Outtakes

"Amos, look at the camera.  Isaac, keep your eyes open, and try to do something with your brother's head.  Theo could you smile a little less . . . like that?"

"Does this seem like an improvement to anybody?"

"Isaac, what are you--"
"Mom, I don't know why you let him hold the--"
"WAAHHH!"

"Whew.  Good catch, bruh."

"Theo, what kind of photo shoot do you think this is?  And can somebody get Amos's tag?"

"Oh, foley shucking hit."

"Don't you even start, kid.  Don't you even."

Flu, flu, go away. Come again . . . nevermind.

I am not getting the flu.  I am not getting the flu.

Max is definitely not getting the flu.

Second Week of Advent

Mini-Max wants all y'all Jesus people out there to remember that it's the second week of Advent.  He's singing "People Look East" and "Lo He Comes With Clouds Descending," not "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" or "O Christmas Tree" or "Silent Night." (Definitely not Silent Night.  He's only a month and a half old.  Nighttime is still snacktime.)

What Professor-Theologian-Moms Do Between Sets of Papers

Having a newborn is fun.

Teaching is fun.

Being a theologian is fun.

Heck, life is fun, even when it's absofrickenlutely crazy.

And being a theologian at a teaching college while parenting a newborn (and his three older brothers) is a wee bit crazy.

But it's what you do with the crazy that matters.  And this is what professor-theologian-moms do with the crazy:

Kids to Make a Mama Proud

Dear Moms of all my students:

This past week, while explaining Philippians to my students, I asked them what they would do if they won half a billion dollars in a lottery.  (It was sort of relevant.  You'll have to trust me.)

Everyone that answered said, and I am not making this up, "First I'd drop out of school, then I'd buy a house for my mom, then I'd buy a [insert car/truck here]."

I didn't know how you'd all feel about the dropping out of school part, but I thought you should know that they all put you above even their Lamborghini/Bugatti/Ducati/whatever.

Missing Item in the Gift Shop

I looked all up and down in the [our college] gift shop, and I couldn't find a baby outfit that said, "Baby's First Faculty Meeting.

So Max wasn't quite as dressed for it as he could have been.  But I think he still got a lot out of the experience.

Isn't There A Doctrine About This?

I don't object, in principle, to childless people giving me parenting advice.

One doesn't have to have children to have experience in what good or bad parenting does to children--every adult was once a child himself and is, at least in theory, able to reflect rationally on his childhood experiences and the results of his parents' or caregivers' choices.

And maybe I just have an unusually kind, thoughtful, wise, and good crop of friends, but most of my single or childless friends who reflect on family matters do a pretty darn good job of it.  (It probably doesn't hurt that they're unusually smart, and know enough to pander to a mother's ego by complimenting her children frequently and in great detail.  Spoonful of sugar, medicine, etc.)

So when the young, obviously childfree cashier at the Earth Fare started telling me yesterday about what all children Amos's age were like, and about how I should be feeling about kids that age, and about what he'd be like in a few years, I wasn't predisposed to be offended, simply because she didn't have children of her own.

But all I could think was, "Oh my gosh, lady, you would not say such things if you had any actual 24/7/365 experience with an actual two-year-old."

She said, "Oh, I love seeing kids that age in here!  They are so innocent!  They're just so pure in heart!"

And she had the nerve to look disturbed when I stared at her, wordlessly aghast.  I really couldn't form words to save my life.  (I blame Max, by the way.  It's hard to come up with snappy rejoinders when all the sleep you're getting comes in two-hour chunks.)

She started what sounded like a well-rehearsed speech about cherishing these years and enjoying their innocence and purity because "it gets destroyed all too soon in this world!"

I couldn't stop the snorting that escaped my throat.

And she started looking more and more disturbed by the second, though she didn't trouble herself to press pause and ask why I so obviously disagreed with her pronouncements.

I tried to come up with a story that would show her exactly how "innocent" Amos was.

I tried to come up with the words to describe how he sneaks out of the house at least once a week and tries to start the car.  Before we're awake.  Despite our trying to hide the keys.  And has been for at least a year now.

I tried to think of how to explain how he taunts his older brother when he is sitting in time out--sitting just out of reach, stretching his toes toward Theo until Theo starts crying "Stop TOUCHING me!!!!" and then jerking his legs back so that he can say, "I not touching Theo!  He talking in time out!!"

I tried to call up coherent sentences with which to relate the time he tried to take away Max's baby blanket, four times, while I sat in the rocking chair in the room.  How he tried to come up with convincing arguments. ("But it's mine!" "It's not cold today, Mommy." "He wants another blanket, not my blanket.")  And how in the end he just left the room and waited for me to go to the bathroom, and then darted silently into the room, stole the blanket, and had it completely hidden in his own room before I got back from the bathroom.

But, again, sleep in two-hour chunks.  Words simply would not come.

After a good twenty seconds of incoherent gutteral noises, I finally looked down at Amos and stuttered out, "Are you innocent, Amos?"

He looked at her, looked at me, and looked back at her and said, "No, I not.  I'm Amos."

And he was exactly right.

Civil Disobedience

Dear Sons:

If you are ever arrested, it damn well better be for something like this:

90-year-old, Two Pastors Arrested For Feeding Homeless

Brudders

Amos, the first day Max was home, peering into Max's crib: "I'm Amos, dat's Mommy, Daddy's inna kitchen, and you're my Baby Max."

Amos, the second day Max was home, watching me change his outfit: "Oh!  He has toes!  He so sweet!  And he has blue outfit!  Tha's sweet."

Amos, the third day Max was home, after shouting loudly enough to wake him up, shouting into his crib: "I'm sorry for wake you up, Max!  I'm sorry!  You go back to sleep now!"

Amos, the fourth day Max was home, discovering his pacifier in his crib: "OH!  Max have a blue fire-passy!"  (No, I really don't know.)

