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New camera and trip to the apple farm

2010-10-11T16:31:00.002-05:00

DSC_0410
Originally uploaded by kim belcher

For my birthday, Matt got me a Nikon 90. This weekend (a bit early) I tested it out. I took a bunch of pictures of the kids on Friday on a trip to the playground and a Mexican place. Saturday we went out to the apple-and-pumpkin farm and did a corn maze together. I took loads of photos and uploaded some of them to flickr. Check them out!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tideflying/

Elevation

2010-09-17T22:28:00.012-05:00

Today, after I had climbed the hill of three crosses, I got out of the rut and readied myself to follow Holy Spirit Trail.

Now look at you, trying to analyze my allegory. What is the hill of three crosses? What rut? What do I mean by Holy Spirit Trail?

No, see?

I stopped half way up to take a photo of the bushes near Holy Spirit Trail. They are called Burning Bushes. You can see the reason why; they are already turning red here in central Minnesota, although when I used to live in Illinois I think it happened in late October.

At the top of Holy Spirit Trail there are two radio towers and a water tower (though perhaps if my eyes were more spiritual it would have looked like a font). There is a parking lot that looks like it was just built and has never had anyone park in it.

There are two picnic tables looking equally unused.

I stood on that one to get a couple photos of the northwestern parts of Monticello:

When I did, I noticed this trail. It looked less taken.

I followed it. Wouldn't you?

But not too far. The best kind of path is the one that you still don't know where it ends.

So pretty soon I turned around and descended Holy Spirit Trail, crossed the road and its rut, and went home to have lunch. Tonight Thomas told me that the hill of three crosses reminds him of God because God died on a cross. You can see it from a distance in the 6th image above. Does it remind you of God too?

This is the church which I assume I have to thank for having had a Holy Spirit Trail to climb:

You can see that as I turned the clouds broke open and the light finally came through. And that is all.

---

You think you're clever, don't you? I can see you there, thinking this is something sophisticated -- that this post is a subtle critique of our cultural patterns that want to distinguish literal from metaphorical, bodily from spiritual... something like that. There must be more to it than a walk and a bunch of pictures.

But really, don't you think you're overanalyzing the whole thing?

Here comes the flood!

2010-08-11T14:11:00.002-05:00

In other news, I'm getting ready to teach another semester here at St John's. Next week I'll be preparing my newest version of "The Biblical Tradition," our introductory course on the Bible. I might need this cartoon!

Here's my textbook list if you're curious.

Thomas's first real RPG

2010-07-31T18:14:00.003-05:00

Thomas opened his presents from Matt and I today. Two of them were a set of 6-sided dice and a book to play his very first real RPG. When he's opening presents, he's often unexcited about them. He's too busy thinking about the presents to actually appreciate or enjoy what any one of them actually is. (One reason we had a no-present party this year.)

By the afternoon, though, after his (awesome) party at Space Aliens, he was ready to sit down with Eric and me to play Faery's Tale. I had read over the sample stories and decided to use "Jack and the Beanstalk" since Thomas is familiar with the Kellogg version and so would have a better sense of what to expect and thus what he could do to overcome the challenges. Prepping the adventure was basically effortless, as you just make up challenge ratings on the fly for the things the players suggest (and Thomas is too young to be critical).

He had no trouble with character creation, although he was a little mystified with the results ("why do I have 5 spirit? what if I want 10 spirit?"). He loved the opening gambit of the adventure, when I asked each player what their character did yesterday and used their answers to set up their meeting. In the middle of their first conversation, when they had gotten to know each other a bit, I had Thomas's pixie overhear Jack's mother crying from the front of the house.

Thomas eagerly flew up the beanstalk to rescue Jack before even waiting to hear the end of what Jack's mother had to say, almost leaving his new friend behind. Luckily, Eric had chosen to play a Pooka, so he could change into a bee to follow along.

The funniest part of the adventure was certainly when they had freed Jack from his cage. By the script, the giant wakes up at this point and gives chase. When I said they heard the giant in the hallway, Thomas's eyes were like saucers. He was totally in the narrative. He looked at Eric. "My character says, 'Ok, guys, time to get out of here!'" Eric said.

"Ok," Thomas agreed. "Bye, Jack!"

Eric and I burst out laughing. "I think maybe we should take him with us!" Eric replied.

They did manage to get Jack out, and Thomas immediately said, "Let's play again!"

It took me about 10 minutes to prepare another fairy tale adventure. We're supposed to play after dinner.

Four

2010-07-28T23:03:00.003-05:00

Happy birthday, Thomas.

Family self-portrait, in hotel

2010-07-22T21:47:00.004-05:00

"May we 'taste and see', on PrayTell

2010-07-08T09:18:00.001-05:00

New post over at PrayTell. Have a good day, everybodeee.

House Rules

2010-06-13T22:39:00.010-05:00

The book I bought Matt for Father's Day, and then thoughtlessly left in the hotel room for him to pack, is called Geek Dad (by the editor of the Wired blog of the same name).

I have, uh, occasionally before, well, been guilty of that greatest crime among bibliophile families, too horrendous to name without hysterical laughter -- oh, ok, I quite often buy Matt books and then read them before he gets around to them. This time, though, I was better -- I only skimmed a small part of the book. The part on how to make your kid's chores into an RPG!

I didn't like the book's version, but I thought the idea was great. Thomas is a sucker for games. And don't think I'm taking advantage of Thomas's tender age and gullibility. He totally knows this is a scam to get him to do his chores, but he does it anyway because they're more fun this way, and it concretizes (in points) the idea that we keep telling him, that if he keeps doing these things and practicing, they get easier to do (but perhaps not less boring).

I made the thing up two weeks ago (according to Google Docs, which knows all). Today Thomas put his dishes away after every meal, took the dirty sheets off the bed, and put away all his clean clothes by himself, which is pretty much a miracle around here. He got tired about halfway through the laundry, but was just starting to ask for help when he said, "I know! I'll put away all the pajamas first, then all the shirts..." He was so excited to have a strategy for how to finish. (Big projects tend to overwhelm him.) And I don't have to beg and plead any more: I just say, "Of course I can help you, but then you won't get your XP, since you won't have practiced doing it by yourself."

He's got lots of in-game rewards, the simplest of which is getting to roll a die every time he completes a quest. Rolling a die is fun! He gets an out-of-game reward every other level, half of which are just going out to dinner. And he has a small chance of getting a treasure when he rolls the die, and treasures can be collected and traded in at level-up time for real rewards. (So far he hasn't collected enough of anything to get a real reward; the odds are relatively low.) Right now one of the best motivators is knowing that every time he goes up a level, he gets to level up his character and he gets two new quests. And that's the great thing about RPGs: getting new tasks to do is the fun part!

RPGs are very educational, right? The name of the game is "House Rules".

Thomas's character sheet. He picked his character's name:

Laentz Lopt, level 5
Race: Dragon
Class: Chef (gets 1 xp bonus for every quest in the kitchen)

Strength 2
Constitution 3
Dexterity 2
Intelligence 4
Wisdom 3
Charisma 3

Skills:
Laundry rank 1 Outdoors rank 2

Kitchen rank 2 General skills rank 2
Bedroom rank 2 Playroom rank 1

Quests:
Outdoors

"Monday Madness!" Take out the small recyclables bin on Monday night after dinner (3 xp)

Requires 2 Int, 2 Wis
Roll D20; on 10 or less, collect 1 Reusable Gold Bottle

"Bathe the Roots!" Use the watering can or hose to water all the garden plants [once per day] (3 xp)

Requires Outdoors 2, 3 Wis
Roll D20; on 10 or less, collect 1 Medicinal Herb

Bathroom

Mop the floor (2 xp)

Requires General skills 2
Roll D20; if 10 or less, collect 1 Magical Mop

Bedroom

"Find the Floor!" Floor is clean - no books, toys, or clothes on floor (3 xp)

Roll D20; on 1, collect 1 Arcane Scroll

Put away 1 laundry basket of clean laundry into the right drawers (2 xp)

Requires 2 Dex, 3 Int
Roll D20; on 1, collect 1 Stray Sock

Strip bed (3 xp)

Requires Bedroom 1, General skills 2, Strength 2
Roll D20; if 5 or less, collect 1 Stray Sock

"Librarian quest" Sort books on floor into hardcovers, paperbacks, board books, readers, and chapter books. Put on the right shelves. (2 xp)

Requires Bedroom 2, 4 Int, 3 Con
Roll D20; if 5 or less, collect 1 Arcane Scroll

Laundry

Push wet laundry into dryer (1 xp)

Requires Laundry 1
Roll D20; on 1, collect 1 Stray Sock

Kitchen

Wipe down the table after a meal (1 xp)

Put plate, cup, utensil into dishwasher (1 xp)

Requires Kitchen 1
Roll D20; if 5 or less, collect 1 Mystical Kiss

Mop the floor (3 xp)

Requires General skills 1
Roll D20; if 10 or less, collect 1 Magical Mop

Wipe the counter (2 xp)

Requires Kitchen 2, General 2, 2 Dex
Roll D20; if 10 or less, collect 1 Magical Mop

Playroom

Put away toys (2 xp)

Stay on task whole time! (3 xp bonus)
Requires Playroom 1, Constitution 2, Charisma 3
Roll D20; if 5 or less, collect 1 Arcane Scroll

Treasures:
XP: 47 +
Arcane Scrolls: 2
Stray Socks:
Mystical Kisses:
Magical Mops: 2
Reusable Gold Bottles:
Medicinal Herbs:

Prizes:
65 xp: Advance to level 6 (New dinner set!)
3 Arcane Scrolls: Choose 1 new book at bookstore
4 Stray Socks: 1 new shirt
1 Mystical Kiss: 1 chocolate chip
3 Magical Mops: 1 child-size broom and mop
1 Reusable Gold Bottle: 1 home-squeezed lemonade
4 Medicinal Herbs: plant for Thomas's room

Level rewards:
2: D20
4: Space Aliens trip
6: Kid's dinner set (you choose!)
8: Space Aliens trip
10: Stuffed character toy
12: Space Aliens trip
14: $5
16: Space Aliens trip
18: Candy making set
20: New board game or RPG!

"Real symbol and the Sacred Heart of Jesus," at PrayTell

2010-06-11T10:27:00.001-05:00

http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/06/11/real-symbol-and-the-sacred-heart-of-jesus/

Book review on Half the Sky, at PrayTell

2010-06-09T09:33:00.000-05:00

http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/06/09/summer-what-were-reading-wednesday/

"A wedding custom of the Indian Thomas Christians," at PrayTell

2010-05-26T13:34:00.000-05:00

http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/05/26/a-wedding-custom-of-the-indian-thomas-christians/

Eucharistic thoughts, at three on PrayTell

2010-05-02T21:07:00.002-05:00

http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/05/02/eucharistic-thoughts-at-three/

For those who enjoy my son's precocious musings.

Thomas and Julie playing together

2010-04-25T23:19:00.001-05:00

This is the cutest thing I've ever seen that's on youtube, but astoundingly, it's probably not the cutest thing I've seen this week.

Felicitous diction 1: No, It's Not Going to Start With Jane Austen.

2010-04-20T00:28:00.006-05:00

Now that I'm (snicker) a professional blogger, I need some more blogging discipline. And since the audience here is way more homey and less critical, I think I'll warm up my blogging discipline at the expense of my friends. And since it's hard to justify blogging about my academic obsession here (since I'm obliged to it there), I decided to do something off-the-cuff.

Hence, a new (daily? it could be daily! we'll have to see!) series: Things I Like To Read. See that carefully crafted thematic territory? You don't? Well, I said off the cuff.

Part 1 of the series will focus on one of my pets about literature: felicitous diction. I go crazy for felicitous diction.

The funny thing about really spine-tingling word choice, for me, is that I sometimes don't notice a writer has it until the second, third, or fifth time through a novel. But if it's there, I usually notice it in spades once I get past the third reading. I'm probably going to concentrate on one book at a time here, just introducing a representative example and explaining why it is, to my ears, felicitous diction. At the end I'll explain why felicitous diction is so key to my literary appetite.

1.1: No, It's Not Going to Start With Jane Austen. (But Yes, It Will Probably End There.)

Why not Jane Austen? Well, because it's fitting (for Deep Thematic Reasons that are totally half-baked at this time, and perhaps even because it's off-the-cuff) to start with felicitous diction in some of the earliest books I remember reading. Yes, children's literature.

I actually didn't have as many memories of picture books as some other people I know, before I had my own kids. I'm certain I could count on one hand the books I really remembered something of (and yes, that counts Dr. Seuss). The two that have memorable, felicitous diction are not, as one might expect, catchy poetry. They are poetic, but not poetry.

The Poky Little Puppy. The funny thing about this choice is it's hardly anything but felicitous diction, from "Five little puppies dug a hole under a fence and went for a walk in the wide, wide world" all the way to "No desserts EVER unless puppies NEVER dig holes under this fence again!" For me, at least at age 3 or 4, it was not the story (such as it was) that kept this treasure going (and I wore it out). No, it was that one line:

And down they went to see, roly-poly, pell-mell, tumble-bumble, till they came to the green grass, and there they stopped short.

Why (in retrospect) was this felicitous diction? Well, it has alliteration and assonance in spades, complete with some complex alliteration in the repetition of p- and b- sounds. It had enough familiar words to clue me in to the meaning ("roly", "tumble") but one completely opaque set ("pell-mell"). And the rhythm of it sounded like overeager puppies bouncing down a hill: beginning with liquids and a little bump, continuing with the short abrupt bouncing of "pell-mell", and finishing with a fully satisfying "tumble-bumble".

I actually remembered this phrase at 27 and bought my son the book anticipating reading him that exact phrase. It never disappoints.

Pray Tell: Mandatum novum

2010-04-01T12:44:00.002-05:00

Mandatum novum: Holy Thursday at St Augustine's Church in Gainesville, Florida

In which I reminisce and reflect pretty much at random.

One moment

2010-03-21T22:26:00.002-05:00

Sharing with someone from another culture can make you see things in a new way. We had Japanese exchange students staying with us this weekend. They were wonderful and we had a great time together -- it's hard to believe that Friday I didn't know either of them.

Today, at the park, watching Julie play in the sand, I tried to explain to them why Matt kept looking at his cell phone. "The health care bill," I began, "they're voting on it today."

"Uh?"

I looked to Matt for help. "In Japan, you have, uh, universal health care, yes? Everyone can get health care, no matter whether you can pay for it or not?"

"Uh, yes?"

"Well, we don't have that here in America. Some people here don't have health insurance, and they can't afford some kinds of medical care."

Gasps. "Ohh! Really?"

"They -- our Congress? -- they are voting on it today. They say, 'yes, health care!' or 'no, no health care!'"

"Everyone? Everyone votes?"

"No, no, Congress. We vote for them, and then they vote for everyone."

"Oh." They look thoughtful. They look over at Matt, who's now following the dog across the park. The conversation drifts, and I think about how big the world can be.

One new

2010-02-24T23:58:00.002-06:00

Fun
Originally uploaded by kim belcher

Juliana's birthday party, which we had at Mongo's Grill in St Cloud, was a blast. I didn't do much planning ahead this time -- I didn't even make reservations -- but everyone had a great time, the food was excellent, and things were very low key. (Just right for my girl.)

Julie loved having a party, especially getting a bunch of attention from a lot of her little friends (see the other pictures on Flickr). I made the cake: a polar bear wearing a dress to match Julie's (which I found at Once Upon a Child). Thomas picked out some clothes to match it too! He made her a photo mat which I'm planning to fill with this photo. Maybe I'll take a picture once I have it printed and mounted and post that here too.

One old

2010-02-24T23:38:00.007-06:00

I was looking at some older pictures today and was suddenly struck by this one, from July, because Paci's expression, attitude, and posture here are almost exactly like the very first time I saw her, in the humane society. I think she was sitting, not lying ready to spring up like that, but the combination of intelligence and readiness really struck me. She really looked at me just like this, like we knew each other. Look at those eyes and ears. You know you would have taken her home too.

