destroys everyone involved. No one comes out unscathed, or even remotely normal, let alone happy.

I understand shielding our children from depictions of gratuitous violence, but I think we as a culture have begun to lose sight of when depictions of violence are gratuitous and when they serve a purpose. My husband thinks the movie Platoon is an important movie, one that our children should see at some point in their teenage years. I couldn't even finish the movie because I was so sickened by the violence, and for years I fought him about showing it to our kids. But now I'm starting to understand why it's important. It's important for the same reason that telling our children about the Holocaust is important, really telling them, not glossing over it but making sure they understand the depth and breadth of the horror. Future generations must understand what humans are capable of. We must not allow the generations of the future to insist that such things could not happen, that humans would not have done such a thing, because that's exactly when it will happen again. The US and Britain has at least some reports of the concentration camps well before they entered the war, but they didn't act because they didn't believe it could be true. How many lives could have been saved if our governments hadn't been lulled into a false sense of security about the capabilities of human beings to commit evil against each other? (He objects to my mention of Platoon because the argument for that movie is more complicated than I'm allowing at the moment)

The tricky part, I guess, is figuring out when our children are mature enough to hear it and understand. I don't think it's too difficult to untangle which depictions of violence are gratuitous and which are not, but it is going to be difficult to decide when each child is ready to hear and see and to bear them. I believe it needs to happen before the kids go to college, probably well before, when they're still ready and willing to listen. But I truly think that one of the worst disservices we can do to our children is to shield them from the reality of violence. If they don't know what humans are capable of, they will never learn how to guard against it, both in others and in themselves.

Home. Sweet, Sweet Home

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:04:00 +0000

Ah. We are home. Actually we arrived home yesterday at 2:30 a.m., but we were so wiped out that we spent the rest of the day doing only the essentials (which, because I'm neurotic, included fully unpacking, doing the laundry, grocery shopping and making bread. What can I say? I hate to face a week unprepared.)

It was a very crazy week-long visit. There was my grandfather's funeral, which was difficult, and then there was his house to try and make sense of, which was full of stuff but empty of the person who made sense of all that stuff. When my grandma died five years ago he refused to let anyone touch anything from then on. She was the one who organized and labelled and got rid of things or kept them carefully tucked away, and without her the house basically just accumulated. At the back of their closet we found the purse she was using when she died, fully packed and ready to go, down to her little pot of Carmex that went with her everywhere. I think that was the hardest moment, to realize that even after all these years she's not coming back, and he's not coming back, and all these things they treasured pass to their children and grandchildren who will treasure them less simply because they don't hold the meaning for us that they did for them. It's such a shame, and it seems so sad. I wish I could go back and make myself a better granddaughter, make myself ask for more stories and listen to them harder, commit them to memory, so that I'll understand the importance of that knot my grandfather's father tied out of wood when he was just falling in love with his future wife and which they found thirty years later and passed on to their children, but it's just a story for me, a neat story, but not one that is mine. It's someone else's story. The stories of my life were my grandparents' stories too, because they loved me so much and my life was so important to them. But their stories are shrouded in the past, inaccessible to me, not because they wouldn't have told them but because I never thought to ask. I know it's part of the passage of time, that children never realize these things until it's too late, but I still wish I hadn't been so selfish, so wrapped up in my own life. I wish I had known them better.

Still, it was nice to hear stories at my grandfather's funeral that I'd never heard before, like the story from when he was in boot camp. All of 5'6" and 120 lbs soaking wet, he was completing the final seven-mile march on the last day with his 50 lb pack when he noticed, around the fifth mile, a fellow soldier collapse and take his boots off. The other soldier's feet were bleeding profusely and he shook his head and told my grandfather, "I can't do it. I can't go on." My grandfather helped him wrap his feet up, made him put his boots back on, took the other man's pack and fastened it to his own pack, and walked the final two miles with two fifty-pound packs on his back and an injured friend leaning on him. There was a certain drill sergeant who my grandfather called "the Indian" (because he was an Indian, my grandfather helpfully explained) who was nearly seven feet tall (according to my grandfather) and who scared the daylights out of every soldier in that boot camp. My grandfather said that all through basic training the Indian drill sergeant "kept his eye on me...never said anything to me, just watched me, all the time." When my grandfather came to the end of that march with two packs that weighed nearly as much as he did and another man leaning on him, my grandfather said the drill sergeant walked over to him and picked him up so they were eye-to-eye and said, "Soldier, what are you made of?!"

I believe it. My grandfather was made of stronger stuff than most people. My dad and my aunt made the wonderful decision to bury him in the blue plaid shirt, khaki pants and suspenders that he spent most of the latter years of his life in, complete with his tobacco and rolling papers in his shirt pocket. I'm sure he wouldn't have liked to find himself without them, either in this life or the next. I was shocked and grateful when I found that the army sent two soldiers to attend the burial. One played a gorgeous rendition of "Taps", then they folded the flag that was laid on my grandfather's coffin and presented it to my aunt. My grandfather was only a soldier for a few years, and he was sent to Germany just after World War II ended so he never saw active combat, but the army didn't overlook his service in the end. Just one more thing to love about our military.

The rest of the week was just as crazy. We have a new niece and nephew whom we got to meet for the first time,

Exhibit A, the world's cutest four-month-old

lots of other nieces and nephews to smother in kisses (me) and roughhouse with (the Ogre).

Exhibit B, the aunt whom all the children run from for this exact reason

We got to see my communist of a little brother and his charming wife, who live in Austin (where all the communists in Texas live) and who we hardly ever get to see.

This is what a communist looks like on his wedding day

We also saw my youngest brother, who just finished his sophomore year at A&M, and who graciously gave up his room so his nephew would have a quiet place for his crib.

He loves it when we come visit

And we had the luck to be in Dallas at the same time as some old college friends who we haven't seen in years (literally years), even though we keep in touch via our blogs (here's Janet's!). We got to spend a way too brief amount of time with them, but still it was nice to see them and their kids.

All in all, though, the kids (and their parents) were totally exhausted by the time we had to fly home. The two flights and two hours of driving to get back to Ave Maria were grueling as usual, but we made it home.

