The Weight of a Gift

Last evening, I saw a true show of extravagant, crazy love. It wasn't new and it wasn't earth-shattering. But it may have been the very first time I truly saw it.

I had been grumbling for a while now that there is not single thing in the house that is my own. Nothing that personally belongs to me and me alone. This desire strikes me as extremely selfish and yet extremely urgent at the same time. I rush to explain it. The thing I own wouldn't define me, I say. I make excuses, searching in the deepest recesses of my emotions for the reason for this unwelcome desire that seems to consume me.

Well, I cannot complain any more. My husband bought me a notebook computer - one bigger, faster, better than I wanted. One that slightly embarrasses me and slightly scares me because of the money we spent on it. One that, if I had been working, I would have struggled to pay him back for. Except, I don't work. And I have no way of paying for this laptop I didn't deserve but so graciously accepted. I didn't need it, per se. It was a gift, in the purest sense of the word.

I always thought people who said they didn't deserve things they received were lying, that their humility was false. Yesterday, I rethought that idea. Yesterday, as I went through the emotions of trying to reconcile receiving this gift - defined by dictionaries as something bestowed or acquired with no effort on the part of the recipient to earn it - with somehow paying for it or even deserving it, I realized: I don't think I had ever felt this way before. Ever. In my entire life.

The converse of this ugliness is that after receiving a gift such as this one, I still feel like I have to earn it, make up for it in some way, so that the scales are balanced on some cosmic level known only to me. I never thought I would be one who had a hard time accepting love, that I was one who feels she must earn it. But I am.

Psalm 103 comes to mind. It says God has crowned us with lovingkindness and tender mercies. I thought I understood it, but I guess I don't really. For all my entitlement, I suppose I am still lacking in understanding the true depth of God's love, a small measure of which I saw through my husband's lavish spending on me yesterday.

Perhaps that's why the world has trouble understanding the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes the weight of a gift is just a little more than we can bear to understand.

In Search of Clean

I never thought I would become of those people but after watching "Food, Inc." and then developing all kinds of allergies and sinus infections to the point of not being able to have any perfume of any kind on or around me, (I'm serious - I use unscented aluminum-free deodorant and suffer at church) I'm a convert to the organic food movement.

It has been an interesting journey so far and not having finished the old yucky ground beef still in the freezer (we're working on it) makes me kind of sick just thinking about it. But I try not to, which fixes the problem for the most part. Okay, so it's short term. The beef will be gone soon and then we'll be true blue organic eaters.

One of the biggest changes eating organic forces on you is better meal planning. Organic food is expensive to begin with. Throw in trying to live on a grocery budget of about $400 a month with four mouths to feed (one very little and very hungry mouth) with two toddlers and you get the picture. I am blessed in that I have a husband who truly appreciates healthy food. He really isn't one of those meat and cheese guys and he actually likes salads. (And builds shelves - hey, hands off! He's mine!) Okay, so but seriously, we're committed to eating better.

The way it's been working lately is to get pantry stuff at Winco Foods. Also things like onions and pineapples - things with hard exteriors that are generally okay to buy "un-organic." (Read Health for Godly Generations by Renee deGroot for more pointers.) Produce is local and from the farmer's market. The farmer's market also tends to have fruit, eggs and grass-fed beef, which we buy as we need it. Someday I will have an extra freezer to store meat but for now, this works. I truly enjoy the farmer's market. I may be the only crazy one with a list there but the prices are not crazy, we're eating local and every once in a while there are pleasant surprises, like blood oranges - which I have never eaten before - and fresh dill. I always come back invigorated and in love with God's blessings - real, natural food!

Bread and snacks have been our budgeting hurdles in the past. So I have been making crackers and cookies/muffins at home for James to take with him to work and for us to snack on in general and today, I attempted French bread! The verdict is still out because we haven't had it yet but since I got my food processor, I can bake as much bread as I want. The next step is to make tortillas, so we can eliminate that out of grocery shopping trip as well. I have in the past and then didn't keep up with it.