Amos, the fifth day Max was home, watching me feed him: "Mommy!  He still hungry!  You feed him!"

Amos, today: "Mommy, can we go back to the hospital and put Max back in you tummy?"

Brudders

Double kissies!

Now Presenting . . . .

Well, we decided it wasn't enough to get to read the Narnia series and the Little House series for the "first" time three times.  So, just for the chance to read all the greats through one more time . . .

(Well, okay, maybe for some other reasons, too. . . )

Welcome to the world, Maximus Kenneth Murphy [Our Last Name].

Max says, "Hi, y'all.  'Scuse me while I rest a bit.  It's hard work being born."

The Line Must Be Drawn Here! This Far, No Further.

It comes up almost every time we watch Iron Chef together.  He sees something he wants to try, and he asks if we can get some.

Duck breasts, bone marrow, Mexican chocolate, tomato gelato, black truffles, an ebelskiver pan--there's no end to what Iron Chef can make look cool.

Usually I'm non-committal.  Even about the truffles, I said, "Well, if we can find some and if we have a little extra money in the grocery budget some month."

But this time, I draw the line.

"Ooo, that looks cool.  Can we get some?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"We've never even tried it."
"No."
"Maybe it's not too expensive."
"No."
"What if we can find it at the store?"
"Absolutely not."
"I'll bet Williams Sonoma has it."
"No."
"PLEASE?"
"NO."
"We could make ice cream with it!"
"We have an ice cream maker."
"We could make ice cream without having to use the ice cream maker."
"En. Oh.  NO."
"Why not?"
"You'll freeze your fingers off.  And also, because no."
"I'll be careful."
"THEO.  I am NOT BUYING LIQUID NITROGEN.  No.  No, no.  NO."
"Hmph.  I'll bet Mimi will buy it for me."
"Good luck."

The Way-back Cuisine

Quick!  List ten foods you used to make/eat that you don't make/eat any more.

How many of them are used-tos because you 1) know better now, 2) can't afford them anymore or can afford better now, and 3) don't frickin' have that kind of time any more?

Most of my list falls under category 4: We don't live in France any more, and consists of my five favorite cheeses, two favorite wines, and snails.  (Seriously.  I used to make snails.)

But the other two things on my list are from The Grad School Years (Take One)--during the Master's degree, when money and time were short and when I didn't actually cook everything from scratch.

Hot Pockets, and ramen noodles.

Oh, how many Hot Pockets and Cup O'Noodles we took to school.  How many weekend lunches were ramen noodles.

I will never, ever, EVER eat Hot Pockets again.  If they were paying shoppers to take them out of the grocery store, I would pass.

But I did get an unaccountable yearning to have ramen noodles again.

They're actually pretty tasty, if you dispense with the "flavor" packet and use actual soup ingredients.

Voila.

Real chicken broth, veggies (including some from our own garden), and a lovely soft-boiled egg.

Isaac had three bowls, and then asked why we didn't have ramen noodles all the time.

I, of course, answered, "Grad school."  (Dave Ramsey often says he doesn't eat tuna fish, EVER, because when he went bankrupt, he ate tuna salad sandwich for lunch every day for years.)

Isaac was uncomprehending, even after I explained about the "flavor" packet.

In fact, he asked if he could add the flavor packet to his (fourth) bowl, at which point the other two chimed in and begged for the same.

Rotten little ingrates.

Wake-up Call

Nothing will get you out of bed faster than certain sounds.

Previously, the top performer was the sound of a child retching, because, well, you know.  Second place was the baby gate being pushed over, because that meant the Kraken had escaped.  Sounds of potential home invasion were way, way down the list.

But we added a new one yesterday: the sound of a seven-year-old saying, "Don't worry about the ironing, Mommy!  I did it while you were sleeping."

Yes, he did.  A napkin, one of his brother's school shirts, and a pair of gym shorts.

The shirt looked great.  And he remembered to unplug the iron when he was done.

He left the iron face down on the ironing board, but, well, singe marks don't hurt anything.

So.  That was exciting.

We decided that it was past time to teach him to cook, then, since his appetite for Doing Dangerous Grown-up Things had clearly been unsatisfied.

Scrambled Eggs À La Theo it was, then.

If you want to make them, here's how:

Mix eggs (one per person, plus one extra), salt, and cream in a bowl.

Pour eggs into hot pan with melted butter.

Burn your finger a little, so that Mom remembers that people should wear shirts while cooking.

Stir gently to keep eggs from burning.

Enjoy a good breakfast with Mom.

First Day of Classes

Well, it's the first day of classes here at [my college].

Some cruel and thoughtless person sent me this link, and I was stupid enough to read it, even though he said it made him cry every time he read it:

All Legs and Curiosity

I've got a baby heading off to college next year.  So I get it. 

I've been thinking about it for seven years now, actually--right after Theo was born, and I realized, "He'll be home for ten years after his big brother goes to college.  How will he manage without his big brother around?  For ten years???"

But, anyway, I get it, Moms and Dads.  I get that my students are your babies.

I don't promise to love them as much as you do.

I certainly won't be keeping up with whether or not they wear socks, although I might chastise them for using tobacco or apologizing too much or texting in class (and definitely for texting while driving).

But I promise to do right by them, and to try to help them become adults, and to want better for them than they want for themselves (and almost as good as you want for them).

And I promise always, always to remember that they're somebody else's babies.

Finished Objects

I haven't been knitting for quite some time.

But a recent road trip provided lots and lots of knitting time, so I did get one little project done:

Of all my boys, Amos is the one to have mastered satisfying expressions of gratitude.

When I finished the first sock, I put it on him to try it for size.  He got wide-eyed, put his hand on his chest, and said, "Do you make-ded that sock for ME?"

I said yes, and he said, as effusively as any child actor assigned a "thank you" scene, "Oh!  THANK you, Mommy!"

