The other day, an old friend tagged a bunch of us "Morrison kids" in a Facebook post, and it got me to thinking about how special my elementary school was. I was kind of tempted to think it was just a product of its time (late 70s to early 80s), but having talked to several people, including my husband (who is my contemporary and with whom I went to high school, but we attended grade school in different towns), I realize maybe it was just a truly spectacular pocket of the educational universe that we had the privilege of walking through.
There were many things that made the school pretty different. For one, the classes were in an "open classroom" format, meaning that there were two "pods" in the building: One contained 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and a 1st/2nd split; all separated only by rolling bookshelves and cabinets, which were probably taller than the youngest kids, but not the older ones. The other space had 4th-6th grades. Kindergarten was its own giant room off to the side, with so many interesting stations and areas. Anyway, some years, I remember all four teachers in the 1st-3rd area had their desks together in the center of the space, and some years, they chose to put them against the far walls.
Except for my 5th grade teacher, I had educators who seemed not only to love teaching, but to love me specifically, and I feel like they probably made other kids feel that way, too. But it wasn't just the teachers. My friend Theresa Baker and I adored the janitor so much, we'd often purposefully tighten the lids on our Thermoses just so we could ask whoever had lunchroom duty if we could go get him to open them. Looking back, of course the teachers and the janitor were on to our little game. I hope he enjoyed the visits. He was extremely kind to us.
Then there were the field days, the fall festivals (oh, the cake walks!), science fairs, spelling bees, and the fun Santa's Workshop "store" where we kids could shop for our family members' Christmas presents without tipping Mom and Dad off to what they were getting.
But the one thing I remember as having made my elementary years the most enjoyable on a consistent basis were our music classes. First, please let me introduce you to one of the most fun adult women I had ever met up to that point (I'm sure when you only have to deal with kids for an hour at a time, you have the luxury of being a lot more fun than "regular" teachers!):
There. In the middle, between my sister and me (yeah; I know. It was 1986 and I was in my awkward phase. Whatever.). That's Becky Pickle. Her laugh... I can't even describe it. I just hope she enjoyed life as much as it seemed like she did.
Music class was, I believe, twice a week, and held in the big, wide-open multi-purpose room (that last time I drove by was being used as storage, sadly) where we could do things like play cage ball if the weather were too bad for recess. We didn't learn to play instruments, per se. I think we did do rhythm sticks and recorders, but things like orchestra and band were introduced in 5th grade and were separate animals. Also, she introduced us to notes and time signatures and all of those things, but it wasn't primarily a music theory class. Really, we did a bit of everything. Mostly, we sang. A lot.
We put on programs.
For Valentine's Day.
For Christmas.
For something having to do with the founding of America, maybe?
We learned such a rich variety of music, too. We sang a bunch of folk music. American, sure; but also Japanese ("Sakura"), Cuban ("Peanut Vendor"), Jewish (The Hanukkah Song), as well as some Caribbean stuff that I remember specifically.
Some of the songs were beautiful and I remember to this day. Also, I can see now that some were basically just variations on other scales set to words so we could be introduced to them and recognize them. And some were exercises in rhythm. We also learned to square dance. And we learned tinikling.
Even more importantly, I think, Ms. Pickle let us to choose things to sing, setting aside time in class for various students who wanted to to perform. I never listened to country music, but had Sylvia's "Nobody" memorized, having listened to my friend practice it over and over. I remember when a couple of girls sang the MASH theme song. I felt very in on something mature and maybe even wrong that we were listening to our classmates singing about suicide.
I think Ms. Pickle made music fun and accessible to everyone. We didn't have to try out to be in the programs; we were all automatically in. And we practiced a lot, but ultimately, it was just a great time.
If I could wish one thing for the education of everybody's kids, it would be that enrichment programs could stay around. These are some of my best memories from elementary school, and I feel so fortunate that I got to be one of Ms. Pickle's students.
More singing.
We did a lot of programs.
I'm fairly certain that this "Caribbean" night might be considered culturally insensitive today. But I remember feeling very festive.