I missed our home so. I missed our neighborhood. I missed our neighbors. I missed my Sodastream, which my mother bought me for my birthday because she's the best mom ever. I missed our bed. I missed how green Florida is. I literally missed everything about our home, and spent the last two days we were in Texas saying to the Ogre, "I just want to go home. I miss Ave Maria."

I never said that about Vegas. It was never home the way this weird little Catholicville in a swamp is. It's strange to feel my roots shifting. I've never loved Dallas particularly, but it's always been home. I know it will always be home for me in the same way the Bay Area is home for the Ogre. They are the homes of our childhood. But Ave Maria really has become a new kind of home for our family, and I am so, so happy to be back here.

Eternal Rest

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Sun, 06 May 2012 20:32:00 +0000

My granddad died on Friday night, so we packed in hurry and flew to Texas yesterday to be at the funeral tomorrow. We'll be here for a week and posting will likely be light. I'd really appreciate your prayers for the repose of my grandfather's soul, and for my dad, my mom and my aunt, who have all the funeral arrangements to make and a very old house filled with lots of stuff to get into shape.

My granddad was quite the character. The phrase "good ol' boy" was probably invented to describe him. He was a Texan through and through, even getting a great Texas country nickname when he got stuck up a mesquite tree for several hours at the age of nine. When they finally found him his brothers and sisters thought it was so funny that they started calling him "Skeet" and the name stuck. He might have been Walton Taylor on official documents, but he was Skeet to everyone who ever knew him, except us of course, to whom he was Grandaddy. Grandaddy who had the magical ability to whittle anything you could imagine out of a hunk of wood, Grandaddy who told the best bedtime version of the Goldilocks and the Three Bears ever, and Grandaddy who gave us Coke and ice cream over the loud and and ultimately futile objections of our parents. We'll miss him.

Aha!

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Sat, 05 May 2012 02:41:00 +0000

From a helpful anonymous commentor in Los Gatos, CA (left on an old post I am not linking back to, since that particular post ought to remain buried in the archives where no one can read it ever again):

Did you ever think that, maybe, just maybe, you're really stupid and you're husband is not? And that's why your mind doesn't run to philosophy and poetry the way his does? No offense, but you're clearly just not very intelligent compared to most women and are completely fulfilled by being 'barefoot and pregnant'. That's nice for you. Well done for finding your calling in life.

Please don't extrapolate your limited perspective on the world to generalities. Stick to being barefoot and pregnant and talking about babies if that's your calling in life. I can see why your mind doesn't run to philosophy easily. You're just not very bright.

No wonder I have so much trouble forming coherent arguments and learning the difference between lay and lie and it's and its! It's because I'm really stupid! Damn, I wish someone had just told me that sooner. It would have saved my poor brain countless hours of pointless, pesky thinking.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to bake brownies while barefoot and talk adoringly to my pregnant belly! After all, those are the only two things in life that completely fulfill me.

Thanks for liberating me, anonymous commentor! I'm much happier in the kitchen where I belong. Also, you used the wrong form of "you're" in your first sentence. But I only noticed that because my husband pointed it out.

The Long Road

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:51:00 +0000

I'm not a huge fan of Mark Shea, the Patheos blogger. I don't agree with his "seamless garment" theory of social justice, and I despise the vitriol with which he lashes out at those who disagree with him. So when I read this piece by him last night, I was shocked to find that underneath the political nastiness is a man who is both compassionate and, remarkably, unwilling to judge the state of another's soul.

Whether it's in the combox or general posting, the Catholic blogosphere is thick with accusations of sin. Commentors who have never met each other feel not only justified but morally bound to point out the obvious mortal sin that a fellow commentor or blogger is engaged in, which they can clearly identify in those telling two sentences. People feel that it is perfectly within their right to urge a blogger to get him or herself to a priest (and not, mind you, any priest...better make sure he's an FSSP priest or an Opus Dei priest or, for the love of God, anything but a Jesuit) and confess their awful, dirty, mortal sin lest they infect the body of Christ with their wickedness. There's lots of mudslinging and sanctimoniousness and even just outright Schadenfreude parading around the Catholic blogosphere under the mantle of "The Church Militant." It makes me angry, it makes me sad, and sometimes I seriously wonder how our beautiful Church will ever survive what we do to her.

But then I stumble across a post like Mark's, from a wholly unexpected source, and have a renewed faith in the ability of Christ to teach us how to love. You really ought to go read the whole post.

There was one part that deeply resonated with me. Mark is talking about his admiration for a gay Catholic named Perry Lorenzo, and he goes into a little bit of detail about his own perspective on gay relationships:

"And if somebody embraces this particular form of concupiscence and indulges it, I will say what I say about all such choices to sin: God forgives sin so who am I to judge? Indeed, I have talked to priests who tell me that there are people they counsel in gay relationships for whom it best to allow the relationship to continue for the time being since, for reasons specific to that relationship, it would result in something more destructive to end it. I can completely believe this (which will no doubt shock some of my more conservative Catholic readers for whom scorched earth is always better then accomodating human weakness). There is, after all, often real love present in homosexual relationships, however disordered, and love should be strengthened and perfected, not crushed with contempt."

I actually shed a tear when I read that. It shows such a great compassion for humanity, a compassion that I have rarely seen in my life. This is the type of compassion and love which I believe Christ has for us, and which we almost never have for each other.

I made the always unfortunately decision to venture down to the combox after reading the post. The nastiest comments were the ones about the paragraph I quoted above. Here's a gem for you:

"Co-habitating is scandalous whether or not one is actually acting against chastity. As Christians we are to avoid giving scandal. That is part of our teaching once again going back to the New Testament.
Your omission of these basic points is troublesome at the very least. It either shows a lack of knowledge about such basic teachings of the faith that you should have a pause in continuing your public apostolate as a “Catholic” writer until you complete a remedial course in moral theology, or you are fully aware of these categories and withheld them from your opinion piece thus confusing the faithful about such clear issues as the intrinsic gravity of homosexual acts as well as the avoidance of public scandal in which case you need to remove this piece from the public domain. If it was consciously and willfully done, then you need to remove this from the public domain and get to Confession."

