Still Kicking

Yes, Ruth, I'm still here, and I haven't completely given up on blogging. I'm just a bit swamped with other projects at the moment.

For those (two) of you holding your breath to hear the source of "tootle with vigor," here you go:

More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to. It would be charitable to say that the results are sometimes mixed. Consider this ... warning to motorists in Tokyo: "When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor."
. . . .

[I]t would appear that one of the beauties of the English language is that with even the most tenuous grasp you can speak volumes if you show enough enthusiasm--a willingness to tootle with vigor, as it were.

-Bill Bryson in The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got that Way

Have a happy weekend!

Happy Birthday!

Today is the first anniversary of the birth of Experience Imagination. Enjoy. Celebrate. Tootle with vigor!

And, bonus points to you if you know the source of the last sentence.

Finally!

According to some commentator or another I heard last week, it's pretty common to watch the Conference Champion one year, the so-called "team to beat," turn into a regular, average-joe, nothing-spectacular kind of team the next year.

That is, last year at this time, I was overjoyed by "my" Bears winning five in a row. Woohoo! They went on to become NFC Champions and had an excellent first play in the Superbowl. After that opening drive highlighting Devon Hester's amazing return capabilities, unfortunately, things went down hill. At the end of week five, this year, we're at only 2-3. On the plus side, at least we have finally managed to have an interesting game that put another tick in the W column. It doesn't hurt that the team we beat last night was the arch-rival, 4-0 Green Bay Packers.

Oh, yeah, make that 4-1. ;)

Two for the Price of One

This morning, I was working at the computer while Adam was crocheting a doily (no, really, he was). Our daughter was alternately dancing around the living room, watching TV, and whining because all eyes weren't focused her way.

As one show ended, PBS began advertising the next program: Caillou. Adam looked up at the screen and said, excitedly, "Oh, it's Caillou" (in case you're not familiar with this show, "Caillou" is the little boy's name and it rhymes with the phrase "dye you").

Our daughter responded, "Oh, Cai-me!"

After my stumbling explanation that the "you" sound is not actually a pronoun like she's been learning, she changes it to, "Oh, my Cai."

Another program announcement followed for the show Wishbone. Our daughter got all excited to have recognized the letter "W" in his name and called out "Double-u. Double-u!"

Her daddy encouraged her, "Yeah, Wishbone starts with a W."

She smiled, and began repeating the letter's name, "Double me, double me, double me."

* * * *

Lately our daughter has really been getting into reading books. She's memorized bits of her favorites, and will even read some by herself when Adam or I have refused to read them for the 647^th time.

She brought a book to me yesterday and I just wasn't in the mood. I knew she'd been very patient with my moodiness this week, though, and I thought she should be rewarded. I decided to see if I could make her smile. I opened her book to the first page, and started to read the opening sentence from a completely different book, "In the great green room ...."

"No!" She interrupted me, "Not that book. This book!"

"Not that book?" I asked, grinning.

"This book!" She repeated, poking the page in front of her and giggling.

"Oh, okay," I replied, turning back to the book. With a smile still playing at the corners of my mouth, I started reading lines from yet another book, "Stomp your feet ...."

"No!" She interrupted, already giggling.

We went through that routine three or four times, before, mood much improved, I read her the book she'd brought to me in the first place.

A little while later, she tired of playing by herself again and climbed up in my lap with The Giant Jam Sandwich back in her hand. She asked me to read it, again, but I suggested she read to me instead.

She opened to the front page, started out, "In the great green room ..." and collapsed in a wave of giggles.

How Do You Post?

I've decided to participate in Lori's Advice Forum Friday once again. Actually, it's something that came up in my mind as I was visiting blogs for Backwards WFMW this week.

How do you fit blogging into your schedule?

The times when I have managed to be prolific lately, I know I'm blogging when I really need to be catching up on chores or (ahem) I should be asleep. I only have one kid, here. I know a lot of you are writing with three, six, even ten kids! So, I want to know ... how do you do it? Where do you find the time? Do you really type that much faster than I do?

Help me figure this out, please.

Works for Me: Stain Tactics?

Aha!! I've finally figured out how all of those people manage to get on the list before me at Shannon's WFMW--You all post on Tuesday night. Cheaters! :P

At any rate, this week is Backwards WFMW over at Rocks in My Dryer. Instead of my sharing some brilliant tip with all the world (or the three of you who still read my blog), I am to pose a question to the rest of the WFMW crew to share their brilliance.

So, here's mine: How do I get stains out of my daughter's clothes?