"A hunger for the fast" at PrayTell

2010-02-18T00:30:00.002-06:00

A brief reflection on the Ash Wednesday mass I attended this evening:

http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/02/18/a-hunger-for-the-fast/

PrayTell post on medieval Book of Hours available for viewing online

2010-01-25T10:56:00.002-06:00

Not much I'm offering but a link over there, but here it is anyway.

http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/01/25/catherine-of-cleves-prayerbook-available-online/

My first post on PrayTell

2010-01-07T10:14:00.001-06:00

The “Santa vigil” and principles for engaging young Christians in liturgy

Is this a good way to let you all know I've made a post over there, or would you rather I remained silent?

New liturgy blog organized by Liturgical Press

2010-01-05T22:09:00.002-06:00

I thought it best to announce here my presence on a brand-new liturgy blog, Pray Tell. The blog is cosponsored by St John's School of Theology • Seminary and Liturgical Press.

The blog is intended to be a moderate blog on the liturgy whose contributors are well-informed of liturgical history, theory, and practice. It is inspired by the liturgical movement and by St John's place in that movement. I do not know what it will eventually become, but I invite you to come share in its becoming and find out.

A thought on copyright protection

2009-11-30T12:20:00.003-06:00

You all know I'm interested in copyright and its limitations.

Every semester I end up asking students if I can use their papers, essays, or assignments as an example for my future classes. Almost every time, they agree wholeheartedly but choose to be anonymous.

I think it's interesting that they are more interested in contributing to the common good (and in the affirmation of their work that it entails) than they are in getting credit for it. This also means that no one has to feel singled out or embarrassed. Ideally, at least.

The primary motivation for creative work is to find readers for that creative work.

Picture interlude

2009-11-07T15:57:00.003-06:00

Some great new pictures of the kids.

They went as Boowa and Kwala (kinda) for Halloween. Boowa and Kwala are from Thomas's favorite website. Julie pulled off her Kwala ears almost immediately, so she's really just a duck, but Thomas still thought she was Kwala.

Leaves are, apparently, amazing.

Full length of Julie's cute new dress.

Love.

After all that, this is no wonder.

Immunology for three year olds

2009-11-01T22:49:00.005-06:00

Friday I had to take Thomas to a doctor in the twin cities. The ped specialty clinic there (where he goes for cardiology) was offering H1N1 vaccine for very high risk patients, so we were fortuitously able to get it. Unfortunately, Matt had reassured Thomas that this doctor visit would not include shots, so I had to explain to him why exactly we were getting one after all. I suppose I could have resorted to bribery, trickery, or because-I-said-so, but instead I decided to try science.

Not just science, of course. Science and storytelling.

"Well, did you know you have these munchy-munch cells in your body that like to eat germs?"

With seasonal monster impressions, I acted out the mission of these cells -- a term we conveniently left undefined, as I'm not sure Thomas is ready for cell theory -- to find all the cells in the body that are Not Thomas. When they find a cell that's Not Thomas, they know it's a germ, so they gobble it right up -- nom nom nom nom. But sometimes these cells need a little help knowing what kind of cells they're looking for, so we have medicine that gives them a heads-up about new germs that they might need to eat.

He was so enchanted by this cool fairy tale going on inside his body that he first declared that his shot "didn't hurt at all anymore," then clarified by stating that it was still working. We ended up play-acting germ-eating cells at Pizza Hut with a puppet I improvised out of a treat bag and his candy that he got that evening. (Puppet asks: "is this a germ?" Thomas says, squeaking with half-joking, half-real indignation, "No! That's my candy!" "Are you sure -- nom nom nom..." Squealing giggles.) I think half the kids in the restaurant were either covertly or overtly watching this. So now I know how to explain the rest of his vaccines. Too bad it won't work on Julie yet.

Unfortunately, Thomas woke up today with a fever. I hope we didn't get that flu shot just a bit too late!

When I explain to Thomas these days, I'm astounded by how much he already knows. I already feel like we're just "filling in the gaps" -- we're grouting, not tiling, in his surface of world-knowledge. He can pull out relevant detail to fill in absolutely everything we try to tell him about, either from his real-life experience or from books. Amazing.

Happy birthday?

2009-10-12T13:06:00.002-05:00

My birthday is such an ambivalent experience. Every year it's full of fragmented, terrible, involuntary memories of that day that I almost lost my son. Moments when I almost made the wrong decision -- the things that could have happened. The light I accidentally ran on the way to the hospital (did this make the difference?) -- guilt over the moments before I realized there was something wrong (how could I have taken him out to breakfast?) -- the conversation with Matt about the hospital -- the deep embarrassment that I was surely overreacting -- the terror of the trauma room -- the dimly remembered days of uncertainty -- my hands, strangely empty without him, on the back of the cold pews in the church down the street from the hospital. The taste of fear.

I can't quite escape it even now. I felt guilty about leaving Julie at day care today. Even though I know she is fine, I am irrationally worried about her. She wore the same coat to school that Thomas wore to the hospital three years ago. We have unseasonable cold weather just like that day. I shouldn't have let her out of my sight.

That way lies madness, and I know tomorrow will be fine.

Turning 30 doesn't make me feel any older. It's that 27th birthday that is still aging me.

Baby days

2009-09-06T22:39:00.003-05:00

Julie's growing up so fast that sometimes it feels like her babyhood is slipping away -- or falling off, maybe, shed like skin. Just in the past couple weeks she's started creeping, getting on her hands and knees, and rocking. She's fascinated by everything and can play happily with almost anything for 20, 30 minutes. Tonight she sat in her high chair while I sang her nursery rhymes and cleaned the kitchen. I put coins and tiny toys in 3 of her hospital 2.5 oz bottles and let her shake them and throw them on the floor. I was putting the dishes away, singing,

"Thomas put the kettle on,
Thomas put the kettle on,
Thomas put the kettle on,
We'll all have tea.

"Julie take it off again,
Julie take it off again,
Julie take it off again,
They've all gone away."

Every time I got to her name, she'd look up and grin at me. Thomas, meanwhile, (who by the way is in love with this version of Mother Goose, and has some surprising favorites, including the above rhyme, undoctored (and further by the way the Old Mother Hubbard rhyme in that book has some chokingly funny art)) is taking a bath. He's practicing for upcoming swim lessons, trying to put his whole face underwater even though he's always been terrified of water on his face. He's missing the song, but he makes it out to play Julie's game with her, picking up the impromptu rattles every time she drops them.

Julie has a favorite bedtime book now too -- it's Bear Snores On, one of Thomas's all-time toddler favorites (good gift, godparents!). Sometimes all three of us sit in the rocking chair together and read it; sometimes it's just me and Julie while Thomas is in his own room having his own nighttime ritual. The poetry of Bear Snores On has always made it one of my favorites, and there are a couple of points that already make Julie giggle out loud, as she's patting the book, hard, with two hands, in that "doesn't know quite how to make the individual digits move separately" way she'll lose so soon.

After this book and a song, she'll often go right to sleep on her own -- a feat Thomas still has only replicated a few times. They're so different!

In food, too, Julie's "infant days" seem to be ending. She eats lots of foods now. She's funny in that a few times she's eaten a whole bowl of food, while making a weird "ehh" face at every bite. So far she's had apples (yes, delicate pink!), sweet potatoes, pears, and a little bit of peaches, as well as cereal. I also have some local beets and green beans frozen, even though she probably won't be ready for those foods for another month.

One thing we never thought to do with Thomas was to give him Cheerios to play with while we ate long before he was able to actually pick them up. We've been doing this with Julie and she's hilarious -- through incredible, diligent, and constant effort, she usually manages to grasp one between her finger and thumb over the course of our meal. Then she brings it up in front of her face and stares at it, puzzled. She will furrow her brows a bit, as if she's wondering why she's done this, and then painstakingly move her hand off the high chair tray, and drop the Cheerio on the floor, where Paci has been patiently waiting. Julie seems to think that this is her task and the purpose of all these Cheerios, like isn't it nice of mom to let me give Paci all this dog food. She has not once tried to put a Cheerio in her mouth.

Speaking of which, the other thing fun about this stage is that we have finally achieved fully mutual dog-baby adoration and fascination. Julie watches Paci constantly, and intermittently tries to follow her (unsuccessfully, but not for long). She's also learned the trick -- and if you're a microbe-phobe, you may want to skip this sentence -- of smearing her hand in her food and holding it down for Paci to lick.

Today while I was sorting things in Julie's room she was playing on the floor and managed to rock, roll, and creep her way to an adamantly not-baby-friendly box of stuff. Catch-all box, one of those ones full of things I don't need but haven't made time to sort and throw out. I was right next to her, so waited to see what she'd do with the stuff. First, pencils. I've never seen so much excitement about pencils. Did you know you can hold them at this end? And that end! And you can wave them. And roll them on the floor. And scrape with them. And turn them around and around. And -- hey, this box makes a nice noise when I shake it. What are all those shiny things in there? I'm going to get one out. Got -- no, it's -- well, this is good enough; what is this thing?

She took things out of the box and put them back, never tiring of the rattling sound it all made, until I was sick of cleaning the room and took her with me to find out what was happening downstairs.

And all this happened today.

New school

2009-08-28T08:38:00.002-05:00

Thomas is at his last day of orientation at Montessori school. He's been so excited that he doesn't remember to say goodbye to us (so much for separation anxiety!). This morning he got out of the car and grabbed his teacher's hand, who noticed he was chewing the last bite of his breakfast -- which he had to eat in the car due to a temper tantrum over my only making him half as much as he wanted.

"Bye, Thomas, have fun today!" I told him.

He turned to face me and hesitated a moment. He thought about running back over to give me a kiss and a hug, but he was on his way to Class, in a bit of a hurry here give him a break. Then he thought about telling me some variation on "you too, mama," but he's been in what I think of as a "sophisticated speaking phase," meaning that he won't say anything unless he can say it like a grownup would. So this would mean he would have had to say, "Bye, mama, you have fun today too!" and possibly, that would not have satisfied his stringent requirements for sentence complexity. In any case, his mouth was still full of peanut butter and jelly on toast. So he altered his design.

"Ok."

Then he turned and ran up the steps.

Thomas's birthday pictures

2009-08-23T00:53:00.003-05:00

I am way, and I mean WAY, overdue for some picture updates. People want to see the new place, but I can't take the pictures they want to see because all the cameras are full.

(Which is really a relief because it gives me a chance to try to make the place presentable before I take them. So far we've bought some furniture, and today we eliminated one pile of boxes. But in any case.)

I'm starting with the pictures from Thomas's birthday party: they're up on Flickr now.

We started out at an Italian restaurant on Navy Pier, where Thomas got to make his own pizza (his toppings: red peppers, his new favorite vegetable, mushrooms, and sausage). He did a great job topping the pizza, but was too excited to eat much. The rest of us got cavatappi with mushrooms in gorgonzola cheese sauce. Yummy.

We then went to the Children's Museum, where Thomas got to build a house with Matt. I had to come along and add a strut so it didn't fall down. He also got to draw with sidewalk chalk and play in a huge water playground, and a bunch of other things. It was a cool museum and an ideal place for a birthday party, because it was easy for all the kids of different ages to spread out and enjoy themselves.

By the time that was over, Thomas was falling asleep on my shoulder, but he desperately wanted to ride the Ferris wheel -- it was really the selling point for the whole birthday plan. We let him sleep while we stood in line, and then I talked and talked and talked at him as soon as we got close. Astoundingly, I managed to wake him up for the seven minutes of magic in the Chicago sky.

A birthday to remember.

I suspect these are less than half the pics. More coming in the future; keep an eye on the flickr set if you're curious.

Edit to add: Also, this. At lunch.

A happy halfer

2009-08-13T22:17:00.004-05:00

Happy half-birthday Julie!

Julie turned 6 months old yesterday (had her first visit at her new doctor's office, which I like). Her present didn't come in until today: a Svan high chair. She loves it! She started banging on the tray with both hands as soon as we put her up where she could sturdily sit and see everything! And I love it because it's incredibly well-designed and well-made.

We're planning a little celebration this weekend: Thomas is going to help us make her first baby food, and we're all going to have cake. More pictures when I get my cameras' memory cards free again...

The secret is...

2009-08-08T22:49:00.003-05:00

Thomas and I made raspberry shortcakes for dessert tonight. He was a bit ambivalent about the raspberries; "those are spicy," he announced when he saw them on his plate. He never really ate them (I think he doesn't like the texture), so I was trying to negotiate getting them myself after he was done gobbling up the sweet biscuits.

"Could I have one of your berries?" I asked.

He looks them over, apparently trying to decide. "You can have..." his finger drifts. "Actually, you can't have all of these."

"Can I have one of them?"

"No, you can't have any of my berries, but you can have some other berries."

This is the point at which Matt, holding the baby and trying to fend her busy fingers off his ceramic bowl, blatantly reaches over and drinks about half the orange juice out of Thomas's cup. Thomas apparently doesn't notice, involved in negotiations with me.

"I guess the secret is not to ask first," I say significantly, looking at Matt, but Thomas pipes up.

"No, the secret is, if you want orange juice, you can drink it out of my cup," he says with a wicked grin.

Matt and I both break out laughing. "Boy, he doesn't miss anything." He laughs gleefully at our appreciation. But I can't resist looking for more abuse. "Oh, is that the secret?"

"Yeah." Begins his sing-song: "Whoooo waaantts orrrange juuuice?"

"I do."

"Okay."

"Can I drink it out of your cup?"

"No, but you can drink it out of the orange juice bag!!!" Cackles with pleasure.

So I waited till he went to bed to nick the last five berries off his plate. Mom always wins.

Playtime

2009-07-09T15:19:00.003-05:00

Julie is in that squirming on the floor mode. I put her down on a blanket while I was grading. She wiggled and squirmed until she had turned herself 90, then 180, then 270, then 300 degrees, made an adorable little coo (pleased with herself, I guess?), and then instantly fell asleep.

She's asleep on the floor now. Guess I should put her to bed.

Excerpts on infant baptism, 1

2009-07-07T12:49:00.002-05:00

Some excerpts from my dissertation reflections, in honor of Juliana's upcoming birth in Christ.

On the litany of saints (this one's for Andrew):

The next appearance of the infant's name is (possibly) in the Litany of the Saints, where it may appear as the name of the child's patron saint. Once again, this acknowledges the particularity of this infant, the concreteness of his or her personal identity, while relativizing it with respect to the Christian community -- no longer limited to the assembly but recognized as "all holy men and women." The name which designates the child in his or her uniqueness is not unique -- it belongs to the child alone only by being given in the context of this community in which it has previously belonged to another. Christian names are second-hand.

I requested that they include Bl. Julian of Norwich and St. Benedict in the litany on Saturday. I hope they do.

Ready for stand-up

2009-05-19T22:28:00.003-05:00

Thomas, Kylie, Julie, and I went to dinner on Friday. Thomas was, even for him, in rare form. On the way home we had this humorous conversation, begun when someone cut me off by driving in the wrong lane:

"What are you DOING?"

Thomas: "What you talking about, mama?"

"Oh, somebody's being stupid driving."

"Who is it?"

"It's nobody we know. I hope."

"Why you hope?"

"Well, I don't like to think people I know are stupid. I like to think that the people I know are pretty smart."

(Pause, doubtfully)

"You know Eric, mama?"

I can't make this stuff up.

Seed starter

2009-05-11T22:32:00.003-05:00

This time of year I long for a garden -- anything from micro to macro. I always start with seeds.

The first time, it was because Matt and I were getting through the summer on the tail end of one graduate stipend. We needed a vegetable garden to eat the way I like to eat. Seeds were cheaper!

Now, I go and pull out the seed packets and the tiny expanding peat pots by choice. I love seeds because they want to live so bad. When you sprinkle those dry grains onto the squishy soil pods and see tiny white shoots flying out the next morning -- even from those hopeless seeds that fell into the bottom of the tray where there's no soil -- you realize the power of the gospel metaphor.

"Unless a grain of wheat should fall to the ground and die, it will remain a single grain..."

The only thing they need to live is water. I get to provide that -- a privilege indeed.

Pwayer

2009-05-01T22:17:00.003-05:00

Thomas was hyper at bedtime tonight.

"I want to pway, mama."