And another: You theology is a little flawed here although it would be perfectly acceptable to Martin Luther.

One from the Catechism:

Have we all disregarded Church teaching?
1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:
- by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
- by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
- by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
- by protecting evil-doers.

One from an all-knowing seminarian:

...if any confessor encourages that a person keep the near occasion of sin at hand, then surely he has neither compassion nor understanding. Absolution is absolute, so too should be the desire to reform, if though we should fail.

And this one, my personal favorite:

“Go and sin no more.” John8:11 We may not normalize the ‘baby step method’ either as counsel or resolve. There is no wiggle room. The resolve to obey must be complete, put into practice immediately by whatever necessary and moral means. If we fail at times, we confess and resolve anew, all by the grace won and promised to enable us to ‘go and sin no more.

So now I'll tell you all a story that I don't often tell, although those who are close to our family are familiar with it.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know by now that our first daughter was conceived out of wedlock when I was a drug addict. Obviously, neither the Ogre nor I were living virtuous lives at the time, but the reality of a child on the way forced us to try and straighten ourselves out.

We began seeing a wonderful Cistercian priest who helped us work through that difficult time. One of the biggest issues facing us was the question of what to do when the baby was born. The Catholic Church doesn't allow couples who conceive a child out of wedlock to marry in the Church until the child in question is a year old. It's a wonderful rule, one that not only discourages shotgun weddings but also encourages the couple in question to spend that year discerning whether or not it is God's will that they should marry each other or marry at all. It also shows the Catholic Church's concern that people learn to live an open, fully integrated human life; no covering up the results of sin with quickie nuptials. No, the couple must learn to bear the consequences of their sin (the consequence historically being public shame, NOT the baby itself) and rectify their lives publicly.

But it left us with a dilemma. If we followed traditional moral advice (which we received unsolicited from several people), we should live apart during that year. Obviously the responsibility for caring for the baby would fall to me, the mother, and the baby would live with me. But this would leave all three of us in dire straits at best. I was emotionally and mentally unstable at the outset of the pregnancy, issues which only marginally improved during the pregnancy. The Ogre was trying to finish his undergraduate degree while working nearly full time at a steakhouse to support us. He would have very little time to see me and the baby if we lived somewhere else, and wouldn't be able to contribute substantially to her parenting for an entire year. I was in no state to live alone with a baby, but strained relationships with both of our parents left me with no viable alternative. Furthermore, there was no way the Ogre could afford to pay rent or utilities for two separate apartments.

The other option was that we live together but maintain a chaste relationship. "Live together like brother and sister" was the phrase we heard repeated over and over. This is a task that is widely acknowledged to require heroic virtue from even the most virtuous, yet the likelihood that two people who hadn't attempted to live virtuous lives basically ever would be able to accomplish it was somehow not of interest to solicitous advice-givers.

It was of interest to our priest, however. He was interested in a great many things everyone else overlooked. He spent hours with the Ogre and I, together and separately, figuring out our strengths, our weaknesses, our fears, our limits, our feelings for each other and our hopes for the future. I suspect he recognized that we had both lived in a state of chronic, habitual mortal sin for years and quickly decided that a quick "get out of mortal sin fast" card was not what we needed; at least, not then. I believe his ultimate goal for us was not short-term but long-term. He was trying to figure out how to bring both of us into a state of grace, how to practically, emotionally and spiritually help us learn to love God, each other and our child, and how to begin building a foundation that might one day support a solid family.

If it sounds like a daunting task, it was. For everyone involved. After a few months, he advised us to get civilly married so that we might begin to rectify our lives publicly and legally, and to live together as a family after the marriage...not as brother and sister. He very gently told us that the great strain it would put on us both at an already intense and tumultuous time would likely be too much for us to bear, and that it would be better for us to slowly bring our lives into conformity with Christ. Of course, the Ogre would not be able to receive communion, which was a burden I'm only now beginning to realize the heaviness of.

Not everyone agreed with his advice. Few people did, actually. There was talk of "giving scandal" and avoiding our company so as to not participate in our sin. At the time, the criticism hardly even registered with either of us, as consumed as we were by the staggering difficulty of what many saw as "baby steps" or "too-weak correctives" in our lives. The parish we belonged to refused to baptize our daughter, and our Cistercian priest did her baptism himself, at a parish half an hour away, in a private ceremony. The marriage preparation couple at the diocese officially recommended that I not be received into the Church, as they did not find evidence of "sincerity" in me during the three-hour class they taught to twenty couples. Once again, our priest stepped up to the bat, writing a vehement letter to the bishop detailing his careful guidance of us both and the long, arduous path we had taken to rectify our lives.

Our priest knew us. He loved us. He was given immense wisdom, I believe, in everything he said to us and every step he recommended we take. After the birth of our daughter I plunged into crippling post-partum depression that left me quite literally unable to care for her until I was put on medication. The medication, in turn, numbed me so completely that I would sit and stare out the window for hours at a time, barely able to complete the most basic tasks required in her care. I shudder to think what might have happened had I been living alone, or with anyone other than the one person I needed the most, the one person who believed in me more than anyone, the one person who knew even when I didn't that I would pull out of it and recover.

I believe with all my heart that any path other than the one our priest set us on would have ended disastrously for our family. "Scorched earth" is a pretty apt term for what would have been left of the three of us if the Ogre and I had been pressured and brow-beaten into attempting to correct our lives at once. I believe that because even being on the slowest path possible out of mortal sin was almost too much for us. There were so many close calls, so many narrowly averted crises. We almost didn't make it to a place of relative stability, and we wouldn't have if weren't for God's infinite patience, mercy, love and grace. He let us move slowly, and he loved us in spite of it.

There are many in Mr. Shea's combox who would have soundly denounced our priest and us for the long road we took. They would have been wrong, and furthermore it wouldn't have been any of their business. Giving scandal by brazenly and unrepentantly engaging in sin is one thing; slowly and painfully attempting to reconcile one's life to Christ is quite another, even if at first glance they might look like the same thing. No one can know a person's heart, nor the struggles he undergoes as the Holy Spirit works on him. We ought to have more compassion for one another, and more faith that God will find a better way to reach souls suffering in sin than through rough-handed comment box castigation.