That's how it's going so far. I have to say it's still very much an effort to stay on the budget. But the amount I am learning in terms of making things from scratch and the satisfaction I get from feeding my family home-made, healthy meals has been worth it. My mother was a great cook and if she can do it, I can too. Plus, there's just something so precious about watching Hucksley scarf down something I've baked. Yup, I come from a long line of mothers!

A Quiet Christmas

This has been the best Christmas by far. It has also by turns been the loudest (with the kids screaming), the happiest (baking cookies late into the night while having a heart to heart conversation with hubby), the most fun (playing Scrabble with friends on Christmas Eve), the most disappointing (Church service was such a letdown and it could have been so much more), the most extravagant (James bought me a Kindle!!!) and the most quiet. I am at peace in my heart this Christmas, not wanting or craving something other than what I have. 

I did not put up lights this year. I did not beg my husband for a specific gift. I did not even get a big tree. I got a plastic one and had fun with the kids decorating it. I wrote a Christmas letter. I baked cookies and gave them away. I did not shop till I dropped. I was not frazzled. I also did not feel like something was missing. I even heard my husband confess that this has been his best Christmas yet.

And that might just be the biggest blessing of it all.

Bombie Sings...

... and she seems to have a natural talent for it. Wonder where THAT came from!

Welcome Baby Hucksley!

He's here everyone! All 8 pounds 12 ounces of him! He's even taller than his older sister at 21.5 inches. He arrived on December 20th 2009 at 2:08am. I'm such a proud mom!

It was a long, long labor at 28.5 hours. I had been in prodormal labor for a while already so when I hit 40 weeks the doctors wanted to induce. (See previous post.) Being that I had pregnancy-induced hypertension and was 4 cms they said it wouldn't be a problem. But I really wanted to know what it was like to do it naturally with no drugs. I wanted to know how far I could trust my body. I now understand the famous answer some mountain climber quipped when asked why he climbed Mt. Everest. "Because it's there!" he said. It's a lot like that.

With Bombie the birth was medicated, induced. I asked for an epidural. I tore, got stitches, healing was much, much longer. So this time we were determined to stay home as long as possible. Well, we did. Right up until transition. Labor contractions began at 9:30pm on December 18th. I timed them and they were about 12 - 18 minutes apart. I couldn't sleep through them but I did doze between them and tried to relax. Labor had definitely begun. I thought, okay, tomorrow. Boy, was I wrong!

All through the next day, labor puttered in and out. I couldn't lay down and nap, I couldn't do much except watch TV, walk around a little and time contractions. Since it was Saturday, James was home and we sat and timed them. We were waiting for them to get to 5 minutes apart or less for an hour before getting to the hospital. I had had my "show" but my water was intact so there was no rush. Somewhere in the day I got on the treadmill and walked a bit to get things going again and then he took me to Target. I was in no mood to talk to anyone or interact, but walking with him was good. Every time a contraction came, I leaned into him. We puttered some more around the house, got Chinese to eat and I tried to ignore Bombie each time she wanted to be picked up. Felt bad about that, but I just couldn't.

What else did we do? Oh yeah, we sat through about two parts of The Lord of the Rings, tried different labor positions until I decided sitting on the edge of the couch seemed to be the most comfortable. Towards the evening I began to get more vocal and moaned / hummed. That's when we knew we were getting close. At about 9:30 that night I began to shake. We were getting really close. Still, I wanted to avoid pitocin, being strapped down, etc. and we were so, so close that we wanted to get a good pattern going before leaving. At around 10 things shifted into really high gear. Contractions were beginning to come at 4 - 5 minutes apart, hurt more and there was pressure like I was sitting on the baby's head. That's when we left. I believe it was something like 10:45pm.