This morning, Mal and I had a long drive all the way through Austin to meet my sister and nephew at Altitude Jump Park. We were listening to Weird Al's "Mandatory Fun" album, which has been Mal's recent favorite, and of which I approve, especially after six months of the single "Music Together" CD that's been his go-to.
As an aside, his favorite song is "Sports Song," which has a bridge that repeats, "We're great and you suck" over and over again. When he was belting this at the grocery store yesterday, I can only imagine the admiration other people had for my parenting prowess.
Today, though, at the beginning of the requisite polka, Mal asked, "Mom, do you hear the accordion?" I did. A few minutes later, "Do you hear the trumpet?" That one impressed me because it was muted. Then when we went back to "Sports Song," he asked, "Do you hear the xylophone?" It's specifically a glockenspiel, but that's a xylophone, so it counts. Then he asked, "And now you hear the drums?"
I was really amazed. James has an app on his phone that has different instruments, a sample (sometimes pretty bad) of the sound, and then the name (which is pronounced by an autobot voice, so often mispronounced, or just wrong -- i.e. a djembe is called a bongo). Regardless of the quality of every portion of the app, Mal loves it. He scrolls through it and goes back and forward to his favorites. He actually has used it a lot less recently than he did six months ago or so, but apparently it's stuck.
Two days ago, this video popped up in my Facebook memories. It is from last year, and shows Mal running up and down the hall at our hotel in Waco on our way home from the State Fair of Texas (which we're missing this year; sigh). What struck me, aside from the fact that he just has always had a crap ton of energy, is that he was basically non-verbal. He says, "Daddy," and something else that might be "fast" or might be something he made up. He does the sign for "cry" and makes a vocalized motor noise to indicate the elevator. But he just wasn't talking yet. He had just turned two. The "average" vocabulary at that age is 50-75 words, and adding more daily. He just didn't have that. We weren't worried, though, because he knew a bunch of signs, and we knew he could understand us.
Cut to exactly a year later, and I couldn't count how many words he knows. He talks all the time. He knows all of the words. Take-away from this: Don't waste too much concern on milestones if you don't have other reasons to worry.
"All aboooooooard!"
Mal has very strong opinions about how things should be. If I rearrange the colored chairs at the table in his room after I've vacuumed, he says, "You made a 'stake!" and puts them back the way they were before, which, of course, was completely arbitrary in the first place. He has a set of "rainbow" drawers in his toy cubby, and when James purposefully rearranges them, Mal tells me, "Daddy just made a 'stake!" and fixes it.
One of his funniest (to me) insistences is that I am not to wipe his nose when he's crying. If he's particularly snotty, I'll ask, "Do you want me to wipe your nose?" He'll say, "No! I want to cry!" I tell him that he can still cry, but it doesn't matter. There have been a couple of times that what has come out of his nostril is so gross, I insist and swipe it. He says, "You took away my cry! I wanted to cry!" For some reason, those things are connected.
Mal really seems to like lists. I posted a video to Facebook tonight of him going through is Star Wars workbooks, naming every character on front. He does the same thing with the Cars 2 set Nana and Pappy got him for his birthday. He also does it with a set of print-outs of Paw Patrol characters we have. He also likes to "count" things, although, even though he can count out loud, it's sometimes difficult for him to keep track of what he did and didn't count. If he skips over something, he'll usually come back, but then he'll recount whatever is after that that he did already count. I show great restraint in not explaining that he made a "'stake."
Cute times. I love this age so much! He's still an energetic handful, but, gosh, he's funny.
There are a lot of things that people say that make no sense to me. Either they're vapid to the point of being meaningless or they're rude and unhelpful, or they seem duplicitous, or some other thing that just sticks in my craw. I'm going to do several posts about these, and this is the first. If you have any thoughts, or any phrases that similarly bother you, please leave a comment and let me know.
The first one I want to take a look at is "letting yourself go." In the title, I used the feminine pronoun because, honestly, this is the one I hear levied the most. It typically refers to a female who perhaps used to be more conventionally "attractive" than she is now, whether it's because of hair color and style or weight or clothings choices. And when this woman is seen after a few years, whether it's an actor who's been quietly living for decades or an old church friend someone sees at the grocery store, some people will either say out loud (or in website comments) or think to themselves, "Man! She's really let herself go!"