Homeschooling Miscellania

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:53:00 +0000

As we've been working through the first year of homeschooling, I've started to keep mental notes about things I like and dislike about the curricula we've been using. I thought I'd post a few of those things here, in case anyone else is considering the materials we're using or is incredibly bored and wants to read about homeschooling stuff.

We started Sienna last year on How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We only made it through about the fifteenth or so lesson before we moved, and the book was lost in the move, our lives were upended and in chaos, and homeschooling was shelved until the fall. I wasn't planning on switching from that book until we lost it and a friend recommended to me the Little Angel Readers as a more thorough introduction to phonics and grammar. I took that advice, since How to Teach Your Child to Read focused solely on phonics and learning to read, with zero instruction on wider linguistic concepts.

Here they are, in all their colorful glory

I like the Little Angel Readers better, mostly. I love that concepts such as rhyming and left/right discrimination are introduced very early. I also love that grammatical concepts are introduced when children are able to read the corresponding words. That approach makes a lot more sense to me; what's the point in teaching kids to read if they don't understand the words they're reading? For example, right now Sienna has mastered all the consonants but only two vowels, a and i. She's reading short stories, though, and she can differentiate between an "s" at the end of a word that makes it plural, an "s" at the end of a word that makes it a present-tense action, and an " 's" at the end of a word that indicates possession. Those are important distinctions, and I love that the books teach them when the children happen upon the words instead of ignoring concepts like that until the child is able to read all words.

The lessons are lengthy, though. Each lesson takes us between 45 minutes and an hour, compared to the 15-20 minute lessons in How to Teach Your Child to Read. It's doable, but Sienna is usually pretty wiped out at the end of the lesson. The other minor issue I've had with the books is that the author often includes words or letters in worksheets, stories (and even a test today!) that the student isn't introduced to until the following lesson. It's not a big fix, since I can look ahead and just skip that part, but it smacks of sloppy editing.

There is one thing I really, intensely dislike about the Little Angel Readers, though, and that's the overt Catholicism of them. Yeah, it's nice for our children to learn that nun starts with "N" and priest starts with "P", but nearly every single letter is introduced with a religious drawing. The problem is that the drawings are sometimes impossible to decipher, often ridiculously complicated and obscure, and always horrible. Why draw the entire altar, priest, host, etc, when you're trying to get across "tabernacle?" Wouldn't "tree" be a lot simpler to draw and for children to grasp? Second, if you're going to use a picture of a saint to represent a certain letter, make sure it's a well-known saint with clear identifying marks, not an obscure bearded person in a triangle that even a google search can't figure out. Third, Jesus was not blond-haired and blue-eyed, and every time I see Aryan Jesus representations it makes me want to punch someone.

The whole "born of the house of David" thing should be our first clue that Jesus probably didn't look like the son of Odin, as painted by Botticelli

Trying to center every single lesson and story around a particular Catholic something or other really complicates things that shouldn't be complicated. It also requires bizarre leaps, like teaching "Jesus" as a sight word before "help". Plus, it just smacks of indoctrination and annoys the crap out of me.

I dislike indoctrination. It's one thing to teach religion and keep it present in our homes; it's another to design curricula that have nothing to do with religion around religion. I think not teaching kids evolution as a scientific concept, whether or not you believe in it, is intellectually dishonest. This book isn't intellectually dishonest, it's just a very good curriculum made cumbersome and awkward by the attempt to frame it around Catholicism and Catholic experiences. It also bothers me that if, say, a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist were looking for a phonics curriculum with the criteria that the Little Angel Readers meet, they couldn't use them without taking a course in Catholic theology and answering daily questions about another religion. I think that people who design curricula should design them with the goal of helping all children learn to read/write/whatever, not just good little Catholics.

All that aside, though, I do think it's a solid phonics and grammar base and Sienna is learning very well from it. My own annoyances don't seem to impact her (except for the times when we both sit hunched over a picture and our lesson turns into an extended game of Pictionary) and there have been opportunities to discuss things like guardian angels and obedience after reading certain stories, which I appreciate.

Math has been another story. We started with some basic workbooks and flashcards, but I quickly realized that I despise and loathe flashcards. I went with a friend's suggestion and started RightStart Math, which I really like but which scares me.

All this crap comes with the Level A starter kit, which also freaked me out. Most of it is currently still in the box and hidden away under the bed so I don't have to think about where I'm going to put it when we start using it all. Yikes.

I like it because it teaches math in an entirely different way. No counting; instead, the kids use an abacus and are encouraged to identify groups of objects or numbers as opposed to counting them up individually. This results in kids who can quickly add 9 and 4 in their minds by changing it to 10 and 3, as opposed to kids like me, who would count on their fingers (and still do). When the Ogre and I were discussing the curriculum, he said that this is how he is able to do math quickly in his head, that it's something he's instinctively done throughout his life. He's much, much more proficient at math than I am, and he has the kind of mind that can understand and enjoy reading calculus and physics books. I really want our kids to be like that, instead of both terrified of math and completely bewildered by anything above simple division, like me. (Last year I discovered I had forgotten how to do long division and couldn't figure it out again even after googling it, for example.)

Basically this curriculum is designed to mimic the way Japanese and Asian children are taught math. I like it. It seems solid. It's fun to teach because it requires lots of interaction and not much individual worksheet time. But it also frightens me because, as I said, I lack a grasp of math and I can't understand where the curriculum is going. I'm afraid that as it gets up into the higher levels I won't even be able to understand it. Or maybe I'll learn with Sienna and discover that I can understand math in my old age. We'll see.

The only other thing that really worries me about this curriculum is how incredibly other it is. It is a vastly different way of teaching math that is pretty much irreconcilable with the way math is traditionally taught here in the States. I worry that if we ever decide to put Sienna in school, she will be hopelessly lost in math because she's been trained to think in such a different way. I don't know, though. Maybe the program gives such a solid foundation that she'll be able to pick right up and do the traditional work using the methods she's learning right now. I hope that's the case.

