Amanda Caldwell

Catching up

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:00:00 +0000

From this:

to this:

Noah's blog

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:38:00 +0000

Love this one, from The Wittenburg Door:

Day 6
So I was loading up the last of the animals last week when I walk past my neighbor Roger, the Molech-worshipper. He looks up and says "Hey, looks like rain."

True story.

…

Day 31

You guys read this blog. You know I love my wife, right? But I swear, sometimes she just gets on my nerves.

"The roof is leaking, Noah."

"Noah, the sheep are soaking wet because the roof is leaking."

You know what? Sometimes Noah just needs a little Noah Time, okay?

Read the whole shebang at The Wittenburg Door.

Wordless Wednesday: Roasting marshmallows

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Cleaning elf

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 04:59:00 +0000

One night recently, I went to bed crying — honest-to-goodness crying — that our house was such a mess. I'm pregnant, and that's what I do. I was truly feeling so overwhelmed by our inability to finish the sorting we'd started, my frustration with the chaos surrounding me, and the impossibility that we'd get everything done before the baby comes.

I woke up in the morning and left the boys sleeping in bed. I crept downstairs to find this:

And this:

When Steve got up later, I asked him how long he had stayed up working on it. Till 6 a.m., he told me.

That, my friends, is love.

If a pregnant woman falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, does she still look cute, in a beached-whale sort of way?

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 21:17:00 +0000

So I bought a lot of cute maternity clothes this pregnancy, and I realized the other day that practically no one has seen them. Except for, you know, Steve, who appreciates them, and Corin, who does not. The same goes for the cashiers at Safeway and the customer service staff at Home Depot who try to help me find "you know, that thingy you can screw into screws that are stripped?" We have a couple friends we see regularly, and a few more we see occasionally, and that's that. We visited Steve's family when I was in that stage where I knew I was showing but no one else really seemed to notice, and my family's not going to see me the whole nine months. It makes me wonder if spending the money on adorableness was really the wisest choice. I was lately contemplating getting a real haircut — as in, not by Steve — but decided looking fabulous just on the delight it gives me in passing by stray shop-window reflections probably does not make it the best investment at this point.

Last pregnancy, I was attending a church, and we had community groups going on, so every week a group of people got to see the ever-enlarging expanse of Amanda belly and muse aloud on what might be happening below the surface. It was fun, all that attention. Subsequent pregnancies are different in many respects, I suppose, but I feel like this one is sort of passing by without remark — that the baby will be here before I've fully experienced the moment of baby-not-here-yet.

And, once you've got the newborn, all attention is off you. I remember what a rude shock that was — no one telling me anymore I was cute, or huge, or anything at all — it was all on that baby. That scene-stealing baby. Silly Corin. (I mean, come on — I poop; I cry; I have fat rolls and funny-looking cowlicks. What does he have on me?)

To make up for the lack of in-person observations to appreciate my expanded girth and my expanded wardrobe, I've taken to documenting myself photographically as often as I think of it. Since I can't wait for Steve to volunteer, I end up doing the mirror-shot thing most weeks.

So I get fabulous pictures like this.

And this.

All this to say, if you want a glimpse of the ever-changing landscape that is my torso, let me know. I'll send you a picture.

Night owls

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:56:00 +0000

We've been trying to wrest ourselves into a "normal" schedule — as in, the type of schedule that wouldn't appeal to vampires.

It's been a trial, as it always is. And we always fail. I guess it's kind of like dieting, or sticking to a schedule. Some people can do it, and most people can't. Out of the people who can do it, most can do it for only a short time. I don't know how much hope to hold out that we'll transform into daylight people after a lifetime of being hardwired differently.

So far we've resisted the stark temptation to take a nap and throw off all our efforts, though it is so. very. hard. By mid-afternoon, we start checking the clocks in disbelief that it's not midnight yet. And we've also resisted the temptation to chuck it all and sleep in past our alarms. At least, more than a couple hours past our alarms. (Yes, alarms in the multiple.) It's a huge temptation, especially since I have yet to wake up not in the middle of a dream, feeling all groggy and out of it. And we have yet to see Corin wake up on his own, without prompting that is met with much protestation.

Last night, I had a grand plan to start winding Corin down by ten, so that he'd be asleep by 10:30 or 11. But he was in the bath, and having fun for once, so I let it be. He didn't get to the bed till after 11, and it was about 12:30 when I looked over at Steve and was like, "What is wrong with him? Why isn't he tired?!"

And Steve said simply, "He's a night owl."