Besides my basic belief that no one should feel comfortable judging the appearance of another person negatively at any rate, this line of thought bothers me because it makes a false assumption: That the lady in question used to care enough about herself to "take care" of herself, and now, through whatever life changes that have happened, she has apparently become lackadaisical about it and has just gotten uglier and let everyone down.
That is utter bullcrap, friends.
If you've followed me for long, or if you've known me for many years, you probably realize that my weight has fluctuated a lot during my life, mostly resting on the "higher than I'd prefer" end of the scale, but with three very dramatic weight loss events during my 20s and early 30s. If you met me when I was 26 and then didn't see me again until now, you might be tempted to think, "Geez. After she had kids, she really let herself go!"
But you'd totally miss the point.
I let go of stuff, but not of my self-care, self-esteem, or respect for my husband and family.
See, to maintain a weight that is below the level deemed by the medical community to be "overweight," food and exercise has to be the main focus of my life. I have to plan what to eat, buy those things, eat different food than my family does, track every single thing I put in my mouth, refuse random bites of food my toddler wants to share with me, spend lots of time fantasizing about the next time I "can" eat, puzzle how to consume the most amount of food with the fewest total calories, etc. I also have to take at least 90 minutes every other day to do strenuous exercise outside of the normal rhythm of my life.
For 20+ years, I worked out every other day, save about 3 months when I lived in a travel trailer in my mid-20s. I either did a combination of the Jane Fonda 1980s and Dolph Lungren 1990s workouts, or I went to the gym. Save Zumba, I never enjoyed a minute of it. I thought it was cool when I could run 5 miles (at 195 pounds, by the way), but I HATED running. I was proud of how many sit-ups I could do with no one holding my legs, but I never enjoyed the actual sit-up part. I dreaded working out, even when I did it at home while watching television.
I did both of these regimens because society, and in a couple of cases, people near and dear to me, told me that being big is gross, unlovable, and shameful. My natural base weight wasn't good enough. It had to be lower. And I took the message so seriously that no matter what I weighed, I never felt great about it. I never looked at the scale and went, "That's it, then. I made it!"
But even if I had, there's this myth in weight loss. It's called "maintenance." It's the idea that you have to work really hard to lose weight, but once you get it off, you transition to an easier phase where you just have to maintain that weight.
Actually, maintaining your lower weight is much more difficult than losing it. You can eat fewer calories, and you have to work out harder, especially if your work-out uses your own weight, ironically making the work-out easier once you don't weigh as much.
It requires a huge amount of energy: physical, emotional, and mental.
And for this chick, it just stopped being worth it.
I want to play with my kid instead of insisting on an early bedtime so I can get my work-out done. I want to eat when we go out for ice cream. I don't want to have to pull out my phone every time I eat a grape lest I forget to log it.
We eat mostly vegetarian meals, whole grains, and the like; and I get quite a bit of naturally-occurring exercise keeping up with my preschooler. It's not sustained target heart rate for fat-burning, but my body does what I want it to do and is quite reliable
If someone sees me and thinks less of me because I am not sad enough about not having worn a size 12 in 5 years, then they have it backwards. My life is fuller and happier and better now. I let go, yes, but not of my self-care or self-view. I let go of some vanity, and of requiring an approving eye to make me feel worthy of love. I let go of spending time doing something I found drudgery because I decided you don't make someone you love do stuff that sucks the life out of them.
I'll admit: a big part of this freedom to me has been living with someone who loves me unconditionally. Not being afraid that I'm going to lose the affection of the person most important to me in the world goes a long way toward giving me permission to be myself and feel comfortable about it.
So maybe your reacting negatively to your high school sweetheart's letting her hair go grey or stopping wearing heels says more about you and your need for an attitude adjustment than with her mental or physical well-being.
Maybe "letting go" isn't about not caring, but about caring for more important things. Maybe it's maturity and priorities and contentment. Maybe, instead of judgement, congratulations are in order.
