Merged Edison-Albright Feed

"That's MY shadow on the moon!"

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 16:21:00 +0000

The "Super blood moon" of 2015

When I got home from catachumenate they were all upstairs, recently bathed and all jammied up, watching "Madeline." Sean gave me a look to let me know that getting to that peaceful moment had been a struggle. Lately, it seems like everything with both kids takes so much energy. They are at the peak of their defiant powers and we're not entirely sure what to do about it.

I have found that saying things like "You need sleep to live" and "If you would just cooperate, everyone would be happy and the world would be a better place" are NOT, ultimately, helpful.

Sean told me he didn't want to make any more decisions that night and I said, "Not a problem. I have a plan, and I will drive. Just help me get the kids in the car."

Walter was wearing one of my old t-shirts for a jammie, and threw on a pair of slip on shoes. Sean carried shoe-less Sally out into the night. "It's dark. It's late." she said. I filled two sippy cups with ice water. We stood in the driveway for a minute. The view of the moon was pretty good there, but I thought viewing from the van would be better for mosquito avoidance. That, and there's something special about driving out into the night to go watch the moon.

Really, there's something special about being up late and looking up at the sky together. Walter immediately thought of fireworks. Sean helped us find a great spot to park not too far from the house but in a nice dark patch of clear sky ... there were a couple other moon viewers (lunatics, if you will) out there, too. Sean brought Walter up into the front seat to sit on his lap. I squeezed in to the space between Sally's seat at the door, where we casually held hands. We listened to classical music on the radio and watched the shadow on the moon get bigger and bigger.

We talked as we watched, an almost constant stream of Sally and Walter commentary on the situation. Sally was quite pleased when we affirmed her observation: "That's MY shadow on the moon!" Well, yes, in a way, it is. The rest of the night, she referred to it as "Sally's shadow." Walter careened between rather brilliantly correct observations, "You can't see the planet earth, but you can see its shadow on the moon" to observations we weren't sure what do with "The planet earth is above the sidewalk, now" to the downright poetic "The stars are shining on the road!" to the unintentionally earth-centric "I don't like it when you call earth "a planet." You should always say, "THE PLANET EARTH!"

I think Walter and I are a lot alike. We fall in love not just with an event, but with all the sensory input and everything else surrounding the event. So, the lunar eclipse itself was quite wonderful, yes. But for Walter, it was also a night to celebrate the classical music on the radio ("that's good, because I'm learning violin") my choice of beverage for them ("cold ice water, my favorite!") and his spot on Daddy's lap ("I really like this seat.") All in all, the excursion received Walter's highest praise: "That was a good choice."

I don't think I realized how difficult the choices of parenting would be. I think the hardest ones are the choices we make when we don't feel like we have a choice: when one of the kids is doing something dangerous and we have to raise our voices or pick them up to get them to stop; when we're running late and we can't gently coax them into putting their shoes on anymore ... we just have to do it for them, muttering unhelpful things about the fleeting nature of time and the possibility of greater happiness through independent shoe putting-on.

That said, the choice to take my 2-year-old, who has a cold, and cold-induced-asthma, and my almost 4-year-old, who is testing the limits of every adult he knows and needs every minute of sleep we can get him, out into the night after their bedtime to see a lunar eclipse they probably won't remember ... that was a pretty easy choice. We sat in the dark together, holding onto each other with that easy, comfortable grip of people who love each other without question. We listened to the violins and looked up at the sky. "The next time this happens," Sean said to Walter, "You will be the age that Mama and Daddy are, now."** "And if you have kids," I said, "You can bring them out after their bedtime to watch the moon." "Yes!" said Walter excitedly. "Let's do that right now!"

**This turns out to be in error ... the last #superbloodmoon was 30 years ago, but the next one will be 18 years from now.

I like to be with my family

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 15:14:00 +0000

Un-posed moment of sibling sweetness.

A few weeks ago, back when September was new and Sally was just starting to come more fully into her two-ness, we took a week of family vacation. We spent the first part of the week at Barb's House in Osh Kosh, the second part in Baraboo/Wisconsin Dells, and visited with my parents before, in between, and at the end. We did some more celebrating of Sally's birthday with dear friends, we did some poor sleeping and questionable eating. There were fits of great sadness and defiance and moments of unbearable sweetness.

I took notes.

"Salad noodle cricket." Those were Walter's first words to me as we woke up at Barb's house Tuesday morning. I made him repeat it. "Salad. Noodle. Cricket." he said. "What is it?" I asked. "Something very yummy." Silence for a bit. "Would you mind saying that to me one more time?" It never changed, and he continued to insist on it the rest of the morning.
"That was a good choice." That's all I wrote in my notes, and I don't remember what exactly it referred to, but it's something Walter's been saying quite a bit lately when he's pleased with a family activity and how it goes. He likes to affirm my good choices. "Mama, that was a good choice." I think in this case he might have been talking about going to the Appleton Children's Museum, or to the coffee shop for a snack after we played at the museum, or maybe it was the day before when we rode the train at the Oshkosh zoo with his dearest ones (Sally, Henry, Bennett, and Anna and the moms of same.) When he enjoys something, he really enjoys it. Which leads me to ...
"I think they did that for me." Another fairly common recent Walter-ism, which he says when something really delightful happens, like a violin piece coming on the radio while he's listening, or an especially beautiful sunset.
"All my toes are asleep. Let's wake them up!" This is Sally, now. She is HILARIOUS. And she seems be fairly intentional about it and aware of it. Other funny Sally sayings from vacation week:

"Look at that doggy, he can drive!" (On seeing a dog in a parked car.)
"I'm gonna eat your pizza, Mama! Om nom nom nom nom nom!" (With great menacing flair, a gleam in her eye, and seriously wicked, pizza-stealing intent.)
"I'm standing. I'm a lamb." (I have no memory of what the set up was for this one, but it was one of the best and most brilliantly-delivered punchlines in the history of comedy.)

Wandered Off: The Musical. Both kids sing almost constantly. Two musical moments stand out in my memory of this vacation week. One was the song Sally wrote while we were swimming one morning: "Swimming swimming where's my shoe? Swimming swimming where's my shoe?" The other was on our last day in Baraboo, as we finished up lunch at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum and started to think about heading out to Umma and Baba's. Walter found a giant tree stump and declared it a stage. He got up and started to sing, and told Sally to dance; she complied. Then he started to sing her story: the story of a little girl who wandered off into the woods one day. "Wandered off!! Into the woods!!" Eventually, our hero makes it back home. Whew.
I like capturing the moment right before they zonk out.
"That's what I'd been planning on." Walter's plan, every day we were at the hotel, was simply to maximize our time in the hotel pool. Eating the deli meat we'd brought with us in the hotel room was great, because if we ate in the hotel room, we were closer to the pool. I think we swam a minimum of three times each day. Our skin and hair will never be the same.
"Where's the duckies?" Excursions that took us out of our hotel room and into the gorgeous September days were met with some resistance: Walter only wanted to swim, Sally only wanted to watch movies. But we did manage to get them out and about. My favorite outing was a ride on the Original Wisconsin Ducks. The ducks are amphibious vehicles from WWII re-purposed as tourist carriers. I loved holding little Sally on my lap as we zoomed through the woods, the wind blowing in our hair. I loved watching Walter walk very confidently up to the front of the duck when the driver asked for a young volunteer: we were out on Lake Delton, and Walter got to drive, and he did so like he'd been born doing it. As we were walking through the parking lot to the van to head back to the hotel, Sally sleepily said, "Where's the duckies?" All this talk about ducks ... well ... where were they?

Vacationing together is pretty exhausting. Separated from their usual routine, the kids had some sustained moments of genuine misery. They missed their friends, their teachers, their regularly scheduled programming. We started the week with a house full of friends, and when they went home and we four stayed, Walter was very lonesome for them and asked, repeatedly, as young ones do, "Can we just go home, now?" But we persisted in our vacationing, and the kids had fun, and so did we. We watched a new Daniel Tiger episode while we were getting dressed and going one morning, and the theme seemed to fit just right with what we were doing, so we sang it often, usually led by Sally: "I like to be with my family!" Sometimes we'd sing it as though we were trying to convince ourselves. Other times we'd sing it and I'd know that there's nothing more true in the whole world.