When I finished the second sock, he hugged them, and then he hugged me, and he refused to take them off for the whole day.

Now, I recognize A Certain Son's genuine gratitude as expressed through a surreptitious, "Yo, thanks, Mom," and A Certain Other Son's as expressed by pestery requests for three more of whatever I've just given him.

But, you know, Amos's way is a nice change of pace.

What I've Been Reading This Week

This is a long, careful, and necessary article, written for those of us struggling to make sense of the life and writings of John Howard Yoder.  His description of Christian non-violence is as compelling and beautiful as his history of coercion and harassment of female students is horrifying.

One of the things that particularly strikes me about this is the way our language about such interactions frustrates the victims of them.  One woman, for example, told of receiving a letter from Yoder that described her body in wildly invasive personal and sexual detail--so much so that the only language she could conjure to describe the experience of reading such a letter was one of sexual violation.  "I felt as if I'd been raped."

I myself am struggling to find words to describe her experience--at second-hand, obviously, and therefore inadequately, but without reference to violent sexual assault.  She wasn't touched, she wasn't penetrated, her body wasn't forced to do anything against her will.  And yet something dreadfully wrong was done to her, something that women experience far too often at the hands of men, and something that men don't tend to go through life experiencing or fearing.  The legal language of harassment wasn't necessarily available during the earliest years of Yoder's career, but even today that language seems insufficient.

But using the language of actual sexual violence is problematic for at least two reasons.  First, it does, I think, some injustice to women who have experienced sexual assault, the way it does injustice to survivors of the Holocaust to have non-genocidal situations described as holocausts.  And second, it lets men give themselves permission to dismiss women's accounts of such experiences: "Seriously?  You got an explicit letter and you felt raped?  Gosh, you women sure take these things way too seriously!"

Still, somewhere between "he sent an inappropriately explicit letter to me" and "I felt like I'd been raped," there is a great yawning void in our language, and women are continually struggling against it.  The absence of language to describe what sexual harassment does to its victims (and even the word "harassment" has proven wildly inadequate to the job) only helps those who commit it.

By happy coincidence, I read the above article along with this one, about male privilege in the church.  The writer does an admirable job trying to put words to those experiences that do not rise to the legal definition of harassment and yet constantly hound women in the workforce.  While it would have been nice to have a #11 (You will go through most of your days neither fearing nor actually experiencing inappropriate sexual or personal barrages passed off as "jokes," constant references to your sexual availability, or having a colleague "accidentally" play porn at you when you walk into his office for a meeting), it is, I hope, helpful for men to think about what it would be like to have their work constantly qualified with reference to their gender.  No one ever says, "He's the best male theologian we have on staff," or "you're a really good theologian, for a man."

On the other hand, I have to say that very, very few of my experiences of being at a real disadvantage because of my sex have taken place in an ecclesial context.  I felt far more vulnerable to men's beliefs and behaviors the few times I've worked in entirely non-religious, male-dominated contexts than I have in the church or in church-affiliated schools.

You Should Start a List

. . . of all these awesome books I keep recommending for you.

Also, you should thank me for pointing out which ones have upcoming movies, like The 5th Wave. Normally, I wouldn't write about YA fiction on this high-class intellectual website. But since Rick Yancey wrote a book that isn't insulting to my intelligence, I will give credit where it is due.

T5W is about an alien apocalypse. It tracks Cassie Sullivan and some surrounding characters in their attempts to survive. The aliens in this book are surprisingly less cliche and aggravating than one would expect. Their planet is apparently out of commission, so they found Earth and decided to take it. Before doing so, they need to eliminate all the humans. 

But because they need to preserve the natural world, their approach is not as simple as "blow everyone up." (No, Michael Bay, you may not direct the film adaptation.)

As you should have inferred from the title, the alien takeover takes place in five waves. The first wave is the giant electromagnetic pulse which eliminates nearly all human technology, and also kills a whole bunch of people who happened to be flying in an airplane or speeding on the interstate at an unfortunate time. The second wave dropped really large metal rods on fault lines, leading to actual killer waves affecting all coastal cities. The third wave killed 97% of the remaining population. It was a modified form of Ebola which kept the same deadly symptoms but was genetically engineered to spread far faster. And in the fourth wave, the aliens enter human bodies and replace our consciousnesses with their own; these invaders are then used to snipe wandering survivors.

If I tell you the 5th wave, it would ruin, like, half the plot, and besides, you'll have a hard time sleeping tonight anyway. 

Cheers,
Isaac

Will the Real You . . .

Someday, I'd like to do some reading on the effect of online media on personality and behavior (both online and in-person).

I've noticed two contrary effects, myself, and I'd love to see some documentation or studies on either one.

Some people seem to be their best selves when they're online.  They're funny, they're kind, they're helpful, they give careful, gentle comments when everyone else is screaming in all caps at each other, they forward interesting and thoughtful articles (sometimes even ones they're inclined to disagree with!) instead of hate-filled tendentious political nonsense.  They always tell the nice stories about their families and leave the dirty laundry in the laundry room.  They have helpful parenting advice, and they do such lovely, photogenic things with their kids.

In short, they look pretty darn impressive, online.

But in person, they're just, like, normal, average people, who occasionally have bad breath and make thoughtless comments and forget to write thank-you notes and yell at their kids and take too long in the shower and talk too loud at dinner parties and all that normal, average, everyday stuff.

It's not that they're lying about themselves on line--it's just a lot easier to be perfect a few sentences a day than it is to be perfect 24/7/356.

(I do know this one family that is just as darling and wonderful and perfect in person as it is online, and I don't even hate them for it, because they're just that good.  But for the rest of us schlepps, it's hard to be the people we would like ourselves to be.)

Bloggy Me is a much better mom than Actual Me, because edit button.  (Out In Public Me is a much better mom than At Home Me, too, but for a totally different reason: when you're parenting at the rest of the world, instead of just parenting, you tend to do a better job of it.)

