12 Boo-boos of Christmas

On the first meal of Christmas, we had an injury.
The mama cut her finger.

On the second meal of Christmas, we had an injury.
Two minor burns, and the mama cut her finger.

On the third meal of Christmas, we had an injury.
One good scalding, two minor burns, and the mama cut her finger.

On the fourth meal of Christmas, we had an injury.
Carpal tunnel flare-up, one good scalding, two minor burns, and the mama cut her finger.

On the fifth meal of Christmas, we had a good idea:
Let's order pizza!

Trinitarian Theology for Third Graders

Mimi: "Okay, wait, so they don't have different functions?"

Sarah: "No. That's Modalism.  The only thing you can say about the Father that you can't say about the Son and the Spirit is that he is the Father.  But they're all the Creator, they're all the Savior.  All those things that they do, they all do."

M: "Okay.  Okay, I think I'm getting this.  So when it says that Jesus was the only one to die on the cross . . ."

S: "That's right.  That's the only exception, because only the Son took on a human body that could die.  So only Jesus died on the cross."

M: "Okay.  So only Jesus died on the cross, but Jesus and the Father and the Spirit were all creators together--"

S: "The Son, not Jesus.  Jesus hadn't been born yet.  You can't call him Jesus before then.  There's no Jesus in the Old Testament."

M: "Well, the Son was around, but he hadn't been revealed until the birth of Jesus."

Theo: "Mimi, you've got to get it right.  They talked about the Messiah in the Old Testament, but Messiah didn't appear until God sent him to Mary, and she named him Jesus because that's what the Angel Gabriel told her to name him.  So there's no Jesus in the Old Testament."

S: "Gosh, Theo, that's very accurate."

T: "It's because I have a third-grade Bible.  That's why I can know so much."

Third-grade Bibles for everyone, then, shall we?

Throw-back Thursday

Something I wrote six or so years ago on my other blog seemed apt to today--Boxing Day in some places, Exchanging Unwanted Gifts Day in others.  I'm sad not to be seeing Grandma Jackie for Christmas, but I'm thinking of her.

My grandmother is the queen of gift closets.

Closets.

All of her closets are stuffed to bursting, and it’s mostly with stuff for other people.

She shops daily.  Well, she goes to Mass daily, and after Mass, she goes to the store.  (She’s said to me a couple of times, “Sarah, I go to mass every day, and then I go shopping.  It’s what keeps me alive.”  I like that she knows that the Body and Blood of Christ are her daily sustenance, and I don’t think Jesus particularly minds that her Thanksgiving After the Eucharist always involves Boscov’s.)

Anyway, she shops daily (after Mass), and so if something goes on sale anywhere in the town of [Her Town], Pennsylvania, she’ll find it.  And she’ll find it before you do.  And if it’s a good enough sale (like, less than 10% of the original price), she’ll buy it.

She knows people who are a size 2 and people who are a size 22.  She knows people who have babies and people who have teens.  She knows people who need sofas and people who need reading glasses.

There is no object for sale in any store that she cannot attach to a need–real or imagined, potential or actual–of someone she knows.  So, she buys it.

If you ever go to visit her, you’ll leave with gifts.  She’ll say, “This is your birthday present–I’ve been saving it for you.”  Even if your birthday was six months ago, and she just bought it yesterday.  Or, “This is for you for Christmas–I’ll just give it to you now, though.”  Even if it’s September, and you’ll see her three more times before Christmas.  Or, “Here, take this and give it to your sister next time you see her.”  Even if your sister was just there and got her own trunkload of gifts.

Now, she may or may not have even been thinking of you when she bought it.  She probably wasn’t thinking anything other than “Three dollars!!  Score!!”  But if you come to her house, you won’t leave it without a gift from her closets.  Because she always has something, and so she always has something to give away. 

And so she always gives things away.

She’s not just the queen of gift closets.  She’s the queen of giving, really.