Yup. Two night owls reproducing = a night owl. I guess it shouldn't be too surprising. We always get second and third winds late at night, but mornings are a drain. We will always, always opt to stay up late to finish something rather than get up early. And all morning church services and library story hours and playgroups seem tantalizingly out of reach to us. It's this that's making us want to change our habits, so that maybe we can attend all the family-oriented morning (and afternoon) activities without so much distress. But, yeah, so far…

This evening at 6, Corin started falling asleep on my lap. I woke him up again posthaste, but it just goes to show — we're tired. We're all tired. But not so tired that going to bed at a decent hour seems in the least appealing. There's just so much fun to do at night!

I think I'll try a 9:30 winding-down tonight. Wish me luck.

Our social butterfly

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 05:52:00 +0000

Our view of the festivities, from the table in the corner (and via our non-focus-friendly camera phone).

We went to a party today for Corin's preschool.

It's exactly the sort of gathering at which I fare very ill: large masses of strangers in a room acoustics forgot. I keep thinking, I should like these parties. I should want to meet the parents of my child's schoolmates, and see him at play with his friends, and perhaps even arrange a future playdate or two.

But, as I was telling Steve, I think a better option for us would be a much smaller gathering — for instance, maybe just the parents from the afternoon class he attends, rather than parents from every variation of classes, and perhaps in a more intimate setting than a community center gym.

Not that I'm complaining about the organizers; I'm just complaining about myself, and my lack of sociability.

Steve and Corin and I arrived late and did first things first — piled up some plates with food from the potluck tables. Then we found a seat, at a table that held other people's belongings, but at which no one else ever joined us. I always tend to pick empty tables at potlucks and thought this time I would force myself to sit with someone — but, no.

The ever-active Corin is a blur of motion, what with his sitting in a chair and sipping multiple juice boxes and all. We went through four balloons before the party was over. Two were stolen from tables by a suspect who looked remarkably like the above, only more in focus.

Outcome of the four balloons: One was lost to the ceiling, one was lost to a cute little girl who lost hers to the ceiling, one popped inexplicably from the rough stabbiness of Mama's hand, and one is safely floating in the living room.

Corin ate his food. Well, some. And picky-ed his way through four juice boxes before settling on one he liked. And then we sat. And sat.

There was a very good children's musician performing, but Corin refused to get near.

They set up bouncy castles afterward, but Corin won't go in bouncy castles unless they're devoid of other rugrats — or, at the very least, girls. We tried explaining to him that there was no way we could persuade fifty giddy youngsters to exit the three bouncy houses so that he could have his alone time, and he started shouting helpful instructions at us: "Yell at them! Yell at them!"

But when we tried to leave, he insisted he loved the party and had to stay. Sigh.

I noticed other kids standing by their friends. I wondered why our kid had none. And then I remembered that his parents were sitting by themselves at a table to the rear. Apple, falling, tree, all that.

I always feel conspicuous for being a social reject at these shindigs, so at one point I looked around at the other tables. Wouldn't you know it — we weren't the only ones. Probably a dozen other lonely people shifted their eyes away from contact and pretended they were engrossed in drinking from their water bottles, or tapped their toes determinedly to the music, as if to broadcast "Sitting by yourself is FUN!"

So I felt better. If we were going to be loners, at least we were doing it with a crowd.

Corin insisted we swap nametags, because clearly mine had an "A for Apa."

Steve and I filled the time till the party ended talking big about how we're totally going to transform the downstairs half-bathroom — for reals, this time. New paint, new tile, pedestal sink and updated faucet to replace the hip 1980s model, eco-friendly toilet (not a composting model, though; I have to draw the crunchy line somewhere), chair rail for charm, and a round mirror hanging from a ribbon, because won't that be dainty?

And then, instead of driving to the paint store to finally, finally, finalize that stupid yellow we're searching for (antique! pale! why don't you exist!), or to Home Depot to order our sink, or to home to schedule the handyman to come give us some estimates or a floor place to locate our tile choice (1920s black-and-white chic, which strangely enough is not easily found in the twenty-teens), we merely dithered as we always do about cost, clearing clutter, our dismal track record at installing anything properly, blah blah blah, and ended up doing nothing. And so it is.

But at least we had partied. Hard.

My furry four-year-old

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:51:00 +0000

I've never had that oft-expressed fear that I won't love my second child as much as I love my first. I don't think (I don't think) it's because I don't love my first child… It's just, everyone says, Don't worry; you will. And I believe it. I've loved plenty of new people in my life, and I haven't had a problem expanding that love to fit them in. Yes, some of them have exited that love as well, or had the love morph and change into a more distant affection, but I'm going to imagine my four-year-old (at the time of birth, or thereabouts) will be staying pretty close, of necessity. I mean, he still can't pull his pants up after he pees, for crying out loud. He needs me.