I like to be with my family!

Sally, two days from two years old

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 03:12:00 +0000

Walter has entirely given up sleeping in his room, by himself, in his own bed. He refers to the room Sean and I used to share as "his" room, and his bed, now. How we got to this point is a story, but it's a story for another time ... and maybe a story I will NOT record for posterity. As you might imagine, this sleeping arrangement has put a damper on blogging. And many other things adults like to do. But, for now, making sure Walter gets enough sleep to behave well during the day is the priority, and this is how we're doing it. So, tonight Sean sleeps with Walter, and I bunk in what is arguably the comfiest bed in the house, the single bed in Walter's room.

And that's good, because Sally is about to turn two (on Friday, the 21st) and I want to record a bit of what she was like tonight! And, if I want to blog anywhere near her birthday: this is my chance. Carpe laptop!

It's Wednesday night, which means I eat dinner with the family and then head back to church for Holden Evening Prayer. When I came home after worship all the lights were dark in the house but I heard lots of voices coming from Sally's room, so I slipped off my shoes and went in. "Mama!" Sally greeted me warmly. "Mama come home!"

Walter usually greets me, too, but he was pretty engrossed in the 5 minute Disney Princess story Sean was reading. Sally was the opposite of engrossed (grossed out? not exactly ... but certainly not interested.) She was taking care of her baby ("Baby Baby"), which is actually the baby we got Walter to get him ready for Sally's arrival about two years ago. She was taking off Baby Baby's clothes. "It's dirty, otay? Take a bath. Take off clothes, otay?" I helped take off the pink pajamas, knowing that if I wasn't able to convince Sally to put the clothes back on right away we might have a permanently naked baby on our hands ... but this is the risk we take in imaginative play.

Photo credit: Walter Paul Edison-Albright

"Take a tub ... in dis!" She grabbed a foam cheesehead hat that was lying on the floor (the way we all do, in Central Wisconsin) and stuffed Baby Baby in. "Dere you go! Take a bath! Get clean! Put clothes on?" I jumped at this chance, but she changed her mind. "Take anudder tubby." Into the cheesehead hat again. She carried the hat around a little, looking for a good place to put the makeshift tub. "On-na my head!" she joked, and tried to balance the hat-full-of-baby-doll on her head, giggling.

Out of nowhere, she came over and did her classic Sally "throw myself at you and you will catch me" move. I did, indeed, catch her. She gave me a nice hug. "Mama home again. I love you. I get you a nana, otay?" She headed to her bedroom door to get me a banana. "I'm OK, Sally. I don't need a banana." Her attempt at hospitality thwarted, she frowned a little, offered the banana again with a look of loving concern, then decided to get me something else. "I get you ... a pull up!" She got a Dora the Explorer pull up out of her box for me, and repeated the gesture for Daddy. For Walty, who has been completely in undies for some time now, she got a diaper. He didn't mind, and thanked her kindly.

We arranged for the boys to head upstairs for part two of their bedtime routine, while I stayed with Sally for two more short books and some songs. Walter was very sweet ... Sally asked for ice water, and he got it for her, and she was like, "That my Walty." He gave us goodnight kisses. The sleep is doing him good, and he is a good, good big brother indeed.

Our Sally is so beautiful

As we read books and settled into bed, Sally continued her almost constant stream of patter. When she asks a question and gets an answer, her response these days is "Ohhhhh" or, even more hilariously, "Ohhhhh. That's right!" Every answer she gets becomes confirmation of what she already knows to be true.

We read "Clifford's Family" ("SALLY'S family!" ... and then she named us all) and "Dora's Backpack"

Sally said: "Hooray, to Dora!" "Hooray, to Backpack!" "Hooray, to Boots!"

Our Sally is always talkin'!

I said: "Hooray for Sally!"
And she giggled. "No way," she said.
"Yes, way! You helped, you get hoorays, too."
"I say, 'Swiper no swipin'?"
"Yes you did! You stopped Swiper. And you counted books. And you solved the troll's riddle."
"Hooray for Sally!" she said, decisively.
"Hooray for Sally!" I echoed.
"Hooray for Mama!" said Sally, always gracious, always generous.
"Hooray for Mama!" I echoed again.

We sang some songs, and she went to bed in her big girl bed with no fuss. We haven't taken the crib down yet, and she still asks to sleep there sometimes, but we'll make that change, soon.

Lately, Sally's been asking us: "Sally baby?"
The answer, you should know is "No." Or, as Sally says it when we echo that question back to her:
"No WAY! Sally big girl!"

Happy soon-to-be-birthday, big girl Sally. We all love you very much.

Our Sally is two-years-old!

A toast!

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 21:12:00 +0000

A week ago today, the Supreme Court ruled that it is discriminatory for states to prevent same sex couples from marrying. Auds and Curt were visiting, and they giggled a little when I responded to the news with a hearty "THANKS BE TO GOD!" I forgot that such a response is not entirely universal! But to God be the glory. Any time the arc of history bends toward justice, God is at work.

The end of the day brought us all together very briefly before we went in separate directions: Sean picked up the kids from day care, and then Auds and I set off for a sewing party to make re-usable sanitary pads for girls who live in countries without access to pads (I told our wonderful hostess, "This is our kind of party!") Sean and Curt took the kids out for fish fry and put them to bed. But there was this brief moment, after day care and work and before we all scattered, when Sean gathered us in the van and told us we were going to have a toast.

He'd bought two bottles of sparkling grape juice and cider, and grabbed some plastic kids' cups from the kitchen. It was pouring down rain, that serious summer rain that instantly floods the driveway and drenches you to sogginess. We all crowded into the van: Sean in the driver's seat, me in the front passenger seat, Walter and Sally in their carseats, Curt in the back and Auds crouched down next to Sally. We gave Sean our full attention. The kids knew something important and interesting was happening.

"So, today," Sean said, as he started getting the juice and cups ready, "Today the Supreme Court, which is part of our government, decided that people who love each other can get married. You see, it used to be that there was a whole group of people who weren't allowed to get married, but now they can."

"It used to be that only women and men could get married in a lot of places," I clarified. "But now, all over over the country, women who love women can get married. And men who love men can get married. So, when you grow up, you can marry the person you love, whether that person is a man or a woman."

Walter listened with growing excitement. It was clear he had something to say ... an announcement of great importance to make:

"I am going to marry Mama!"

We shouldn't have been completely unprepared for this; it's a pretty common assumption among three-year-old boys. Also, he's told Sean in the past: "When I grow up, I'm going to sleep upstairs with Mama." "Where am I going to sleep?" asked Sean. "Probably with one of the neighbors." Sean was relieved that Walter still wanted him to be nearby.

But we did fumble slightly in the moment, and while we didn't guffaw or anything, we must have smiled and given him an "oh, sweetie" look, because immediately his joyful, proud look changed to one of shy disappointment. "Mama is married to me," Sean explained. "But she'll always be your mama." "And I'll always love you," I added.

With the grape juice poured and glasses distributed, it was time for the toast: "To marriage equality!" said Sean. "To marriage equality! To love!" I said. "To love! Cheers!" the kids and Auds and Curt joined in. Auds had offered to share a cup with Sally, but it was clear that Sally did not need any help drinking her grape juice. A refill or two later, and we went our separate ways into a fun Friday night.

Sean texted me during the day on Friday to ask if we could sing "How Can I Keep From Singing?" in church on Sunday, and that morning the band backed him up while he sang (beautifully, and a little tearfully.) The song was a perfect bridge between lamentation--as we mourned the murder of nine black church leaders at the hands of white supremacist--and celebration ("When friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing?")