But then there's the other effect.

The one that takes warm, genuine, funny, good-hearted people and turns them into illogical, snarly, mean-spirited, tendentious ignoramuses.

If you've ever read the comments section on an online news article or YouTube video or even a slightly controversial posting on a friend's Facebook page, you know what I mean.  It may even lead you to imagine that the world is filled with horrid, vile people and that the Ebola virus is nature's best solution to the problem.

I suspect, though, that at least some of those nasty people making stupid and even hateful comments are not actually nasty, stupid, hateful people--In-Person Them may even be enjoyable to be around.

I have "hidden" or defriended people on Facebook--people whom I genuinely like and whose company I have enjoyed--because of this effect.  (Not you.  Definitely not you.  I promise.)  You know the sort--people who never acknowledge birthday greetings or "like" cute pictures of your kids or post silly cat pictures when you're sad, but always have something snarly to say when their favorite hot-button issue comes up, or are always willing to correct you or criticize you in a public posting, or always pass along the most execrable articles, pictures, or memes. 

And yet you know them in real life and they are the most conscientious neighbors or helpful colleagues or generous family members you have.

I'm guessing that if I actually go looking, this effect will be more represented in sociological or psychological literature than the former.  But that's just a guess.

I'd really be interested in learning if there were any transfer effect--if being The Better You online for a few years somehow really did make Real You a little better, or if being Nasty Online You made Real You a little nastier.  (I thought I read a couple of years ago an article on people with social anxiety learning how to navigate social situations by "practicing" online, but I may be making that up in my head.)

Do you have an online presence?  Which tendency do you think you exhibit--is Online You your better self, or is In-Person You more fun to be around?

Homages

It may seem like Isaac is the only one doing any reading, but, alas, it is just that he is the only one writing about what he's reading.

I've finally gotten around to reading a few of the homages to Jane Austen that have proliferated in recent years--one that I really wanted to read, and one that Isaac told me I should.

Perhaps because my expectations for the latter were so low, I found the former far more disappointing.

Of all the derivative works that have come out of Austen's corpus these last few years, I thought I would really enjoy P. D. James's Death Comes to Pemberley.  James is a strong writer, and though I sometimes feel her mysteries are a just a little too Freudian, I never find them dull.  She is, like Austen, acutely aware of both the foibles and the promise of humanity, but she is confident enough in her own style that she wouldn't feel the need merely to mimic Austen.  I really believed she was up to the challenge of writing a sequel to Pride and Prejudice.
(more after the jump, with possible vague spoilers)

What I've Been Reading This Week

This has got to be the awesomest story ever, even if it was an April Fools joke.  For the record: if I were from a future "communist chocolate hellhole," with no poverty and free Kit-Kats for everyone, I don't think I'd be trying to stop it.

This one left me stunned and flabbergasted.  I had no idea that being hungry could make people grouchy.  None.  Somebody funded this study, y'all.  They may as well fund a study on whether or not people like bacon.  Duh.

I have no idea why it's news that Philip Seymour Hoffman left his estate to his long-term partner, the mother of his minor children, rather than to the children themselves.  Don't parents normally structure their wills this way, trusting their surviving spouses to take sufficient care of their minor children?  Don't a whole lot of them do it this way even when their children are grown, trusting their surviving spouses to do right by their own children?  Sorry, kids, but if you bump me off, you still have to work around Dad.

Adventures in the World of Books

I should write a book.

I certainly read enough of them. I would know what to do.

Most recently, yours truly read Incarceron by Catherine Fisher. You've seen it. It's that book. With the cover. You know, that one.

No? Well, it's a steampunk fantasy (genres are getting increasingly strange) set in... prison. Sort of. The story is told from many narrators' perspectives, some of whom are inside the prison and some of whom are not. Those outside the prison are living in what appears to be your average nameless medieval kingdom.

But anyway, back to the prison, because it's wayyy cooler than the lame palace that all the other people are doing. It's an enormously large, very sentient, ever-changing landscape. Some prisoners are placed in cells, without their previous memories, others are simply born in the world that is the prison. It's a prison not only because you can't leave (ever) and therefore have to live out your life trying to survive in this strange landscape, but also because life in this large world is hell.

Each Wing of the prison has a different identifying characteristic: the Ice Wing and the Tunnels of Madness are two particularly sucky examples. It's obvious what life is like, right? In the Ice Wing, temperatures are permanently stuck below freezing, there's snow everywhere -- it's basically Canada, only without the Canadian bacon and nice people, because no one stuck in this prison is nice. All the compassionate, caring, kind-hearted souls are murdered by the rampaging gangs who plunder, steal, and enslave pretty much anyone they can. Because, well, life sucks in prison, but if you have a slave, it sucks a little less.

Did I mention how the prison is always trying to kill you? Yeah, it's a sentient prison. It has really good, really malicious, and really megalomaniacal (is that a word?) artificial intelligence. It has billions of small, metallic beetles that carry a single red camera which observes the inhabitants. It really likes being in control of these puny little people. And because this is steampunk, and technology is basically a plot device which needs very little explanation, the prison can control and change every aspect about itself in order to torment its inhabitants. Getting too big for your britches? Surprise earthquake right in the middle of your plunder party. Saying really nasty things about the prison? When you wake up in the morning, your wing of the prison may have completely changed places overnight. Or a gust of wind could blow you into a canyon. Or you could be eaten by carnivorous kudzu. The prison is so malicious and evil and overlordly that it gave itself a name: Incarceron.

So now that I've thoroughly disturbed you (and incurred a visit from Child Protection Services), what's the plot like? It follows our hero, Finn, and a supporting band of other characters, some in prison, some Outside, as they journey through jail to try to Escape. See, escape from the prison is impossible. It's so large, the dome of the roof is beyond the visible sky, the ends of the map are all covered in mountains, caverns, or fiery lakes, and the floor goes on forever: no flying, breaking, or digging your way out.