So, it makes me happy to have a gift closet.  Maybe when I’m eighty, mine will be big and filled with things I bought right after receiving my daily dose of Christ’s Body and Blood.  And maybe nobody will leave my home without something I had, just for them.  Maybe I’ll realize that I always have plenty, and so I always have plenty to give away.

Maybe I’ll get to be as good at giving things away as she is.

Sugar it up!

When the kids--ours and a few other people's--started to get a little energetic last night, Stephen said, "We better get them dessert."

Normally, I would question the notion that adding sugar to an already over-energized crowd of under-tens will somehow help.

But, last night, it actually did.

We decorated cupcakes for dessert.

It was fun.

There is, I suppose, a point past which a cupcake becomes un-yummy in its overdecoration.

But we didn't seem to get there last night.

Everyone enjoyed their creations.

And then they all played quietly (no, really!) for another hour.

Advent for the Little Ones

I always have grandiose plans for Advent, that always take perfect shape in my head about December 15th.

One of these years, I will remember to put those plans, and the equipment for enacting them, in an accessible place on January 6th, when all the nativity stuff comes down and is stored away until the next year.

This year, however, I managed to get out our Advent Calendar and the wire frame to our Advent wreath.  Hopefully, I will be able to secure a few candles and some greenery before dinner tonight.  I may even, if I am very lucky, find a copy of the Advent booklet I put together for my church last year.

If not, we will do the short, short version.

When I wrote this for the Advent booklet for my church, I said that it was "especially for use with small children or those with special needs"--that is, for the Little Ones among us.

But it's also a good Emergency Use liturgy.  Because slackers, bumblers, and over-committed domestic engineers surely have special needs of their own.  And they can take great comfort in the parable of the generous vineyard owner and his eleventh-hour workers.

So, if you can't manage anything else, do this with your advent wreath.

If you're behind on your wreath-making, print of 24 copies of an Advent Wreath coloring page, and every night color the right number of candles on the page at the candle-lighting part of this liturgy.

A very, very short Advent liturgy

Leader: Jesus came to earth to save us.  He is coming again to bring us to his home.  He wants to come into our hearts every day.

[Light the correct number of advent candles: one during the first week, two during the second week, three during the third week, and four from the fourth Sunday until Christmas Day.]

Leader: This is the message we heard from Jesus and are telling you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

[Teach the children this prayer, or say it on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves]: Dear God, send your Light, your Son, Jesus, into our hearts.  Help us to follow him so that we may be your children.  Amen.

[Sing the first verse of I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light, UMH 206, together.]
I want to walk as a child of the Light
I want to follow Jesus.
God set the stars to give light to the world.
The star of my life is Jesus.
In him there is no darkness at all.
The night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God.
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.   

This liturgy was composed by me for my church's use.  I offer it freely for your domestic use or for publication within a (single) local church body.  I would love to hear from you if you use it in this way, and your kindness in crediting me would be appreciated.
 Please link back to this blog entry if you share this liturgy online.
Please contact me for permission to publish it in other contexts.
I do not own the copyright to I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light.  You will need to investigate licensing that hymn if you want to include it in any sort of publication or performance.

Say What?

I love the learning-to-talk stage.

There's something to love about (almost) every stage of your child's life, if you look for it.  Some years you have to look harder than others.  But the learning-to-talk stage doesn't take much work to enjoy.

New words and sentences come out of Amos's mouth almost every day, and we're constantly saying, "Wait, what?  When did he learn THAT?"

We're also constantly saying, "Wait, what?  What are you trying to say?  I just don't understand."

Like this morning.

Amos said, "Eee pa, grrrr."

"What, sweetie?"

"Eee pa, grrrrrrrr."

"I don't understand."

"Eee PA, grr."

"I'm sorry, I just . . ."

"EEEEE PA! GRRRRRRR!"

"Panda says grrr?"

:points emphatically at the empty middle of the room:

"I'm just not getting it, baby boy."

:points, screaming:
 "EEE PA! GR!"

And I finally looked out of the window and saw . . .

The squirrel was eating my lettuce plants.