The hospital was about a half hour away and I had about 4 - 5 contractions on the way there. As soon as they saw us come in, they knew we were staying. The triage doctor checked me and said I was at 8 cms. Then he says, Is your baby breech? I almost died. A quick ultrasound said no. I had been checking my cervix off and on all day, so I knew anyway but it was nice to let go of that last little bit of worry. They checked me into labor and delivery at about 11:30.

Contractions were now coming 4 minutes apart and lasting about a minute or more. I had the most indescribable urge to push. I zoomed from 8 to 9.5 cms in just a few minutes and when the midwife came at 12:45 I was ready to have him out already. She broke my water and he was born in about an hour from then. No tears, no stitches. That's the beauty of the human body. I love it.

I know, I'm beginning to sound like a natural labor nazi, but the difference between Sierra's birth and this one was so huge I can't even compare it. Yes, the contractions hurt, but besides that, recovery was so much faster. I was up and walking around 9 hours after giving birth, had the catheter removed, got no stitches and walked to the car 24 hours later. I felt strong and in control, I was able to push in the position I wanted and even though I kept saying "I can't, I can't" while pushing, when the urge to push came and I was in the middle of it, it was so primal and so strong, there was no way anything could have stopped the baby's birth. I'd say pushing was about 100 times more effective without an epidural. I could tell it used every muscle in my body because everything from my ribs to my gums were sore for a day after.

If I had to give birth again this is how I would do it. But I doubt I could have done it without my husband, James. I think I fell in love with him all over again that day. He was strong for me when I couldn't be and wanted to go to the hospital early. He was there for me to lean into, all 6 feet 4 inches of him and he was there cheering me on when I was pushing our son out.

I was the one who went through labor, but it was us - James and me - who birthed our son together. I couldn't have asked for anything more.

So Much for To Be Continued...

Although my last post said it would be continued, it didn't happen. But today I've done some fun stuff that should be blogged about! Today I shopped like a true "tightwad!" If you don't know what that word refers to, you're probably not alone. But I have become a convert. And maybe if you read it, you will too - "The Tightwad Gazette" by Amy Dacyzyn. (I think I got that spelling right!) And today I bought 20 pounds of onions and 20 pounds of tomatoes!!! I came home beaming. They were the "loss leaders" in a few stores and I went around and bought only those! Now I'm getting ready to blanch them and freeze the tomatoes for pizza sauce! Every Friday is pizza night here. I'm so excited!

(I know, I know... I have a low entertainment threshold. LOL.)

Today I'm a Parent

Call it a mother’s intuition or call it panic, I am taking Bombie to Kaiser today. She’s had pretty bad diarrhea for almost a week now (going on five days today) and calling the advice nurse and speaking with the doctor on call has not helped. This morning her crib looked like a crime scene and in the middle of it was my precious baby. When I gave her a bath, she just sat in the tub listlessly, which is very unlike her. Later, at breakfast, her eyes stared vacantly at nothing. So this time when I called, I insisted I see the doctor. Today. If they didn’t have an appointment for me, I was going to take her to the emergency room. (But, thank God, they do. This afternoon. So we’re waiting for James to come home and then we’re both going in with her.)

This kind of assertiveness is rare for me. I’m one of those people who worries excessively about inconveniencing others. Especially people that I deem to be authority figures – experts of any kind: doctors, teachers, cops, professionals and so on. And I can’t help but see how true the phrase really is, how having a baby really does change everything.

Maybe even me.

The weekend has been enlightening and oddly inspiring. If I haven’t thanked you God for sending me such a wonderful man to call my husband, let me do it now. Thank you. James has been the model of a patient, caring and yet disciplinarian parent. Last week we had some issues with Bombie being difficult and we started time-outs. This weekend she has been sick. And James has – with remarkable precision and intuition – gauged when she needed love and when she needed discipline. I was so in awe all weekend as he ditched his dinner to hold her and sit on the swing outside to make her feel better. He changed her nasty, smelly diapers and he even encouraged me to go to the bookstore like I was planning and not feel like I had to be with Bombie at all times. He did laundry maybe four times because the diapers just weren’t holding the diarrhea. And I was right by his side, I’d like to believe, but I was so stunned at how good he was at being a father that I couldn’t think of much else. (We’re using disposables for this sick period; the cloth diapers were worse!)