Particularly troublesome are tomato sauce and mud. Is there a product that really works for you? What about set in stains from, say, when we went to the park after it rained and she landed on the seat of her pants, smack-dab in the mud puddle at the bottom of the twisty slide, then I didn't get to the laundry for another three days? Not saying this is necessarily what happened ... okay, it's exactly what happened. Her light pink pants now have huge brown stains where you really don't want to see brown stains.

Ooh, and what if I accidentally didn't notice, say, a red marker she'd put into her pocket, so I've already washed and dried a whole load of t-shirts that now look like they were tie-dyed by someone with no sense of balance in their design. Am I just out of luck? Or can my clothes be saved??

Tune in next week ....

Whoops! Sorry, I was suddenly hearing the warbly organ music from those old radio dramas.

If you have any hints, especially ones that don't require I treat the stain right away, please leave me a comment. I would be eternally grateful--or at least until she grows into another size and requires new clothes anyway.

A Proud Day

As a parent, I'd known this day would come. I looked forward to it with a mist in my eyes, unshed tears of pride mixed with grief over the all too rapid passing of time.

This morning, my daughter gave me her first full-on raspberry, pressing her dainty little lips against my shoulder. Truly a YouTube moment. If I YouTubed, I mean.

Seriously, though, what is it about that sound of passing gas that children (well, mostly children) find so hysterical? My daughter was blowing a raspberry and laughing hysterically for a good sixty seconds before starting the whole process over again.

Where's that Warning Label?

Okay, folks, this is addictive.

From Blogger Buzz: "Blogger Play will show you a never-ending stream of images that were just uploaded to public Blogger blogs" (read more here).

They do warn: "[W]e use many techniques, including Google’s SafeSearch technology, to keep the images clean. Nevertheless, on rare occasions an image that you may find vulgar or obscene will slip through our algorithmic filters."

No lifeguard is on duty. Surf at your own risk.

God and How He Works

Morning has started early today, though I'm not really sure why. I woke up about 6:00 and just feel rather unsettled. Probably "anxious" or "worried" is more accurate. I'd decided to search through Bible Gateway to see if I could find some reassuring passage about worrying, and how not to do it.

Instead, I found Matthew, chapter 6. It's a pretty familiar passage, all about how God gives the birds of the air and the flowers of the field everything they need, so why should we worry that He won't give us everything we need?

I switched back and forth through a couple of versions, just to see some similarities and differences in the language. A particular phrase caught my attention in The Message paraphrase by Eugene Peterson, "People who don't know God and the way He works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how He works" (v. 32).

That got me thinking ... do I really? I mean, if I really knew God and how He works, wouldn't I be able to say, as Paul does in Philippians 4:11, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances." And yet, my life seems to exemplify the opposite pole of living. I have learned to worry and be anxious, whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have completely missed the secret of being content in any and every situation.

I have mentioned previously that Adam is out of work. It's been 3½ months now. When he was let go from his last job, we had no money saved up in the bank. Unemployment pays just over half of what he was making, and I felt like our budget was tight then. Yet, we're paying our bills, and we've even had a few extra dollars here and there to go out to eat on a Sunday or pick up a book I've been wanting to read. Doesn't that exemplify how well God's taking care of us? Why is it then, I can't get past this feeling that it's my job to figure out where the money is going to come from?

Before we were married, Adam and I had a very interesting discussion about birth control. We talked about the different views, from trusting God, believing that He does not allow any "accidental" children, and making no attempts to prevent conception to taking full responsibility, carefully planning for the season or month of each child's birth and using some method of contraception to ensure that children are not conceived outside the plan.

In the midst of that discussion, I didn't really know where to draw the line. And not just in this one arena, either. It seems like there is a line in between trusting God fully for His provision and taking responsibility for your own life. Take grocery shopping, as an example. If I trust God to provide food, does that mean I shouldn't go to the grocery store, but should subsist on twigs and berries and whatever people drop on my doorstep? That seems a little silly, doesn't it? I think most people would agree that we have some responsibility to take care of ourselves. But the question remains, just how much does God expect from us? How much is He willing to do if we don't take responsibility?

Deuteronomy 31:6 states that "God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you." How far is He willing to go, though? How much of my life is His concern, and how much is mine? If I'm looking for a job, I shouldn't expect one to simply fall into my lap, but how much searching is reasonable? Do I look at one job a day? Ten? Twenty? Should I be spending 40 hours a week polishing up my résumé and sending it to every company within a 10 mile radius? What about taking this opportunity to spend more time with my family? Going to the zoo during school hours when it's not so busy, window shopping at the mall, checking out the new playground down the street. How much of my time should I devote to that while still making a reasonable effort to find gainful employment?