I have worried that I won't love my firstborn as much as I love the second, at least for awhile. I've heard this is a common phenomenon, and I've experienced it to some degree already when Corin was born. I brought him home, and Luna was there, meep-meeping for attention. And I just looked down at her and thought, Boy howdy, are you hideous. You're so…furry.

Proof.

And, the thing is, I kept telling my rational brain, No, she's not, stupidhead. She's a beautiful cat. But I simply couldn't see it, not for months. I petted her, but under duress. I'd much rather have been smoothing my hands over chubby-soft newborn limbs and nuzzling that rockin' fauxhawk.

So I imagine when this new baby comes out, I'll be all, Get offa me, you big gangly big old big thing. You have too many…limbs.

And I'll have to, like, keep it to myself and all, because Corin might not appreciate being told he's abhorrent in my sight.

I have to imagine it's an evolutionary trait, this strong preference of the mother for the newborn. The newborn, after all, is vulnerable — but also really, really, really, really annoying. If the mother didn't attach so strongly, there's no way we'd have survived till now.

Eventually I saw Luna as pretty again — and, frankly, a lot less work than this baby I was strangely enamored with. I imagine the same will happen with Corin, given time.

Till then, I'll just have to hide the shudders. For now, I'll enjoy that I still see him as my original adora-baby. Those big pink cheeks, the ringlets over his ears, his snub nose, his rounded belly, the dimples over his knuckles that are persisting, to our delight. My little cutie. My big boy.

Beyond the truth

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 06:22:00 +0000

It's come to my attention that some of my former readers think I'm being mysterious or possibly exclusive — that I have some fabulous hidden blog. But, no, I just took this one down for awhile and haven't been writing a word.

These past months were an experiment in telling the truth, and — no.

I originally had no thought of telling the truth. I kept it in for at least a couple years, until it exploded, semi-privately, at home. Steve took it in and urged me to share with the larger world — that someone would understand.

I've come to the conclusion that it's not so. I'm sure it's mostly my fault, which pains me as a writer. I guess you can't blog about some of what you think without people thinking that's all of what you think — but writing down all of what you think is burdensome, to say the least, if not impossible. I never felt I was expressing myself fully, and what I did express found little resonance.

I think that's what I was hoping for most of all: an echo out there of "me, too!"

But, barring telling the truth, what is there in its place? I get tired sometimes of being multiple people. This crowd knows this face, and this crowd another. But what has been the point of masks, or even of dropping them? It hasn't preserved friendships to be half myself, anymore than it's preserved them to be fully myself.

It's hard to know what to write when I don't know who my audience is anymore. I think I'll just have to write back into the void and see what shakes out.

Merry Christmas 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 06:32:00 +0000

Our Christmas letter is online this year at SteveandAmanda.com.

"This has been a somewhat quiet year. A little bit sad, a little bit happy, a little bit nothing much. Due to the underwhelmingness, we didn’t get around to mailing out a Christmas letter, but here’s our online version to fill you in."

Ah, the sentiments of the season.

But it has cute pictures:

So that's something.

Goodbye, Luna

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 06:44:00 +0000

Oh.

I feel silenced

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:47:00 +0000

Wordless Wednesday: Grandma!

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Wed, 12 May 2010 22:24:00 +0000

More at Wordless Wednesday and 5 Minutes for Mom

Send my roots rain

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 06:36:00 +0000

Swiss dotted icing
twisting into strands
as thick as rope
silken and catching the light

of three reflected lamps
giving the seedlings
a false sun
in this twilight

darkening the glass
that separates the shoots
from the rain
that would quench them.

{Inspired by Prompt 2 — "write a water poem" — from the April Poem-a-Day Challenge hosted by Robert Lee Brewer at Poetic Asides, and while looking at my seedlings basking under fluorescent lights in the window and contemplating that I would have to water them even though it was pouring outside. The title and deeper meaning are from this Gerard Manley Hopkins poem and relate to my Lenten challenge.}

Photo copyright Lies Meirlaen

PSA break: How to fill out your census

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:18:00 +0000

Courtesy of my mother, a little help with filling out your census this month:

Click image to open in a new window to play.

(It strikes me that I didn't properly attribute the Ellen clips to my mom, as well. She's an unending source of hilarity.)

Wordless Wednesday: Mailing a toddler

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 23:30:00 +0000

More at Wordless Wednesday and 5 Minutes for Mom

Resurrection poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 01:04:00 +0000

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

from John Updike, "Seven Stanzas at Easter"

Thank you to Rachel at Common Places for bringing me three Easter poems. Perfect inspiration as I seek to write my daily poetry this month, and to think about on this day of days in the faith.