And through all this I’m learning something about love, an aspect of it that I hadn’t known before. As we each had dinner by ourselves so the other could hold and rock the baby, as we looked to each other for encouragement or so we didn’t lose the moment to frustration, I believe we learned something about love as duty. It is different. It’s entirely different, for instance, from the selfish love we felt when we were first married. It’s also entirely different from our usual romantic love, although it sure feeds directly into it. I guess you could say when I feel now raising our kids together is a mixture of admiration and pride in our little but growing family. And I can’t help but also feel humbled and grateful to have it and be a part of it.

More on Homeschooling

I must have been more than a little peeved when I wrote the last blog post on why I'm seriously leaning toward homeschooling for our kids because I seem to have lost the ability to be articulate. It happens - especially when I feel strongly about something. Left brain, right brain and all that. So here's a more well thought out post to why I will be (most likely) homeschooling when it comes time.

First off, I should mention that I have a terminal degree in writing and English. What that means is that it is actually higher than a Masters but because they cannot give you a Doctorate in Writing, they call it an MFA which is a Master of Fine Arts. However, I do not think that having a degree or any other credential is necessary to teach your child. I have to give credit for a lot of my own education to my mother who had a simple Bachelor's Degree, something everyone has in India by the way. It's not as big a deal as it is here. So, even though I went to private school, the bulk of my really learning and imbibing took place because my stay-at-home mom ensured that I actually understood it. There was school work and then there was home work. She bought me books, sat down with me to teach me and took my learning very seriously. In fact, I owe my math and science grade in the 10th grade (that's the last level there for school, not the 8th) all to her tutoring. I believe if homeschooling had been a possibility when I was growing up, my parents would have probably taken it. English wasn't her strong point so maybe they thought it necessary I go to private school.

So I come from a background of knowing that it's no big deal teaching kids. Add to that the fact that California schools are pretty low on the national spectrum for grades and I don't think there's even a contest between another teacher and me. What is it that someone else can teach that I can't? I have a pretty high IQ (probably higher than most teachers, no offense, just reality) and know my kids better than anyone else in the world. I think they deserve the luxury of having their mother teach them instead of someone else for the same reason that we don't eat out often. No one knows my family's dietary needs and tastes better than me, so I don't trust anyone else to cook for us, well, not on a regular basis anyway. And for me to send my children away for six hours a day five days a week into the care of someone else who's going to teach them not just math and science but their own ideas (inadvertently) there would have to be a pretty high level of trust there. And trust and anything run by the government do not go hand in hand for our family.

Which brings me to another factor. Teachers are fond of saying that they don't teach the kids their ideology, but the fact is ideology doesn't need to be formally taught. It can be a wayward comment, a hint, a mention and the kids will pick it up. How do I know? Well, I may be 31 but it hasn't been that long since I was a child. Children are so impressionable that if you want to teach them the right thing, you have to be constantly on guard not just in what you say but how you act. And careful teachers are not! (Again, I have friends that are teachers and I'm sure they're fine but they're not going to teach my kids and I don't get to pick them, so I'm talking about the general group here.)

Since my husband works in a lot of schools (he's a fire alarm technician) I hear from him the almost institutionalized tearing down of boys that takes place on a regular basis in schools. Every other group it seems is protected except for the white male and it becomes a verbal free-for-all when it comes to insulting them. I'm sure the pendulum swung the other way at some point in time, but my kids are growing up today and today a real man and everything he represents is an endangered species. I want my son to be a man when he grows up and my daughter to be a real woman who respects a real man and they're not going to be that going to public schools where she'll think she's privileged and he won't get any respect to develop his personality. I mean, if playtime is seriously curtailed and no one keeps score any more on the playing field during a sport, where's the true spirit of competition? Where, in fact, is childhood? How are they ever going to learn about things like morality, right and wrong, winning, losing, the idea of failure, of doing the right thing? Forget nobility!