The other day, I had run into the grocery store... I can't remember the day, because I actually stopped into several grocery stores several days leading up to Mal's birthday. Anyway, it was one of those stops. I had just popped in for a quick trip. Mal was home with his dad and grandma. After I checked out and was walking back out to the car, I passed a cash register where a person was paying and with them was a kid, about 7 or 8 years old, swinging a backpack around, just waiting.
I don't know what about that strummed such a chord with me, but it suddenly revealed so clearly to me the very biggest reason I homeschool (and I say "I" because "we" homeschool, but James might have different reasons, and this one is true all the way back to the beginning, long before James was on board): Time.
I've always said that *one* of the reasons we homeschool is because I like time efficiency, as in with one kid at a time, it takes 10 minutes to do something it might take 30 kids 2 hours to do. But that's not the only aspect of time, and not even the most important one, I see now.
One of the most precious memories I have, I promised to myself to keep forever as it was happening. D was about 5 and playing in the front yard of our house in Sherman. It was cool and sunny out, and I was sitting on the driveway for added warmth. I think it was early spring, because there were flowers coming out all over the lawn (weeds). D was running around wearing a Barbie wedding dress costume and chasing bees.
In that moment, time seemed almost to stop. I was hyper-aware of how magical it was. A fleeting thought was, "I wish I had my camera," but immediately after that, I knew I couldn't break the spell by moving inside to get it. So I swore I'd lock it into my vault for all time.
It was one of those things that was so ordinary, but somehow achingly beautiful. And it couldn't have happened if we'd been in a hurry.
There were plenty of days that we had many things to do, and bounced from one place or activity to another. But, by virtue of the fact that we didn't have an overarching compulsion to be anywhere, those days were the exception to the rule. We whiled away many days doing whatever caught our fancy: Three days building a Christmas gingerbread train here. Full day driving around Dallas doing mystery shops and listening to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in the van there. Walking down the street to the "creek" to play in the water. Spending three hours at "the tire swing park." Sitting in the floor of the library, browsing every craft book for the best one. Meeting friends a Chick-fil-A and playing. Enjoying Chuck E. Cheese all by ourselves when everyone else was in school. Painting. Making balloon animals. Playing with cornstarch and water.
I know homeschooling isn't for everyone. I know everyone can have magical "slow" moments even amid the scheduling and activities of school. But for me, it would be overwhelming. I like to have room to breathe. I like to have giant margins. I am a planner and stress out easily enough as it is. I am grateful that, so far in my parenting life, homeschooling has always been an option. I pray it continues to be.
There are still a lot of boats to watch set out while lying on the dock. I'm up for a few more years of that.
A week from today, we'll have a newly-minted 3-year-old. Things are likely to accelerate this week, with visitors and errands and appointments and preparations, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to reflect over this auspicious occasion. I'm going to intersperse the unorganized thoughts with pictures I pulled off of the memory card in Mal's camera. All of these have been taken by him at some point during the past year (and, honestly, the vast majority of these photos are the fans in our various rooms and of our patio flooring... so, yeah, I'm cherry-picking).
Mal's vocabulary has exploded this year. He was certainly not "at level" when he turned 2, which is something like 75-200 words. But now, he pretty much knows all of the words and uses them correctly, including sarcastically and manipulatively. But as conversational as he is now, there are three "baby" phrases that have persisted: 1) boh-bos, for breasts; 2) dee-dees, for breastfeeding, his take on "nursies;" 3) la-la, which is to say "the other one," or "You're trying to put that shoe on the wrong foot; try the other one." All we have to say is "la-la" and he'll stop trying to put his shoes on and he changes feet. Or he'll look at me and ask, "La-la?" I say, "No, that's the right one."
Mal has experienced so many milestones this year, in addition to the verbal explosion.
The first time I visited my new church after we moved, it was January 1, and hardly anyone was there. The next week, they had childcare. At 2 years and a few months, Mal had still never stayed in childcare throughout the church service. I dropped him off, giving the attendant my cell number so she could message me if Mal decided he was through. I never got a text. He stayed the next week. And the next. And he has never looked back. In fact, in August when we had our student-led worship and so there wasn't "class," he cried, bitterly disappointed. He loves his playtime, and I love being able to participate in church for the first time in years.