It was my Umma's (my grandma's) favorite song, and I remember hearing it sung on a Prairie Home Companion, and hearing her sing along with all her heart. I've always like Enya's version of it, too, and we used to listen to that album on our way up to visit Umma during the last year of her life. It makes me think of summer, of 1991, of fresh raspberry pie from Norske Nook, of the sound of Umma's voice that I can just barely remember. I wonder, now, what she thought about while she sang the song, and what it meant to her.

I don't know for sure what memories Walter and Sally will associate with the song, but I can tell you that they have been singing it a lot lately. To make sure he could sing it without crying too much, Sean practiced singing it almost constantly over the weekend--while changing Sally's diapers, while getting Walter ready for bed, while walking Hank the Dog. And so the kids, also, have been singing it as they go about their daily tasks of life. Walter likes to add a little extra vibrato when he does: "How can I keeeeeep .. from singinginginging!"

As I told the congregation on Sunday: God is at work for justice, peace, mercy and love in the world. And we are called to be God's instruments in that work. And we have a lot of work to do. But as we work, we sing.

How can we keep from singing?

These are the lyrics Sean put together for church on Sunday, a hybrid of Pete Seeger and Evangelical Lutheran Worship:

My life flows on in endless song;
above earth’s lamentation,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
that hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife,
I hear that music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest round me roars?
I know the truth, it liveth.
What though the darkness round me close?
Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?

In prison cells and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
a fountain ever springing!
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?

No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?

"Sally!"

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 03:39:00 +0000

When you are getting close to 22 months old, you are pretty much the center of the universe. But you are very adorable about it.

***We were trying to get the kids to sit down in their car seats so we could buckle them up and get the doors closed and not let too many mosquitoes in. "We don't want to let in any bugs," said Sean. Sally, also known as Sally bug, pointed at herself. "Bug right here," she said. "Right. Here."

***We've always made that line in "Baa, baa, black sheep" into "the little girl who lives down the lane" when singing it for Sally. We all do it--Sean, me, Umma, Baba--without talking about it with each other or thinking about it much. We never explained our reason for the change. Lately, when I sing that line, Sally helpfully adds, "Sally!" right after ... making it clear who the little girl down the lane is. She gets it.

All this before we left the house today

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Sun, 31 May 2015 03:30:00 +0000

Walter climbed into bed with us around 3:30 this morning. At around 8, he woke up with Umma and Baba's on his mind. "We need to go to Umma and Baba's house," were his first words to me upon waking, his little head nestled next to mine. When he saw that I was awake, too, he elaborated on his plan. We should make doot doot cake. TWO doot doot cakes. One for Walter to make, and one for Sally. With white doots and brown doots. Enough for both of them to share. I explained that we'd be going to visit Umma and Baba in two weeks, but he still spent most of the morning campaigning for going down there today.

Walter was mostly interested in playing this morning but when Sally woke up she made it clear that breakfast was the first order of business, so we settled in for some miniwheats. Sean made himself a taco with some smoked trout, and the kids wanted some, so he gave them some tortillas to eat, and some fish, too. I watched Sally expertly wrap up her tortilla, burrito-style, and was delighted when she unwrapped it to see that she'd put her fish in there. Sally is taco-proficient.

Walter and Sally were being sibling-y, and getting on each other's nerves a bit. Sally made a funny baby-dinosaur scream noise and then Walter did it too, prompting Sally to say, "Too loud, Walter." And Walter said, "But you did it first, Sally." And she explained, "Too LOUD, Walter," and he reiterated, "But you did it FIRST, Sally," and so on. Sally dumped some of Walter's milk out of his bowl at one point, reaching in to see if he had any more miniwheats. When that got a reaction, she tried to do it again. At one point, though, Walter ran out of fish and Sally gave him some of hers.

"Thank you, Salla Balla," he said, lovingly.
"Otay, Walla Walla," she shot right back, without missing a beat.

I think improvising terms of endearment must be some kind of major developmental milestone, right? Because ... so wonderful!

After breakfast Sean got himself and the kids dressed while I did some dishes so we could get out of the house and start our day. This was the plan. This is always the plan. But it is really hard to do. It's been made more difficult, lately, by the fact that Sally has decided I should not clean the kitchen after meals.

Cleaning the kitchen after meals is kind of my happy place, honestly. I should find ways to include the kids in the process, and I've tried to do that now and then, but really ... I just love having the kitchen to myself and a little time to get something accomplished on my own. I like pouring myself a big glass of selzer and drinking it while I work. Sometimes I'll eat a little chocolate. I listen in on Sean and the kids playing in the living room and join them when I can ... but I enjoy that time by myself.

It's hard to say no to Sally, though, when she looks up at me and says, "C'mon, Mommy! Play! Living room! Toys, Mommy!" This morning she added, "Take my hand!" and gave me her hand, which of course I took. She led me into the living room, to her purple chair from Santa, and commanded, "Sit down. Right here! Play, Mommy! Toys! Read a book!"

We left the house around 10, which meant we didn't end up with much out-and-about time before we had to come home so I could eat and get ready for a wedding I officiated this afternoon. But I don't think I would have wanted to rush it any more than we did. Some things can't be rushed: dreams about doot doot cake, miniwheats and trout tacos for breakfast, endearments and playing in the living room ... all good things.

Walter, philosopher; Sally, backseat driver

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Sat, 23 May 2015 20:48:00 +0000

Two recent conversations with the kids worth documenting:

There's kind of a tough left turn to get from our house to everywhere we go. We were at that intersection, waiting. I was driving. From her carseat, Sally voiced her opinion. "Go now, Mommy." It wasn't clear, so I stayed put. When I did make the turn, Sally noticed there were some cars headed our way (a safe distance away, I assure you.) "Cars coming, Mommy," she said, helpfully.

The deer in our backyard. Looking right at us.

Yesterday there was a big doe in our backyard. She would have stayed there longer, I think, but she was a little spooked by all of us, gathered at the window, gazing at her. Today, the deer was still on our minds.

(Hank walks past us in the living room)
Walter, joking: Look! A deer!
Me: A dog deer!
Sean: A dear dog!
Me: That's true. Hank is our dear dog.
Walter: Yes, he is. Forever and ever.

That time I thought Sally was a month older than she really is ...

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Sat, 23 May 2015 03:59:00 +0000

Yesterday I proudly announced on facebook that Sally was 22 months old, the same age that Walter was when she was born. Pretty wild/crazy/neat, except that she's actually 21 months old. Whew.

Still my baby!

I've been anticipating that milestone, of course. As it approaches, I can't help but draw comparisons, and wonder and feel wistful about how little Walter was, really, when Sally joined our family. I don't think many people say this out loud, unless they are saying it to their pastor, but while there are benefits to spacing babies close together, there are some things worth feeling sad about, too. Walter lost a little bit of babyhood, no doubt about it. And my relationship with Walter changed, too ... we started having, as he would put it, "some troubles." We're still sorting these troubles out, Walter and I. I anticipate ... going out on a limb, here ... that there may still be more troubles to come.

My sweet boy, with pink flowers

But I'm not sure "totally conflict free" was ever a good goal for me to have in terms of relating to my children, especially Walter who is so much like me. I might need to let that goal go, and go for "mostly appropriate, healthy response to conflict" instead. To that end, Walter and I have been practicing our calming breaths and our "I" statements. He's really, really good at "I" statements.

Walter's coming out of a rough time of acting out at school, we think due to transitions (older kids moving up into a different classroom.) We helped him with strategies for staying calm, alternatives to hitting and biting, and incentives for good days and good choices. But, mostly, I think he came through it and out of it on his own. He was ready to start listening and self-regulating again. After more than a week of co-sleeping, he's back to spending most of the night in his own bed, just joining us in our bed in the morning when he wakes up. He's smiling more, laughing more, brightening all around.

Little kids have big feelings. I remember feeling like my emotions were much larger and more powerful than I was when I was a kid. I truly, truly enjoyed growing up and leaving each stage behind (life got easier as I got older.) I wonder if Walter will feel the same way?

We'll see ... in the meantime, I'll do my best not to rush him, or Sally, months or years ahead of where they actually should be!