"If you're not tired, you can play with your animals in your bed, but I'm not going to stay in here, because it's time for you to sleep."

He just looks at me like I'm insane.

"I want to pway."

"Thomas, it's not time to play, it's time to sleep."

Stares at me again.

Holds up his bear, the two hands pressed together.

"I just want to pway!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, kiddo, I'll pray with you. I didn't understand you."

I'm a terrible mom!

"You want to pray the Our Father, since we already did a 'Dear Jesus' prayer?"

"Yeah."

Mom: "Our Father, who art in heaven..."
Meanwhile, Thomas: "Rrr Fader, ... heaven. Baby sister nananaygoggoo --" (breaks off suddenly)

"Jesus is holding baby sister."

"He is?"

"Yeah. In his arms. That's why her heart is getting better."

I so don't deserve this kid.

Gee, thanks

2009-05-01T19:43:00.002-05:00

Matt and I got a retirement account balance today.

"Expect to be working a long time," he says.

"I'm an academic. I'll never retire!" I respond. "We don't really retire, we just become emeritus."

"Yeah, that's true. You just stop teaching -- or stop teaching well."

"Hey!"

"Just telling you my experience."

Chemist's cookery

2009-04-29T10:34:00.004-05:00

Why don't I put recipes on here more often?

When my mom was here I was throwing everything into the pot. "This is measuring, see. If I do it slowly and pay attention while I pour stuff, it's 'measuring,' even if I don't know exactly how much there is, right?"

Matt, behind me, shakes his head. "I thought you were a chemist!"

Kylie says, "That is how chemists cook!"

Yes, listen to Dr. Barker. I am vindicated!

Luckily, my mom wanted a recipe I made, so I wrote down something rather similar to what I made before I forgot it all:

Favorite Vegetable Soup:

3 onions
2 Tbsp olive oil
1.5 Tbsp minced garlic (I used the stuff from the jar)
3 carrots
3 stalks celery
1 c red lentils, washed
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp dill
1/4 tsp rosemary
1 Tbsp smoked paprika
salt (1-2 Tbsp?) and pepper (to taste)
1/2-1 c light cream
feta crumbles (optional; can substitute plain yogurt)

Chop onions, carrots, celery into medium-sized pieces. Saute onions in garlic and olive oil until translucent. Add lentils and stir into hot oil for about 1 minute; add carrots and celery and stir. Pour in tomatoes and 7 cups water. Bring to a boil while adding spices. Boil for about 45 minutes. Blend to desired smoothness and still in cream. Garnish with feta crumbles. Makes a very hearty meal soup.

2009-04-28T13:08:00.002-05:00

The scholastic doctrine of the revival of sacraments has me picturing the Holy Spirit as crouched outside, ready to spring into our hearts as soon as we leave the door ajar.

Anecdotes of parenting

2009-04-16T11:01:00.005-05:00

I asked Thomas the other day what he wanted to do when he grew up.

"Cook! I'm-a cook soup like mama."

Seems pretty safe. I wonder if he wants to do laundry too?

***

I had to take Juliana to Thomas's daycare for the first time on Monday when I picked him up. His face lit up. "Baby sister is here!"

All the little kids lined up on their knees in nice neat rows to peer into her carseat. "Don't touch the baby," his teachers warned.

"I get to touch her," Thomas objected, looking at me.

"Yes, you do," I agreed, "because she's your sister. But your friends are just going to look."

Julie loved looking at all the kids faces, one by one.

"She looks just like Thomas!" one of the older girls said.

"She looks like me," one of the boys said. (This is the same boy that calls me "mom" and Matt "dad". We have no idea whether he does this with everyone's parents.)

***

On the way home from school today, "Message in a Bottle" came on the radio.

"This sounds like Rock Band!" Thomas yelled.

Triduum

2009-04-11T09:29:00.003-05:00

One of the things I love about the great liturgical feasts is that they are the one time, as western Catholics, that we allow ourselves to screw it up.

I don't mean, of course, that the liturgies aren't beautiful -- nor that we should stop trying to make them beautiful. But the Triduum is one time that we are all doing things we're not accustomed to doing, and so we tend to do them like we would do them at home. We bump the chairs. We spill things. The altar servers aren't sure who's supposed to go get the candle or where it should be. By the end of the Vigil homily, even the priests are tired.

Thomas came with us to the Holy Thursday mass, and wanted to see the footwashing. We told him we could go home anytime, since it started at bedtime, but he'd been asking for the "When Jesus walked on earth and we could see him" (my "New Testament story" opener) stories all week and the foot washing was his favorite. He cruised through the bilingual liturgy of the word (not so good at the Vigil, but who can blame him there?) and, as soon as the guys started bringing the chairs, was riveted, too fascinated to even answer my "Do you like it?"

They bumped the chairs out onto the dais and had to mess around a little to get them all lined up properly. Then the people came out and fiddled their shoes and socks off. Our priest came out with his basin and the server brought the ewer. The deacon handed each person a towel. The water ran out about half way through the line and the server went to bring a new basin and ewer, then staggered under the full one until the seminarian hurried over to take it out of his hands. Father Paul continued to progress down the line and Thomas continued to hang his chin just over the edge of the frontmost pew on his tiptoes. People began to pull their shoes and socks on, and eventually Father Paul stood up and the parishioners went back to their pews. The ushers came forward to take the chairs away, and suddenly Thomas began to protest.

"Lots of people left! He needs to do ALL the people!"

Whispering wasn't correcting this misapprehension, and Thomas was exhausted, so I offered to take him home and explain what was going on. I had a burst of inspiration.

"Thomas, all the people need their feet washed, but Father Paul is done. Now it's your turn." Gee, aren't I cute, I think. A two-year-old's homily. But I had more effect than I expected.

When we got home, "Daddy! Daddy! I wanna wash your feet!" Matt, who was home with Juliana, blinked at us. "I wanna wash your feet!"

Thomas runs out of the room with a water bottle, filling it at the sink before running back to the kitchen. He reemerged dragging a dining chair -- boy, he really was paying attention! -- and had to be persuaded that the chair Matt was already sitting in would work fine.

He came in with his water bottle and his little dishpan and started to wash Matt's feet. Too bad he only put cold water in the bottle. Very cold water.

Sometimes the rituals are better if we allow ourselves to do them a little bit wrong. After all, this is the season when God broke into the world, through a great gash of wrong, to save it.

I didn't get one!

2009-04-06T09:01:00.006-05:00

Yesterday a day came that I've been dreading for at least three years.

It started out so well: we went to Palm Sunday mass, and Thomas was paying very good attention (for a two-year-old, that is). We talked about the entry to Jerusalem ahead of time, and although he was disappointed to hear that there wouldn't be any donkeys at church, he was interested in the palm leaves. He paid good attention through the procession and even followed along with a good bit of the Passion reading. (I was pointing the pictures out in his picture Bible and whispering the important words.) Despite the length of the Palm Sunday mass, and the fact that it started right before naptime, by the communion rite he was still gamely hanging in there, sitting in the aisle so he could see what the priest was doing and murmuring to himself.

When it was time for communion I showed him how to hold his arms across his chest, and we went forward. By the time we got back to the pew, he was in tears.

"Why didn't he give me one? Why didn't he give me one? I didn't get one!"

This is the one question about the liturgy my time at Notre Dame hasn't prepared me to answer. I'm just left here in my own pain, saying, "Why doesn't he get one?" And I fear that by the time five more years have passed, he'll be left with an indelible impression of his exclusion from the Lord's meal.

The eucharistic celebration shouldn't leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth.

Ada Lovelace day

2009-03-24T11:25:00.003-05:00

This post is dedicated to my daughter, who is named after Ada Lovelace. May she do whatever she chooses with all the power and grace of the many women I know in technology.

Last week I was driving Juliana to the hospital when suddenly I thought to myself, "I miss dancing the mergesort."

Now, this may not make a whole lot of sense to some of you. Merge sort is a computer algorithm that efficiently sorts items. Matt could tell you how efficiently it works, but he's never danced it. I have.

My friend Tanya, as well as having her Ph.D. in CS, is one of the most creative people I know and really devoted to teaching. (It's a good combination for a computer science prof, don't you think?) One day, deciding she could "make algorithms fun" for elementary school students, she choreographed a dance to illustrate how mergesort works. But she didn't stop there (like I would have, if I'd been lucky enough to have such a cool idea myself): her passion was such that she managed to inspire eight normal, introverted, busy grad students to get together once a week to learn and practice this dance and then to perform it!

Occasionally, when I'm struggling to put a class together in a way that doesn't bore even me, I'll think about this experience. So far, I've never had the creativity or the guts to dance my theology course, but it's definitely made me think about how teaching methods are only as limited as my passion and my imagination. So thanks Tanya, and happy Ada Lovelace Day.

2009-02-12T21:24:00.000-06:00

Hard to add anything to that.

She's beautiful and doing well!

25 things about me

2009-02-05T15:59:00.001-06:00

I've been tagged on facebook twice, and this seems like the kind of post I might actually be able to complete right now.

1. I start things and never finish them. I started with this in the hope that admitting it outright might mean I actually post it even if I can't think of all 25. I am trying to work on this personality ... quirk.

2. I am a "messy house person," and most of my closest friendships have been with other messy house people. I sometimes wonder if this is significant.

3. I got certified to scuba dive when I was 12. The weekend I certified it was in the 40s. Back then, I thought that was cold.

4. At one point in high school I wanted to be a journalist. One of my friends from school newspaper now writes for the Chicago Trib's Red Eye. Later I decided I'd do chemistry instead. One of my friends from that class is now finishing her Ph.D. in chemistry at Northwestern.

5. I didn't decide to go into theology until I was 4 credits short of my chemistry degree. I had no idea what I would do if I didn't get into the ND theology program.

6. I'm lucky enough to live with my two best friends. One of them is about to turn 30, the other's not yet 3, but they're both thoughtful and fantastic companions.

7. My dog's pretty great too. Her full name, according to Dave, is "Nuestra Senora de Paciencia Jose Maria Conception Immaculata." Or something like that. I always forget the details.

8. My son wants to name his sister Paci, after the dog. This too is Dave's fault.

9. My dissertation director knows the day and month I got married (which was before I met him). Once he was introducing me to some well-known theology prof friend of his and he mentioned the day.

10. Contrary to my expectations, having a child with a serious and chronic health condition has made me less, not more, of a worrywart. I don't understand this.

11. When I'm bored, especially when I'm walking somewhere and I wish I was already there, I count. Sometimes I count in eights. Sometimes I just see how high I get. Surprisingly, this has turned out to be a useful parenting technique. Thomas could be mesmerized by my counting to him on the changing table by the time he was eight months old.

12. My mother-in-law taught me a little about decorating cakes when I was engaged. I now know just enough to be dangerous.

13. This is pretty typical of my approach to hobbies.

14. I know almost every line of every Jane Austen book ever published (except Northanger Abbey, which I like least and therefore have never owned).

15. Not only do I read the books, I also read literary criticism about Jane Austen and a few other favorite authors for fun.

16. I dislike most TV and am slightly hostile to movies. I've always been ashamed of this, but have never overcome it.

17. I told one of my dissertation committee members that Julian of Norwich was my favorite theologian. He was a lot less shocked than I expected.

18. I wish I got to make more jokes about theology, but I'm rarely around people who would find them funny.

19. When I got pregnant the first time I was terrified that I would have a girl and very relieved to find out it was a boy. This time I was thrilled to find out the baby was a girl. This shows how much better I've gotten over the past three years.

20. I really admire my dad. He never gives advice, but there are a few observations he's dropped about life (literally only a handful... about 5) that I think about all the time and that have made a huge impact on how I think and make decisions.

21. When I was little I used to look down from the high diving board and tell myself, "It'll be fun when I hit the bottom." I'm surprised how many times since then life has made me think of that.

22. When I was in high school I worked as a telemarketer for eight days. I hated it, wrote an essay about the experience, and won a $500 scholarship. This means that overall I got paid over $20 an hour for that job and developed a lasting phobia about making phone calls to people I don't see often. I'm not sure it was worth it. Matt is tired of ordering the pizza.

23. The one thing I've always dreamed of doing with my life is writing novels -- not just novels that sell (in fact I don't care about that) but ones that change how people think about life. Books have always been shaping how I think about life, and I want to participate in that.

24. This is the one dream I've never tried to convert into a career. I was too afraid to do it -- and now I've found another love.

25. My middle name is Hope.

Prayers please

2009-02-05T15:12:00.001-06:00

I don't like being every doctor's most interesting medical case.

Note to hiring committees...

2009-01-01T21:11:00.003-06:00

..."we do whatever the law requires" is not a selling point.

Due to a shocking combination of grace, coincidence, the good word of my mentors, and hard work (always the most shocking component), I ended the job search season with two offers. I was surprised and (very) pleased and was able to take a job I'm extremely enthusiastic about.

There was one part of the job search process that amused, annoyed, and, eventually, infuriated me, however. That was exploring the maternity, family, and emergency leave policies where I interviewed. This was interesting to me for a lot of reasons. A couple of my friends have done research on family-friendly institutional policies and their effect on women's academic careers. I went to both my on-campus interviews visibly and unmistakeably pregnant, and I was upfront with everyone about having a 2 year old. Most importantly, however, I'm a parent of a kid with a potentially serious chronic health condition, who was hospitalized and endangered as an infant. I know exactly how much a family medical emergency can impede academic work -- I estimate I was set back at least 9 months by mine.

At the first place I interviewed, I explained this experience and asked about their family leave policies. The chair responded, "We do everything the law requires." His tone implied that this was something to be proud of and that I should be fully reassured by his response. Not terribly impressed, I asked about tenure freezes. "That's covered under the law." No, it's not, I said. "Oh, it definitely is." Eventually I was told that the university was "very family-friendly" and then breezily assured, "Anyway, you don't seem like the type that would need to take time off for maternity leave!"

With the implication being, I suppose, that if I did seem like that type they wouldn't be interested? In the context of my having explained taking time off to care for my sick newborn, this hit me with frustration and unease. To make matters worse, the assistant provost didn't know any more than the chair about the university's policies. No one seems to care.

The next institution was very different. One of the people on the hiring committee met me at the airport and visibly noticed my condition. I volunteered my due date, etc. and she cheerfully told me a lot about their policies in the car on the way to the university. The provost and one of the other women in the department repeated and elaborated the next day. There was no feeling of stigma -- in fact their paid leave for maternity is exactly equivalent to the partial research grant they offer periodically, which makes it seem more sanctioned. The policies were adequate (not European but much better than most American jobs), but the sensation was much better.

This didn't make the decision for me -- far from it -- but I have to say, "we fulfill the law" isn't much of a selling point.

No (new) paper Christmas wrap

2008-12-19T10:23:00.003-06:00

Due to a combination of environmentalism, thriftiness, laziness, and creativity, I set myself a challenge this year: no unused wrapping paper for presents of giftees over the age of 10. The one exception is a gift of Matt's I wrapped before I made this resolution. The result of this challenge has been, interestingly enough, not only a lot of unusual Christmas wraps, but also a lot of fun Christmas art project time for Thomas. I did a lot of fairly obvious things (reuse bags and paper, etc), but these are my favorite projects so far:

I used a glue stick to glue together extra handouts, printouts of talks, and miscellaneous interview material for this year. Then I put the white side up on Thomas art table before we painted the Christmas ornaments we made. The parts that weren't then covered with paint and glitter I drew simple Christmas shapes on, and Thomas scribbled them with marker. He was really excited about making gift wrap, and then wanted to wrap the presents. I think only my dad will be interested in my handouts, but office paper makes surprisingly neat packages.

Last summer Thomas and I dyed a bunch of silk scarves with food coloring. They came out with an interesting marbled look (probably because I made a mistake: my favorite arts are the ones where mistakes turn out pretty). I tied a green one around my mom's photo book. She's a grandma, so this counts as an extra present (toddler art!). Then I used some leftover undyed ones to wrap my step-brother and step-mom's gifts, and attached a tag with the dyeing instructions. They were so much fun I might intentionally make some extra scarves this summer to use as gift wrap next year.