Yet one man, a magician named Sapphique, is purported to have escaped. There is a multitude of legend and myth and story surrounding this magician, who is said to have looked long and suffered greatly in his many forays to escape Incarceron. He is said to have played riddles with Incarceron itself, fallen from the highest heights and risen from the bottomless valleys, and to have gone through the Tunnels of Madness and exited with his sanity (and highly improved pickup lines at the local pubs). So, obviously, everyone dreams of escape. Including the fearless hero of the story who through many acts of bravery, blah blah, etc.

Go read the book. And the sequel. Before they make it a movie. Don't worry, they keep delaying it. You can probably let your kids read it too.

Cheers,
Isaac

Developmental Milestones

I realize that charts of developmental milestones are supposed to be helpful--especially to help parents judge when their child might need some sort of therapeutic intervention.

Usually when I look at them, I'm the one that needs therapy.

I think I scared Theo's pediatrician once, when I openly snorted at her during her checklist.
"Is he able to verbalize his desires, sometimes in ways that you might perceive as defiance?"

She looked at me so strangely, but I really couldn't have formed words if my life had depended on it.  (I'm pretty sure his chart said, "Does not yet show any adverse effects from mother's bizarre affect.")

Anyway, the chart I recently consulted for Amos's developmental milestones had me similarly . . . amused.

"Can your child walk unassisted?"
He can tiptoe down the hallway in complete silence, if there's something he's not supposed to have at the end of it.

"Can your child pull toys behind him while walking?"
He can pull the whole toy bin behind him while walking through the house.  At 6am.
Also, he can pull his seven-year-old brother behind him while running.  This is usually at 6:30am, when he's decided that Theo Has Slept Enough For One Day.

"Can your child carry large toys or several toys at once?"
Do you know how many Thomas trains we own?  And he has to carry every. single. one of them to bed, all in one trip, or else the universe will explode.

"Can your child stand on tiptoe?"
Yes, but he prefers to drag a chair into place and climb up onto the counter.

"Can your child kick a ball?"
I don't know, but he kicks his brothers a lot.

"Can your child climb up and down furniture unassisted?"
Yes.  This is why we've removed all our furniture.

"Can your child scribble spontaneously?"
Have you SEEN our living room walls?

"Can your child turn over a container to empty out its contents?"
This is a milestone? I thought it was a torture technique.

"Can your child point to body parts when you name them?"
Yes.  In a house full of boys, you can imagine which parts get the most practice.

"Can your child use simple sentences, like 'want milk' or 'go for walk'?"
No.  He's more into, "Mommy, my milk cup is empty.  It's time for you to fill it.  Please stop dawdling and get it for me now."

"Can your child follow simple instructions?"
Not unless we make him think they were his idea in the first place.
But he's really good at giving instructions.  Long, detailed instructions.

"Can your child find objects even when hidden under two or three covers?"
Are you serious?  Locked doors cannot keep him out--what kind of moron only uses a couple of blankets?

"Is your child demonstrating increasing independence?"
No, he's already reached the threshold.

"Can your child give his age when asked?"
No.  But he knows the age limits for all the fun activities in town and gives the "right" age for them when asked.  ("Oh, honey, there's an age limit to go on this slide.  How old are you?" "Seven!" "Um . . .")

"Does your child imitate the behavior of others, especially older children?"
Yes.  This is why his older brothers are always grounded.

"Can your child describe things that he did earlier in the day?"
Yes.  We usually end up calling someone to apologize.

"Is he capable of goal-directed behavior?"
He sneaks out of the (locked) front door every morning, gets in the car, and pretends to drive it.  This morning, he took Stephen's keys with him.  He's almost figured out which hole they go into.

"Can your child repeat words he's overheard in conversations?"
Yes.  That's why we've stopped having conversations.

"Does your child speak clearly enough for strangers to understand?"
Unfortunately, yes.

"Does your child speak in sentences of four or five words?"
Oh, I do miss those days.

Adventures in Literary Land, Vol. Religion

I've been Christian my whole life. Having spent two-thirds of that life surviving my parents' theology degrees, that's not surprising. However, I've always had a slightly difficult time relating to people who are either "born-again" or staunchly agnostic or atheist. I have a hard time with the first group because to my haughty, intellectual ears, their conversion experiences often sound cheesy or excessively emotional. Of course, born-agains are invaluable to the faith because of their ability to evangelize. The second group is perplexing because I can't understand their stubbornness to disbelieve or insist that belief is worthless.

Anyway, my mother got a book out from the library recently, and according to tradition, I picked it up and finished it before she could even get started. I found her lack of reading ... disturbing. And then I realized: It was a trap! She got me to learn about the Bible through subliminal methods involving (a) leaving a cool-looking book lying around the house and (b) waiting for me to read it.

So this book. It was titled The Year of Living Biblically and was made 12 times better because of the cover image.




As you can see from the subtitle, a guy decided to try and follow all the rules and advice and commandments of the bible. His previous book was about reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z. Clearly a sadist.

He writes in the introduction that he was of Jewish heritage but labeled himself as agnostic before his noble quest. In the epilogue, he states that he cannot quite bring himself to believe in the god of Judaism but is no longer agnostic. This is a man who writes for Esquire and reads encyclopedias for a living. So what did he do?

Well, everything. He stopped shaving. Stopped eating shellfish. Wore tassels on his clothes. Prayed regularly. Stoned adulterers. Those are just a few of the purity laws which he attempted to follow. He also tried to obey the moral laws like the 10 Commandments, the advice to pray regularly, or Leviticus 19:18. Look it up.

So it's an interesting read. It's an almost day-by-day account of what his new life is like. He notices the changes that his self-imposed restrictions and mandates are wreaking on his habits and thoughts. He has some moments where he actually feels connected to God and his heritage, and other moments when he is frightened by some sects which are affected by the same biblical literalism that his project requires. It's a very interesting experience.