Basically, he adores our church. From the minute we get on campus, he rushes to check to see whether the fountain is on or not. Typically, it isn't on yet when we arrive, but someone turns it on later. Somehow, in his brain, Mal has associated the piano music happening with the fountain being turned on, and he assumes that Darlene playing the piano is what activates it.
Then, as we head inside, he acts shy but loves being greeted by "Miss Jackie." Once we're in the sanctuary, he runs over to the coffee table to pick out a doughnut (usually pink or white frosted with sprinkles) and one chocolate doughnut hole. During the beginning of the service, he often goes into the "youth room" to hug the giant teddy bear or play with the foosball set. And he likes to get a name tag to "fill out"... and cut up.
When it's time to pass the peace of Christ, Mal usually says to me, "Mommy, hold me! I want to get peace!" He will high-five people and be generally charming, if, again, somewhat subdued by direct attention.
He's gotten to where he will sit in my lap for the children's message, and even hold hands during the prayer afterwards. But his favorite part is when that's over, Darlene plays "Jesus Loves Me," and he knows that's the signal that he can run into the other building for free play. (Sorry; he's not very spiritually mature.)
As physical as Mal is, gymnastics seems like it might be as good a fit for him as it was for D at this age. However, we took a free trial class a week and a half ago, and it was exhausting... for me. Mal just isn't ready to (or isn't in the practice of) pay attention to a sequence of instructions, then line up, wait his turn, and remember the instructions. They had about 40 minutes of structured class time, then 20 minutes of free play. He really enjoyed the free play, but not on their gym equipment! They have a big toy/book area where the kids can do stuff while they're waiting, and that's what he chose to do.
One issue I had with the class setup was that there were just too many kids. It might have been because it was the first class of the session, and a lot of people were like us, trying it out. But for a few kids, including mine, it was difficult staying focused in the long stretches between "turns." And there were only two adults: the coach and an assistant. So several of us parents had to walk our kids through the paces to keep them on track.
I was pretty tired after the whole thing, but since Mal enjoyed it, decided I'd let him try one more time (because they give you two trials before you have to commit), anyway. The next week, though, he made it easy on me. I asked the night before, "Do you want to go to gymnastics tomorrow?" He said, "No!" His answer was the same the next day, and I'm glad we were on the same page!
Mal has always been a big kid, weight well off the charts when he turned 2 and weighed 36 pounds. He was in the higher percentile for height, too, at about 90 cm (35.5 inches, more or less). During the past year, he has not gained a single pound! He has, however, shot up a few inches. I'll measure him later this week, but he's closing in on 39 inches, I believe.
We don't impose "arbitrary limits" on Mal, meaning that he pretty much decides when and what to eat, when to use and what to do on the computer, when he goes to bed and gets up, and that kind of thing. It's definitely made interacting with him more peaceful (compared to my first attempt at parenting a small person), which we really need, given Mal's naturally demanding personality (which my first did not possess, but was pretty phlegmatic).
While this might sound like a nightmare waiting to happen, it's panning out quite well at the moment. At two years old, Mal will often watch videos for twenty minutes, put his computer to sleep, and invite one of us to play with him. Or ask to get out the Play-Doh. Or go into his room to play with Paw Patrol. Yes, there are days (like Friday) when he goes back to the computer multiple times throughout the day. But there are also days like today when he doesn't think to turn it on at all, even though James and I were both ready for him to chill in front of some videos by 4 PM! Even though we (almost) never say "no," (unless, say, we're getting ready to walk out the door), we never suggest it, either.
Same thing with bedtime. Mal will play or watch TV or want to sit outside and look at stars or whatever, and then stop at some point and say accusingly, "Mommy! I'm tired! I need to go to sleep!" He knows when he's sleepy, and by the time he goes to bed, he's ready. Of course, there are exceptions that prove this rule. Tonight, for instance, he was going physically bonkers at around 7:30. I had to keep asking him to stop jumping on things or falling into things because he was going to injure himself. He's usually pretty coordinated, but when kids get tired, they get clumsy. Finally, at around 8:15, I asked him if he wanted to go for a drive. I felt like having him strapped in was the only way to keep him from harm, and he did want to go on a drive, but he wanted to end the drive at the park, wherein he intended to play on the playground.