I'm pretty sure he'd had half a salad while watching me not understand Amos.  I think I saw him smirk.

He'll stop smirking when he gets a peek at my google search history.

"Hunting season squirrel Alabama."
"How to field dress a squirrel."
"Brunswick stew recipe."
"Tanning squirrel hides."

Anyway, some days, communication goes more smoothly than others.  But it's fun to watch Amos grow in confidence that he can communicate with us.

The Only People Crazier Than Theologians Are Linguists

I read this article earlier today, and I've been because-noun-ing all day.

Because Linguistics

"Why do you need a Moodle course for this class, Christian Ethics? (Please give a reason so that the administrator can determine the need for this course.)"
"Because God."

"I can't quite figure out why none of you are taking notes on what I just said.  Because, you know, exam."

"And so we see here that James makes the same explanatory move that was made in Leviticus.  Why shouldn't you hold a day laborer's pay back until the next day?  Because God."

"Please don't email me during another professor's class!  Because courtesy."

I feel very hip.

Well, I felt hip.  And then I realized that, by the time someone writes a blog entry on a hip thing, it's not hip anymore.  (Because, you know, novelty.  And boredom.)

And then I realized that someday, someone will write a second-grade grammar textbook in which "because" will be listed as a preposition, because of this article.  (Because idiocy.)  And I was tempted to repent of my participation in the stupidification of my own grandchildren.

But then I went back to because-noun-ing.  Because fun.  And also entropy.

Experiments

I made some cupcakes this weekend.

I wanted to try a few new things, since I felt as though I was getting into a cupcake rut.

So, I tried this recipe for salted caramel buttercream.  It was very nice.  Maybe a little subtle with the caramel flavor, especial in comparison with the other cupcake I made.

Oh my gracious heavens, this cupcake was insane.

Okay, the cupcake on the left is a chocolate cupcake with the aforementioned salted caramel buttercream.  It really was a nice cupcake.

The cupcake on the right is a lime-coconut cupcake with a lime buttercream.

The lime-coconut cupcake was just your standard 1-2-3-4 cake batter, with coconut milk substituted for the milk, a little lime zest and coconut extract added with the liquid ingredients, and about half a cup of shredded coconut added at the end.  It was pretty subtle in both the lime and the coconut departments.

I may as well have made plain white cake, because it was the buttercream that did it.

I made my usual French buttercream recipe.

Then I zested and juiced two limes.  I added the zest to the finished buttercream, which made for a very subtle, but very nice, vaguely lime-ish flavor.  If you wanted to stop there, you could.  No one would say, "Oh, this is lime!" But everyone would say, "Oh, this is good!  What's that flavor in the background?"

Well, then I took the juice and boiled it down until it was syrupy.  I added the syrup to the buttercream.

It was yowza.

I probably would use a smidge less of the condensed lime juice next time.  It was perhaps a little too assertively lime.  Or if I did it this way again, I would put it on a little more flavorful cupcake--something that could really stand up to the lime.

And it did make the buttercream a little soft.  It started to slump pretty quickly in our warmer-than-room-temperature kitchen.

But I will definitely do buttercream this way again.  Just not until I lose the seventy-eight pounds I gained "sampling" and "testing" this one.  ("You know, it's for company.  I'd better make sure it really does taste okay.")

Even Protestants Need the Saints

Dear God:

Thank you for the example of your servant, St. Martin, who reminds us that simple, impulsive acts of charity do not go unnoticed in heaven, that willingness to die for one’s country doesn’t have to be the same as willingness to kill for it, and that vigorous opposition to heresy and non-Christian belief doesn’t have to include violence or hatred toward heretics and non-Christians.

Through his example and the power of the Holy Spirit, make us both more gentle and more fervent, more humble and more daring, and above all more loving toward all whom we encounter. 

In the name of your Son Jesus Christ, Amen.

Brudders

Theo, on the other hand . . .

These are such sweet names for a Sunday School group.

Something tells me, though, that long about December of Theo's third grade year, it will occur to someone to rename the groups something else.