Go read it.

Cheers,
Isaac

Theo, Through the Years

Happy birthday, big guy!

Isaac's Adventures in Literary Land, Vol. Whatever

Science Fiction has always been a personal favorite genre of mine. Part of the allure is the fancy new technology that the main characters always get to use/enjoy/abuse. Another interesting result of reading Asmiov or other greats is realizing how right they often were about their future (our present).

Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel Oryx and Crake is a particularly chilling and relevant example of an author seeing a possible future. I won't bother too much with plot, it's about as complex as Ken Ham's opening statements in his debate vs. Bill Nye the Science Guy. 

But the actual premise of the book is pretty simple: genetic engineering and biochemical manipulation have become so advanced and useful that they pervade everyday life. Buildings have plant matter incorporated to become more efficient, physical appearance can be changed as quickly as in Scott Westerfield's Uglies, and man's dream of the 24-wing chicken has finally become a reality.

With all this awesome technology lying around, the world was only waiting for some genius to come along and start the apocalypse. Which is precisely what happens.

Now beware, further explanation of plot follows the jump, accompanied with spoilers. Those who cherish the idea of reading a book as an adventure into unknown territories should stop reading this and go read a book, preferably the one I'm writing about, so that you can come back and finish reading it.

The Poor You Will Always Have With You. (Just not at your doorstep . . .)

Well, that's one way to respond to the Lazarus at your gates (doors).

When we lived in Paris, there were three or four homeless hangouts in our area (the second-chic-est area in the city). During the summer, the police would come around to all of them every day and shoo away anybody that was sitting panhandling.

But during the winter, one person took up residence in each of the areas, complete with sleeping bag and a few small possessions, and the police came around every day and said hi, and sometimes brought coffee.

One of them was right in front of a music school, even.

I hope the fact that the Brits thought of it first will keep Paris from ever doing anything like this. I hold out no hope for the US.

I'll Start Writing Next Week, I Promise

This is pretty much exactly just like what the end of the semester feels like.


I may start to feel human next week.

Leaves

This is what I'm looking forward to most about our first summer here in [our town]:

I have four tree seedlings--two of them rather sizeable, and two rather not.

I really, really, really hope I get at least a few figs out of this.

It doesn't have to be enough to make all the fig things I'm planning--fig jam, fig ice cream, fig pie, roasted fig and blue cheese salad, fig and chevre pizza, etc.

But, you know, some figs would be nice.

What would you make if you had an abundance of figs?

What I've Been Reading This Past Week

I'll say something intelligent about this one when I stop crying.  Hold on.  Nope.  Still crying.  "He was the only chicken they named."  That's exactly what it's like.

Instead of opening up the Bible, reading a random verse (or a tiny collection of your pet verses) and confirming what you already knew anyway, maybe try this.  Plainspoken yet profound advice on reading the Bible.

What I've Been Reading This Past Week

My friend Laura . . . well, I don't even know how to tell you why you should read this.  But you should.  You should read it with a copious supply of tissues nearby.  And then you should go hug your babies, or your mama, or someone who wasn't expecting a hug today but needs one, and thank God for the oft-unlooked-for miracle that is quotidian life.

I've been swinging maniacally between appalled and delighted at this story: human-leather-bound books re-discovered at Harvard library.  It's just so wrong, but if I had one, I think I would kind of love it.

This one made me happy for two reasons: A Different Kind of Walker.  Number one, obviously, everybody likes something that makes life a little cheerier for special-needs families.  And this one is so especially clever--who knows what sorts of developmental leaps might be enabled by putting kids in a "normal" position for their age, leaps that were previously understood to be precluded by the disabling condition itself rather than by the absence of a typical developmental experience?  But, number two, go moms.  Who knows what sort of therapeutic advances might be facilitated by listening to more caregivers, leaps that were previously dismissed as not being worthy of "serious professional" attention because they came from "mere" moms?

Also, Vive le Francais! Actually, some of these are pretty dumb reasons.  There is really only one that matters.  You should learn French because then you will be more motivated to visit France some day, and if you do, you will be able to eat Mont d'Or, and macarons, and financiers, and Marmite Dieppoise, and fifty-year-old Calvados.  (And if you do, you should take me with you.  Because I haven't been back in ten years, and I still cry sometimes about that.)

How Many Clueless Men Does It Take To Host A Radio Show?

I'm so glad so very many other people are commenting on the sheer stupidity evidenced by these two children masquerading as men.

It saves me the trouble.

Well, since it's not out of my way, I'll go ahead and state the obvious:

Sure, dudes, let's go ahead and make women responsible for cutting open their own bodies to avoid you missing a baseball game.

I'm sure your children, too, (will) appreciate hearing that you think they should schedule their neediness around your professional lives.  Being born surely takes a back seat to 1/162ndth of a single baseball season.  Thanks, Dad, for putting that into perspective!  I'll mark you down as a "no," then, for high school and college graduation, shall I?  And I won't dare to plan a summer wedding, don't you worry!

You know, now that you put it this way, I'm sure all parents will be nodding in agreement, that parenting is exactly just like that--you can arrange every detail of a child's life, from conception onward, to suit yourself.

Also, no one can respect a man that stops doing a life-or-death activity--you know, playing baseball--to do something stupid like hold his wife's hand after she, you know, does nothing of any importance whatsoever.  Real masculinity requires, positively obliges, men to be ready to dismiss at a moment's notice and for any reason, anything done, or valued, or said by people with ovaries.

And it's totally true that biology teaches us something important about ethics: men don't have boobs, so they're pretty much useless after they donate their sperm.  They can get on with more important things, like playing baseball.  Sure thing.

Yes, you're the one "putting food on the table" with your Really Important Work.  The fact that I can produce food with my very body--not important.  At all.  You're feeding us.  It's all you.