He's gotten so bold on that thing recently that I didn't want to chance it. So he cried in the car for a good while, lamenting that we wouldn't take him to the park. "I'm really sad that we can't go to the yake." "I know you are, Mal, and I'm sorry." After about half an hour, he said, "I want the music class music!" I put the CD in and he listened happily the rest of the way home. When we got here, he requested that I carry him "like a baby" to his room, and he rapidly went to sleep.
To answer your questions: Yes, he still nurses to sleep. Every time (sometimes he *does* conk out in the car). Including when he wakes up in the middle of the night, which is frequently. How frequently? I don't count, but I'd say I consider 3-4 times "normal." It used to be 6-12 times, so we're improving. But, yeah, we usually "expect" a 3-year-old to sleep "better" and that is just not where we are. We're making it work.
Mal is a crazy sleeper, so we have a futon mattress on the floor. He rolls off of it almost every night. Many times when he wakes up asking for "deedees," he's lying with his feet on the pillow and his head toward the foot of the bed.
Increasingly, he has dreams. He'll say things, seeming to be awake, but that make no sense to me, so I'm guessing they're related to whatever is in his head. "Mommy, stretch it out. YOU CAN!" ??? He's also awakened at least a couple of times in the past month crying and scared. I went to pull him in one time, and he yelled, "No! I want my mommy!" I kept assuring him it was me, and he finally calmed down, pulling my arms tighter around him.
Once, we had to get up and walk around, as he insisted we get out of the bedroom and into the living room. We sat on the chair for about half an hour, then he was ready to go back to lie down.
Another remarkable thing about this little kid is that he expects to be taken seriously. When he says, "Let's go to the park!" he will start getting his shoes on because he has learned that we try to honor his wishes whenever possible.
He has his favorite places to go and things to do, but will often (as with the gym class, and sometimes even things like the library's storytime and other events) choose just to stay home. Any time we're gone for a while and come back, he croons, "Aww, I missed my home."
His favorite things to do are to go to the lake (and he has a circuit of playground, "gump rocks," visiting the doc - much to our horror - and then back up to the playground), to play and eat at McDonald's (4 chicken nuggets, strawberry GoGurt, apple juice or chocolate milk, and fries with ketchup or ice cream), go to the mall ("Mickey Mouse store;" indoor playground; inflatables playground - which he wants to enter but is terrified of the jump structures because they're loud, so we often argue about not paying $8-10 to walk around and do nothing for 20 minutes; window-shopping at Build-a-Bear; and newly a big fan of the escalator), Chuck E. Cheese, and to go to any store (drug, grocery, and even gas stations).
Mal is kind of obsessive about color order. He has a series of "cubbies" in his room with drawers that are red, orange, yellow (on the top shelf), green, light blue, and dark blue (on the bottom). One time, after he'd taken them all out, James returned them willy-nilly and I just left them, because whatever, right? But a couple of days later, Mal announced, "Daddy made a 'stake," and switched them all back.
We also have a marble maze with two pieces that have things like "water wheels" for the marbles to go through. The way those pieces came, and are shown on the box, is that the piece with the yellow frame has a purple wheel and the piece with the red frame has a yellow wheel. Mal will not allow the maze to exist like that. He insists that the yellow wheel goes with the yellow frame, and anything else results in destruction since he can't take the wheels out without pulling everything to bits.
Mal's imagination is ramping up. Many times, he'll be playing in his room and I'll think he's fussing for me, but when I go in, he's just playing, acting out an argument between two characters. He makes up games and scenarios that he has to (and can) explain to us so we can play along. He is alternately a baby, or a monster, or a dog, or a "bad guy." He also talks about what other people are doing when they're not around. And what they might be thinking or feeling.
He also recognizes that the above-pictured cat is Rudy, which is his cat. He knows that Carol is D's, and might scratch him if he's not careful. And he knows that Aish is "the pretty one," so soft, and belongs to Daddy. He tells me that I need a cat, but I assure him that I have enough to take care of without having a cat of my own.
Mal still cannot sit through a meal, so we know where all of the places with play areas are.