A celebration of Walter, exactly as he is now (3 and half-ish ... I'm not counting months anymore ... I'm clearly not very good at it ... )

She seems like a good role model

Walter has a new favorite color: green. Pink and purple are also still favorites. He is excited to start gardening soon.
Walter is excited for outdoor farmer's market season to begin, and enjoys reading the latest (summery) issue of Everyday with Rachel Ray. He enjoys watching cooking shows in Create, too.
He loves shrimp, all kinds.
He got to choose new bedding for his room, and chose Doc McStuffins. which I don't think he's ever seen, but we were pleased with the choice.
He is tremendously sweet and snuggly. I love going on walks with him, holding his hand.
With Walter, you can really relax and enjoy the good things in life: a nice walk, a snuggle in the morning,
Walter, with blocks
eating popcorn and watching a movie, a beautiful bluegrass song. Our favorite thing to do continues to be breakfast together once a week ... a very simple time apart from the rest of the world that we both really enjoy.
On our family walks, Walter likes to get out of the stroller and run (though never too far, and never so I'm too nervous about it.) He also likes to pick dandelions. He was horrified when I told him that, once he'd picked a yellow dandelion, it would never continue on to the white stage. He's a pretty sensitive kid, and interrupting the dandelion life cycle was a serious issue for him, no matter how hard I tried to reassure him. Now he only picks white dandelions, and always blows the seeds and scatters them, to help them. Sometimes he plants the seeds in Sally's hair because, in addition to being a sensitive soul, Walter is also a sibling.
He is brilliant and HILARIOUS. His word play is really getting very good. The other night, Sean made mu shu pork. Suddenly, in the middle of enjoying his dinner Walter stopped and said, "This is no good ... IT COMES FROM COWS." As he waited for the pun to sink in, he realized there was another pun to be had. "It comes from the FEET of cows!!" He added, to our great delight.
Walter loves books of all kinds. He loves Fraggle Rock and Curious George. He's not into anything right now (not like the Frozen or Peter Pan hey days) ... lately he wants to be outside, or he wants to rediscover his inside toys, like his blocks or his workbench.
His greatest sources of delight: visits from Umma and Baba, outings or other time outside school spent with Henry and family, sweets, especially chocolate (he got my sweet tooth,) breakfast or other dates with Mama, reading to us (counting books and others he has memorized or can figure out from pictures,) and snuggles especially with Daddy.

A celebration of Sally, 21 months old (NOT 22!)

While she occasionally tests our limits/patience/the laws of physics, Sally is almost entirely a delight. I was listening to her talk over the monitor, before she fell asleep, which is one of my favorite things, and I asked Sean, "Is she always going to be this delightful?" "No," he said, "Definitely not." It's not that we think she'll be less delightful as she gets older, it's just that there's nothing in the world as delightful as listening to a toddler sing a medley of "itsy bitsy spider," "twinkle twinkle little star," and "my purple balloon goes sailing," to the dolls in her crib. That's pretty delightful.
Playing/working hard. Gave me a smile when she saw the camera.
What we're mostly listening for over the monitor these days is bad coughing/asthma-like symptoms (we haven't gotten an official diagnosis, or anything, but Dr. L. is treating her like she's got allergy-induced asthma, and that seems to be the case.) What I'm celebrating about that is that she's really good at taking her medicine, including her albuterol inhaler. Walter helps her with her medicine, too, which is wonderful (and he recently learned how to swallow pills, which is amazing. Sean and I, allergy-having kids though we were, didn't learn to do that until we were seven or so.)
Sally loves her lullabies, including the one I wrote for her, but she insists that I insert the names of other people into it. Tonight we sang to "Jaysa bug," "Jackson dear," "Chelsea girl," and "Emily boo," all at her request. Other favorites include Mommy, Daddy, Walter, Jesus and Matt (Henry's dad.) I think it's her way of praying for other people, kind of a "God bless..." prayer. It's an odd experience for me, sometimes, to sing something so personal and tender to classmates of hers I barely know. She's taking that "your family is the whole wide world" stuff to heart, that girl.
Sally loves all food. Sometimes she'll try something and not like it. No big deal ... she'll just move on with the meal and not eat that thing, but usually she'll try it again later and like it. She's been dairy-free for a few weeks to help with some GI issues, and has managed that quite well. She's the eating champ of the world. She prefers salty things to sweet ... she and I polished off a bag of black olives the other night and I was pretty proud.
Sally can count, reliably, to five. She loves counting, especially because it's something Walter teaches her to do.
It goes without saying, I think, that Sally is a brilliant communicator (that's kind of a funny sentence, when you think about it.) She has a huge vocabulary and puts together sentences very well. Two favorites: "Read the book, Mama." "_____ right there" (informing us of something that is happening and the fact that it is happening ... right there.
Sally calls me "Mommy." I'm not sure why ... we usually use "Mama" in this house. Maybe they taught it to her at school? Regardless, Sally is pretty clear on her use of "Mommy" and "Daddy." It's nice ... it feels like being named.

A celebration of the two of them, Walter and Sally

The way they love Dr. Suess books that feature Sally and her big brother (who we assume is Walter.)
The way they love to brush their teeth and read books.
The way Walter always wants to read books in Sally's room, and Sally always wants to read book in Walter's room.
The way they are in this picture (the one I took just before the one posted above, before Sally realized I was taking pictures and gave me that big smile.) They went to the living room after dinner and immediately got to work. Sally brought the stool over to the easel, got herself a marker, put her drink in one of the paint cup holders and set to work. Walter went over to his work bench, got out a board and various screws, nuts and bolts and a screw driver, and set to work. I came in and sat down behind them, and they were just so beautiful, so industrious, so focused, so at peace with themselves and the world. Some people would probably look at this photo and see the opposite of peace... they'd see the clutter, the mess, the chaos. But truly truly I tell you, it is a picture of peace. And it is, and they are, beautiful.

Yuri's Night to Mother's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Sun, 10 May 2015 20:37:00 +0000

Sean and I have been trying, lately, to go out for a date at least once a month. When I saw that Yuri's Night, April 12th, fell on a Sunday, I arranged for our wonderful babysitter to take the kids and started plotting a dinner date. I searched the area for a Russian restaurant. Nothing. I searched the area for a Polish restaurant. We live in a very Polish part of Wisconsin, which means there are no Polish restaurants, because you go to your grandma's house for Polish food. Maybe German food? That's kind of stretch. We went with fusion/eclectic pub food, because it's yummy and reasonably priced and because there are no visible borders from space. We had a wonderful meal and capped it off with some local soft serve before going to get the kids. It was a great night.

Sally had thrown up while we were out, though, and continued to throw up into the night and the next day, heralding the beginning of The Family Stomach Virus From Hell, 2015 Edition. Life since then has been a bit of a blur. Somewhere in there we decided, rather definitively, not to have any more kids. It wasn't the stomach virus that did it ... we've been pretty much decided on it for awhile. And there are all sorts of good reasons for that decision, the biggest one being that we don't want to risk my health/life in another pregnancy. Dr. M., who was very supportive and excited about our decision to try for a second baby, was equally definitive in his opinion that we should not try for a third. "Take precautions," he said, sternly. "EVERY time. It's been wonderful knowing you. Enjoy those two beautiful children."

I'm not particularly sad about this decision, but maybe that's because we've been giving away baby gear and clothes for months, now, and I did a lot of my nostalgic crying about it when Sally was first born. I felt very sad, for example, feeling the absence of her in my womb, knowing that I'd never feel those kicks and flutters again. I felt sad weaning her, knowing that I'd never breastfeed another baby. But on a day like today, on this particular day even, which is Mother's Day, when everyone is napping and we are just us four, I do not feel an absence or an ache. This is my family.

There is an absence, of course, but I don't really feel it or think about it unless I'm observing the anniversaries, mindful of the dates, or reflecting on The Bean and loss for other reasons.