Something like Third Grade Quiet Lifers and Fourth Grade Contemplatives.

Just a guess.

On Not Being Jane Austen

If I hadn't learned French first, I might have enjoyed learning German.

But, alas, after mastering (more or less) the glorious beauty of the French tongue, speaking German felt like gargling used motor oil.

I suspect the same might be true of my appreciation of Elizabeth Gaskell: if I hadn't read dear Jane first, I might have really liked Mrs. Gaskell.

I finally finished Wives and Daughters last week, which rather felt like I was doing my duty by Gaskell than anything else.  

Perhaps not--it was a story worth finishing, but I would have preferred that she had wrapped it up a hundred pages earlier.

(Everyone does, in fact: her death left the novel unfinished, by a mere one or two chapters.  An appended reflection by her editor and publisher was highly unsatisfying.)

I am being too tepid in my praise.  There are some real gems in here--scenes, observations, turns of phrase, characters.  Hers must have been a tremendous skill, to have created such characters, with such modest, quotidian virtues and vices, such realism in their very multi-facetedness.  

I mean, really--who can create such a character as Cynthia Kirkpatrick nowadays?  Her comment about being a "moral kangaroo" will be my epitaph, I'm quite sure.  What passes for a flawed hero or a "complex" character now is too easy: add rudeness or grumpiness or an inexplicable sense of having a "tortured" soul to an otherwise perfect character, and you're done. 

The plot, too, is delicate, realistic, modest.  Gaskell has too much innate charity to write a genuinely immoral person into her narrative.  The very meanness of her worst "villain" prevents her from having any worse effect than the domestic discomfort of those around her.  This is no small evil, in a tale of domestic proportions, but a Willoughby or a Wickham has more effect on the social body than does Mrs. Gibson.

But I never could quite overcome my annoyance at being spoon-fed throughout. No character has a thought, a motivation, a movement of the spirit that Gaskell does not report--in as charitable and gentle a manner as could ever be, but, nonetheless, with a thoroughness that began to grate long before the tale's denouement.  Austen could have conveyed as much, and more, with half the words.  There is a great artistry in saying things by leaving them unsaid, and it is not the sort of artistry that Gaskell displays.  I never got past the first chapter of Little Women, for that very reason.  

Gaskell's work is worth persevering through, however.  There is delicateness and subtlety here, in spite of the wordiness, and the moral sensibility, on full display throughout, never trips over into frank preachiness.

Incidentally, the BBC film version of this novel does a lovely job of bringing to life those complex characters.  Cynthia, Mr. Gibson, and especially Squire Hamley are beautiful creatures, and the production has far less of the odor of typecasting than the BBC Pride and Prejudice does.  I highly recommend it.

Alarming Grammar

You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning feeling that you had just gone to sleep only minutes before, even though you really did get a full night's sleep?

That happened to me this morning.

But when my alarm went off, I didn't turn over and go back to sleep, because I recognized the phenomenon--where you feel you've just gone to sleep even though you've slept a full six hours--and formed a thought communicating the phenomenon to myself.

But the thought I formed, alas, triggered my Grammatical Angst Complex, and I was unable to go back to sleep.

(This turned out well, because Tuesdays are my early days, and I really did have to get out the door.  But it was annoying.)

The thought I thought to myself was, "Man, I just lay down ten minutes ago!"

It was a grammatical thought, but as soon as I thought it, I was wide awake, wondering whether I had thought grammatically.

"Wait, I just lay down?  Or just laid down?  Lie, Lay, Lain, Lay, Laid, Laid.  Lie.  Lay.  Yes.  Lay.  But I'm much more confident with the past participle, so I could make it easier on myself and say, 'It feels as though I had just lain down!'"

Yes, dear Readers, it was 5:06, and I was revising my own internal grammar.

This is what writing a dissertation will do to you.  I can only imagine what writing a grammar textbook does to you.