An extra tote bag from my Germany conference for the gift purchased in Germany, a Chicago map tote bag for my mom's gift, and some extra stockings.

Save handmade toys from indiscriminate regulation

2008-12-13T23:44:00.005-06:00

This year I picked up a few sets of these adorable felt-board-ready story-telling images from crafter DJ, of Nodin's Nest on etsy.com. I'm really looking forward to giving them to Thomas and watching his imagination run wild with them.

These are the Pirate and Food sets; I also have a Tea Party set floating around in the Christmas box somewhere. Besides these, DJ sells Christmas ornaments, soft stuffed toys which are whimsical and delightful (there are stuffed tea sets!), and some other unusual things. Go check them out and buy something, because starting in February, DJ's home-based business may be illegal. That's when a new law goes into effect which requires that all toys be batch-labeled and independently tested:

The United States Congress rightly recognized that the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) lacked the authority and staffing to prevent dangerous toys from being imported into the US. So, they passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August, 2008. Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and requires toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number.

All of these changes will be fairly easy for large, multinational toy manufacturers to comply with. Large manufacturers who make thousands of units of each toy have very little incremental cost to pay for testing and update their molds to include batch labels.

For small American, Canadian, and European toymakers, however, the costs of mandatory testing will likely drive them out of business. [From the Handmade Toy Alliance website]

Thinking about this law in the context of DJ's lovely sets reveals how incredibly idiotic it is. These things are paper; what's great about her work is the fun images she's found, the bright colored cardstock they're on, and the fact that they come in collections that have variety and continuity. They can't be batch tested; each piece is unique. So they'll be impossible to sell once the new law goes into effect -- even though they contain no more dangerous chemicals than Thomas's books or Wild Animal Baby magazine.

This blog is entirely devoted to photos of more unique toys that will be unsellable in the US after the new law goes into effect, and this page tells you some things you can do to help make sure the law is revised to exempt small, safe toy manufacturers. So go follow a link or two.

Rosary making

2008-12-11T21:09:00.002-06:00

I decided it is time for Thomas to receive his first rosary. He can say (or mumble) most of the Our Father, is interested in the Nicene Creed (he gets the last word of most lines if he hasn't totally lost it by that point of the mass), and has liked hearing me sing the Hail Mary for him at bedtime. He loves beautiful things and is particularly excited about a Thomas Aquinas medal I had put on a beaded chain in honor of his birth (I wore it to the hospital).

When we were in Germany I thought about buying him a rosary, but I never saw one I really liked. I've made rosaries before, but this is my first classic-style, metal-component rosary. You can see I'm almost done with the third decade. You can also see my messy, messy desk. What you can't see is the Christmas music (some 12 days or more of it, on shuffle) that's playing in the background.

Despite my liturgically incorrect love for Christmas music during Advent (hey, O Come O Come Emmanuel is on there somewhere!), I'm finding rosary making to be an exquisitely appropriate task for the season. It might be contemplative action. It's slow, tangible, rhythmic. You have to keep your mind, and your eyes, on what your fingers are doing. It's a delicate task: I get better at closing the rings as I work at it; but close works, and each ring is slightly different. It's a physical manifestation, a realization, of my faith and my desire to share that faith with my son. It's also a sign of my faith in my child: in his ability to make this mystery his own.

Growing up, I believed in Santa Claus, who played a huge role in how Christmas was ritually arranged (how presents were chosen, bought, stored, and given; the plan and timescale of Christmas eve and Christmas day; the music and the stories). I also believed in Jesus Christ, who, in my household, played a lesser role. Despite the gap between these two mythic narratives, I always sensed the superior power of the nativity story. It had a great hold over my imagination, implanted, as far as I can remember, by a little exposure to the Bible and a great love for traditional carols. I really felt, I think, the great glory and beauty of the God of Creation becoming a tiny child because of his love for humanity, all because of those generations of people who, inspired by the story, composed and wrote and played and sang it.

Now, I can contemplate that mystery in a much more well-informed, but probably no more profound way, as I feel and see an artifact, pointing to that mystery, taking shape in my hands. It happens gradually, a few beads at a sitting. I can't yet see the finished piece, but I'm working towards it anyway.

Perhaps Mary felt this way, creeping towards Bethlehem, as she felt the new life stirring in her body and wondered Who He, who Is Who He Is, would be.

Busy

2008-12-02T22:51:00.001-06:00

The theme for the week is, minimize, minimize, minimize, and put things off until it's too late to worry about it.

On teaching

2008-11-23T23:28:00.003-06:00

I'm not sure there is anything more humbling than -- while discussing, in a class full of students I love and respect, what the meaning is of individual vocation and how it fits into roles, categories, and changing some of what's wrong with this crazy world -- having one student ask me what my opinion is (I usually try to evade this question) and as I begin to answer, watching a dozen students pick up their pencils to take notes.

I'd better work on living an answer as well as thinking one.

Spinach dahl

2008-11-06T21:09:00.002-06:00

It's been a while since I've had a recipe post on here. Mostly I've been too busy to cook. But tonight we had something worth repeating, and since I never measure while I'm cooking, I'll never remember how to make it again if I don't post it here.

It's adapted (liberally, as usual) from this recipe on allrecipes.com, which I use quite a lot.

1/3 c butter
1 large onion
4 large cloves garlic
1 red pepper
4 cups broth/water (I used 2 cups vegetable broth, 2 cups water)
1 cup lentils (I used 1/4 cup French green lentils, 1/4 cup black lentils, and 1/2 cup brown lentils for variety)
2 Tbsp garam masala
1 Tbsp ground ginger
5 oz (one largish box) fresh organic baby spinach
1 can coconut milk

1. Rinse lentils and soak for 20 minutes or more. Slice onion thinly; mince garlic and chop red pepper. Start basmati rice in rice cooker, if desired.
2. In wok or deep saute pan, melt butter. Saute garlic and onion together over medium head until onions are soft, clear, and just starting to turn golden. Add red pepper and cook 2 minutes.
3. Heat broth or water in microwave until near boiling. Add to pepper and onions. Add lentils, garam masala, and ginger. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Uncover and mash or taste a lentil. If soft, add spinach and coconut milk, stirring over low heat until coconut milk is incorporated and spinach has wilted. Serve over rice or with naan.

On the election

2008-11-05T00:39:00.006-06:00

All day, and contrary to my general hopelessness and resulting reticence about the political realm, I've been thinking about the possibility of Obama becoming my next president -- and my first president: not only the first one I ever actually voted for, but the first one that I thought would care about my opinions.

I have been thinking, with awe and gratitude, about the enormous victory this is for the soul of the American people, in finally electing a black president. For several weeks now I've been reflecting on this powerful symbol that racism and intolerance might have an expiration date. What I realized today is the incredible sign this represents for the enfranchisement of the other disenfranchised people in this country: the young, the poor, the disillusioned.

Through his incredible speaking, his campaign's commitment to and dependence on broad-based and personal appeals, and most of all through his real faith in the American people, Obama has inspired millions of people like me who were not only apathetic about, but actually hostile to politics and its power. Certainly his election is only the beginning of the change I can believe in -- but it does give me hope.

I find this videoto be, oddly, an epitome of what this campaign means for the future: it's a hack, a mashup of a mashup of a speech; it's shared on youtube. It was unsolicited, done by a bunch of young people merely because they wanted to, because they'd been inspired, and in turn it's inspired thousands more people. It's genuinely inspiring because they were genuinely inspired; it's a creative response, not merely politics according to the usual patterns. It's making a difference.

Somehow, somewhere in his past, Barack Obama got the idea that if he channeled his inspiration with thought and energy, instead of following the usual patterns, he could change this country and possibly the world. Now he's passing that on to millions.

If politics doesn't have to be as usual, maybe I can change my patterns too. In the future, I'm going to try to participate in the process not just by voting, but by looking for opportunities to motivate minds and hearts. Whatever differences in policy Americans may have, I hope we can all agree on that change.

Serendipity

2008-10-21T21:22:00.003-05:00

The universe is conspiring... in my favor?

With all the attention I've been getting recently about my work at Mar Thoma, I was starting to worry that my dissertation would never really get out of that big black cover at ND -- although I know I should just be worried about getting it into that cover at this point. But in any case I was concerned that the interest I was getting was for the project, not my work, and that I'd never get my other projects off the ground.

Now I have two initial interviews, at my top two school picks. This week I've heard about two conferences and a collaborative volume that are soliciting proposals on concepts that are central to my dissertation work.

Both the conferences are within 15 miles of my apartment. So even though they're both in the spring, and I have big and unalterable plans for the spring, I might be able to go.

And finally, I should be submitting revisions this week.

I sure hope the universe only has this one shoe.

Yes I did

2008-10-07T13:31:00.001-05:00

Chapter 3 did in fact go to my advisor, along with (somewhat outdated) revised versions of chapters 1 and 2. Fixing that broken chapter (and its counterparts in chapter 2) has taken me almost a year.

Home

2008-10-07T08:32:00.002-05:00

It says a lot about me, I think, that part of my returning home ritual of resettling was scrubbing my teapot (which is usually covered inside and out with tea stains) until it was squeaky clean. Too bad I don't have the same drive to clean the rest of the house!

Final draft of chapter 3 today, I hope.

Highlights from Germany, pt 1

2008-09-28T12:46:00.005-05:00

Sleeping on the plane was not a highlight, and struggling to get to Munchen does not deserve mention, but we have had some highlights:

- An unbelievable breakfast at our hotel, which though really ridiculously expensive, was pretty amazing. It was an "American" breakfast which included Pfannkuchen (sort of between pancakes and crepes, filled with a sweet cheese and folded in half), muesli with yogurt, wiesswurst, bacon, fried and scrambled eggs, and some other things I've forgotten (but who cares, with what I've named)? Thomas liked the Pfannkuchen a lot and also ate two bowls of plain yogurt with jam on the top (the first in a tiny cup like an ice cream cone that was edible, but he got bored with that and just wanted more yogurt). Thomas loves plain yogurt. It's pretty remarkable.

- The Englisher Garden: Thomas can point to the place on the map of Munchen where we saw the ducks. A German girl came up to ask Matt and I for permission to give him a cookie at the (charmingly rustic wood) playground. Matt quite reliably managed, "I don't speak German" in German, at which the girl looked at him with complete incomprehension and repeated herself. I managed to work out the meaning from two words and the context and we gave permission, so Thomas got his cookie. He fell asleep on the way to the Chinescher Turn. I parked his stroller, coincidentally, in what turned out to be the front row for the arrival of the Hofbrauhaus bier wagon, and managed to wake him up just in time to see the first horse, all tricked out in the regional blue and white. "Do you see the horse, Thomas?" "Yeah, horsey..." and he was asleep again. Today we asked if he wanted to take a nap, and he said, "nap. horsey." I think he thinks that anytime he falls asleep in Germany he has a chance at seeing a horse!

- Lunch at Pommes Boutique in the University quarter. They sell "bio" currywurst, which the server, who spoke very good English, struggled to explain was meat that "the farmer treats well" and Matt and I went "oh!" and realized that although we knew exactly what she meant, there really isn't a nice concise English equivalent. We also had the namesake Belgisch Pommes (steak fries) which come with a staggering variety of choices for sauces, and a crudites bag of great vegetables (to balance the junk food, I guess). I really like just wandering into great restaurants on trips on accident (although this is also how we ate the worst food in Europe, in Florence).

- Watching Thomas watch the rides at Oktoberfest. It was so crowded by the time we arrived, and Thomas and I were so tired, that we didn't spend a lot of time here, but he was entranced by all the action.

- Mass at the Cathedral of Munich (Frauenkirche). Thomas slept through this too, but I enjoyed being able to go to mass here.

- Thomas's favorite part of lunch today was the weisswurst (he didn't have any yesterday). Matt and I have gotten tricky about this. He'll sometimes refuse strange food, but if you tell him it is like something he likes, he gets curious and if you tell him its name, he will then ask for it by name. So we told him it was "sort of like white hot dogs," (he only just started to like hot dogs) and then he tried it and liked it quite a lot.

- After lunch Thomas started thinking about home. He's definitely homesick, and he wasn't feeling well (although we didn't realize this for a little while). So he rode through the old town of Munchen saying, "I miss Paci, miss Paci. Poor Paci. Poor Paci. Poor poor Paci." When we realized he was hot, we brought him back to the hotel, where he took some Tylenol and slept for a couple more hours. He seems to be doing better now.

- Thomas wanted pizza, so I searched and found a pizza place right down the street. They were clearly amused by the internet order to deliver to a hotel room one block away, and the man seemed thrilled by the novelty. He wouldn't take a tip and told me the menu was a "souvenir" with great enthusiasm. The pizza was awesome, way better than room service and cheaper than we could have gotten an equivalent pizza for back in Chicago (even after exchange rate!).

New pictures, including a few of Munchen, here.

Thomas's Great Adventure party

2008-07-26T17:56:00.006-05:00

Last weekend we had Thomas's Great Adventure Party. I was inspired by the thought that he's growing into "storybooks" and bought him two books -- Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby, a beautiful take-off on the gingerbread boy story, and Stephen Kellogg's Jack and the Beanstalk, a rather traditional rendering with dreamy imagery. Then I planned the party theme from those two books. (He actually got a lot more books, of course, but those were the theme-makers.) Thomas helped me make his poster ahead of time. Yes, that is a picture of him climbing the beanstalk (he was opening a door).

Thomas is loving the books. He made me read Gingerbread Baby 5 times in a row during his party. Here's one of the many.

He would only be persuaded away from the book by Indian food. This is a funny story. He was excited about his birthday ahead of time because he has been watching an episode of Word World where Dog has a birthday. He helped me plan his party. He wanted a "blue hat," "books," and "rice." When I asked him what kind of rice, Chinese or Indian, he said "Inyun." It turned out to be harder than I expected to get an Indian restaurant to deliver to our house, but we finally finagled it out of one place because it was a large order:

Thomas also loved playing with his Lego train set. I think we all spent an hour of his party doing that.

Finally the cake. I had my heart set on ice cream cupcakes, since I made them for Dave and Eric's joint birthday celebration and really enjoyed the novelty (and the ease). But I wanted them to go with the theme. So I made gingerbread cupcakes, using the "soft cookie" recipe on the gingerbread box and just filling 1/4" of the cupcake liners (silicone, I'm thinking of giving away all my muffin tins now). After I baked the cookies, I froze them and then let some Edy's Vanilla Bean ice cream defrost. I scooped the ice cream till it mounded. Just before we served them, we sprinkled Wilton's Gingerbread Boy giant sprinkles on top, in red and brown. Thomas thought it was so exciting that he was reading about gingerbread, eating gingerbread, and could see the gingerbread boys on top.

The cupcakes really turned out well. The soft cookies have a better consistency when frozen than the brownies did (they turned out to be too dense) or than cake (I always feel like it tends to get mushy). Here are the mandatory cake photos:

All in all, it was a very satisfying party for everyone. I don't think I've ever seen Thomas have more fun.

Happy 3rd year of adventures, Thomas!

Rules for life

2008-07-25T09:19:00.002-05:00

Thomas gets rules now. A few weeks ago he got rules and so understood that if he did this again, he would get the same reaction out of mom and dad again. That was really frustrating. Now he's moved on to getting rules and knowing that if he doesn't do this again, mom and dad will be pleased with him and he can talk to them about it. This has led to a lot of new sentences being of the "NO [verb]" type around here. Or "NO [word that stands in for a verb]". Or occasionally "NO [sign]". Accompanied by a great deal of head shaking.

"NO. No bite. Dada. No bite. Mama. Vava. NO. [smacks lips] Blue." (The much-abused blue crayon.) "NO. No hot."

This formation also works when the topic is something he doesn't like. Today I tried giving him grapefruit juice. He drank it and said "Yuck!" To do him credit, then he drank it some more, pointed at his tongue, and said, "Yuck!" So I offered to get him another kind of juice, which he was happy about. I went and got some apple juice and gave him his "new. juice!" and after a couple of sips he pointed to the kitchen and said. "NO. No yuck!" That cracked me up, so we both sat around saying "no, no yuck" for a few minutes.

This strikes me as a good rule for life. My goal today is to have a no yuck day.