The first time we celebrated Yuri's Night, I was pregnant for the first time and we were so, so excited. We wanted to celebrate. Sean said, "Let's go out for Yuri's Night," and made a reservation at a fancy Russian restaurant in downtown Chicago. I took the train downtown and we we walked together from the station. I was surprised at how tired I was as I walked, and delighted by that tiredness--a symptom of my pregnancy. We ate lots of dishes with beets that night, we beamed at each other. A few days later, my miscarriage began. On Mother's Day, not long after the miscarriage was over, I decided to write about my experience, so that people would stop saying things like, "When are you going to have a baby? You're going to be a great Mom!" without realizing what had just happened to me.

The space between Yuri's Night and Mother's Day isn't much, really. But it's a significant span of time for us, and we mark it. We decided to keep celebrating Yuri's Night, as much as we are able, every year. We want to celebrate and remember the joy of that night--its promise and hope. We give thanks for The Bean's short life and for the family we've been able to have since then.

This, all of this, is my family.
(And I love them. Very much!)

Two Easter Mondays

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 03:51:00 +0000

Easter Monday, April 2009, The Schönbrunn Gardens, Vienna, Austria

Easter Monday, April 2015, The Parking Lot at the Pediatrician's Office, Stevens Point, Wisconsin

A retired pastor whose son, granddaughters and great-grandchildren are part of my congregation hugged me and blessed me after the second service on Sunday. We talked, and he asked, as he always does, "So ... how are the kids ... ?" And the unspoken questions that we both know are there in the ellipses go something like this: "Have they seen you, lately? Are they acting out? Does the congregation still love them? Does the congregation think you spend too much time with your family? Do your kids blame the church for you being away days and nights and weekends? Do they blame God?"

And there may be other questions I haven't even thought of yet, hidden in those ellipses, in that dear pastor's eyes and in the way he hugs me and blesses me. There's another pastor of the same generation who also comes to visit his family in my congregation sometimes; he brought me communion after Walter was born. Sometimes when he visits he'll ask the question and then sigh deeply and say, "It'll be OK!" before I've had a chance to answer at all, and then he hugs me again. There are many untold stories and years of experience behind that hug.

The truth is that, at this point in our lives at least, it is OK, and even wonderful, for me to be a pastor and a mom. The two weeks leading up to Holy Week were rough, though, no lie. Lots of long days, late nights, busy weekends and sleepless kiddos. We ate out a lot, and that takes a toll.

Holy Week itself was humane by contrast: no evening meetings on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, and I was able to get home early enough on all those days to start dinner before the kids got home at 5:30. Maundy Thursday worship and meal are combined; our most kid-friendly Holy Week service of the five services this week, and also my favorite. The kids stayed home with Sean and Baba on Good Friday, but I was home by 7 to help with bedtime. We were even in bed at a reasonable hour on Saturday, the night of our first annual conference-wide Easter Vigil, though of course I was too excited and elated by the events of the night to go to sleep. Saturday was a busy day all around, with egg dying, runningrunningrunning outside with Umma and Baba, Umma's birthday cake baking/decorating and Walter skipping his nap in favor of cleaning the living room with Baba. I got the sense that the kids were maybe a little more tired than non-pastor's kids might be on Easter weekend, but overall were no worse for wear, maybe even slightly better grounded into the rhythms of the Triduum than the average 1 and 3-year-olds (I may be reaching, here.)

After the second service Sunday morning I was pretty worn out, and I could see that my support network was maybe even more worn out than I was. If you were to put "preaching and presiding at two Easter services after a full Holy Week" on a scale balanced against "caring for two small children, giving them a festive Easter experience and preparing Easter lunch" you would get a good visual of why it made sense to have me on one side of the scale and Umma, Baba and Sean together on the other side ... and also why they were probably more tired than I was. Naps all around (except for Baba. He drove home.) When bedtime came, Walter resisted until about 11 pm, and Sean turned to me and said, "I'm broken. I'm starting to get sick. I'm going to call in and sleep all day tomorrow." I told him he should always plan to take Easter Monday off. "Like in Slovakia," I said. And remembered ...

My first Easter Monday after a busy Holy Week was in 2009, when I was on internship in Bratislava, Slovakia. Sean and I were both teaching at the bilingual high school and I was also interning at the English speaking international congregation. I think we taught classes until Wednesday, and then my supervisor and I worked on the putting together everything needed for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. Sean cooked and cooked and cooked for a community-wide Easter potluck. Early Monday morning we hopped on a train to Vienna and spent the day wandering around the gardens at the Schönbrunn, which was free, and so beautiful. We took a nap on a bench by a fountain, sitting in dappled shade. It was maybe a touch too warm, which was perfect after the relentless sleety winter of just weeks before. I sat on that bench with my head on Sean's shoulders and felt about as completely happy as a person can feel.

Easter Monday 2015 has been different, of course. One of the concerns Walter shared with us late Sunday night was that his ear hurt, and he'd said it a few times over the weekend, so we decided to try and get him in to see Dr. L. Walter has been so healthy, other than allergies and little fleeting maladies best treated at home, that he hasn't been to see Dr. L since his well-child visit in October. With Sean and I both going the ear-check took on the feel of a fun family outing, which was kind of odd, but also really genuinely nice. And it turned out that, yes there was fluid in his ear and gunk in his throat due to the tyranny of springtime, but no ear infection. We took our boy back to daycare and commenced sleeping. It was a really good, happy day.

While we were waiting for Dr. L, Walter did some extraordinary imaginative playing. He assigned roles: I was Junior Gorg, he was Wembley Fraggle, Sean was Gobo Fraggle. It started out pretty standard Fraggle fare. Sean told Walter to run through my legs. I chased him and said, "Ohhh, you pesky fwaggles! Stop stealing my wadishes!"

Then Walter gently touched my arm and said, "Junior, Junior no. We're not stealing your radishes. We are planting OUR radishes." I looked at Sean, confused. This wasn't in the script. "You mean," asked Sean, "You mean we should grow our own radishes, Wembley?" "Yes, so we don't have to steal from the Gorgs!" "Oh," I said, still in character. "Do you need some help? I'm a pwetty gweat gawdener." (At this point I started to question my commitment to the voice, a bit.) "Yes!!"said Walter/Wembley, and we proceeded to plant a bed of radishes on the exam room table. Every time we encountered a scenario where there was potential for conflict (the dinosaur appliques on the walls also wanted my radishes) Walter, on his own, came up with a non-violent solution (Walter and I collected grass for the herbivores, fish for the carnivores, and old meat for the scavengers, and then I explained to the dinosaurs that they shouldn't eat my radishes while Walter planted another radish bed especially for them.) I know he doesn't have as much success doing that with his peers at school, but I was very proud of him. And grateful for that time together.

When I took the picture of the three of us in the van in the parking lot, I was thinking about the picture of me and Sean in the Schönbrunn, and how it would be funny to compare them. I do think it's pretty funny.

But here are the things I want to be sure NOT to say:

That life and ministry with kids is any more or less an adventure than life and ministry without kids.
That my life and ministry before my kids was all palaces and sun dappled afternoons in Vienna, and that after kids it's all trips to the pediatrician's office.
That I'm happier now, or that I was happier then.
That my life before my kids wasn't full or meaningful, because it was. Quite full, quite meaningful. And my ministry, though it was just at its start, was too.

Sean and I dearly, deeply wanted kids, and we are overjoyed to have Walter and Sally in our lives. Part of loving them well, I think, is realizing that we are still real and full people apart from them. We existed before they were born, and we continue to exist as fully differentiated human adults, the way we hope they will be, someday. I think Sean and I may have gotten a glimpse of Walter, the peacemaker, today. He's already his own person, and goodness knows Sally is, too.

Based on the sighs and hugs and blessings of my elders, I can guess that there are challenging times ahead. But I don't know what the next years and decades of life and ministry will bring by way of challenges (one could point out that I technically don't even know what tomorrow will bring, but shhhhhh.) For now, we are OK, and today we are a little better than OK: we are Easter Monday happy. I know, because as we got out of the van to go see Dr. L., Walter, unprompted and unfamiliar with the term, said this:

"What day is it?"
"Monday."
"Easter Monday?"
"Yes, buddy, it's Easter Monday. Come hold my hand."

