The Jet Stream and the Finger of God

At long last the jet stream has finally gone our way.

(According to this map we're as cold as Wisconsin this morning and my joy can hardly be measured.)

After months of high pressure systems and sweltering temperatures, it is not too much to say that I think the dip in the jet stream looks like the finger of God and the reprieve feels a lot like grace.

I opened all the doors and windows in my house this morning to give it a proper welcome.

My girls pulled out their scarves for the winter walk to the bus stop and Ethan and I climbed back into his bed for a Scooby Doo retrospective.

I took Ethan to the doctor yesterday who told me that his "influenza" is actually just strep throat and started him on a course of antibiotics.  This is probably the first time in my life I've seen strep throat as delightfully good news.

Strep throat as grace. 

Strep throat as tender mercy.

I know how to count my blessings, and this morning jet streams and bacterial infections count.

Now We Are Six

I made breakfast sausage this morning.  At the request of the birthday boy.

He has the menu planned out for the entire day.  For dinner he wants spaghetti and mashed potatoes. 

(As you wish.)

This morning as he played his new harmonica, I asked him if he could remember the day he was born.

"Yes, the girls carried me around everywhere and dressed me up like a girl."  (He is still affronted about this treatment.)

"Yes they did, but not on the day you were born.  On the day you were born you were all mine.  Do you remember what happened?  It was a Wednesday morning."

I waited while he finished a few bars of his next harmonica solo.

"Yep.  And then all the water came out."

"So I called to Dad and he got the other kids up fast because you were coming in a hurry."

Then we had a brief discussion about exactly where babies come out.  And since he was six I explained.  He said his friend had it all wrong, and then played a few more harmonica measures, this time "Happy Birthday."

I finished the story with the usual quaver in my voice as I told him about his dark eyes looking up at me and he gave a big finish on the harmonica at just the right moment, because he knows the story by heart.  And then he chattered all the way to find his backpack and out the door, about dinosaur cakes and parties and the presents dressed and waiting for our celebration tonight.

I watched him run to catch up with the girls.

A few years ago David and I went to talk to my doctor about having another baby.  He was quiet for a while and then confided that he hadn't been able to sleep after Ethan was born.  He said that in his thirty years of practicing medicine he had never gotten that close to disaster and still had a good outcome.  That it was a very close call.  For both of us.  He said it still scared him when he thought of it.

Someday I will tell Ethan the rest of the story.  How heaven's hand was in his life from the beginning.  How the day and hour of his birth were known and watched by heaven, because if everything hadn't been just right, it all would have gone terribly wrong.  How there is no such thing as a coincidence.  How there are no "little" moments.

But today, I only tell myself.  Over and over again.

And this morning, as I watched this fourth and final miracle run down the street, I thanked heaven again for the life of this extraordinary boy.  Especially today, now we are six.

"But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever,

So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever."

Word of the Week: Stolid

stolid  /adj./  not easily stirred or moved mentally.  unemotional.  impassive.  matter-of-fact.  inert.  wooden.  uninterested.  unmoved, unresponsive.  lumpish.

stolid  /adj./  1.  I can tell that I'm out of practice at this.  In the past, the word I chose would shape my destiny for the week.  I picked "stolid," not only because Ms. Estes used it several times in her book and it caught my fancy, but because I could use a bit of stolid life.  I have talked to several people this week who said, "I read your blog.  Sounds like you're having a hard time."  And I needed a bit of unemotional, lumpish days to counteract all the internal upheaval.  I'm not sure if it was just wishful thinking or if an eight-month hiatus from word-of-the-week has changed things, but the week was not stolid in any way.  In fact, there were moments when I thought, "This is the exact opposite of stolid.  Where are you 'stolid'?"  And so in the midst of change, even word-of-the-week has failed me, and I feel as though I have lost my bearings altogether. 

stolid  /adj./  2.  On Friday David came home for lunch and asked me about my word-of-the-week.  He told me he'd never heard of it.  I assured him that it was an actual word.  "Well, what does it mean?"  I told him.  He looked skeptical.  I asked him if he was teasing me.  He grinned and denied it.  I asked him if he wanted to fight about it.  He said no and tried to kiss me.  I told him just for that I was only going to kiss him stolidly.  I tried as hard as I could to remain impassive (I had a point to prove, see?), and it worked for about ten seconds.  Then I gave up.  After the kiss, knowing that I failed, I asked, "So how'd I do at stolid kissing?"  He told me that he didn't marry me for my stolidness.  Which was some consolation, I suppose.