I suppose I am old-fashioned. I don't believe that everyone is equal and that "you can do anything you set your mind to do." And I don't want my kids growing up in la-la land because when they come out of la-la land they'll just be looking for another one. They may find it, of course, in the government handout world we currently inhabit but we'd like them not to. We'd like them to make it on their own, to think for themselves, be critical, have judgment, a well thought out opinion; we'd like them to admit when they're wrong and understand that everyone is not equal, that sometimes you cannot do or get everything you want, that life isn't fair but it's so worth being a real person. We'd like them to know that sometimes failures are necessary and there is such a thing as right and wrong, that nobility comes from doing the right thing even when it's so much easier to bend your morality and get by in a mediocre existence.

My husband takes his role as provider for the family very seriously and I intend taking my role as the mother of these kids just as seriously. Yes, I guess that makes us old fashioned and pretty conservative. I just see it as giving my kids the very best start in their lives that we can. The luxury of a stay-at-home mom who is also their teacher. What a privilege!

Frugal Living at its Finest!

I wrote about the recent crisis we're going through briefly on my other blog so I won't go into details here. Suffice it to say, my husband and I have had to both look deep within ourselves recently and our general relationship with money. I can safely say that Sunday May 31st 2009 was the worst day of my life. That was the day James and I had a serious discussion about what we were going to do to turn things around for us financially.

It was pretty damn scary.

It was also however pretty damn liberating because in a single evening I realized what was most important to me. In the midst of a crisis, everything became crystal clear. In order of importance, I ranked our family, our (and our children's) futures and then even our dearest possessions. To support those, we came up with a pretty serious plan. No frivolous spending, no "splurges," no going shopping for entertainment. I promised to keep a tight budget in the home. He promised to do whatever he could do support us with his job. (He already does everything he can, so obviously the majority of this onus was on me!)

We talked about how he was never taught about handling money responsibly by his parents and I shared how when I was born my parents were doing so much better financially that I never had to bear the burden of hard times. My brother - born more than a decade before me - saw poverty first-hand. And he still lives extremely simply. I should learn that.

"Should" has now almost become "have." After the scare of losing one's future (retirement) and one's present (this lovely, lovely home) one begins to respect it a lot more. No longer do I complain about loading dishes in the dishwasher. No longer do I complain about mopping the floors and keeping the home clean. No longer do I complain about cooking dinner. I'm just grateful things are working out for us. And I'm beginning to realize that even though my parents didn't exactly sit me down and give me the tools for managing money, they showed me how to live frugally simply by living that way themselves. Sure, they splurged every once in a while on things that mattered to them, but their everyday lives were a lesson in living simply and within their means. (Which is why, at 69 my father saves money out of the interest he receives from his investments and retired at 65. He was able to send me to study in the US with his retirement money and can travel to see his kids across the globe any time he wants!)

So I've become a coupon cutter and an expert at making dinners from scratch. I search frugal tips on the internet and turn off lights when I leave the room. I hang-dry our clothes and thank God for all I have and all I am. Tomorrow, here we come! Who knew having a baby would make me this much better as a person?

The Battle of Wills

Drumroll please! Here's Mommy on one side and Bombie on the other. Bombie screams in the crib and Mommy frets outside, paces the room and sets the timer for ten minutes. Bombie screams some more. Mommy frets some more, realizes it's only 2 minutes out of 10.

Bombie screams like she's hurt, like she's fallen out of the crib. Mommy goes in to check on her, picks her up and almost walks out with her. Then (thank God!) she remembers the battle and puts her back down. Bombie wails, thrashes, tries to get on her stomach. Her lower lip is quivering. She threatens to scream louder and louder. Mommy leaves the room, frets some more.

Two minutes later, silence. Bombie is asleep.

I WON!!! Well, at least for today.