And he did, with one of the biggest smiles I've seen on him in a long while.

Walter Explains It All

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 17:03:00 +0000

Once a week, Walter and I have breakfast together. Usually it's "Mini Wheats with Mama" (I'm trying to figure out how to sell that story to Kellogg's ... it's advertising gold, I tell you) but today we went out to McDonald's. On the way there I was impressed, as always, with Walter's use of logic.

Me: "Would you like to go to Denny's or McDonald's?"
Walter: "MCDONALD's!" (Pause) "McDonald's is very very far away."
Me: "Actually, it's very close by!"
Walter: "Actually, it's far away. Umma and Baba live far away. McDonald's is by Umma and Baba's house. That means, McDonald's is far away, too."
Me: "That's true! There is a McDonald's near Umma and Baba's house. I love the way you thought about that. But there's a McDonald's by our house, too."
Walter: (Skeptical silence.)

We turned into Crossroads Commons, across the street from our house.

Walter: "Oh! Yes, there is a McDonald's here. You will turn here and that's where it is. There are two McDonald's, one by Umma and Baba's house and one by our house!"
Me: "That's true! And there are even more McDonald's than that, too!"
Walter: (exasperated) "WHY?"

We ordered our breakfast from a beautiful woman with grey hair named Carol. She was tickled when Walter ordered his own chocolate milk. Walter got pancakes and sausage. I got oatmeal and plain coffee. I have another money-making idea for an app that rewards you for every just-ever-so-slightly-healthier choice you make. Patent pending. Walter was dismayed by my choice, and kept trying to share his pancakes with me. "Mama: there are TWO pancakes. You can have one!" I told him he didn't have to eat it all if he didn't want it, and he said, "Oh Mama, you know I want my pancakes." I also told him I was very happy with my oatmeal, and he thought about that for awhile. "BABIES can't have chocolate milk," he said finally. "But they CAN have oatmeal."

"That's true!" I said. "Except for very little babies, who just drink Mama milk." That lesson in parenting about not constantly correcting/contradicting my child? I am still learning that one. But mostly, Walter doesn't seem to mind. "That's true," he said, taking a thoughtful sip from his chocolate milk.

He sighed. I guessed I knew what he was thinking about. "Isn't it amazing that Sally's not drinking Mama milk anymore? She's really getting to be a big girl." I said. "Yeah," he sighed again, and pursed his lips. He was deciding how to tell me how he was really feeling about that.

"Sally really likes 'other side'" he said, his gaze off to the side somewhere. "Sometimes, she cries for it." He looked up at me. "And sometimes you cry for it, too." He smiled, and giggled gently, the way I do sometimes when I say something uncomfortably true. The giggle that means "my goodness, life is something else, isn't it?"

The morning after I wrote that blog post about Sally weaning and not even asking for "other side" anymore she, of course, started asking for it again. Sally's approach to change is to embrace it wholeheartedly without question for awhile and then reject it for a bit before--slowly, this time--working her way back to acceptance. I know this about her, but it still surprised me, and hit me pretty hard. She cried, and when I tried to explain it to Walter that morning, I cried too.

"Do you miss drinking Mama milk and nursing?" I asked. He nodded. "I do," he said. "Maybe you'll miss it less as you get older?" He nodded again and used his straw to get every possible drop of milk, then took the straw out and brought the bottle to his mouth, tilting his head way back and tapping on the bottom of the bottle with his palm. Then he picked up the straw and sucked the last drops out of that, then looked at me, raised his eyebrows, stuck out his tongue and indicated that he was going to lick a couple stray drops from the straw off of the table. "Ick," I said, and handed him a napkin, which he used to clean up the drops.

I'd been wanting to say something about bigger and better things, about growing up and getting to drink chocolate milk, about all the good things that come in the years after we all leave "other side" behind. But Walter and I both know that it's not as simple as that. Something is lost. When something is lost, it's not enough to just say, "move on, it'll get better." Life is good, but also, loss is real. Contradicting it doesn't help.

We cleaned up the table so thoroughly that we accidentally threw out his happy meal toy. He didn't notice, but I figured he might eventually, so I explained what happened to Carol and she said, "Let me get you another, dear. Here, give him two." She gave me a kind smile. People have been so, so kind to me all week. I asked Sean if I have a sign on my forehead that says, "Weaning my toddler; feeling fragile and in need of kindness." I went back to our table and showed Walter the cars.

"One to keep and one to share," he said.
"Who will you share it with?"
"Donna." he said, decisively.
Donna is his teacher at school; she's known him since he was 3 months old. I used to come to Room One and nurse him once a day. Donna always laughed when he'd fall asleep in my arms, and then woke up when I tried to put him down in his crib. "I'm so glad he does that to you, too!" she said.

He can't possibly remember any of that--the nursing, the way he hated sleeping in cribs, the way we rolled our eyes and laughed and secretly didn't mind getting to hold him for awhile while he slept. Maybe he does miss being a baby, though. I miss those days sometimes, too.

As I buckled him into his carseat, Walter asked, "What does 'determined' mean?" I don't think I'd used the word with him today, although I might have when I was encouraging him to persevere in putting on his own socks. "It means that you keep working on something, even if it's hard and you can't get it right away. Are you determined sometimes?" Walter: "Yes, I sure am." "You sure are. I love it that you are determined. Do you think Sally is determined?" "Yes," said Walter, resolutely. "Sally is very, very determined." "She is, indeed." We shared a knowing smile. That Sally is going to be OK, and we are, too.

Weaning is not the end of the world: Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Mon, 16 Mar 2015 02:43:00 +0000

I was going to title this post "weaning IS the end of the world," just to be funny, but earnestness strikes again and I find I can't even joke about it, even when it's clearly a joke. I'm not really in that much of a joking mood, what with the sudden precipitous drop in oxytocin. Research has shown that petting a dog also releases oxytocin in humans, so I've been hanging out with Hank a little more than usual (Hank: "I'm not complaining, but also, what gives?") I also find that I enjoy spending a little quality time with my harmonica after dinner. I'm not good enough to actually play the blues ... yet. But I can see the instrument's appeal as a form of catharsis.

After months of wondering when and how weaning was going to happen without the motivation of being pregnant (motivation we are not even considering, even though Walter has made it clear that he needs another baby now that Sally's all grown up,) after some false starts and half-hearted attempts to cut back and Dr. L and my mom conspiring with each other to make the exact same argument for weaning (more on that, later,) after all that, it feels like we just kind of fell into the weaning thing this week. On Wednesday, I got home late from preaching out at a country church, so Sean got Sally to bed. It went well, so we've kept going with Sean putting Sally to bed at night and me taking over with Walter. Sally and I nursed once in the morning until Saturday, when I had to get up and leave for a meeting before she woke up. Today we jumped right into breakfast, so no nursing at all today, either.

This is really happening.

And again, it's not the end of the world. But it hurts, and I'm sad. Not for-a-reason-sad, really. Just sad. *harmonica solo.*

So I went to Sally's 18 month well-child visit a couple weeks ago and Dr. L told me I had to wean her. She was careening madly all over the exam room saying "other side," which is how she asks to nurse, and Dr. L said "When they're old enough to ask for it by name, it's time to stop." And I was like, "When did you talk to my mom, and how much did she pay you?"

Mom has never pressured me to wean Sally at all, actually, but she has shared in the past that my ability to ask for "boppy" was a factor in her decision to wean me. And with Sally I've rebelled against that reasoning because really, why should the ability to talk be the determining factor? Just because she's super verbal, Sally doesn't get to nurse as long as a toddler the same age who doesn't talk? That doesn't seem right. Breastfeeding up to age two is not unusual. I produce lots of milk. Why not keep nursing her? She likes it. I like it. What does talking have to do with it?