Indirection

2008-07-11T15:05:00.002-05:00

I was walking back to the car from Thomas's daycare this morning and I saw a woman approaching walking a beagle. Middle-aged woman, black, bandanna over her hair, trying to persuade her beagle out of the fascinating bushes and along the sidewalk to whatever their destination was.

When I lived in Urbana-Champaign I would have smiled and nodded at such a woman, said hello or made a comment about the grizzled dog's puppyish behavior. In our neighborhood there, everyone knew everyone, and if you didn't know someone, you knew you were bound to know them sometime, so might as well make small talk.

In the city it's a little different, and the woman wasn't meeting my eyes. So I did the only possible thing. I smiled at her dog, because it was charming and she loved it, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her smile at her dog too.

It was enough.

The difference is

2008-07-03T23:39:00.003-05:00

The difference is a polished
blade, edgewise to the eye.
On one side gleams the sun
of time, and on the other
the never-fading light,
and so the tree that stands
full-leaved in broad day
and the darkness following
stands also in the eye
of Love and is never darkened.

The blade that divides these light
mirrors both — is one.
Time and eternity
stand in the same day
which is now in time, and forever
now. How do we know?
We know. We know we know.
They only truly live
who are the comforted.

- Wendell Berry, Given p. 77

Some days I know that we are those trees, standing in the dark, in a light we cannot perceive.

Some days I only hope so.

Power and authority

2008-06-26T23:27:00.011-05:00

Thomas is starting to question our authority. We end up in some kind of power struggle with him much more often than I like. He's curious about discipline and has been putting himself on timeout because he thinks it's interesting (??). Of course, he also deliberately does exactly what we just told him not to do to see what we'll do. This would be just annoying, except that generally when we've outlawed something it's because it's either dangerous or fragile. (As Matt says, "I only say no if it could hurt you or you could hurt it.") Until the last couple of weeks, we could pretty much rely on him not to do something if we explained it was dangerous. Not now.

And then there's this.

Wednesday night he refused to go to sleep in his own bed. (He likes to try to get away with this by offering to put his pillow in the bed with mommy and daddy's pillows -- as if what makes it our bed is our pillows' residence there. We live on their sufferance.) He eventually fell asleep around 11, and woke up at some point during the night and climbed into the bed with us. So there he is Thursday morning exulting over getting to sprawl in the exact middle of the big bed. Sadly, he does try to do this during the night too, moving Matt and I out of "his space" in the middle. The very first thing he does in his sleep is turn horizontally to maximize how much space his body requires.

I also cut his hair last weekend. Here's the before:

And here's the after:

Plenty more pics in the gallery.

Participation as a spiritual discipline at Mar Thoma

2008-05-15T11:09:00.002-05:00

Just a quick post. I was not crushed by my grading responsibilities -- I passed Teaching 101 (although one of my students failed :-().

I just want to share an excerpt from my Syro-Malabar paper, to be presented in Heidelberg this fall:

The following answer on the questionnaire expresses the conviction [that participation in the liturgy is a skill which relates directly to ability to commune with God] perfectly: “While saying prayers and singing . . . is a major part of [participation], in the end I feel it is the physical, mental, and spiritual mode one maintains that places them in a spiritual union with the Body of Christ that is the Church and Christ that works through the Church.” [Answer to the question “What does it mean to participate in the Qurbana?” received April 10, 2008.] Compare this with Marcel Mauss's observation on body techniques, quoted by Asad: “I believe precisely that at the bottom of all our mystical states there are body techniques which we have not studied, but which were studied fully in China and India, even in very remote periods . . . . I think that there are necessarily biological means of entering into ‘communion with God’.” [Marcel Mauss, "Body Techniques," quoted in Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion, 76.] The questionnaire answer suggests, similarly, that ritual techniques consisting of physical and nonphysical actions can conduce to a spiritual experience marked by a perception of divine presence.

I can't get over the phenomenal liturgical and theological sophistication revealed in that boldfaced quote. Granted, this is one of the older youth I interviewed; nevertheless, his response is mostly more articulate than the other answers I got -- it's still representative.

What a lovely project I've been blessed to be able to do.

End of the semester

2008-04-30T21:31:00.001-05:00

It's a terrifying fact that in my spreadsheet of class grades, my highest total percentage right now is 38 point something. No, my students aren't failing -- I am.

I have a lot of work left to do before May 12th.

Worten

2008-04-12T11:22:00.002-05:00

An update on yesterday's post:

Two days ago, Thomas's "book" was sort of like "boo-t." Last night, though, he had a sudden influx of German influence, and has been saying "buch" with a nice sloppy wet ch sound. Also "mulkkkk" with the same sound. Ach!

Words

2008-04-11T10:40:00.003-05:00

Thomas is learning words too fast for me to remember which ones are new. He says one new word every day -- at least, one new word I can recognize, although there's a lot of clearly-meant-to-be-intelligible semi-babbling.

This week: "Bubble," very clearly, pointing at a big soap bubble in the bathtub, followed by huge grins and ecstatic laughter and clapping at his own ingenuity. It's his first clear B-word, and he's been repeating it at intervals just to hear us say, "Yes, bubble!" and laugh with him.

"Poop," said when he had gotten poop on my pants during a diaper change. Not quite so thrilling, but such is life. He was evidently disturbed by this matter-out-of-place. Social conventions are becoming clear to him.

"Book." My husband told me last night he had said this, and I only then remembered that he said it last weekend, too (though not as distinctly as "bubble").

It's a continual pleasure to see how eagerly he's pursuing these tiny pearls of language. It's been hard dropping him off at daycare in the morning -- for me, not him.

I love fieldwork

2008-03-31T09:51:00.006-05:00

Yesterday I was at Mar Thoma as usual, but I was giving out questionnaires on Qurbana experience to the youth. I got 62 surveys back and did one interview of a young CCD teacher who got so emotional talking about the East Syrian rite that she started trembling and forgot about the meeting she was supposed to go to.

A girl in my friend's 9th grade class diffidently asked me for my autograph after she had filled out the questionnaire. Bemused, I ended up writing in the front of her CCD notebook thanking her for her help with my research and invoking God's blessings on her. Her answers to the questionnaire were really wise and beautiful.

A young man who just got back from five years in India started teaching me Malayalam. (I had to work hard to make him believe I actually planned to learn it, first.) Nandi!

Today I'm tabulating the results and looking for correlations between the young people's birth place, command of Malayalam, and preferred mass and their way of speaking about the experience of worshiping in the Syro-Malabar rite. I'm having a blast.

I actually think that the reason I'm enjoying this so much is very similar to the reason that Michelle likes washing mugs: each questionnaire, with its handwriting, its unique phrasing, its biographical information, and its futile attempt to constrain the spiritual life to a few brief lines, gives me some insight into the complexity of the wonderful people I've met at Mar Thoma and their relationship to their unique and beautiful liturgical tradition.

Structured procrastination

2008-03-14T13:46:00.002-05:00

I was remarking today on how many important professional things I've gotten done in the past couple of months since I stopped working on my dissertation. I've taught my first class (a whole world of impossible demands in itself), updated my CV, applied for a grant, submitted important proposals, begun working on a totally new article for possible publication, and sent a bunch of emails to strangers about important matters that I would normally agonize over for months (in this case, I instead only agonized over them for weeks).

This is not because I've suddenly become a productive person. It's because I'm letting my dissertation atrophy, and I have to do something useful to keep myself from overflowing with panic about it. I found a highly entertaining article about this phenomenon:

The ideal sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don't). Second, they seem awfully important (but really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks. In universities the vast majority of tasks fall into this category, and I'm sure the same is true for most other large institutions. Take for example the item right at the top of my list right now. This is finishing an essay for a volume in the philosophy of language. It was supposed to be done eleven months ago. I have accomplished an enormous number of important things as a way of not working on it. A couple of months ago, bothered by guilt, I wrote a letter to the editor saying how sorry I was to be so late and expressing my good intentions to get to work. Writing the letter was, of course, a way of not working on the article. It turned out that I really wasn't much further behind schedule than anyone else. And how important is this article anyway? Not so important that at some point something that seems more important won't come along. Then I'll get to work on it.

Maybe this is why they make me write a dissertation, so I'll get all these other things done. Maybe it's all a ruse, and in the end I won't have to finish it?

Please?

Little helper

2008-02-29T23:15:00.003-06:00

Tonight Thomas helped make dinner for the first time. Back in December, he and I made gingerbread cookies, but he "helped" by stirring powdered sugar in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon and then smashing the rolled-out dough with his fingertips. It was fun, but he didn't understand the process.

Tonight, he got to make pizza! Granted, it wasn't totally from scratch. We bought a ready pizza crust and I made the olive oil and garlic sauce and spread it on. Matt and I chopped the toppings -- but Thomas got to add them himself. He sprinkled the mushrooms first, then the broccoli, then the artichoke hearts, and finally the feta cheese (this is a favorite pizza combination for me that's very, very hard to order). After a minute, he even got the idea that we wanted it to be spread evenly, and we ended up with a pizza just piled with yummy things. It was beautiful and overloaded, and I was so hungry by the time it was done that I forgot to take a picture of it for this post.

Thomas has been eating better lately if we make food at home. He likes to watch the process of cooking and know what's going in the pot (or the oven). I think the smell gets his appetite up too, as he keeps running over and pointing and smacking his lips while everything cooks. Today we turned on the oven light so he could check on the pizza and watch the top beginning to brown. He ate a little of everything, and a lot of crust, feta, and broccoli, but he didn't really care for artichoke hearts. Such a disappointment -- they're one of my favorite vegetables.

This is a good start towards Thomas being as much of a chef as Barnacle Boy. I love it.

Teaching glee

2008-02-29T10:37:00.002-06:00

I was pleased with my students' performance on my first-ever midterm exam, but grading the essays has been tedious, a tedium that occasionally falls into frustration at hitherto-unsuspected misunderstandings of key material.

The high points, though, are astonishingly high. After grading a few in a row of "good essay, but it could be better" (I mentally categorize before I think about point values), I hit an essay where every line was clearly revealing the student's excellent understanding of the topic and its connection to the course. I found myself muttering, "Yes, yes... YES!" and I wanted to send a personal email thanking the student for studying so hard. (Of course I won't.)

I can't decide if this is teaching or if I'm nuts.

The continuing saga of gazelles

2008-01-14T14:46:00.000-06:00

In a development that is fascinating even while sad, Thomas is now afraid of gazelles, period -- and has qualms about anything that looks (or sounds?) like a gazelle.

From the toy I mentioned before, his fear first spread to a picture in his bestiary. This book is a perpetual favorite. It resides near the potty and can entertain Thomas for a long time. But it has a picture of a gazelle in it. After the Terrible Gazelle Incident, Thomas looked a bit askance when I named the gazelle. He seemed to get more and more nervous about that photo over time. Now he can't even handle having the book open to that page, he just keeps pointing nervously to the gazelle over and over.

His fear has developed further, though. Not only is he worried about the gazelle picture, he is now fearful of the photos of deer and raindeer in the book too. My mom got him a raindeer in a rocking chair toy for Christmas. He is terrified when it starts to rock and doesn't like to see it, period. It's in the entryway hanging out with the gazelle now.

My dad's family got Thomas a set of hand puppets and a theater. He loves them all -- except the giraffe! He's frightened of the giraffe puppet and we had to move the box it was in out of his room. I'm not sure if it looks like a gazelle to him or if he's nervous because of the similarity of sound. In any case, he's not a fan of herbivorous plains dwellers from any biome.

Ready for a dunking

2007-12-07T20:55:00.000-06:00

I received my first moleskine for Christmas. It wasn't marked a gift so I opened it already, oops. I'd try to be sorrier if this didn't mean I can use it to take my research notes home with me.

My last research notebook was pretty but didn't stand up to the kind of hard usage I'm known for: every kind of bag, taking notes while pumping milk, a weekend under the car seat before it gets refound, reviewing the contents in the bathtub... I think this one will. I've wanted one ever since I saw Nathan's, but didn't dream they were reasonable until Michelle's post.

Just to prove I'm ready for the other sort of dunking she mentions, I also took a photo of the tea area Matt recently set up for me. (Look how lost his poor little coffee pot looks!) Wish it was this clean now!

Toddler fears

2007-11-25T23:17:00.000-06:00

Thomas is starting to be afraid of things. It's interesting to see the logic and survival advantage of some of his fears -- and the random insanity of others.

A while back I worried on here about how to get him not to touch the radiators. He put his hand on one accidentally a couple days after they came on, just for a second. He wasn't burned, but he was frightened. Now, about twenty times a day, he points at the radiator in whatever room he's in and says, "AAAA!", looking at us. We say, "Yes, that's hot. It's a radiator. We shouldn't touch it," and he confirms this: "AAA!" Very seriously. Like he wants to make sure we know to watch out for that thing. It's scary, mama. Don't touch it. Occasionally he wobbles unsteadily from room to room, pointing out each of the radiators in turn: "AAAA!" Good survival fear, right?

On the other hand, about two weeks ago he was starting to get pretty dry overnight in his room and the cheapo humidifier I bought last winter wasn't cutting it. Matt did a ton of research and bought him a nice one online. Warm mist, automatic something, humid-de-whatsit, and a lot of other nice buzzwords. It really is great. (I want one for our room now.) But the first time we set it up we set the humidity setting wrong somehow and instead of shutting off when it got to 40 percent humidity or whatever we thought we'd set it at, it just kept going. It humidified at an alarming rate! In fact the warm mist condensed on the ceiling and ran across it, where it dripped all over the room.

Naturally, sleeping in a tropical rain forest (recall that it was also 85 degrees) came as a surprise to Thomas. He woke up and one of us retrieved him to go back to sleep in our bed. This is a normal occurrence so we didn't think much of it. We put him back to bed after he fell asleep and he woke up again. It wasn't till I went into his room to sleep on the floor (he likes this) that I realized I was being rained on. Then I noticed that Thomas's bed, being under the runoff zone for the aforementioned ceiling-river, was very wet. At that point we adjourned to the adult bedroom for the rest of the night.

Now, ever since that night Thomas has been ambivalent about sleeping in his crib. He'd rather sleep on the mattress on the floor of his room (if he can't have our bed, that is). We're thinking about taking the crib out for good and letting him have his bed on the floor for a trial and see how it goes. But that wasn't the point of this post, was it? No.

The point of the post was the next day, when I tried to put Thomas down for a nap, he suddenly started screaming. I couldn't figure out what was wrong and I pulled out all my normal mama tricks to reassure him, but it just wasn't working. Suddenly I realized he wasn't just screaming, he was screaming at something, something in his crib. It was a stuffed gazelle, part of the mobile that hangs over his bed. I picked it up. He wailed and pointed at it. I offered it to him, gently (this is how we've been handling new fears -- occasionally he just takes the thing and stops being afraid of it). He pulled his hand away. I had to take it away and hide it. Then put him back to sleep. I told Matt I thought it had fallen into his bed when the water was dripping all over him. Maybe it hit him, or maybe he blames it for his bad night. Totemic magic or something.

Ever since then, whenever he sees the gazelle he freaks out. But he's also obsessed with it. I can't just take it away, because he follows me and tries to find it. He wants to keep it in sight. Even the week we spent in San Diego didn't make him forget: Friday I accidentally left it somewhere he could see it, and when I tried to hide it in our closet he climbed on the bed and kept pointing at the closet and shrieking. Finally I had to take it out while he was watching, carry it to the front door, call him over, open both doors to the outside, and heave it into the front yard, locking the doors firmly behind it. Then I told Thomas it had gone away, and let him look out the window to (not) see it.

I brought it back in when he wasn't looking and took it to the basement to wash and store it. It accidentally got brought back up and Thomas found it again yesterday. We had to give it the same treatment. Beware the stuffed gazelle!

Self-indulgence or self-care?

2007-11-13T22:16:00.000-06:00

Well, Thomas's heart looks good, but not quite as good as last time. His cardiologist is being cautious and didn't take any medicines away. Luckily Thomas really likes his medicines.