Anyway, these two form the basis of her curriculum right now. We were doing science last semester with her co-op but I dropped it as a formal subject this semester. We spend lots of time looking up bugs and concepts like volcanoes online, though, so I figure she's getting enough science for kindergarten. History I haven't even touched yet; we're reading D'Aulaire's Greek Myths, which is just beyond fabulous, and I like the idea of starting history with the Greek myths. Maybe next year we'll move on to actual Greek history. For this year, though, I'm satisfied with the reading and math foundation that she'll have at the end of the summer. (We're not taking a summer break to make up for lost time during our move and to prepare for the time we'll lose when the baby is born. That's one nice thing about homeschooling.)

Speaking of homeschooling, go read this post. It made me laugh, and while I don't agree with all of her arguments, I do agree that in this day and age, homeschooling is an emergency measure. It didn't used to be; children used to be taught at home by tutors and sometimes had their educations supplemented by their parents (like Thomas More's daughters). But that is no longer the cultural norm, and as such, I agree that homeschooling is not the ideal for modern parents who do not have the resources to educate children at home that our predecessors did. As the author of the post says,

But really, let's be honest: homeschooling, even in the best of circumstances is far from ideal. It's essentially an emergency situation. It is not a normal state of affairs, and it is not, however much like you might like to believe so right now, the best preparation for surviving in the job market. It may not be the worst, but it's not the best, and in more cases than people seem willing to acknowledge, it is downright harmful.

I agree with half of that last sentence. I'm not sure about preparation for the job market; it seems to me that if you teach your children to work hard, work first, and play later, if you engage them in conversations and make sure they spend time doing activities with kids their own age, and if you educate them well, they should be more prepared for the job market than the average traditionally-schooled child. I think having a strong work ethic goes a long way, and the so-called "weirdness" of homeschooled kids tends to be dramatically exaggerated. From what I've seen, homeschooled kids can indeed be weird when they are younger, because they aren't generally familiar with the ins and outs of playground social rules, but they tend to grow up to be articulate adults who are much more able to enter into a conversation with people of all ages on a variety of topics, whereas traditionally schooled children sometimes tend to not be comfortable speaking with people outside their immediate age range. But homeschooling can be downright harmful, and it often is, especially when too much of the burden is placed on an already exhausted mother of many other children. This sentence resonated with me more than anything else in the post:

And part of the reason for all of this is that learning at home simply cannot replicate the resources and opportunities of real schooling, although in trying to do so, many parents, in particular mothers, burn themselves out in sometimes decades-long struggles.

This seems to me to be the primary danger of being philosophically committed to homeschooling as the ideal. Ideals are great, as long as they can be be carried out in reality. But for some mothers who really want to homeschool or whose spouses really want them to homeschool, sometimes the reality of many children and a stressful life means that homeschooling is given a backseat, even if only out of necessity. Then the kids are getting shortchanged and their educations are neglected, the parents are wracked with guilt and trying to figure out how to stretch themselves even thinner, and essentially the entire family suffers as the parents try to live up to an ideal that has become impossible in reality. That is the primary reason I refuse to say, "we're homeschooling all of our kids all the way through school." I like homeschooling right now. Sienna is learning, I'm learning, we enjoy our time together, and I think it's strengthening us as a family. If any of those things ceases to be true, though, I owe it to my daughter, my husband, and myself to honestly re-assess the wisdom of homeschooling and to be frank about both mine and Sienna's limits.

All in all, I think every educational system has merits, obviously, otherwise no one would participate in or defend them. The danger comes when parents hold up one model as The Absolute Ideal and follow that ideal to the ends of the earth, even if it means their kids fall off the edge in the process.

Unless, of course, your Absolute Ideal is to raise an army of Jedis. It's acceptable to lose a few in pursuit of the Awesome.

7 Quick Takes Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:12:00 +0000

I know, I'm late again. You can blame Ignitum Today and their symposium on mercy and killing, for which I spent all of yesterday afternoon writing a post. Actually, I spent all of yesterday afternoon writing snippets of a post in between dealing with unbelievably needy children.

Anyway, here it is, if you want to read it.

As You Like It wrapped up its performances last weekend. I got to see it again, and they swapped out Rosalinds and Phoebes which gave the show a whole different vibe. It was amazing seeing how the two principle Rosalinds read the character, and how their interpretations changed the whole feel of the play. I think it wasn't until the second performance that I realized just how much these students understood their characters and became those characters. For a university without a theater department, Ave is rolling in true dramatic talent.

Also, the cast made me dance during the intermission, which was horrifying because I don't dance. Or, more accurately, I can't dance. I'm stiff and awkward and the second dancing starts I flee in terror, but in a small classroom there wasn't any place to go, so I danced. Awkwardly.

But God bless the actor who played Oliver, the one who made me dance and wouldn't let me bow out with, "Um, you know I really can't dance, okay?" He was charming and sweet and not at all wigged out by my awkward pregnant stumbling. He just spun me around and smiled until I relaxed enough to begin moving slightly like a human being, which was a much greater triumph than I think he realized.

The man himself, Dr. Travis Curtright, receiving an engraved Zippo from the cast. Nobody gives gifts like college students.

As luck would have it, the incredibly talented director of the performance just happens to be our next door neighbor, so we got to crash the cast party! (We were invited, actually.)

It was a little bit awkward for me because even though I'm the wife of a professor and all, I'm not that much older than the students. Also, I never left the mentality of a college student behind in order to become a mature wife and mother because 1) I was still a junior in college when my daughter was born and 2) growing up didn't sound like a whole lot of fun at the time. (It still doesn't.)

But these students kept calling me Mrs. Alexander, which made me feel super weird, and obviously I couldn't just be like, "No, call me Calah, and let's hang out sometime" because I am the wife of a professor and that would have been even weirder.

Still it was fun, even though I think I might have cornered a poor senior into discussing the differences between UD and Ave Maria's curricula for a little too long, and as we were leaving this cheeky girl above who played Rosalind said, "Jaques is out front if you want to say bye."