I think John Updike's poem in particular speaks to what I'm thinking of today.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable …

Yea for poetry, yea for deep thoughts, yea for Easter.

I forgot to be explicit about this, but since my forty days are over and I'm nowhere close to finished with my journey, I'm going to keep trucking.

And, now, on a different note: We've just eaten Chinese food and are going to watch Fame. I expect even more deep thoughts forthcoming...

Photo of a Celtic cross at sunrise copyright Craig Goodwin.

Poem-a-Day Challenge 2010 starts today!

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 23:33:00 +0000

And, no, this is not an April Fool's Day joke.

Get your pencils (er, laptops, whatever) out and start scribing! You are a poet, my friend, and by the end of this month:

You will have 30 spanking-new poems!

The poetry book I published is heavily populated with PAD Challenge poems, so it's totally worth it to power through this National Poetry Month adventure!

Go to Poetic Asides by Robert Lee Brewer to find the very first prompt for this year's challenge: Write a lonely poem.

The complete guidelines are here. Basically, write the poems, and then select your top five to submit by May 5 for consideration as the top 50 of the month.

Get writing, and I'll see you at the finish line with all our lovely new poems! Yea!

Ellen break: Hypnotizing lizards

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:15:00 +0000

Don't you so want to try this?

Reimagining church over at Steve's place

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:23:00 +0000

I want to highlight a series that Steve is doing on his blog of the same name (Steve! The Musical!).
Since I have such a big following, I like to give back by throwing some attention to others. Look at my followers list if you don't believe me. Four people. Four! Ignore that two of them are me and ... me. It says it's Steve, but I logged into his account and followed myself because I got tired of being the only one. Notice he doesn't even have an icon; that's how much he cares about using that feature.

I kind of doubt I have any readers who don't read Steve's blog already, but just in case!

Steve's been reading through a couple books on simple churches and the history of the church by Frank Viola and blogging about his reading in "Reimagining the church: a conversation."

Check out this quote from Part 2 of the series that made my eyes well up:

I feel like more of a semi-educated part-time volunteer clergy person than 'laity'. In other words, I know enough about being in charge and thinking I've got good answers to have enough of a chip on my shoulder that I can look down on people. I know, it's ugly, but that's the truth of it: It becomes pretty easy to feel self-satisfied.

Until the day, that is, that the people who you think you are trying to help turn out to have more of a handle on this whole "love" thing than you feel you do. Until the day you run headlong into a dose of humility and find that most of the 'laity' isn't that interested in accumulating hordes of information but is just trying to live a simple faith and trust in God, one moment at a time, one foot in front of the other. I have learned more about the grace, beneficence, love, and beauty of God by being a willing receiver of others' ordinary stories than I've grasped by reading the most eloquent apologies of the faith. I don't see myself as anti-intellectual or anti-clergy by any means, but as pro-laity, pro-freedom of speech, pro-respect for those hidden in corners, pro-wrestling with how that plays out in community. Because either Jesus Christ is alive, active, and available to everyone with the most simple belief in and love of him, or Jesus Christ is hidden behind a veil that is accessible to only the few with the most learning and wisdom and righteousness and devotion.

Preach it, (lay-)brother!

All right, head on over and take it in. It's like the book report to end all book reports.

I'll try to compile a links list here (of the series so far, because I honestly have no idea how long this sucker is), because I want them in order to reference myself:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10 (and more? still to come...)

Someone's been doing a lot of writing!

Wordless Wednesday: St. Patrick's Day hair

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:11:00 +0000

First day at preschool, a year ago (sigh)

More at Wordless Wednesday and 5 Minutes for Mom

Corin in spring

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:19:00 +0000

Make your own photobook design

Ellen break: It's bad — paid-for photos

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:10:00 +0000

And you thought your school pictures were bad.

Wordless Wednesday: Time to grow

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:20:00 +0000

Time to garden, Mama!

Guess who bought himself a new watering can!

Corin studies the seed packets: Are these part-shade or full-sun?

Corin helps with the labeling. I certainly couldn't handle it on my own.

Look! Look!

More at Wordless Wednesday and 5 Minutes for Mom

Checkpoint @ Catapult Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda L. Caldwell) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:04:00 +0000

Click over to Catapult Magazine to read my latest poem: "Checkpoint."

Kirstin kindly compared it to John Donne's Holy Sonnet 14:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

And Steve said it reminded him of his song "Break Me":

I'll take either comparison. I'm just glad to have written a poem again! I'm pretty pleased with it, in that giddiness that only writing poetry can bring, and I think it fits well with my Lenten theme.

Read the whole Borders & Fences issue here.