As anyone who's been a Ph.D. student or a mom, not to mention both, will know, I've been a little frazzled lately. Between the job market, the dissertation, the toddler, and the inevitable householdish tasks (which I hate, can I stop living in our world now and go live in one where things Just Work? where you don't have to call the insurance companies to find out why they both refused a bill they're both responsible for and the landlord's gas doesn't get shut off, so the dryer has heat?), I've been walking the thin line between sanity and... well, we all know what's on the other side of that line.

Friday I had an icky day, nothing major, just no end to the minor frustrations, together with the continual major frustration of knowing I was within a couple hours of having that draft ready--a couple hours I didn't have! Matt brought me home some dried apricots and chocolate covered almonds. I'm embarrassed to record here for posterity how many there were, but I will admit I finished them all by Monday.

Today was another yucky day. I was a little disappointed in the cardiology result (he's doing so well, clinically speaking). Worse, Thomas was terrified when they put the electrodes on him to do his EKG today. He's always loved cardiology appointments in the past -- they are a children's hospital, so there are lots of kids and everybody makes a huge fuss over him. But now he is a toddler and suddenly scared of things. The electrodes scared him so then he didn't want anybody to touch him the rest of the day. Except me, thankfully. His cardiologist is great -- knows this age and his personality and was very gentle and talked to him respectfully -- and once everybody else left he did reluctantly let her examine him and even smiled at her. And she is not worried about the echo results so I won't worry either -- at least this is what I keep telling everyone and myself. I miss Amy.

So tonight, between pushing myself so hard lately and this unfortunate day and no caffeine all day -- I was too busy to make tea this morning and had neither cash nor time to get anything at the hospital -- I was drained by the time Matt got home. He sent me to bed. ("Go lie down!" is something you can usually only get away with saying to your dog.) I made myself a cup of chai with milk and more sugar than I usually put in a whole pot, and lay down to reread one of my theological fantasy books.

That got me started thinking -- what is the line between self-care and self-indulgence? Does it only start to be self-indulgent if you aren't grateful?

I'm grateful. And I'm also grateful for this time right now, which I'm using to upload three whole months (yikes!) worth of pictures, mostly of Thomas, to our gallery. Since there were so many, there are updates in a bunch of different albums -- it's like a scavenger hunt! Enjoy.

Oh, I forgot to mention my brush with fame in one of my favorite blogs. What extraordinary talent or quality of learning does my newfound (and no doubt shortlived) notoriety rest on, you ask? Why, knowledge of outdated internet memes, of course!

I live to serve the internet.

i think i did it...

2007-11-13T01:06:00.000-06:00

First three chapters. To advisor. That's a hundred and [mumbles] some pages.

Hopefully I can do my mid-course review now!

I was so proud of myself I let myself play two hours of the Sims 2 Pets. I was so messed up in the head by the end of that that I decided to make a couple roommates who fall in love the first day who are all dressed up to match their dogs. The guy has whiskers on his face, like Halloween makeup. They're going to be dog breeders. What a weird family.

Now I'm really, really tired. But I did it! Maybe tomorrow I'll try to reflect on where I am now. But now, too brain dead. Sleep. Good night.

Oh! I take Thomas to the cardiologist tomorrow. Prayers for reduction of medicines are rising like incense...

Unnapping

2007-11-04T09:52:00.000-06:00

Thomas took an anti-nap last night. He woke up about 12:15. I nursed him back to sleep and he woke up as soon as I set him down. I cuddled him back to sleep and he woke up as soon as Matt put him down. Matt rocked him back to sleep. Et cetera.

He ended up staying up 3.5 hours, having his diaper changed, getting an extra snack, going to the bathroom, playing with his toys, and just generally causing mayhem and having a grand time. Matt stayed up with him and I went to bed, and eventually fell asleep again, which is good because I have an observation this morning.

I'm so hoping this won't become a habit.

With the beautiful people

2007-11-01T14:38:00.000-05:00

I have a job interview (!) at this year's AAR so I had to go get a suit. There's a seven-floor (!) Macy's one block from Thomas's daycare so I went after I dropped him off. I can't believe how many kinds of clothes one can buy, if one is so inclined. I wasn't. But I did get a nice outfit for my interview. And although it took several hours, it seemed less tedious than shopping usually does. I guess I must be excited about this job opportunity! Plus where the beautiful people shop (Water Tower Place), all the salespeople are always there to answer all your questions, tell you the jacket's too big and whisk in 60 seconds later with the three next smaller sizes. It's partly flattering and partly unnerving.

Where the beautiful people shop? They have a wide selection of 32DD bras. Wow.

Now back to the dissertation.

Another barley risotto recipe

2007-10-13T21:08:00.000-05:00

Tonight I made a particularly good recipe. Should be baby-friendly if the baby has had most of the ingredients. All the meat and vegetables were organic, and local if I could find them. I'm getting a little better.

Bison Barley Risotto: (makes two extremely generous adult portions and enough baby food for about 4 toddler meals)

1 lb ground bison (can substitute beef)
2 Tbsp butter
~3 Tbsp minced garlic
1 quart carton of vegetable broth
~1 cup water
~1/2 cup milk
1 cup dry pearled barley
1 zucchini
2 shallots
3 portabello mushroom caps
spices to taste: salt, pepper, thyme, sage, bay leaves, coriander, oregano

1. Melt butter. Add meat and shallots to pan. Brown meat.
2. Add garlic and barley and saute for one minute.
3. Add broth just to cover barley. Add spices. Cook, stirring, until broth is almost evaporated. Add more broth. Continue this process until carton is empty, about 25 minutes.
4. Add zucchini and mushrooms. Cook until soft and barley is desired texture, adding water whenever risotto begins to stick (about 15 minutes).
5. Remove bay leaves. Add milk, remove from heat, stir and let stand for 5 minutes. Puree baby's portion and serve.

Happy birthday, happy fall

2007-10-12T10:37:00.000-05:00

I'm 28 today. Last year at this time I was worrying aloud to Matt over the phone that Thomas's hands and feet were cold and I couldn't warm him up. He was sleepy and didn't want to eat.

Today Thomas is a bit sleepy but was also energetic and single-minded. I don't anticipate a trip to the emergency room or a stay in the ICU, so this year should be better than last year. Now I have something new to worry about: how to keep him from touching the radiators that just came on yesterday and are unexpectedly hot. (It's like a sauna in here. The sunroom is actually the only room at a comfortable temperature, and I have a sleeveless shirt and a skirt on, with bare feet. Thomas is taking a nap in the nude, sans even a diaper.) Anyone know anything about childproofing radiators? Maybe my former nanny will know something. She's coming to babysit tonight.

While visiting Matt's cousin in Texas, I came up with a new, appropriately fall-themed, family recipe. It should be ok for babies 8 months and up.

Chicken, chickpea, and pumpkin stew: (serves four adults plus baby food for approximately 1 week of meals)

1 cup dried chickpeas, washed, soaked overnight, rinsed, and drained
4 cups low-sodium broth (I recommend Pacific Natural Foods brand low-sodium vegetable or chicken broths, which are much lower in sodium than the average low-sodium broth: I used the vegetable)
2 cups water
5 chicken drumsticks, deskinned (or another cut; dark meat has more iron than white meat)
1 medium pie pumpkin, peeled, seeded, and cut into large chunks
cinnamon and ginger to taste (I used 5 or so sticks cinnamon and a bunch of ginger)
salt and pepper

Put everything except salt and pepper in a large pot. Bring to a boil and cook for about one hour or until chickpeas are soft. Debone chicken and take out bones, then return meat to pot. Ladle out baby's portion and puree to the right consistency for your baby. Add salt and pepper to taste to adults' portions and serve. Baby's leftovers can be frozen in ice cube tray.

Baptism and the prayer book

2007-09-11T21:07:00.000-05:00

Ouch, what a hiatus.

Yesterday was Thomas's baptismal anniversary. I decided it was past time, already, to print out my evening prayer for parents, babies, and toddlers book. It's an adaptation of evening prayer for families that might not be doing the whole liturgy of the hours but would like to have part of it as their bedtime ritual. So I went by the UPS store on the way back from the doctor's office and Thomas crawled around and charmed the salesperson while they printed the whole darn thing.

Then Dave came over and we all prayed it together, after dinner. Thomas banged on the xylophone for part of the time. It went fairly smoothly. It's definitely a lot easier than flipping through Christian Prayer with people who don't know which bookmark to choose next. I also added a very short patristic reading (a la Office of Readings) and this one was on baptism. I've found a couple of typos and some infelicitous expressions in some of the prayers, even after all my care looking it over. But it's nice. I used it again tonight while nursing Thomas to sleep. He seemed to enjoy it. It's all printed out on card stock now and inserted into the page protectors of a scrapbooking album, so he can't rip the pages up, but I can rotate the psalms and readings easily. I like the setup.

One year old games

2007-07-31T21:44:00.000-05:00

I've decided that one-year-olds are cute. At least when they're Thomas.

He's gotten "mamamamama" down. He says it and then he waves at me and grins. Except sometimes he gets it "amma" instead. I'm ok with that -- that's what Indian babies call their moms, I've heard.

His second word was "out." Pronounced "owwwwww... teh." So Matt tells me. He and Thomas were in the back bedroom and Thomas closed the door too hard so he couldn't get it open again (he likes to open and close the doors). Matt says he looked at him very seriously and said "owwwww... teh." So Matt said, "You want to go out?" and Thomas said again, "owwwwww... teh." What a fun "first" word.

Yesterday he invented a new game. I have a pair of drawstring jeans. I hold the string out and wiggle it, saying, "Fishing for baaabies! I'm fishing for baaaabies!" He grabs it between his teeth and I say, "Oooh! I caught one!" He laughs like crazy, letting go, and I say, "Oops, it got away. Fishing for babies!" He liked this so much I had to tuck the strings in eventually to get him to stop grabbing at my legs.

On the other side of my life, I got a proposal accepted for a conference in Germany. Heidelberg, here I come! This is my first accepted proposal.

Happy birthday Thomas

2007-07-29T22:59:00.000-05:00

Thomas turned one yesterday. We had his party at Lincoln Park Zoo.

I'm so very grateful that he is.

We sang "How Can I Keep from Singing" at his baptismal mass, and I often sang it to him as a lullaby. The last verse has, over the months, become more and more poignant:

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,

A fountain ever springing;

All things are mine since I am his&mdash

How can I keep from singing?

Tomorrow, if not tonight, I will be finishing uploading the pictures I have from the party and a backlog of other Thomas pictures in the gallery.

Unfortunately, even in the midst of great joy, there is still great sorrow. Reese will be deeply missed.

The best defense is a good offense

2007-07-23T00:43:00.001-05:00

Before Thomas was Paci, one of the most pathetic creatures in God's good creation.

She's here pictured in her favorite sleeping spot, a couch Matt and I bought second-hand and have been toting all over the US since 1998. She's loved Thomas from the beginning, despite having her qualms

about sharing her couch.

Now that Thomas can crawl, stand, cruise, and grab, and has teeth

the sofa is no longer a safe space for the dog. Thomas crawls right over there, thumping the ground in his eagerness, pulls up, and grabs her feet, crowing ecstatically. Paci jumps over him off the couch, walks to the other side of the room, and lies down again with an exaggerated sigh. If she's lucky, Thomas gets distracted by something else. Usually (because let's be honest, she's the coolest thing going), he crawls over and starts grabbing at her again.

They have this odd exchange. Thomas will grab at the skin around Paci's face. Paci pulls away, quickly, and then lunges in to try to lick his face. Thomas, laughing, will back up and twist away and, as soon as he's free of her tongue, will turn right back and try to grab her skin. Paci is clearly the only possible loser in this fight, since his attacks actually hurt, but she has a good offensive-defensive strategy right now. I wonder how long she can hold on, while I continue the chorus of, "No, Thomas, don't grab the dog. Don't grab the dog, Thomas. Pet the dog nicely, like this. No, don't grab the dog."

Nope, no deep theological reflection this time. Nothing to see here. Move on.

(Gratuitous photos courtesy of Dave.)

Further ruminations on Clare's theology of childhood

2007-07-18T13:03:00.000-05:00

The title of this post is perhaps premature, because, while about two-thirds of the way through Clare's dissertation, I haven't yet reached the chapters in which she contributes her own theology systematically. Nonetheless, some of her positions are evident in the way she presents the other material, of course.

One of the distinctions I really admire: she consistently draws attention to the difference between having certain dispositions, feelings, or relationships and being able to express those in a way that satisfies adults. Reading her work has made me reflect on my experiences with Thomas (who is, of course, just one infant and has a unique personality -- which is, actually, precisely the point, to move away from the sense that "infants" are just empty human natures with no real personhood or agency of their own, as Clare points out in her introduction). The theological virtues of faith, hope, and love are those virtues which theologians argue are denied to baptized infants until they develop cognitively. Yet it seems to me that, on the natural level, the emotions associated with those virtues (which is not quite the same thing, as I'm aware) are precisely what is characteristic of my experiences relating to my infant.

Maybe I should expand on that a bit further. When I think of faith, I think of the infant's unconditional trust in resigning himself or herself into the care of the people around him or her. The ability to fall peacefully asleep in any other human being's arms. Hope: the infant's capacity for fear is balanced by a disposition to be sensorily comforted. If a baby reacts to pain or discomfort by crying, once soothed, he or she is no longer disturbed by past pain. Love: the first human skills developed, after sucking, are social skills: imitation, eye contact, smiling. Infants don't develop relationships as they gain cognitive skills -- or at least, such development doesn't come from nowhere; they are social beings from the outset.

All these things are natural, not theological -- but that is my point: speaking in terms of human nature, babies, as far as I can see, are most evidently persons. It's hard for me to picture how they have been seen as not-personal sacramental recipients for so long, except by remembering that most theologians, until recently, likely had little contact with pre-verbal infants.

Another thing I'm thinking about, and expecting the dissertation to make any page now because I'm quite clearly deriving it from the reading, is the tragic theological danger involved in turning baptism into a dual theological norm. "Adult baptism is and operates thus; but infant baptism can best be seen as so," seems tremendously fraught with theological peril. It's most clearly seen by examining the in-between period. A seven-year-old who is baptized undergoes a modified version of the RCIA (!), but a six-year-old may be baptized according to the "infant" rite (!). Surely, however, a six-year-old child should profess the creed himself or herself, even if his or her parent's faith is still operative in bringing him or her to the sacrament? And surely no church would accept a seven-year-old without his or her parent's consent?

I'd like to further study this in-between stage of rites. And I have more to say on assumptions about infant baptism, but this was all about questions and reflections. I don't need to get into rants in this post.

Children's presence in the liturgy of the word

2007-07-13T14:50:00.000-05:00

Friday afternoons seem appropriate for slightly snarky reactions to serious subjects, and I always find it deeply satisfying to find others incensed by the same things that have been irritating me. Being a professional theologian, a laywoman, and a mother, being incensed is common; feeling vindicated is less common. Today, however... well, I'll quote at length, from the dissertation of a woman who finished her Ph.D. at Notre Dame in 2004. She is speaking of the liturgy of the word during the rite for baptizing an infant.

The introduction to the rite says (paragraph 14)

While the liturgy of the word is being celebrated, it is advisable to remove the children to another place, leaving the mothers and godmothers free to take part in the liturgy of the word, the children being left in the care of other women.

On this Clare Johnson comments:

This is a troubling instruction not only because of its inherently sexist tone, but because it gives the impression that children are welcome to attend only certain portions of the rite of baptism, and those only if they are silent (i.e., are able to conform to notions of "appropriate" or "adult" behavior in the liturgy.) The removal of the baptizand (if the child is disrupting the liturgy with noise or pre-verbal exclamations) from the church during the Liturgy of the Word is a particularly disturbing notion. This instruction reinforces the understanding that the child can receive no benefit from being present to hear the Liturgy of the Word in the ritual of his/her baptism. The needs of the adult members of the congregation in terms of their ability to hear the Liturgy of the Word clearly, take precedence over the possible benefit to the child of being present in the midst of the community into which he/she is being baptized, to hear the Word proclaimed in the context of his/her own baptismal celebration. Even though the child has no cognitive understanding of the words being proclaimed, it is still important that he/she is present when those words are spoken. One learns a language only by being exposed to it. That the child may be deprived of (what may well be) his/her first experience of the Word of God (even though cognitive appropriation of it is unlikely), and deprived of it at the very celebration in which he/she is being incorporated into God's family is a highly inappropriate suggestion, particularly as the only reason for this instruction seems to be to facilitate the comfort of the adult members of the congregation. [Clare Veronica Johnson, "Ex Ore Infantium: The Pre-Rational Child as Subject of Sacramental Action -- Theological, Liturgical, and Canonical Implications", Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 2004, p. 149. Emphases mine.]