Those of you who read my review might remember that the actor who played Jaques was so hilarious and adorable that I was totally crushing on him by the end of the play.(You know, the kind of movie-star actor crush you get on Ryan Gosling or Josh Hartnett or Robert Redford in The Sting.)

So out front I went, where I bid farewell to the cast, told them again how fantastic they all were, and then pointed to Jaques and said, "Especially you."

They all laughed, and so did I, because it was funny, you know?

Look at his face! What he really wants to say is, "Mrs. Robinson, you are totally creeping me out."

Then we walked home. And when we got home, I heard all the college kids out in the back yard, playing with the kids, and I smiled fondly, and then all the sudden it hit me.

I'm the wife of a professor and I just made a jokingly flirty comment to a student.

Do you know what they call women like me? Cougars.

I actually sat on the bed and stared blankly at the wall in horror for five full minutes. I'm old, thought I to myself. I'm old. I'm not a college student anymore. I have to grow up and be all professional and serious and not joke with the students anymore because they probably only laughed out of politeness and really they're all talking about how creepy I am now. OMG! I'm old and creepy! I'm that old creepy lady who doesn't realize that she's old and creepy and still tries to hang out with the college kids! Kill me now!

Here's a picture of the poor kid in question, because I'm not creepy enough. I've probably scarred him for life.

The Ogre tried to comfort me by reminding me that I actually am closer in age to the college kids outside than I am to him, my own husband.

It was comforting. I felt marginally better until I looked at the calendar and realized that in two weeks I'll be 28, at which point I will officially be closer in age to my husband than I am to the 21-year-old college kids.

There's only one thing to do now, I guess. Have a proper mid-life crisis and go get my nose pierced again for my birthday.

And maybe streak my hair purple or something. Nothing says, "I'm having a mid-life crisis" quite like a bad dye job, after all.

Have a great weekend, everyone! Go and see Jen for more quick takes. If I'm not back on Monday, you can rest assured that I'm probably holed up in a tattoo parlor somewhere, trying to figure out which version of a butterflied ankle would best recapture my lost youth and coolness.

Scratch that. I was never cool. I'll be doing laundry and cleaning out the refrigerator.

Vignettes

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:08:00 +0000

I find myself distracted, unfocused and suffering from a headache today. I'm making no headway on my as-yet-non-post for Ignitum Today, so I'm just going with the distraction in the hopes that it will inspire some sort of creative something.

Welcome to my brain, unedited.

Yesterday I made homemade pop-tarts. I was very disappointed because they didn't have icing, and as it turns out, what I like most about store-bought pop-tarts is the overly sweet shellacked-cardboard-ey goodness.

The Ogre loved them. The children agreed with me. We win.

Charlotte is currently laying on the floor by my chair, kicking it repeatedly because I won't give her more sugar. I shouldn't have given her any in the first place, obviously.

I really want to make Oreos right now, but I spent my whole dedicated baking day making those damn useless pop-tarts. I feel like someone owes me a refund, but I'm pretty sure that's not how cooking blogs work.

It should be. I still haven't forgiven the Pioneer Woman for her atrocious Chicken Parmesan.

I've paid every single bill on time this month. I know that's not an achievement for normal, well-adjusted humans, but I have just recently become the one in charge of bill-paying in our house, and mostly I've forgotten to do it. This month, not so much. Putting a giant calendar on the wall of our living/schoolroom with the bills and amounts marked on their due dates was very helpful. Refusing to let my inner slacker wait until later was even more helpful.

My inner slacker is currently rejoicing at this brief reprieve from Actual Writing and Actual Housework.

Last night the Ogre and I went to a poetry reading. He offered his students extra credit if they would read a poem. A ton of them showed up. I love these kids. Seriously, they're very funny and endearing. One of them read Dr. Seuss. There was more than one Wilbur. One kid read a poem by Langston Hughes about the blues, and actually sang the lines that the man in the poem was supposed to be singing. It was the boldest thing I've ever seen, and it was a good thing the kid could carry a tune, otherwise it probably just would have been embarrassing. As it was, it was awesome. One girl recited The Jabberwocky. Then one kid read Tupac, and I found myself thinking about how seriously odd Jen Fulwiler is.

I say that with lots of love. I'm odd too, and in a way less cool way. I could probably get through labor by watching Doctor Who, which is much geekier than listening to Tupac. Also, who would I offer my suffering up for if I checked into the Whoniverse? Donna? The Ood? Poor, wretched Old Amy? They're all good options, but I have a sneaking suspicion that offering up one's suffering for television characters isn't actually the point.

Charlotte got her ballet recital costume today. It cost more than a whole month of lessons. I plan on hermetically sealing it post-recital and saving it for future Halloween costumes, in the hopes that by the time my granddaughters have outgrown it, it will have paid for itself.

Charlotte also lost her ballet slippers this morning. We had to order more. This would have been a greater tragedy if her slippers weren't already so small that it took two adults to get them on her feet.

Liam now wears a larger size shoe than Charlotte.

There's a baby alligator outside the window, and I'm looking at it right now. Take that, city dwellers! Why would you want the convenience of being able to, say, walk to Trader Joe's, when you could move here and live amongst frighteningly large reptiles?

I'm drinking tea and eating Smarties. It's a disgusting combination, I realize that objectively, just like I realized it was vile to put Tabasco on a Milky Way when I was pregnant with Sienna. But pregnancy does weird things to me.

I really dislike chocolate this pregnancy, which is just not normal for me.

Charlotte is now asleep on the carpet. I'm so glad she stopped kicking my chair.

Yesterday morning it was cold outside. Literally cold. I had to put on a sweater, and almost started crying. As it turns out, I don't miss cold weather when I forget what it feels like. Four solid months of 70 to 80 degree days have actually wiped my memory of the joy that is crisp mornings and cool air. But I remember now.

I hate you, Florida.

Actually that's not true. Florida is a surprisingly pretty and non-miserable place to live. (Note that I'm saying this before experiencing the reportedly hellish summers.) It would be really perfect if it would just migrate away from the equator a little and get cold in the winter. Or maybe the coming ice age brought on by global warming will help it out a little? We can always hope.