These are the Days...

Anyone know that song "I'm on a Roll" by Over the Rhine? If you don't, you really should check it out. I'm completely addicted to it. Even now it's going through my head and I can't stop it. Argh.

Anyhoo, the reason I bring it up is that I was trying to decode the lyrics this morning with just one cup of coffee in my system. And this, my friends, is what I've missed doing with my husband for the longest time. (Just when I thought furloughs were great for making babies! Ha!)

So here we are toying with the iPod trying to get it to play a line that sounded like "we're shaking up shaponies, cause we haven't got a care." So this is what it went like:

Me: Shaponies? It's not shaponies!

Him: Shaponies. That's what she says.

Me: Nooooooo.

Him: What is it, then?

Me: I don't know. That's why I don't sing that song. I don't want to be ridiculed. (Laughing at him.)

Him: Google it.

Well, as it turns out, it's shaking up SHOW PONIES. Good God. He was right. Well, almost.

Baby Making

Who thought making a second baby wouldn't be fun! It's no secret now that my husband and I are working on conceiving a second baby. We're working on a schedule of what they call "baby-dancing" every 48 hours and with one baby it isn't easy. However, so far it hasn't worked, so this month we're working in earnest. The way we worked at it to make Bombie.

I know it all sees insane right now (and even a little funny at times) - but hopefully it will all work out in the end. At this point, I don't care if it's a boy or girl. Although I have saved all of Bombie's clothes!

Wish us luck! :)

Happy Half Birthday, Bombie!

Dear Bombie,

You are six months old today. What a day to turn half a year - Valentine's Day! While you were still kicking around inside me last year, your Dad and I celebrated our last non-children Valentine's Day. We were both a little concerned about becoming parents, wondering who this new being was going to be and how she would change our lives.

And now, one year later, I think we were silly to worry. You have brought so much joy to our lives that I think Valentine's Day is the perfect half birthday for you. Because before you were born, we only experienced half the love we do now that we have you.

So don't grow up too fast. Because we want to hold on to these years as long as we possibly can. My baby. My little bombie.

Love,
Mommy.

The Grass is not Greener

The reading bug has got me lately. Along with the cold bug. Which means I've been reading an insane amount of books. As soon as Bombie is asleep at seven, my husband heads off to the computer (yes, he's one of those thirty-somethings who like video games - hey, to each his own!) and I curl up in bed with a book. Feels like home. Mmmm.

But I digress. Along with some great books ("Dry" by Augusten Burroughs), some guilty pleasures (the entire "Twilight" saga by Stephanie Meyer that Borders keeps insisting is young adult, not bestseller or adult fiction), I'm also reading "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates. Sometimes you don't notice books until Hollywood makes movies out of them. Shameful, I know.

Anyway, so far RR is the most infuriating book I've read. Yates gets like that. He seems to be so good at characters who, quite simply, miss the point. The book was irritating me so much in fact that I was whining about it to my husband. No, I didn't stop reading it, though. I have about 100 pages to go. And while I was telling him about the family in the book, he said, "That's like us."

Oh my gosh. It was about a half hour of my telling him how that is so not like us because I would so never be that ungrateful for my life that he said he was kidding. Really, how is that funny?

The grass is really not greener on the other side. I've got home made blueberry ice cream waiting in the freezer, a beautiful baby waking up from a nice, long nap to eat her banana dinner, the kind of husband I can tell to scratch my an itchy spot on my back I can't reach, and a home in the pines where we can see the clouds come in. How much greener can the grass be? Wait. Don't tell me. I don't care.

I think I'll live on my little patch of grass for a long, long time. Body, mind and soul.

Yes, She Smiles!

Yes, I know I said I hate seeing other people's babies on diaper packaging. I promise this one will never be selling anything you will buy for yours. Bombie turned two months today. Happy birth month two, Bombie! (And excuse the bad lighting in the video. I'm going to try and shoot another one soon with better lighting.)