As very scholarly fury goes, this can hardly be improved upon. Angry scholars take note! I only have a couple of points to underline: one is that I'd eliminate the "possible" in "possible benefit to the child" -- in a sense the only gift a few-weeks old infant seems to be capable of receiving and fully appreciating, in my experience, is this gift of being present in his or her community, and I agree that it should not be denied them in the context of their own initiation into this community! Also Clare's observation that the language of faith is a linguistic ability that is learned through exposure is very telling. I only wish she had elaborated on that point further.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that Clare had no children of her own when she wrote her dissertation (and in that light her observations are even more amazing!) and that taking an infant to a liturgical celebration can be stressful. Yet I'm convinced (as, apparently, is Clare) that this is, first of all, not the point (after all, as the instructional material associated with infant baptism seems to forget, this is the child's baptism, not his or her parents'). Moreover, most of the stress, in my case, comes from the majorly adult-centered orientation of even friendly liturgies. I always feel the sense that the only "full, conscious, and active participation" recognized by my fellow worshippers consists in seeing and hearing everything perfectly and doing and saying what everyone else is doing and saying. A little freedom from liturgical conformity, a little hospitality towards infants' behavior (not misbehavior) would go a long way towards encouraging children to become first-language speakers of Christianity.

On two bottles of children's aspirin

2007-07-01T00:08:00.000-05:00

The latest thing I've decided to toss for my making space project is two unopened bottles of cherry chewable children's aspirin. These bottles are nearly sacramentals, being the visible sign of a eucatastrophe.

When Thomas was released from Children's Memorial Hospital last year, November 3, he was receiving 22 doses of various oral medications a day. We had a full-page chart just to keep track of which ones he should get when, and plastic bags with the time of day (he had to take them at five different times) with the appropriate syringes inside so we didn't get mixed up, forget one, or give him one twice. One of the medications he was on was aspirin, regimentally, as a blood thinner. He had to take one-half of a chewable children's aspirin tablet once a day, crushed, dissolved in breast milk, and administered with an eyedropper or oral syringe. It was definitely the most time-intensive medicine to administer, although he actually liked the taste, which was something.

At less than $2 a bottle generic, it was definitely his cheapest medication. There are 36 tablets in each bottle, so each one gives 72 doses. 72 days after Thomas got out of the hospital was Sunday, January 14. I went to Walgreens that day to get more aspirin, and bought the three-pack. "He'll be taking these for a long time," I reasoned.

That Friday, January 19, Thomas had a followup with his cardiology team, including a chest x-ray, which they do every January for all their patients, and an echocardiogram. The echo showed heart function just on the low end of normal -- improvement beyond the hopes even of his very optimistic cardiologist. The x-ray tech was a very nice woman; I asked her if I could see the image when she was done (and Thomas was rescued from her chair, which he liked not at all).

When Matt and I saw Thomas's chest x-ray in the emergency room on October 12, we stared at it, silent, stunned and disbelieving. His heart was expanded all the way out to his ribs, and the whole chest cavity was a dull gray cloud.

January 19, though, Thomas's heart was the shapely core of his being, surrounded by a fabulous tree of glowing white blood vessels carrying life out to his whole body. I could hardly be surprised when his cardiologist called me at quarter to ten that night. "I'm sorry to call so late, but I just saw his x-ray," she gushed. "It's so beautiful! Can I put it in my presentation?"

Based on this amazing recovery, Thomas's cardiology team started weaning his drugs, and aspirin was the first to go. Thus, I only used two and a half of the 108 aspirin I bought January 14. Now he's down to two medications and one dietary supplement, some of which they're talking about eliminating at his next visit. And Amy's slide show, to teach the med students at Children's Memorial about cardiology, had a very happy ending.

These two unopened bottles of aspirin are toast. But I'm keeping the open one. I crushed the fourth aspirin in it last week and dissolved it in water to display the first flower Thomas ever brought me. I still have enough in there for 32 more flowers!

Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul

2007-06-29T11:36:00.000-05:00

Today is a very important feast that I usually try to recognize, if only minimally. Three years ago, I was in Rome for the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. Today, alas, I am not. But I am working on my dissertation, so I'll take a moment to share writings of these two great apostles on the sacrament that binds the People of God.

From the first letter of Peter:

But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.(1 Peter 3:14-22)

And from the letter to the Colossians (whose authorship is disputed, but may be Paul himself; I am no scripture scholar, but it is a great passage):

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.

Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.(Colossians 2:8-17)

Happy feast day.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention that I found the first of these through an interesting (though poorly formatted) online essay on the Fathers' writings on baptism. Here it is.

On the breath

2007-06-28T15:51:00.000-05:00

In the Roman blessing of the water in a baptismal font, there's a particularly interesting stanza that I'm looking at for my dissertation today. You'll have to pay attention to the emphasis, so read it aloud.

At the very dawn of creation
your Spirit breathed on the waters,
making them the wellspring of all holiness.

When read slowly aloud, "Spirit breathed" comes out big and bold in the middle of those three lines. Reflecting on that has reminded me of one of Thomas's most surprising habits. It's so surprising to me, in fact, that I don't really expect anyone else to believe me, but I'll write about it here anyway.

It started when Thomas was younger, and Matt, of course, noticed it first. I was staying up after Matt and Thomas were in bed to work on my dissertation, and then I'd come to bed around one or two and lie down. Thomas would be sound asleep, but inevitably (Murphy's law, right?) he would wake up just as I fell asleep and want me to pick him up. This seemed to happen every night, but I pretty much assumed it just seemed that way because I was tired.

That is until the night I was crabby and complained to Matt about it (he, unusually, had also woken when I came to bed): "It seems like he always wants to be cuddled and nurse right as I'm falling asleep!" Very matter-of-factly, Matt replied, "Yeah, he does. I've listened when I was awake as you were falling asleep. As soon as your breathing changes and I know you're asleep, he wakes up and cries. I think he recognizes that breathing pattern and it makes him want to cuddle." I stared at him. "Really?" "Sure," he said. "Remember, he knows your breathing from being in the womb. I'm sure he hears it even in his sleep."

Less surprisingly, it works the other way: if Thomas isn't really sure he's tired, but he's cuddling with me and I fall asleep, he does too, especially if he's lying where he can feel my chest rising and falling.

What does all this mean for the Spirit breathing and baptism? Well, the Spirit has always been the "breath" of Christian identity -- the unexamined, but still disciplined (think about swimmers and singers) root of all Christian activity, the foundation of human communication, the mark of life. Baptism, through that little involuntary "catch" of the breath when the water impacts, captures all this and makes it holy. When we become children of God, we come to be attuned to the rhythm of the waters of creation, the breathing of Christ, through his Spirit.

One might say we begin to return to the womb of Christ, to become enfleshed with him, "one body of Christ," as child and mother share one body before the child's birth. When we breathe, when we speak, we use Jesus' breath. When he holds his breath from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, all hold their breath; as one ancient homily has it, "the whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep."

So all the baptized should listen for the rhythm of Christ our Mother's breath. And we'll all keep breathing.

Am I making space?

2007-06-16T01:19:00.000-05:00

Inspired by Michelle (whose comments here I greatly appreciate), I've been at this throwing-things-away thing for three weeks now. Am I, as I so optimistically named the project, making space?

Externally, probably not so much. It's only five things a week after all. And the number of things I get rid of seems to be inversely proportional to the size of the object under consideration. I threw away a lot of inkless pens, but I could probably have gotten rid of a few dozen more without noticing. On top of that, I'm having a lot of trouble getting things out the door. I've packed up a sizable pile of things to take to SVDP, but haven't managed to get them into the car yet. In the car there's an even larger collection of objects to take somewhere that's been languishing.

I agree with Michelle that the endeavor is symbolic of my spiritual life. And maybe that aspect of it has been the most helpful so far.

At a talk at the conference I attended this week, my advisor advised (ha!) his auditors to get rid of the things in their lives that are "props for an imaginary existence." What kind of an imaginary existence, judging from my rejects, am I (not) living? Well, first of all, it's a scholarly one, but a scholarly life marked by ease. In my imaginary life, I am just about to pick up a bunch of scholarly projects that I've been just about to pick up for the past 6 years of so. Surely this summer is the one in which I'll really become proficient in German. And write 5 papers as well as finishing my dissertation. That'll really be no work at all. In fact, in my spare time, I might just take up a new hobby. One for which I have to purchase plenty of supplies.

I can be scornful of that imaginary life, but perhaps I can only laugh at it because it camouflages the more subtle one I also see in the list: an imaginary life of old fear. All these things on my list are old: old medicines, old tea, old pens; and many of them were also free, or very cheap: the disposable newborn diapers from the hospital, the dollar store picture frames from my apartment when I commuted, the old address labels. And staples? Please, I was saving staples?

These are things that are all easily replaced, but they seem to somehow represent something internal and irreplaceable: confidence in myself and in my reception by others. Maybe, in my perception of my own incompetence, I tend to gather these functional objects around me, in a kind of moat of utility. My own personal horses-and-chariots-of-Egypt. In the same way, I think, I wall myself off in a blaze of projects and activities, a welter of started-never-finished imaginary glories, to keep myself from knowing that there are still some parts of my soul and some relationships in my life that are damaged, and I may never be able to fix them.

But now I have one relationship in my life that I feel I really can't afford to screw up, even for such an imaginary peace. Therefore the five real things I think I should get rid of this week are old fear, old defensiveness, cowed silence, social anxiety, and fearful avoidance.

Can I do it?

Not alone.

"Alas for those who go down to Egypt for help
and who rely on horses,
who trust in chariots because they are many
and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel
or consult the Lord!" (Isaiah 31)

On experts who bother

2007-06-08T22:47:00.000-05:00

This week I went to the doctor and, long story short, I have to go on a course of vaginal antibiotics. Well now, this is an issue because whenever you take medicine while breastfeeding, you have to find out whether the medicine you've been prescribed is compatible with breastfeeding. And this is an issue because there are relatively few studies done on medicines and breastfeeding, and those that are done do not differentiate between breastfeeding newborns and (let's say) 10 month olds. Obviously there is a weight difference as well as a difference in the child's physical development and ability to process drugs. Also 10 month olds nurse less frequently and get proportionally less of their calories from breastmilk. So there are differences.

The problem is that despite these differences, even well-informed medical professionals seem to mostly read the yes-or-no answer to breastfeeding while taking medicines off a table somewhere. These tables are clearly based on medical data, but it's data I don't have access to, so I am unable to make my own informed decision. In this case, my gynecologist told me that the medicine he had prescribed was compatible with breastfeeding, and the pediatrician said it was not. Grr. In fact it was the nurse at the pediatrician's office that actually returned my call, and she was clearly reading it off a table, and did not pay attention to the fact that I mentioned the medicine was not oral but topical (which means less is absorbed into my bloodstream, so less is available to the milk-making process). She told me I needed to just pump for a week and throw out the milk.

Now, when you're nursing a baby who's ten months old, eating solids, and drinking from a cup, and is used to breastfeeding about 4 times a day, forgoing nursing altogether for a week doesn't just mean he's going to be very mad (though I wouldn't look forward to that), it might mean he gives up nursing altogether. So I called the gynecologist back to see if he could prescribe a different medication. He called me back himself (concept) to say that he still thought the original medication would be fine vaginally, but he had another thing he could prescribe. It was often used to treat premature infants, he said, so was ok for babies. Then he called back again and said, regardless of the fact that it is used in pediatric patients, that medicine is specifically not recommended for breastfeeding mothers by the American Academy of Pediatrics (why? wouldn't we like to know?). He said we'd have to go back to the first medicine, but we wondered if I could still nurse a couple of times a day without affecting Thomas too much.

Well, there's something I always do when I have medical questions about Thomas I can't answer. I try to put it off as long as possible when the questions aren't cardiology-related, but... I inevitably call his cardiology team. Because they answer the phone, they answer my questions, and they always thank me for calling. So this time I called, and I got Kerry, and I explained the problem. She would consult with the hospital pharmacist, she said, and call me back. When she did, she said the pharmacist had looked up some studies and had some numbers for me. There were no studies on breastfeeding while on the vaginal preparation, but there were studies that showed that the concentration of antibiotic in the blood while using the vaginal preparation were 1/50th of the levels while taking the oral preparation. About a third of women still reported side effects. Breastfeeding while on the oral antibiotic tended to cause diarrhea (a major problem in a newborn; less so in an older infant). After discussing it with her, I felt confident that I could store some milk in the fridge and then try nursing Thomas, see if he has any problems. Nursing him a couple of times a day will almost certainly not cause a problem.

I told Kerry she deserved a medal, and she denied it. I don't think people like her realize what an amazing luxury it is to have someone like her, with medical knowledge and access to specialists outside her area, just a phone call away.

I was going to end this post with a special tribute, but it's already too long and I have too much to say about the tributee. Next time.

Second wave

2007-06-08T22:30:00.000-05:00

Matt and I went on a baby-food making frenzy tonight. It actually only took us about 2 hours because we've become amazingly efficient. Here's our whirlwind food tour:

I defrosted a chicken thigh, pulled the skin off, and put it in a pot to boil. I started water in the kettle to put under the steamer, and washed some snap peas. Meanwhile, Matt was distracting the baby and, when he was calm, cutting up cauliflower and the bok choy. When the water boiled we put the steamer on the wok with the cauliflower and I set the timer for 15 minutes.

Matt started cutting some unknown root vegetable that came in our organic food box. I think it's a turnip. It looks like a beet except yellow. When he was done I put that in the water with the chicken and let them boil for 30 minutes.

When the cauliflower was done I poured it in the blender and put the snap peas in the bottom of the steamer, the bok choy on top, and set the timer for 10 minutes. Blended the cauliflower , poured it into an ice cube tray, and washed the blender. Matt was cutting swiss chard, a pear, and 4 apricots.

I blended the snap peas and then the bok choy while cooking the chard on the bottom of the steamer and the fruit on the top, 10 minutes on the timer. Matt gave Thomas his snack and medicine. Blended the chard and put the timer on the fruit on for another 5 minutes. Took the chicken and turnip (?) out of the broth and put it in a bowl with about 3/4 cup broth to cool a little. Poured a cup of lentils into the rest of the broth and set the timer for a half hour. Blended the pears, then the apricots.

I took Thomas and started putting him to bed. Matt took the meat off the chicken bone and blended the chicken and turnips with the broth, turned off the lentils. Put Thomas to bed. Blended lentils.

There's a lot of new food in the house.

First wave of baby food posts

2007-06-08T22:10:00.000-05:00

First a few more family recipes, 10 months:

Thomas's first stir fry:

Stir fry 4 chicken breasts, cubed, in vegetable oil with garlic, soy sauce, and ginger.
In separate wok, heat vegetable and safflower oil. Add garlic and broccoli, stir fry for a few minutes. Add kale, stir fry for a few minutes, add snow peas and stir fry a few minutes, add ginger and soy sauce. Add water chestnuts and cherry tomatoes and stir fry for a couple minutes. Stir in chicken and serve over rice.

Take one serving and puree in blender. This worked out way better than I expected. I think if I'd known how well my blender would handle meats, I wouldn't have bothered buying a food mill. Thanks Ty! It's six years old and still blends like crazy.

This was Thomas's favorite meal so far, I think.

Beef stew with beets:

Cut up 1.5 lbs. beef roast. Dredge in flour and brown in large saucepan with fresh garlic. Add 2 Tbsp cooking wine to loosen brown stuff on bottom of pan. Add 4 cups vegetable broth, 4 baby beets, cut up, 6 small potatoes, cut up, 1 large onion, cut up, 2 carrots, cut up, and any other loose vegetables looking for a meal to be part of. Bring to a boil and simmer for an hour, covered. As before, put one serving in blender. The beets give a really nice richness to the broth.