Then this week Sally started busting out three, even four word sentences left and right like it was no big deal. "Baba, where are you?" (in perfect sing-song cadence.) "Bye bye Mama." "All done, mini wheats." "I want it." And, of course, "More other side."

I still think there's more to it than her ability to talk. But the talking is indicative of other changes, other signs that Sally really is ready to move into a different stage. That's what my mom saw in me when she weaned me, and that's what Dr. L saw in Sally. I can see it now, better than I could before we started weaning her. Since we weaned her, she is sleeping better and going to sleep with less help. She is as affectionate as ever with me, but also enjoying having more time with Sean. She hasn't asked for "other side" since the last time I nursed her Friday morning (and oh, I am so glad, and so sad about that.) She was ready.

The last time we nursed was Friday morning, up in my bed, while Walter watched Curious George. Sally was very interested in watching the show, too, in a different way than before, and I recognized that as another sign that nursing wasn't her top priority anymore. But she settled in to nurse very happily, and smiled when I patted her bottom as I held her. When we were done she immediately asked for "more other side" and I said, "Silly goose, you've had both sides." She smiled and snuggled with me, happy to watch some George before getting ready for day care. She likes routine, like all of us do. As long as her new routine includes snuggle time with Mama, she's happy.

Sally has adapted to this change with no signs of stress at all, and that helps me feel better in the midst of my more stressful adaptation. If I'd actually planned this weaning I probably wouldn't have chosen my busiest time of year. On the upside, if I keep to the schedule I was on with Walter, the depression should lift right in time for Easter, which seems appropriate. In the meantime, Sean binds me up at night. I think about pumping to relieve some pressure, but usually just opt for a shower, since I worry that pumping will keep my supply going. We had cabbage for dinner tonight so I got to wear some leaves in my bra this afternoon (don't know that it helped, but we saved some uncooked leaves just in case.) The fact that I'm writing this indicates to me that I'm doing better than I was when we weaned Walter. That wasn't the end of the world, either, but I waited until the pain subsided and the clouds lifted, just to be sure (and because I was too incapacitated to write, really.) The beauty of the second child is that you know, you really know, that whatever difficult stage you're going through, it's not going to last forever.

This, too, shall pass. And there is so much more sweetness, snuggling and phenomenal Sally-ness yet to come.

PANCAKES!

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Mon, 02 Mar 2015 04:00:00 +0000

We got home today from a weekend in the Dells, our first experience of the four of us coexisting in one hotel room. We slept ... barely. So I'm tired, but I need to document at least one moment of the sweetness of this time together.

In the new version of Peter Pan there's a fabulous new song, written to give Christopher Walken an opportunity to tap dance. The song is called "Vengeance." The final, big finish, culminating line sung by the pirate chorus is: "Toodaloo and so long Peter/Treasure's sweet but nothing's sweeter than vengeance!" Walter, with great certainty, sings it this way:

"Treasure's sweet but nothing's sweeter than PANCAKES!"

We've tried to correct him but he's pretty sure that's the correct lyric.

Dreams of flying

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 04:03:00 +0000

Walter--often known as Michael, although he's more amenable to be Walter, too, these days--loves Peter Pan. Sally loves Walter, and she loves music and dancing, so she's game. My feelings about the story are slightly more ambivalent, because of:

The way the three female leads fight (ruthlessly, in Tinker Bell's case) for the affection of a boy who, we're told in the prologue, has not emotionally matured beyond the age of 2. This fighting is the only kind of interaction we see between Wendy, Tiger Lily, and Tinker Bell.
The way even good casting and heavy re-writes can't erase the stereotyped portrayal of the Islanders. I tend to recommend the version we've been watching with Walter--Peter Pan Live (2014)--as "the least racist version I've ever seen."
The moral ambiguity that makes the story delightful to me and not entirely appropriate for my three-year-old. Because really: the pirates are the best. Clearly, they are the best.
The way the hero of the story is more bloodthirsty than the villain. Think about it.

But don't think about any of it too hard. That's probably the secret to enjoying the story wholeheartedly. And I find myself doing just that, because Walter loves it so, so much. And I love Walter. And I love:

The way he sings, and delights in singing.
Singing "Tender Shepherd" with him to help him fall asleep. A couple of times we've circumvented naptime drama by just singing that song.
The way he uses the characters as a starting point to tell his own stories, and imagine the continuing adventures of the Darling Family, Tiger Lilly, and Peter Pan.
Christoper Walken as Captain Hook. Really, the live TV version is tremendously good.

We were telling stories last night using Rory's Story Cubes (more about that, later) and one of the stories included a celebration of Tiger Lily's birthday. Walter was delighted by that idea, and as we said goodnight to him I said, "Maybe you can dream about Tiger Lilly's birthday." "No," he said, "I'll probably be too busy dreaming about flying."

Your parents, in love

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 05:04:00 +0000

Dear Walter and Sally,

Happy Valentine's Day!

I want to record the events of this day for you, but not in the way I usually do. I usually write these accounts focused on the two of you and what you did. Tonight, I want to write about what Daddy and I did when you were at the babysitter's house.

"Ewwwwwww!" I can hear teenage Walter and Sally say. "GROSS. Mom ... no .. just ... no."

Ah, my future teenagers. This blog is now, always has been and ever shall be rated "E" for everyone, including members of our congregation, bishops, your future employers, etc. I'm not going to share intimate details. But I will say this: intimacy is really important to the health of our marriage. And so is cooking.

You know that Daddy does pretty much all the actual cooking in our family. There was a time, though, when Daddy and I did a lot of cooking together. It's something we love to do, and something we don't get to do very often anymore.

I even put on eye make up.

Tonight we dropped you off at Jordan's house, and instead of going out for dinner, we came home and made dinner together. I'd picked out a recipe from our beautiful new Jerusalem cookbook, a Christmas gift from Umma and Baba. Cod cakes in tomato sauce ... a little more complicated than our usual meals, but not too complicated that it couldn't be done in two hours. We also made Israeli cous cous with dried cherries and swiss chard. I got all dressed up in a new dress, nylons and high heels ... and a cute apron for cooking in. While we cooked we drank ginger ale made with homemade ginger syrup, and snacked on delicious Dried and True beef jerky (made by my cousin Rachel and her husband, Matt.) We listened to Linda Thompson albums, chopping and stirring side by side. I chopped up a chili pepper, forgot to wash my hands, and rubbed my nose ... I do not recommend it. But it was just a temporary set back. We also ran out of time, but that didn't set us back too badly, either ... sure, we ate quickly, and burned our tongues a bit, but it was delicious, and the time we spent together tonight was, too.

I realized at some point that all the things I'd asked for tonight ... cooking an elaborate meal together from a cookbook, listening to Linda Thompson, even the homemade ginger syrup ... these were all things Daddy and I did when we were newlyweds, living together in a little apartment in New Jersey. That's when we started this blog, that's when we started thinking seriously and even trying to have children ... and then decided to wait for a few years. It was not a very hard decision to make--it made sense, logically--but it was a hard decision to live with. We were very sad, and the sadness seemed like another person living with us, for awhile. But we were also happy, and we were building the foundation of love, happiness and, yes, intimacy, that made us the Mama and Daddy you know today.

I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, or how to sum it all up in a pithy way. I'm way too full, content, and sleepy to ponder it much longer. It was a good day, and a good date night. Maybe someday you'll think it's gross, and maybe someday you'll think it's cute, but regardless, it's true: Mama and Dada love each other.

And you two, too, of course.

Love,
Mama

Bedtime story

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 04:08:00 +0000

They were about to move on to bedtime book #2 when I interrupted. "I have a story I need to tell," I announced. "Should it be now or later?"

Now, of course! Walter and Sean both watched me with interest, not sure what was coming.

"I was putting Sally to bed, and she was making sure she had all her friends in there. Baby, Baby Carol, Moo. Where was Elmo? He'd fallen out of her crib, between the crib and the wall. I had to move the crib away from the wall some more and reach, reeeeeaaaach back behind it, and I did it! I got Elmo and showed him to Sally. She was so happy! I gave her the Elmo doll and she gave it a big, big hug.