(It has come to my attention that there may be far too many kissing pictures on my blog.  More evidence that stolidness is not one of my strong points.)

stolid  /adj./  3.  After several days of tears about the length of the school day, Ethan has resigned himself to his fate.  This morning he sat on the couch, staring out the window, and said stolidly, "Today is the 11th day of school," and then asked quietly, "How many more days of school in this week?"  Caleb told him three if you count today.  And then he gave a stolid little sigh and went to dump the sand out of his shoes.  I almost prefer the tears to this stoic, subdued surrender.  It was like something had died in him.  (I told you, I can't be stolid for anything.  Melodramatic, however, is no problem.) 

(This un-stolid picture was taken at our annual back-to-school brunch.)

stolid  /adj./  4.  Tonight David and I are going to the viewing of a friend.  He died unexpectedly on Sunday morning and left behind an amazing wife, four children and a baby on the way.  I can imagine that he did not want to leave them on any condition.  And still, heaven called him home.  My heart is broken for his wife and children.  I have wondered several times this week at how God bears it, He who is full of perfect compassion and boundless charity, how He can stand it, and how His heart must break at His children's unimaginable grief.  I do not believe in a stolid God.  I believe he weeps right along with them and with us, who know and love them.  I believe in a God that aches for us, that suffered every pain and tragedy.  All I can do is pray.  But I pray to a God that knows what is best, that knows it will be alright in the end, and sends comfort and angels in the meantime.

(More about that comfort here.)

Political Protest and Fervent Prayer

 

Caleb as the wax version of Cesar Chavez.  My own little leader for social change.  His earnestness was my undoing.

Last night Ethan asked, "Mom, why don't we believe in grapes?"  And then he chanted "Grapes are bad, grapes are bad, down with grapes" all the way out of the school.  Cesar lent him his protest sign and he took up the cause.  With vigor.

I love a good political protest.

And you can rest easy knowing Ethan has been properly brainwashed.

But this morning I found him sneaking grapes into his pockets.  When I discovered his treachery, he said, tragically, "Don't tell Caleb, but I like grapes."  I told him his secret was safe with me.

There is very little difference between make-believe and reality at our house.

Take my budget, for example.

Or my to-do list.

Or my judgement of how long something will take.  Now there's a fantasy.

I had a meeting this morning with Ethan's Pre-K teachers.  They said he's ready for first grade.  He's passed off all the skills of kindergarten before kindergarten has even started.  They wanted to know where to put him next year.

Now I'm a big believer in being the oldest in your class.  In starting late and finishing first.  Or something like that.  I waited an extra year with every one of my other kids.  But just for a moment I hesitated.  Because the teacher said, "The decision is yours.  You can decide what is best for Ethan."

What?

How did I get put in charge of that?

I can't even decide what color to wear to a Spring Tea.  (Though I've ruled out black.  For the most part.)

But this is his whole life we're talking about.

And I'm afraid I will do what's best for me instead.  Accidentally.

The same reason I'm afraid of heights.  I might just jump.  Accidentally forget I can't fly.

And that's the feeling I have when I look at my five-year-old raising awareness (and eyebrows) about the unknown evils of grapes.  I look down and see his whole life yawning before me and my stomach drops, because I realize with one false move I could accidentally bump him and he will be hurtling through space without a net or a parachute or a soft landing.  (Don't look down.)

I swallow my tears and my fears and a bit of my breakfast again.

I need to pray about it I say.

His teachers smile.  They think I'm joking.

But clearly I am not.  Because even though I like to pretend I know what I'm doing, that's really just a fantasy.  I am a wax museum mother. 

And maybe I will ask about dress color while I'm there. 

Heaven knows it couldn't hurt.

A Must-Read

David and I spent our date night at the bookstore looking for travel guides of Victoria, British Columbia.  We have a roadtrip in mind, and the only thing David enjoys reading more than the atlas, is a really good travel guide.  He is already typing our trip itinerary, and the trip is at least four months away.  He can't help himself. 