Barley risotto:

Add 1 cup barley to large saute pan. Add about 3/4 cup chicken broth or enough to just wet barley. Add about 4 cloves fresh garlic, sliced. Bring broth to a boil, stirring constantly, and boil until most of the liquid is gone, then add a little more broth. Keep doing this for about 40 minutes, then add 1 zucchini, sliced, and a bunch of spinach, torn into pieces. Cook 2 links sausage, removed from skin, in a separate pan and add towards end of cooking. Continue to cook barley until it has absorbed about 4.5 cups of liquid (I used 4 cups chicken broth and 0.5 cup water).

In retrospect I think this would have been better with chicken instead of sausage, but it's hard to tell. Thomas liked it, anyway. So did I. Barley risotto is pretty excellent. I'll have to make it more in future.

Developing a syllabus

2007-06-08T11:42:00.000-05:00

I'm working on my syllabus for Foundations of Theology in Spring 2008 today. It's a nice self-contained project and I don't feel like reading this morning.

I'm working on a list of noncanonical Christian authors I feel the students ought to read. The concentration will be on patristic authors, but I'd like to work in a couple of medieval writers too, especially as there are virtually no female voices (virtually: there is Egeria) in the first five centuries of the Church. Sorry, I'm too lazy to create links. In approximate chronological order:

Didache
Clement of Rome (1 Clement)
Ignatius of Antioch
Martyrdom of Polycarp
Justin Martyr
Tatian's Diatesseron
Irenaeus of Lyons
Origen of Alexandria
Ambrose
John Chrysostom
Cyril of Jerusalem
Egeria of Gaul
Gregory of Nyssa
Basil the Great
Cyril of Alexandria
Augustine (On Genesis 2-3)
Jerome (Life of Paul of Thebes)
Pseudo-Dionysius
John Damascene
Gregory the Great
Thomas Aquinas
Medieval women mystics: Catherine of Siena, Hildegard of Bingen, and Julian of Norwich
Teresa of Avila

Notes on Ch. 2, part 1, of Johnson, Rites of Christian Initiation

2007-06-02T14:46:00.000-05:00

Pre-Nicene period, East

In the first half of ch. 2, Max summarizes the documentary evidence for Christian initiation in the East (that is, Syria and Alexandria) in the first three centuries. Syrian evidence: the Didache, Justin Martyr (included in Syria rather than Rome because of his background), the Didascalia Apostolorum, and the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. The Didache really gives very little information, but the other sources contain some characteristic emphases: the role of Jesus' experience in the Jordan, especially the descent of the Holy Spirit, as a model for Christian baptism; the textual variant Ps. 2:7 ("You are my son; this day I have begotten you") for the baptism is reflected in the rite of baptism for Christians; fire is a dominant symbol, especially referring to "fire in the water" at Christ's baptism; the pneumatological and ritual emphasis of the accounts tends to be on the anointing with oil before the water bath rather than on the bath itself; finally, the Spirit is often seen and imaged as feminine.

These characteristic emphases seem to actually all fall together: for example, in the Syrian liturgical year the Epiphany feast was originally a combined feast of Christ's birth and baptism (48), while the baptismal font is often referred to as a "womb" (of the Spirit "Mother"). The witness of Father and Spirit at the baptism is why this event and feast are the Theophany of the whole Trinity and reveal the intra-divine relationships.

A quote from the Acts of Judas Thomas: "This is the baptism of the remission of sins; this is the bringer forth of new men; this is the restorer of understandings, and the mingler of soul and body, and the establisher of the new man in the Trinity, and which becomes a participation in the remission of sins." (44) And one from Gabriele Winkler: "Christian baptism is shaped after Christ's baptism in the Jordan. As Jesus had received the anointing through the divine presence in the appearance of a dove, and was invested as the Messiah, so in Christian baptism every candidate is anointed and, in connection with this anointing, the gift of the Spirit is conferred . . . . The description of Christ's baptism culminates in the appearance of the dove and the divine voice . . . . In the process of ritualization, therefore, it was the anointing that became, in Syria, the first and only visible gesture for the central event at Christ's baptism: his revelation as the Messiah-King through the descent of the Spirit." (47)

Regarding initiation in Egypt, Max again asserts that the Jordan event/John 3 provide the structure for theological interpretations there, but there seems to be a difference. Rather than referring to the Jordan baptism of Christ proper, Clement and Origen are motivated by that event to develop Old Testament tropes into baptismal symbols. Both use Israel's crossing the Jordan under Joshua's leadership as a primary symbol, and Origen expands it to cover all of Exodus: the Red Sea is the entrance into the catechumenate; the Jordan is baptism. Origen, however, also alludes to Romans 6 in his interpretations, a move that is probably motivated in part by the Alexandrian reading of the "Secret Gospel," a extra-canonical passage in the Gospel of Mark (which was the one read in Alexandria during this early period) which tells the story of Jesus raising a Lazarus-like figure from the dead and then initiating him: "...Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan." (55)

Origen is also a witness to threefold questioning at baptism: "Do you believe in the Father... Do you believe in the Son... etc." and to infant baptism.

Overall, I have some questions about interrelationships here. Granted the close relationship between Egypt and Syria, it is not long after this point that the differences between then start to cause tension, as well. Does the seeming Alexandrian emphasis on OT passages arise merely from coincidental selection of excerpts for this book? Is it relevant that the Syrian witness seeming to bear the closest similarity to Clement's theology of baptism (53) is Justin Martyr, whose testimony as a "Syrian" witness is problematic (though his testimony as a "Roman" witness is even more problematic)?

HOW many fewer?

2007-06-02T13:40:00.000-05:00

Browsing through blogs I stumbled on a woman's blog that I am really enjoying reading a bit, Quantum Theology. She has a discipline (oops, Talal Asad again) going on right now where she trashes, recycles, or gives away 50 categories of things in her house every week. Wow. Not just 50 objects (I could do this indefinitely and not notice, I suspect) but 50 categories of things she is keeping that she doesn't need to be keeping. Then, as she says, "Choosing to count "classes" of stuff rather than total items has had the benefit of letting me discern once about the need for an item and then each new encounter doesn't require repeating the process."
I'm not sure I'm ready for 50 a week, but I definitely need this discipline. I'm going to start the process at 5 and see how it goes. (Yes, I'm one of those people that walk into cold water instead of diving right in.) The process depends on keeping a list of the things you're eliminating. Here, I guess, why not.

Notes on Ch. 1 of Johnson, Rites of Christian Initiation

2007-06-01T15:30:00.000-05:00

"Regarding 'initiation' into such a diverse and inclusive 'table companionship,' however, it is important to underscore the fact that nowhere do the Gospels record anything specific about rites of entrance or preparation for this meal sharing with Jesus. Rather, to use our own now traditional sacramental language, the meal itself was not the culmination of initiation but appears, rather, as the inception, that is, the very beginnings of initiation, the 'sacrament' of initiation, or, the rite of incorporation into Christ. Nothing, not even baptism and certainly nothing like confirmation, were required as preparatory steps. Entrance to the meal of God's reign, anticipated and incarnated in the very life, ministry, and meals of Jesus of Nazareth, was granted by Jesus himself and granted especially to those who were not prepared and not (yet) converted, to the godless and undeserving, to the impure, and the unworthy. Conversion itself, it seems, was a consequence of, not a pre-condition for, such meal sharing." (p. 6)

The blog's about to become, well, more bloggy. Well, maybe. Sort of. In the sense of much more random. I need to take some notes to finish my second chapter of my dissertation, the part on the history of Christian initiation (and what it says about Christian identity). I decided to take them here for portability, a little feeling (probably an illusion, honestly) of accountability, and just in case anyone's interested.

The history stuff is based on Max Johnson's The Rites of Christian Initiation, which is a great book that I've read before. My goal is to read it and take notes in the next two weeks, then write the last part of chapter 2. I think that part should be 15-20 pages. If I run across something particularly interesting, I may make a detour through some other source material.

Chapter one of RCI focuses on the NT material on initiation, starting out with the major point that the initiatory practice of Jesus himself, if it can be so called, seemed to be a radically inclusive table companionship that earned him the ire of his contemporaries. From this context comes my quotation above, which, it seems to me, gives significant insight into Christian initiation. Following from this view of table companionship is the idea that Christian identity is not something one seeks out, proves oneself worthy of, and comes to earn. Rather, Christian identity is offered as a gift before one comes to seek it out. This is obvious and well-known. But looking at it further, this also implies that Christ and the Christian community recognize in the recipient of initiation (before he or she has become purified, converted, etc.), a gift to the community. The gift of initiation, then, is actually two-fold: a gift given by the community (acting in the person of Christ) to the initiate and the initiate's gift to the Body of Christ. The church recognizes in the unworthy worthiness, and by recognizing it, begins to initiate the person; by initiating him or her, the church begins the redemptive process that eventually makes the person worthy. This view of the sacrament (and it is the Catholic view, as far as I can see, throughout the tradition) is why the Catholic church has always initiated infants.

Moving on, Max calls attention to the fact that Jesus' baptism is considered historically factual by the consensus of NT scholars. He argues for the independence of John's baptismal practice from Essene ritual washings and from proselyte baptism. He mentions the possibility (based on John) that Jesus himself was a "baptizer" in the style of John the Baptist, that footwashing constituted an early initiation practice.

Most interesting from my perspective are the comments on the primitive links between baptism and the Holy Spirit: "it is the presence and gift of the Holy Spirit that distinguish Jesus' own and subsequent Christian baptism from that of John." The synoptic accounts of Jesus' baptism "are about what happens in Christian baptism, in general, namely, the very gift of the Holy Spirit inseparably associated with that baptism, who therein brings about the new birth of God's beloved 'sons and daughters,' in whom God is well pleased." (15) "[F]or the earliest Christians, baptism and Holy Spirit were bound together inseparably" so that when baptism was not accompanied by the gift of the Spirit or the Spirit came before baptism itself "this anomalous situation had to be remedied by the apostles themselves so that this normal relationship between baptism and Holy Spirit would be (re)connected." (26)

On baptism and the bestowal of Christian identity Max says, "to be baptized 'in' or 'into the name of Jesus' is to be baptized into Christ, to be associated as closely as possible with Christ himself as the very mediator of God's salvation." He ties this to Mt. 28 and the trinitarian shape of Christian identity, modeled on the trinitarian shape of Christ's identity as depicted in the synoptic baptismal accounts, by drawing on Aidan Kavanagh: Matthew 28:16-20 may be "a 'theological declaration' of the new relationship which baptism establishes between the baptized and God, a relationship signified in the paradigmatic story of Jesus' own baptism in the Jordan, where his identity as 'Son' in relationship to both 'Father' ('You are [This is] my Son, the Beloved') and 'Holy Spirit' is proclaimed." (28, bracketed portions original, see Kavanagh, The Shape of Baptism, 22)

Finally, on page 30, Max refers to the fuzziness between actual liturgical practices and theological interpretations of initiation in the NT. While some of the images (e.g. anointing) may reflect actual practice, it is possible that the metaphorical use of them in the NT, guided by OT language and events (e.g. Ps. 2:7) led to the development of related ritual practices.

Another family recipe: lentil pasta

2007-05-14T23:05:00.000-05:00

We had a great dinner tonight. This recipe is good for babies that want to be able to enjoy dinnertime with everybody else and eat a little finger food.

Lentil Pasta

1/2 lb uncooked rotini or penne pasta (we didn't have this much, so made a little penne for Thomas and spaghetti for Matt & I)
3/4 c lentils
6 cloves fresh garlic, divided
2 carrots, sliced thin
2 bay leaves
1 Tbsp dried basil (fresh if you've got it)
1 Tbsp dried minced onion (ditto)
1 Tbsp butter
1 can diced tomatoes
olive oil
8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 bunch green onions, cut the whitish part up
2 Tbsp wine

1. Put the lentils in a pot with 3 c water and bring to a boil. Add the carrots, 4 cloves garlic, the bay leaves, basil, onion, butter, and tomatoes and boil uncovered for 20-30 min, until the lentils are soft.
2. While the lentils are boiling, start water for the pasta.
3. Slice or mince the last two cloves of garlic. Saute the mushrooms and green onions in a little olive oil with the garlic until the mushrooms start to brown. Add the wine and stir until the wine is mostly evaporated, then turn off the heat on the mushrooms.
4. When the lentils are soft, put the pasta in to boil according to package directions. Put the lentil mixture in the blender and blend until smooth.
5. Cool a tablespoon or two of the lentil mixture, and put it on baby's tray. Put a few pieces of pasta in it and put baby in the chair. For adults, put pasta in bowls, pour lentil puree over it, and top with mushrooms.
6. After dinner, if the baby (like mine) is not so good with finger food, you can give him some more of the lentil puree with a spoon.

Thomas was so excited to be eating with us again. He spent our whole meal sucking on four pieces of pasta, but he loved it. We let him play with the spaghetti too. That was fun.

I should mention that I adapted this recipe from something my college roommate used to make. I've been enjoying various lentil pastas for about 7 years now, but this one has got to be one of my favorite versions ever. For one thing, I never thought of blending the lentils before, and it makes it much more spaghetti-sauce-ish. It's worth trying even if you're baby-free.

On changes, the passage of time, and happy endings

2007-05-14T22:38:00.000-05:00

When I went through the RCIA, Matt and I met these two pretty incredible people. One of them was the candidate Matt got to sponsor that year; the other one was his girlfriend. They were both lovely, witty, fun people -- with two of the biggest hearts (cardiomyopathy aside) that I've ever encountered. Nobody was too small or too great for them to care about, and nothing was too little or too much for them to do for those they cared about.

Events and misunderstandings eventually caused them to break up, and with them the social group that the four of us were a part of. Over the years, we've kept in touch sporadically. I knew that a couple of years ago they started dating again.

Tonight, I found out they're getting married -- next month -- in Ireland.

Why?

"We wanted something simple," my friend told me. Having been engaged and (ugh!) tried to plan a wedding before, they wanted to go off somewhere, just them, have the ceremony and have it all, happily, over. Clink. Happily ever after and all that, finally.

I have to say that I'm struck by an irony. This is the one girl I knew who had a subscription to a bridal magazine back in college -- before she was even engaged.

We all change over time. And not only are we unable to say what constitutes a happy ending for our friends, we even change our minds about our own storybook endings, without even realizing we're changing.

So here's to Melissa and Jason. Congratulations, best wishes, and lots of love. Clink.

The rest of you, go make your happy endings, whatever they are.

A good food day

2007-05-08T22:49:00.000-05:00

It seems like Thomas is finally back to eating more. He's got this interesting, and rather nice, routine down now. He eats the same thing every morning and every night for his late-night snack, but different stuff for lunch and dinner.

Today's sample menu:
Breakfast: 1/4 cup plain yogurt, 1/4 cup baby oatmeal cereal, mixed with water. This is all he'll eat in the morning, after much experimenting with various fruit-included mixes. He seems to just not want sweet stuff in the morning. Ok. We can handle that.

Lunch: 1 Tbsp kale, 1 Tbsp tofu, rice and water, with apple juice splashed in his drinking water

Dinner:
Chickpea and Apple Curry

1 Tbsp chickpeas
1 Tbsp apple sauce (or maybe pear sauce, after we froze them we couldn't tell them apart)
2 Tbsp barley cereal
sprinkles of garlic, ginger, cinnamon, and cumin

This smelled awesome to me, and Thomas liked it so much he got mad when I ran out (we were at a restaurant) and had to resort to leftovers for lunch. He kept grabbing the bowl it had been in and shoving it in his mouth, like "See? This is what I want!" He'll get more tomorrow.

Bedtime snack: Oatmeal with apple (or pear?) sauce and a little cinnamon

Plus he had little bits of finger food throughout the day, including some of the sticky rice at dinner (but what he really wanted was stir-fried eggplant and Taiwanese pork buns (nicely named: "dragon eats pig" )). Poor kid. Gotta wait on that one.