We have a lizard living on our lanai. A lanai is a covered porch/patio. Apparently you have to call it a lanai in Florida. Anyway, the children spend at least an hour every day trying to catch the lizard. He always gets away but can't ever get off the lanai because the Ogre had to wire the door shut to prevent Liam from killing himself via alligator. I kind of feel sorry for him. The lizard, that is. Not Liam.

I told myself I would write randomly until some external circumstance forced me to get out of this chair and, well, I'm out of Smarties. See you tomorrow.

The Super Suckage of NFP

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:25:00 +0000

*Like any post about NFP, you might encounter terrifying words like "cervix", "mucus" and "vagina" should you choose to continue reading. Fair warning.

Let's talk about NFP, and how it sucks.

Image via the wonderful Katie

I know, I can hear the furious clicking as my faithful followers abandon my blog in droves. But look, y'all, I have to be honest here, because honesty is kind of a thing with me. It's like a tic or something; deep in my subconscious, there's an inner Dalek shouting "HON-ES-TY" instead of "EX-TER-MIN-ATE." Know what I mean? (If you don't know what I mean because you're not a total sci-fi geek, well then, I'm sorry and I hope you find something in life that makes you as happy as Doctor Who makes me.)

With the HHS mandate drama, the floodgates have opened and discussion about contraception hath poured forth. Everyone is talking about it, even WaPo. Dear, wonderful Janet Smith, the woman who I can only hope to be like if ever I grow up, has asked us to talk about it, and the blogosphere has responded with people talking about it.

I have been mostly silent, except for wearing a snarky T-shirt and offending the Duggar-hating underbelly of the interwebs.

Part of my unwillingness to post about NFP has been due to my own internal inconsistencies. I agree with every single one of the posts I linked to above, and they all basically disagree with each other. It's kind of hard to write a coherent post about NFP when everything I read makes me say, "Yes! That!" But mostly I haven't brought it up because quite a few people seem really keen on "re-branding" NFP. Making it hip. Showing that it works, that it's simple, that it makes our lives so much better, that we freaks who use it don't have sixty bazillion children all dressed in matching denim jumpers, and even picking up on the vernacular du jour and telling the world how green NFP is. And frankly, that's not a bandwagon I can jump on without lying through my teeth. But I also don't want to write a post about how NFP is, in the words of Darwin, "some sort of Bataan death march of marital suffering."

So what's a blogger to do? Stick to my strengths, I guess, and just tell it like it is for me.

I don't use artificial birth control because five years ago this August I swore to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church. I don't use birth control because I think the Pill is a very dangerous carcinogenic. I don't use birth control even though, as my favorite OB/GYN ever so helpfully points out when I see him, my hormone-induced migraines qualify me (maybe) for an exemption from the Church's moratorium on the Pill, I believe that the Church knows what she's talking about. The explanations make sense to me. The rules make sense to me. Seeing the rapid free-fall into moral decay that our society has plunged into since the Pill was approved gives me empirical evidence to support the arguments laid out in Humanae Vitae.

I don't use artificial birth control because I believe it fundamentally damages the relationship of a husband and wife and consequently undermines the fabric of society. My husband is dearer to me than anyone else on this earth. The worst times in our married life have been times when something has driven a wedge between us. Using contraception would be the mother of all wedges, and I couldn't live like that. Neither could he.

But I also don't walk around touting the magical wonders of NFP. As far as I can see, NFP has no magical wonders except for the magical ability to confuse and frustrate the hell out of me. We've gone through two methods now. The first, the Sympto-Thermal Method, was ridiculous on its face. The "thermal" part of it measures your basal body temperature, which requires you to wake up at the exact same time every morning, go to sleep at the exact same time every night, never have a cold, and most horrifically, never drink alcohol. It seems to me that the creators of this method never actually realized that it might be used by human mothers as opposed to the robotic variety, but there it is. I never go to sleep at the same time, nor do I set an alarm clock (because I have these loud things called children), someone always has a cold that inevitably ends up all over me, and I love wine. So my basal body temperature is all over the map, all the time.

The Sympto-Thermal Method also requires its users to *ahem* check their own cervix.

I know, kid, that's how I feel too

Here's the thing about that: Blue Cross Blue Shield and I pay highly-trained professionals good money to do that for me, and while I'm sure they're doing an excellent job, those annual exams are an annual rite of torture. I am not about to go voluntarily spelunking around inside my own vagina on a daily basis until I figure out where my cervix is and what its various positions can tell me about my fertility. Because that's gross, and quite frankly it sounds terribly uncomfortable. Count me out of the "internal examination" camp, for the foreseeable ever.

So that leaves the (sorry, everyone) mucus thing. The Sympto-Thermal Method does a bad job of explaining that particular sign of fertility. The Creighton Method, which is very magical and amazing when you're taking the classes, does an excellent good job of explaining how to recognize and identify cervical mucus, and even provides you with an encyclopedia of color photographs to clarify and make you vomit. Here's my big problem with Creighton, though: it's equally as unrealistic in its own way as the basal body temperature nonsense.

Creighton requires that you "check your signs" each time you use the bathroom, both before and after, and before and after showering. Theoretically, that's totally doable, right?

Right. 50% of my bathroom breaks usually come to an abrupt end when Sienna comes rushing in to tell me that "Liam has broken a dish/eaten out of the sugar bowl/pulled out all the knives/swan-dived off the bookshelf/gotten wet and turned into a Gremlin right on the kitchen floor!" Can you guess how many times I've responded with, "Oh, okay, I'll come save his life, right after I check my signs?"

Uh-huh. Like I said, the creators of these methods seem to forget that they're being used by human mothers with at least partially human children. If you miss checking, even just once, you could miss THE SIGN that tells you that if you throw yourself into your husband's arms tonight, four months later you'll be writing a blog post about how NFP sucks while sucking on anti-nausea Preggie Pop Drops.

The Marquette method holds promise, I think, particularly because it doesn't require absolute faithfulness in checking temperatures or signs. One of my readers left a comment about a method that she developed that I will be trying in about six months. It's basically the Marquette method minus the expensive monitor, and it sounds quite intriguing.