Also, the thing where you endanger women by casually tossing around your disgusting opinions about their bodies and their medical care so that you can have a cute little reputation as a "controversial" commentator--totally okay.  With all of us.

I'm definitely pointing you out to my sons as role models to follow.

Oops.  I think I may have gotten a little sarcastic there.

Despite the above sarcastiplosion, the idiocy, the ignorance, the appallingly willful and unabashed misogyny evidenced by these two men is not really the thing that troubles me about this video.

What troubles me more is the possibility that this will shift the conversation about child-bearing and -rearing toward the collectively-bargained rights enjoyed by a few privileged men and away from the lived experience of women who still cannot afford to exercise what few and inadequate protections they have.

Working mothers will hear every one of Esiason's and Carton's contemptuous dismissals of their needs as mothers, every one of their contemptuous rejections of a father's role in nurturing children, and gnash their teeth at being told by one more pair of assholes that it's their job to breastfeed the babies, alone, while their husbands go off and do "real" things, things that matter, things that put food on the table.

But they will also hear, in the background, everything contemptuous thing their co-workers and bosses say about "breeders," about women who take maternity leave at "inconvenient" times for the company, about women who "owe the profession" a single-minded dedication that leaves no room for child-bearing at all (much less child-rearing).

(I'm not making this up.  I've actually been told that it's my job as a woman in academia to delay childbearing until I have tenure, or forgo it entirely.  I've been told that it's what I owe the profession, and especially other women in the profession.  I mean "been told" literally, here.  Like, by a person, speaking to me.  In those exact words.)

They'll read all the articles cheering Daniel Murphy for doing such a "sweet" and "important" thing as showing up for his child's first week of life, and they'll remember all the times they, as working women, were criticized for doing the same thing, or for their failure to do so.

Women are criticized by traditionalists for failing to handle all the nurturing on their own, and they're criticized by supposed progressives for failing to protect The Company from the inconvenience of their functional reproductive system.  (I guess they're supposed to be grateful for the sort of "progress" that allows them to work for pay at all, and not pay attention to such things as maternity leave, lactation accommodation, and health insurance for dependents.) 

I was extremely grateful to my colleague at [my former college] for covering my classes for me the first two weeks of the spring semester after the birth of my third son, because it allowed me to have a full month's maternity leave.

But the insanity--the stark, raving insanity--that Amos's birth will forever in my mind be linked with all of the professional obligations he didn't interfere with (fall semester exams, grades due, seven Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services)!  I swear, I am not making this up: I have never once spoken of Amos's birth without joking about him "helpfully" waiting until the day after Christmas to be born "because of all of our pastoral responsibilities."

And the insanity--the stark, raving insanity--that I've met actual, real, live, educated, professional women who have told me that they went back to work within a week of giving birth because they "couldn't afford" to take maternity leave!

Please hear me: I am among the privileged few in the world, even if you can't tell it from my bank account.  My colleagues are other privileged women--women with terminal degrees in their field, with professional clout, with publications and numerous speaking invitations per year, women who've been on NPR, even.

If my colleagues and I have to worry about this . . . what on earth is going on in the rest of the world?

No.  I don't get worked up by the fact that a pair of idiotic men said some idiotic things about men taking paternity leave.

But I am worried that a bunch of men will use this as an excuse to spend their time wagging their tongues what wealthy men do with their legal rights and collectively-bargained contract protections, and ignore--once again, still, always--the needs and rights and near-constant vulnerability of women and children.

Optimism

Thursday: The last day of Spring Break week that you can still pretend you're going to do everything on your Spring Break list.

Battle Squirrel 2014

Well, that organic squirrel deterrent wasn't.

Not much from the spring planting survived.

A few broccoli.

Some herbs and peas.

And the pretty pansies, which really have been cheering.

The onions were squirrel-proof, as promised.  A few got dug up and nibbled, but the rest were entirely left alone.  But they didn't stop the squirrels from traipsing their way through and eating all the greens.

So, we're trying something new.

Stephen built me a few pest-deterrent cages.

 
(He had lots of help.)

Wood frame, covered in chicken wire.

All right, you vermin.  Here's another salad bar for you.  Come and get it.

Prayers For an Unworthy Soul

Some occasions tempt me more than others to declare a particular soul unworthy of the grace of God.

But that is, of course, the very definition of the grace of God.  And so I give thanks for the reminder that my soul, too, has no claim to deserve the prayers of the saints, the forgiveness on which it depends, or the beatitude which God's grace imparts.

And I offer a prayer for the unworthy departed, and for those who must somehow learn to live the grace we proclaim:

May he know the love and grace of God in death that he seemed not to know or value in life. And may we all repent of our sadistic delight in the deaths of those for whom our Lord was pleased to die.

Adventure in Literary Land II

Isaac is back with another review of obscure books your teenage child probably loves.

John Green is my favorite modern author behind Scott Westerfield and Rowling. Not only does he write excellent books for teens, but he also has multiple YouTube channels dedicated to random facts and education. His brother Hank is more of the same. Check them out.

I first heard of JG about a year ago when a friend of mine was fangirling about his book The Fault in Our Stars. Apparently it's the best book ever and I need to get around to reading it. Anyhoo, a girl in my bio class was reading a JG book and offered to let me borrow it, knowing that I would finish within the school day.

An Abundance of Katherines is the story of a child prodigy who never reached full potential. This distinction is discussed several times throughout the novel and is better explained there than here. The protagonist, Colin, is said genius and his amigo Hassan plays the part of slightly less intelligent but far more funny Muslim best friend. Hassan spends the better part of the novel trying to get Colin out of his self-obsessed funk. Colin has a mental block when it comes to dating, which manifests itself in that he can only date girls named "Katherine." It must be spelled that way or no deal. The general pattern of these relationships is that Colin get dumped and feels bad about himself, and then finds another Katherine and the cycle repeats. Well, the 19th time is the worst for poor Colin because Katherine XIX is also Katherine the Great: the original Katherine who started the trend. Hassan observes the emotional fallout and takes Colin on a road trip. The two find a job in a small town somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and encounter Lindsey, who is the love interest of the story. That's about all the plot that one needs to know except this last bit.