And then I thought, "I could avoid the problem by saying, 'Man, I just fell asleep ten minutes ago!'  And Chicago Manual of Style always suggests avoiding the problem if you're unsure, or if you know you're correct but you think your readers will trip over it."

Yes, dear Readers, it was 5:07, and I was quoting the Chicago Manual of Style to myself.

If you ever meet any of my sons, have pity on them.  They're doing the best they can, after being raised by such a mother.  It's really amazing they can speak at all, or are willing to.

Whose Bible? Which Table of Contents?

"Mommy, do you want to use my Adventure Bible for your class?"
"Well, gosh, Theo, I don't . . . um . . ."
"It has EVERYthing you could need. It has Genesis, Exodius, Livlicus, Numbers, Dridomy, Joshua, . . . and there's TWO Currenicles and Plammis. There's Zurrackium, MickChali, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romis, Crenthinus one, Crenthinus two, Glactians, Tittus, Filimonia, Judo, Revolution. Are those things you could need?"
"Well, um, I'm supposed to, uh, teach about, uh, the Psalms tomorrow."
"That's not in here. Maybe my Bible isn't the full Bible."
"Um, well, see here where it says Psalms?"
"MOM. That says Plammis."
"Uh, maybe I'm pronouncing it wrong. But, you know, I'd be happy to take your Bible with me tomorrow and use it."
"Okay! Good! I'll put it in your bag so you don't forget it."

During. And more during.

After all the work Stephen and Isaac did pulling down the sickly, thin, and annoying trees, there were still some serious problems with the trees.

There were several trees, like this one, that were just dead or dying.

And most of the rest were hackberry trees, which have a tendency to rot and split and generally make life difficult.

So we decided to take thirteen of the weakest and least healthy trees out.

The tree guys came, and very sensibly marked which ones we wanted gone.

And then on the appointed day, they came, all seven of them, with their bucket truck and Bobcat and ropes and pulleys and fourteen (!) chainsaws.

First they dropped the easy trees.  Right in the middle of the yard, without, like, measuring it or anything.

They used the Bobcat to help them cut it into pieces.

Then they brought out the bucket truck.

And we all watched . . .

(some of us more nervously than others)

. . . as they cut down the trickier trees.

I will admit that I got a little nervous at this point, too.

The guy in the bucket seemed less concerned for his safety than, perhaps, he ought to have been.

He kept leaning right out of the bucket, with the chainsaw in one hand, just lopping off big old branches.

I mean, he was really leaning.  Really far out of the bucket.  Using a chainsaw one-handed.

I found this a little stressful.  (But nothing went wrong, and we're all grateful for that.)

There were a few trees that needed an even more elaborate setup.

There were pulleys and anchors and a bobcat pulling rope and all kinds of fun stuff . . .

. . . so that they could drop the individual branches slowly and carefully, before taking the trunk down.

It was a fascinating process.

The Bobcat had a lot to do, in addition to anchoring ropes and lifting big trunks to be cut up.

It hauled all the trees to the curb.

There was a rather big pile.

So big, in fact, that they needed even more heavy equipment to come haul it away.

(I'm pretty sure Theo and Amos had the best day of their lives.  And I feel really stupid for failing to take video.  We could have made our own episode of Mighty Machines, and it could have been about two hours long.)

Theo hung out with the guys whenever they took a break.

Because, you know, he's Theo.  I'm pretty sure he wangled a job offer out of them.

And, finally, it was done.

We went from this:

. . . to this:

(Still not a huge change.)

This:

. . . to this:

This:

. . . to this:

And this:

. . . to this:

Alas, once more, the improvement left us feeling even more depressed and unhappy.

All the light finally flowing in to the yard only served to point up all its deficiencies.  And as hard as they tried not to destroy anything, you can't bring all that heavy equipment into a place without tearing up the soil.

We tried working with it.  We thought about ways to go piecemeal--a little grass seed on this side, a little mulch on that side, a few bushes here until we could get the ones we really wanted there.

But after a few weeks of trying to wrestle it into submission, we surrendered.

We got even more professional help.