I'm stuck, you see. Stuck in the unwritten rules and regulations of a legalistic background that I'm not sure how to untangle. Relationships are messy. They aren't based on rules and precedents and performance incentives. They're not about trying with all your might to fulfill one another's expectations. God sure doesn't see any need to try to meet mine. He just continues being God. That's who He is. But, here I am, like a gerbil on a wheel, trying desperately to be enough: good enough, smart enough, busy enough, responsible enough. If I relax, I'm afraid I'm not doing my part. Even if I keep busy, though, I'm afraid I won't be able to keep up. Stuck.

Adam tells me I'm a verbal processor: I don't know what I'm thinking until I hear it come out of my mouth. The birth control discussion I mentioned--that was more than three years ago, now. Since then, I've been noticing all the areas where this line of responsibility is an issue for me. For the first time, as I was writing the last paragraph, I have begun to recognize that it's really symptomatic of a deeper issue. I don't have the answer to that problem. I'm still caught in the legalistic muck. Yet, somehow, I'm really encouraged. I'm not stuck forever.

You Know You're Watching Too Much TV When...

Adam's story:

He was giving our daughter a time out, holding her still in his arms. She was fussing and fighting, as she often does. The television was on in the background and a new show started. As soon as she heard the theme song, she stopped fighting, turned her little head toward the sound and commented, "Oh, that show!"

My story:

We were reading a picture book about animals. As I turned the page she pointed to the photo and said, "Kitty cat."

I corrected her, saying it looked like a cat, but it was actually a fox.

"Oh, FOX," she said, thoughtfully, "Like TV!"

Trust

Trust is a pain in the hindquarters!

I never did very well learning my lessons about trust and security as a child, so God's been going over them again (and again, and again) lately. Apparently, it's back to school time for this mom this month, too.

The thing about trust is, you have to keep doing it. You can't (or, at least, I can't seem to) just trust once and for all and let that be that. I keep wondering if I've made the best possible choice.

Really, why can't God just be more like me?

Makes me wonder if He's up there thinking, "Why can't Amy just be more like Me?"

Deep down somewhere, in that place I've already learned to trust, I know that God understands better than I do. He knows I'm still just little and need to grow up a bit more.

Growing up is hard work. I should remember that next time my daughter frustrates me.

Random Thoughts on College Education

I was about to get sucked into a totally off-topic discussion on one of the childbirth sites I visit, when I realized my thoughts would be much more appropriately shared here on my blog. The gist of the thread was: Why wouldn't you pay for your kids' education, if you could afford to?

When I first applied to colleges, I was living in Westchester County, New York. I don't know where it ranks now, but at the time, it had the second highest cost of living in the country, right after Orange County, California. Because government assistance and need-based loans were figured at the national level, rather than calculated by region, my father's income fell well above the cut off. Keep in mind, at the time, he worked for a local Christian not-for-profit organization--not the sort of place known for paying unusually high salaries.

However, even if he'd been a wealthy man, my father has told me he would not have paid for my college education. He felt it was important that I see the value of my schooling--and figured I would truly know its value if I was the one coughing up the funds every semester.

Now, I do have to add that it was understood I'd have a portion of my bill paid by academic scholarships. And, while they certainly did help, I still went into debt to pay for college. I attended a state school with in-state residency, so my costs were kept to a minimum, but I finished school with about $15,000 I needed to pay back.

I didn't find it an unreasonable burden to carry. I did have to seek out financial aid, as well as work part-time (10-15 hours per week) my entire college career. That seemed like a decent exchange to me. I did know exactly how much my education was costing me because I saw the bills coming in and wrote the checks going out.

What I also noticed was a large percentage of my friends who partied and blew off their class work didn't have to pay anything towards tuition or room and board. I felt that paying my own way made me a more serious student. I was much less likely to waste my time when it was costing me so much!

Would I do the same for my kids? I don't know. I definitely believe that students should contribute to some of their educational costs. But what if my kid wants to go to a private liberal arts school that costs $30,000 a year? Should she have to raise all that money herself?

Now that I'm married to a man who went to a private college on his own dime (or at least, his own signature on the student loan forms), I know what it's like to be in my 30's and tens of thousands of dollars in debt. For the cost of Adam's monthly loan payment, we could be driving a pretty nice new car.

So, is it worth all that? I'm not entirely sure. For now, at least, we don't have a college fund set up. What money would we be using to put into it? Maybe we should start the test-taking strategies early and make sure our daughter does really well on her PSAT. National Merit Scholarship, here we come!

Eh, maybe it can wait until she turns three.