His favorite foods are scrambled eggs, grapes, chocolate rocks, Runts-style bones, French fries, bananas, cupcakes (but only the frosting part), yogurt, straight sugar, and Mommy's soda.
Mal doesn't really have a lot of patience for sitting down to read stories, although he likes to look at certain books. He prefers books that have pictures but no plot, so he can chat about the pictures. His favorite picture books are: The Jellybean Book, Diggers and Dumpers, Colors, The Big Animal Book, and a collection of number books my mom gave him.
Those are tiny board books, with like 5 pages each, and on every opening, the left page will have the ordinal ("2") and the word spelled out ("two"), then on the right will be a picture of that amount of something (candles) with the word written underneath. This morning, we were looking through the first book, and before I could turn the page, he said, "Wait!" Then he pointed to the right page, "r, a, t, t, l, e... for 'rattle.'" Next, he pointed at the left page and said, "o, n, e for 'one.'"
This kind of decoding isn't anything we've ever done with him, and I'm not sure where he picked it up. Anyway, on the next page he did the same thing with a drum, then said, "o, n, e for 'one' again." I assured him it would be spelled the same way every time.
He "spelled" "one" on every page, but not the object. And by the time we got to the "2" book, he was just finished with that whole exercise. It was pretty neat, though.
Mal also recognizes sheet music for what it is.
There are so many other things James mentioned when I asked him for ideas, but it's almost midnight and I had to shoo him out and tell him to stop, because as much as we might want to record everything for posterity's sake, we just can't. If I've left anything notable out, he can write his own blog post about it (hint hint).
Suffice it to say that these are the magical times. As much as I don't adore being the primary caregiver for a baby, I absolutely relish the toddler and preschool years. Yes, even on the days when I'm ready for a mental health break by lunchtime. There's just something so cool to be able to watch a kid figuring things out and growing and becoming a person totally separate from you or your spouse.
Happy almost birthday, Mal!
Here's a goofy video of Mal dancing with my keys to distract me to keep me from leaving the other day. Sorry for the weird angle, but he's pantsless. (Which leads me to another thought: he's almost totally potty-trained, something I wouldn't have believed possible a month ago. #blessed.)
More than a decade ago, I read a story in a Christian book about marriage. This guy, Gary Thomas, was talking about how frustrated he got that his wife never refilled the ice trays. He said that every time he had to refill them because there wasn't enough ice available when he wanted it, he got more and more resentful. One day, as he was slamming stuff around and mumbling to himself about the whole thing, he thought, "Why can't she just do this thing? It only takes about seven seconds."
Then it hit him: It only takes seven seconds. Why was it such a big deal that he had to do it? Was he so selfish that he was willing to strain his marriage for something so small? He went on to talk about how being in such proximity to someone really shines a light on our "sin" and that maybe that's by design.
It's a convicting story.
It's also a tiny part of a bigger problem with the way the Christian church treats marriages. I've had many friends whose marriages were in crisis, including myself, be told, "Yeah, that's rough. But you know, marriage is hard. You just have to keep at it and trust God to work a miracle."
Which, I mean, is great advice if your marriage's problem is that your insensitive spouse doesn't refill the ice cube trays. Or forgets your birthday. Or if you're in a rut. Or if your kids are gone and you don't know each other and can't figure out what to do next. Or if you've allowed hurt feelings to fester and have covered them over with a veneer of carelessness.
But there is a difference between "He knows I wanted that cereal for breakfast, and he always eats the last serving," and "He took my phone when I got home because he said I didn't know how to use it properly as I texted him instead of calling, as he demanded." There is a difference between "She said she'd pick me up from work, then she forgot and went out with friends, and I can't get a hold of anyone," and in your wife talking on the phone to her paramour while she's taking a bath, and then gaslighting you when you explain that it's disconcerting.
There's a big difference between the myriad of "people brushing up against people in close proximity" problems that are common in the world and in consistent, repetitive, unaddressed habits that stem from chronic infidelity or undiagnosed mental illness or controlling and manipulative personalities.
There are ways to abandon your spouse that don't include physical abandonment or sexual infidelity or violent abuse. There are ways to slowly destroy a person from within that might not be overtly visible.