But while David was debating the merits of Fodor's versus Frommer's, I overheard a father reading a lovely book to his daughters.  I could hear him reading: "Compassionate means..."  "Envy means..."  "Patient means..."  When they left, I sifted through their pile and found this charming picture book all about words and cookies.  Two of my favorite things. 

Since then Ethan have read and reread and reread it again and again.

Ethan's favorite part is the page on "Content."   It is so lovely.  The pictures, the words.  One of them is even "Regret," which I've always been partial to.  (The pages on "trustworthy" and "compassionate" will steal your heart.)

I recommend you read it with someone you love and find out what "Content" really feels like. 

Images from Last Night

Caleb won first place in the Medicine and Health category of his school's science fair.  His project was entitled, "Hand Sanitizers: Helpful, Harmful, or Hooey?".  He could have won first prize for alliteration too.  And as a bonus, not one of us got E. Coli poisoning.  Which is great.  On so many levels.

There is always more than one place to be on nights like this.  Savannah performed a gymnastics routine (complete with choreography) with a couple of her friends at her school's talent show.  David and I split up to support our darlings.  Luckily, everyone made it in time to see Caleb do the double fist-pump when his name was called.

And Ethan ran into a friend from school at the science fair.  She wanted to show him her ankle bracelet.  He did his best to look interested.  She also introduced him to her dad.  At this, Ethan shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor and then up at me for help.  Sorry love, I cannot help you.  Girls are complicated things. 

Nursemaid to One

David stopped breathing this morning at five o'clock and it woke me up.  And then there was a gasp and all kinds of wheezing coming from his side of the bed.

I got up and found the nebulizer and fixed him a fresh batch of albuterol cocktail.

He and Caleb are supposed to be going on a Klondike campout tonight.

He said between wheezes, "I'm going to die in that tent tonight."

I told him that in all likelihood he probably wouldn't die, but that it may, indeed, be a very long night.  Regardless of his imminent demise, he has plans to put on his tie and blearily sit through some meetings today.  Even now he is simultaneously puffing away on the nebulizer and putting his blackberry through its paces.

When Caleb came to ask what was for breakfast, he quietly added that he had thought he had a cold.  He does.  His whole face was running.  (Truth be told, I am just relieved that it's not E.coli.  I've been on high-alert ever since our little live cultures were delivered.)  I tried (hard) to talk him into staying home, but he said he had two tests.  I sighed and told him to call me after they were over. 

However, Ethan was still in his pajamas at breakfast, where he announced that he was too sick to go to school. 

"My neck hurts."

"Inside or out?"

"Inside."

He is staying home.  No cajoling needed.  Letter G can wait.  I snuggled him back into bed, with promises of soup and apple juice and a Home Alone marathon when he wakes up.

I propped David and Caleb up with day-time cold medicine and resignedly sent them on their way.  But, I'm thinking now that I should have switched the dosage to the night-time stuff when they weren't looking, because my patient-load should really be three.

The Other Shoe and Semester's End

I had to take our only working car into the shop yesterday.

My eyes watered when I saw the bill.

The car guy said, "It could have been worse."

I raised my eyebrows skeptically. 

I know he was thinking, "I had one guy in here last week who has to get a whole new car."

And I was thinking, "I know.  That was my husband.  Ironic, no?"

Thankfully, RIM kept CIM from bursting into tears.  But it was close.

The good news is that school is out tomorrow.  August seems like an absolute lifetime ago.  But our holiday begins tomorrow afternoon.  Well deserved, I say.  And in two sure signs that the semester is winding down, Caleb had his violin Christmas concert on Monday night  

and this morning I went to the school to help Ethan decorate a graham-cracker house.  

And just so I don't give you any false impressions about my crafting abilities (that last post may have been misleading) I am including this picture Ethan took of me and my shredded wheat reindeer.  In my defense, I think it would have worked if the royal icing had dried faster.

Happy Thanksgiving

My Native American and I have plans this afternoon to

make 6 pies (pumpkin and apple),

and laugh our heads off watching Elf.

And then my other darlings will be home

and we're going to eat chicken noodle soup

and 1 pumpkin pie

and laugh our heads off watching Elf again.

Happy Thanksgiving.