But the point is, I'm not interested in re-branding NFP. I can understand why some people want to do that, but I personally don't use NFP because it works or because it's green or because I love finding out about how neat my body is (I don't...it's neat, let's leave it at that). I use NFP (or more accurately, fail to use it) because I believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church, and because I believe that artificial contraception is wrong. Period.

I think it's a little dishonest to try and convince people to give NFP a try for any reason other than the one that matters. It isn't fun to try and guess if you're fertile or not. It's not a pleasant bonding experience or a return to an "engaged state" when you haven't had sex with your husband for three months because you cannot, for the life of you, figure out what the hell your mucus is telling you. It's hard. It sucks. It hurts to have to say "not tonight, and I don't know when." It hurts to have to turn away from the one you love when you're both stressed and weary and you really just want to seek the comfort of each others' arms. It's frightening to find yourself pregnant yet again when you don't know where you'll be living in six months or if you'll have insurance or even a job. It requires faith. It requires trust. It requires an absolute commitment to attempting to live a virtuous life. Anything less, and you'll find yourself cursing Humanae Vitae and wavering in your faith. I still find my faith wavering sometimes in the face of those two pink lines. But God has blessed me with a faithful husband and faithful friends who remind me that what I'm doing is right and good, that things will work out, and that even if they don't work out, following Christ is worth suffering for.

I love the Catholic faith because it is beautiful, magical and wondrous. Not using artificial contraception is an integral part of that. It shows a deep respect for the dignity of both woman and man that I have never found elsewhere. But living that faith is not easy, and we ought not try to "re-brand" or re-package Catholicism to make it look more attractive. We don't practice our faith because it's attractive, we practice it because it's true. The same can be said of NFP. Yes, the manuals are woefully dated and off-putting. Yes, we could use new and more practical methods based on the latest scientific innovations. I'm all for addressing those concerns. But I don't think we should white-wash why it is that we chose this road, nor the difficulties that we face. It is fundamentally more difficult to practice NFP than it is to pop a pill or use a condom. It's also a fundamentally better choice for humanity. That should be our message...not that NFP is easy, or fun, or green, but that it's right.

Why I Haven't Blogged in a Week

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:23:00 +0000

Be back tomorrow. I promise.

In the meantime, check out Ignitum Today's symposium on mercy killing and euthanasia. This subject arose after some interesting emails among the contributors, and I think it will be a fascinating symposium. I'm scheduled to contribute on Thursday, so I've been preparing myself by watching educational videos such as Logan's Run.

It's the scientific method, y'all.

A Bad Case of the Mondays

noreply@blogger.com (Calah) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:39:00 +0000

We made it to the beach yesterday and spent a fabulous four hours swimming, building sand castles, collecting shells and forcing screaming toddlers to get in the water whether they wanted to or not. (We're cruel that way.)

As a direct result of all that fun, though, today has been an epic day of whiny, tired children, a tired mama, and an overall case of the Mondays.

Liam shook things up a little by pulling a steaming-hot mug of steeping tea off the counter and onto his face. He's fine, just minor first-degree burns, thank goodness. I, however, had such an enormous jolt of adrenaline delivered to my system when I heard that blood-curdling scream (no really, I closed the fifteen-foot gap between me and the wee destructor before the mug hit the tile) that I had to sit down for the next two hours. (After a tepid bath, cool compresses, aloe, and an early naptime for Liam, that is.)

I'm still sitting down, but now it's voluntary as opposed to necessary, which is a relief.

All in all, not much has been accomplished today, not even washing the sandy laundry still occupying the beach bag on the kitchen floor, so I've decided not to devote too much time to blogging lest I disturb the balance of the day and create something worthwhile. Instead, I'll just give you a couple of links.

First, at the request of one of my blogging buddies and fellow contributor at Ignitum Today, I want to make you all aware of the current cause for the canonization of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. I don't know much about the good Archbishop, except that he's responsible for the most hilarious quote ever on The Crescat's sidebar, but I do know that my friend Bonnie's son James is alive today through an alleged miracle that is one of the two being considered by the Vatican as they examine the cause for canonization. (I don't really have any doubts that James' healing is a miracle, but apparently you have to use the term 'alleged' before the Vatican verifies it. I do like that the Church takes this so seriously, however.) Anyway, Bonnie is working for the Sheen Foundation right now, and she's asked some of her fellow bloggers to post about the Foundation to help raise awareness of the cause. The Sheen Foundation will also need to raise quite a bit of money to cover the costs associated with the tribunal studying the case right now (such as translating everything into Italian and covering the fees of the medical experts who must review and verify all the evidence). Archbishop Sheen is thought to be one of the best candidates for patronage of blogging and new media because of his own pioneering work in radio and television, which might be of special interest to the rest of you bloggers.

You can read about the miraculous healing of Bonnie's son James here. For more information on Archbishop Sheen or to donate to the Sheen Foundation, visit their website here.

The second link is neither worthy nor holy, but I just can't stop reading Cracked. Here's a good place to start: The 5 Creepiest Progressive Parenting Fads. Or, if you're not a parent or are a parent but don't want to spend your downtime reading more about parenting (hey, I feel ya), try this one: 6 Horrifying Implications of the Harry Potter Universe. Or if you hate Harry Potter and came over here from Freejinger to tell me what a horrible person I am, don't worry, the good people at Cracked agree with you. See? Something for everyone. Including foul language and off-color jokes...fair warning.

Okay, the next one is something I can totally get behind: a WaPo article on young Catholic women trying to re-brand NFP. I agree with 99.9% of this article, especially the part about the dreadful clothing worn by most of the women in the terrible NFP manuals. Here's what I would like to see: a book written on the Marquette method, the method I'm more and more convinced is the only one that will ever work for me, with a woman on the cover wearing an AC/DC t-shirt. And with pop-up illustrations, because let's face it, a pop-up illustration of the cervix would be both unexpected and hilarious. Can't you just see the reactions?

(The above is why no one ever asks me to write serious articles on NFP, and why if anyone was thinking about it, they definitely aren't now.)

Finally, there's this: the best thing I've read all day, or perhaps ever.

I hope your Monday is going better than mine is. If it's not, here's something to make you laugh.

You're welcome