Colin becomes fixated on the idea of creating a mathematical equation that plots the outcome and happiness of a given relationship. For the sake of brevity, I will link to it here. 

The novel's main strength is that it connects deeply with its reader. It seems written by one of us, and by one of us I mean teens. Hassan is the best friend we all wish we had. Lindsey is the cool not-girly girl that we all wish we were dating. Colin is the tormented teenager we all think we are. John Green's writing style is the epitome of young adult literature. Each chapter has at least three footnotes that impart a random fact or related anagram or strange historical parallel that both lighten the mood and complete our of Colin's brain: random, funny, and tangential. Never will you ever find more anagrams in one piece of literature. 

So Abundance of Katherines is really one of those "voyage of self-discovery" books that you read in freshman English class, only AOK is actually enjoyable to read. Holden Caufield, we're looking at you.

Hopefully your humble literature critic will get his hands on more John Green and will be able to more accurately discuss his authoring merits. But you all / y'all / youse should not panic in fear if your child comes home with a JG novel in his/her backpack. It's okay. It gives you an excuse to read it too.

Cheers,
Isaac

What I've Been Reading This Past Week

I've been saying this for awhile now, but only to people who are tired of me saying it: praise music makes it harder, not easier, for the congregation to participate.  I could add ten more reasons than the ones offered here by Erik Parker, but I'll stick with two.
The more a tune follows a pop aesthetic, the harder it is to sing, unless you're the kind of tenor for which most pop music is written.  The majority of hymn tunes, boring and unlovely as some of them may be, are written to be sung by almost any voice, and virtually all of them also have parts that can be sung by specific voices.
And, second, when the tune is all there is (and it's hard enough to catch that), the church misses out on the strangely theological wonder that is harmony, the unique sound that can only come when people sing different notes at the same time.  Beauty is enhanced by difference--what a wild world our God has made for us!


This was a fun story: professors on a plagiarism sting op!  I would love to be a full-time plagiarism detector.  That would be fun.


In many ways, this is old news: Children with family routines have better emotional health.  But just in case you needed an expert to tell you so, there it is.  The sorts of things you imagine a healthy, happy family doing--reading, playing, eating, making music together--tend to make for healthy, happy families.


This was a fascinating article on Shakespeare performance.  I was especially interested in how the company dealt with The Taming of the Shrew, which ceases being a comedy at precisely the point it offers the pretense of a happy ending.

College-Level Kiddie Lit

I told my ethics students that one of the goals of the class was to make it harder for them to go grocery shopping (or car shopping or pet shopping or spouse shopping and so on).  Being an ethicist--especially one trained in narrative theology--just plain makes it harder to get stuff done, sometimes.

The "narrative theology" part makes it especially hard to just pick up any old kids' book and read it to my poor, long-suffering children.

I infected my students with that bit of insanity this morning--I had them read a few children's books to each other and talk about what a person or community formed by that book my believe or practice or understand.  (I'm grateful to Vigen Guroian for having written on this topic a few years ago.)

I've done this exercise a few times, and the thing that struck me most this time around was the way books don't always do what they purport to do.

For example, we were all a little put off by Hooper Humperdink...? Not Him!, which was supposed to be a fun romp through the alphabet, wrapped in a tidy narrative of inclusion.  The narrator spends the entire book building a fabulous party, while throwing out little asides about not inviting Hooper Humperdink, because he just doesn't like him.

Of course, it's a kids' book, so, in the end, the narrator decides to invite him after all.

Well, you know, that's real sweet and all, but after thirty-two pages of sneering at him, that sort of grudging permission is hardly inclusion.  When I asked my students what children might learn, morally, from this book, one of them rightly suggested that this book gives a child permission to dislike other children, so long as they throw them a few token invitations to participate in special activities.

I think there might be some wisdom in giving children permission to talk about their dislikes of other children--it's a natural enough phenomenon, and the solution (corralling and contravening one's own emotions) is a little unnatural and probably needs some verbal processing.

But that is not the delicate dance that Hooper Humperdink performs.

Richard Scarry, without bothering to wrap his silly story in a tidy moral, actually does a much better job of introducing children to the notion of inclusion. 

His Firefighters' Busy Day is, like all his books, simply a silly story from start to finish.  The four firefighters never seem to manage to get to eat, because every time they sit down to try, the alarm rings and they have to tend to another not-terribly-urgent emergency.  The needy-person-in-distress is always Mr. Frumble, a hapless cat who can't seem to manage his pickle car, or anything else.

Where it gets interesting--far more interesting than Hooper's little morality tale, for all that Scarry is completely uninterested in being morally interesting--is when the firefighters figure out that Mr. Frumble is Busytown's most annoying citizen.  What do they do?  "So that they can finally have a quiet moment to eat, the firefighters invite Mr. Frumble to have dinner with them at the firehouse."


And they prepare him (and themselves) a meal, while keeping him safe there at the firehouse.

I always tell my students that they should run toward their problems (like, a professor whose class they've been cutting or for whom they haven't turned in a bucketload of work), not away from them.  Richard Scarry is telling them to grab their problems and bring them home for dinner.

Now, Scarry keeps it from being a tidy morality play by having the alarm ring once again, just as they were sitting down to dinner with Mr. Frumble . . . and they all leave, wishing Mr. Frumble a good dinner on their way out.

Am I reading too much into this silly story by suggesting that a community formed by this story might just have better resources for dealing with difficult people than a community formed by the Hooper Humperdink story?

Perhaps.  But guess which one I'm going to be reading to my boys way more often than the other?