And when the church tells these people, "God hates divorce" in an effort to strong-arm them into staying in an unhealthy situation, I believe they are incorrectly using the scriptures. When every single person and healthcare (physical and mental) provider says, "You need to get out" but the church says, "You need to stay and bring honor to God," it can't always be just that everyone else doesn't take marriage as seriously as they should.
There is a level of dysfunction that should never be summarily dismissed as "you're just selfish and you're not trying hard enough" by spiritual leaders. This, to me, is not only spiritual abuse, but it also does one of two things: Further batters the spirit of the person being advised, or pushes that person away... from that church, and maybe from all churches and even God. And maybe a combination of those two.
Here is something I've learned that I hope you can believe me when I tell you, because, really, I don't want anyone else to have to learn this through experience: Marriage isn't effortless. It takes attention and intention and sometimes just going through the motions because that's all you can do. But, you know what? There might be moments when it's hard... really hard... but it's not difficult. And it's not always easy, but sometimes... it is. If there's never a moment where you can rest in your marriage, then just know that's not how it should be. And if you're being told you're at fault for realizing there's something very wrong, then go somewhere else and get better counsel.
For the sake of posterity, this is really a series of emails that I sent Khrys.
Aug 26
12:21 AM
I've spent the past 2-3 days hearing about it probably being a
Category 3 when it hit land. But I just got a notice that it upgraded
itself to a Category 4.
Most of the nastiness is supposed to stop 4-5 miles east of us. The
only thing we're supposed to have to worry about is flash flooding.
And we have this nifty canyon just behind our back yard that should be
great for dealing with that sort of thing, as long as we don't
actually try to go anywhere.
Things might get nasty for some of our neighbors who are closer to the
lake, and a lot of awful things are going to happen (starting a few
hours ago) to the southeast.
We should be completely fine. Laura's only concern is that she only
has a 2 day supply of soda.
I probably should have grabbed more booze on the way home.
But I just got an announcement from the NWS reminding me that this
*is* a serious, life-threatening storm (there's some chance it will
spawn a few tornadoes). So we're supposed to let someone know that
we're alive and doing fine.
I don't know how long we'll have internet. I don't really expect any
power outages, but I won't be surprised if they happen.
Love you!
2:12 PM
So far so good. We're fine. We good a lot of rain this morning, then a
long break. It looks like another round is heading our way, but we
seem to be on the furthest outskirts.
Laura has a couple of friends in east Austin who don't have power. One
of them since 2 this morning. And we have a public works truck that
keeps driving past, probably keeping an eye on the low-water
crossings.
Laura said that it's downgraded to a Category 1, and is only expected
to last another day or so (as opposed to the week they were predicting
originally). Part of what made it so scary was that no one has been
able to predict anything about what it was going to do.
7:32 PM
It sounds like the really dangerous stuff is over...it's down to
"tropical storm" levels. Now we're going to get pounded with another
week of heavy rain.
So we could still get some flooding, especially as the ground gets saturated.
But that will still all be southeast of us. Now I'm almost certain
that we're out of danger.
Love you!
Aug 27
1:01 PM
Not a letter to Khrys. Just a note about a conversation.
After church, Laura was thinking of taking Mal shopping, or to get food, or something along those lines.
But the driveway into her church has a dip. She was a bit nervous about all the water flowing across it when she arrived. It had gotten bad enough by the time church was over that she wouldn't have crossed it to get in. She was afraid that anywhere she went would have even worse problems.
Aug 28
5:43 PM
Follow-up letter to Khrys:
We're clear. It's blowing eastward, and we started getting blue skies this afternoon.
The
radio said we have a 20% chance of more rain tonight, then 40%
tomorrow. But we never got enough to even get a little waterfall going
into our gorge out back.
Sep 02
Aftermath
The storm revealed a minor roof leak, in the vicinity of our back porch. Its roof had some water damage when we moved in. Now it's quite a bit worse.
The frame for our back door warped enough (or maybe hinges wiggled loose...something went wonky) that it no longer opens.
There's a strange warp in our hall floor that we haven't noticed before. Almost as though some of the foundation pillars settled a bit. Or maybe we just haven't been paying attention.