"But then! Then she did something I didn't expect. I asked her if she wanted to put Elmo down in her crib, and she looked at Elmo and she looked at me and she said, 'Walty!'

"I asked her, 'Do you want to take Elmo to Walter's room?' And she said yes and turned right around and went to your room!"

Walter looked surprised. He didn't even remember to correct me for using the name "Walter." (These days he goes by "Michael," as in Michael Darling from Peter Pan.)

"I didn't even see her do that!" he said.

"This was earlier," Sean clarified. "While you were taking a bath."

I continued: "She came into your room, and when she saw that you weren't there, she headed for your bed. I asked her if she wanted to put Elmo on your bed for you. Of course she didn't just want to put him on the bed, she wanted to climb onto your bed. I helped her do that. I asked her if she wanted to put Elmo on your pillow for you to find when you went to bed, and then she flipped over your top pillow and ..."

I knocked Walter's top pillow down the same way Sally had, revealing the Elmo doll she'd placed on his bottom pillow, giving Elmo a little pat before putting the top pillow back.

"Ohhhhh!" said Walter and Sean. both smiling, very pleased. Walter went over and picked up the little Elmo doll. Sean told the story of how, on the night that Sally found the Elmo doll in Walter's room and claimed it for her own, Walter had discovered that he had a second doll, and was so pleased to know that they could both have Elmos he'd wanted to wake her up and tell her about it. Reminded of that story, Walter chimed in and said "I already had an Elmo in my room!" "Sally didn't know that, though," Sean said. "She brought you the Elmo tonight because she wanted to share it with you."

Walter, quietly, looking at the Elmo doll: "That makes me very happy. Thank you!"

"We'll tell Sally tomorrow," said Sean. "What good kids you both are."

True story!

Included

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 04:47:00 +0000

It was bedtime, and we were trying to get the kids to wind down enough for the usual brush, jammies, books, bed routine. Walter got his skirt/cape out of his drawer, and Sally lunged for it and took it out of his hands. He went to take it back, but Sean asked him to back up, and he did. Sally wrapped the shiny blue material around her shoulders like a cloak, fled to the exit, found it blocked and stood with her back to the door, ready to defend her prize. Sean offered her a different piece of fabric, and after very brief consideration she handed Walter his skirt and took the other shiny fabric from Sean. I applauded both kids for the way they handled the situation, and Walter had a thoughtful look on his face. Walter went to the door, found it closed, opened it and turned to face us with a stormy look. I predicted he'd slam the door, because kind of an Elsa thing to do, and braced myself for it. But when he turned around he saw that Sally was right behind him and his expression changed. He looked down at her and smiled, put out his hand, and said very gently. "Come! Come with me, now. Come up to my castle." Sally beamed up at him, a smile that took over her entire face and her whole little body. She seemed to levitate a little bit with joy. Sean and I instinctively held back, knowing we shouldn't interrupt this moment, and watched as the two of them, without a glance back to us, walked out of the room together. "Can't stand in the way of that," Sean murmured, and we jumped up to tail them.

Frozen Fever

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 04:56:00 +0000

Along with the terrible stomach virus that swept through our household this week, our family has been hit by a virulent strain of Frozen fever. Symptoms include staying up very, very late screaming and crying "I want to play Fro-zen!" over and over again.

Of course, it's not all bad. Not even close. Really, overall, it's delightful. But it is something different, a new level of intensity to Walter's make-believe.

As soon as Walter starting putting words together, he and I came up with this running gag: I'd ask him if he was something else, and he'd set me straight. "Are you my snuggle bunny?" I'd ask. "No," he'd say, seriously. "I'm your Walter."

While playing train, I'd ask, "Are you the conductor?"
"No. I'm Walter."

"Mmmmm. This meal is delicious. Are you the chef?"
"Chef Walter, Mama. I am Walter."

I loved this exchange, how reliable it was, how affirming of his essential Walter-ness. Now, though, it's different.

"Walter, dinner's ready!"
"I'm Elsa."

He's usually Elsa, although tonight he switched over to Anna for a short time, which was honestly quite a relief to me. I've spent some time, you see, thinking about the tortured, desperate character of Elsa and worrying about her appeal to my young son. Oldest child, you know. Burdened by her well-meaning parents with unrealistic expectations for self control. (In defense of me and Sean, our efforts to teach Walter how to use "I" statements and calm himself with deep breaths is a long way from "conceal, don't feel" territory.) Full of magic and power, but terrified that with that great power she will accidentally hurt her little sister. So much responsibility, so much angst. "Ohhhhhh, I'm such a fool, I can't be free!" she sings, and it makes your chest just ache for her. And for your oldest child, who knows there is no escape from the storm of powerful emotions brewing inside of him, just the temporary relief that comes from counting down from five to calm down.

Or perhaps Walter, like every other child his age, likes Elsa's magic, and her beautiful dress, and that awesome song she gets to sing.

And so he sings, perfectly, word for word. "The snow glows white on the mountain tonight, not a footprint, to be seen ..." He makes his big blue eyes Disney-wide and practices saying, "Anna!" with different emotions, expressions, and tones of voice. He wears the cape/skirt I made him for his birthday tied up like a halter dress, and seems to have finally forgiven me for not making it pink or purple because, after all, Elsa's dress is blue. He plays Frozen at school, outside on the playground and inside in the dress-up area. While many of his friends have more variety in their play, I get the sense that Walter can always find at least one friend to play Frozen with, and sometimes more. I asked him once, "You always seem to play Elsa. What if someone else wants to be Elsa?" "Then we have two Elsas," he explained. "Jackson was Elsa with me today."

Not gonna lie, I was relieved to hear that Walter isn't the only boy in his class pretending to be the snow queen. And then felt bad that I felt relieved.

Walter as Elsa/Daddy/Conductor

Here's the thing: I have this deep hope that Walter will always be loved and accepted exactly as he is. And I have this fear that, any minute now, this blissful window of love and acceptance will come crashing closed and crush his spirit. This is a fear I endeavor mightily to control, because it could keep me from enjoying these amazing moments of play, these increasingly brilliant imaginative adventures.

Today, for example, Walter told us one of his teachers at school told him he couldn't play dress up. I was alarmed. His teachers have always encouraged Walter to be fully himself, dressing up however he wants, with no gender norming at all. Was this the beginning of the end?

No. Walter gradually revealed that he'd "made bad choices" and used his current favorite attention-getting naughty word, "stupid." The consequence was no dress up. Such a relief. Except for the part about him using the word "stupid" ... that's no good.

When we play Frozen at home, Walter never casts his little sister as Anna, though I think there are some striking similarities there. Youngest child, you know. Effortlessly charming, open and honest, flinging herself heedlessly through life like it's one giant "crazy trust exercise." Slightly more pigment in her eyes and skin than her superblonde older sibling. But even though she's really the hero of the film, no one seems to want to be Anna. Sally, like most of her peers, prefers Elsa. "Elsa," she says. And then sings, pitch-perfect: "Go!" Tonight, when Walter took it off for a moment, she pounced on his blue skirt, twirled it around herself, sang "Go!" and tried to abscond with it. She tripped on it, of course, and when I went to help her up and get it away from her she resolutely would. not. let. it. go.

This struck me as very Anna-like.

I am usually Anna, except when Walter wants to be Anna, and then I'm Elsa. We decided earlier this week that Hank and Sally could not be cast as Prince Hans, because neither of them would understand that we were just pretending they were the villain, and it would be confusing and unfair to yell at them for their villainy. So, Hank was (aptly) cast today as the reindeer, Sven. Sally, we decided, could be that adorable little baby troll who sings about tinkle. That leaves Sean as Prince Hans, which is OK, because no one could ever mistake him for an actual bad guy ... clearly this is pure pretend. We don't have a Kristoff, because I think Walter forgets that character exists. Walter (Elsa) makes Olaf, and sometimes makes him visible by pretending his stuffed dinosaur is the lovable snowman.

You can see why he's excited and reluctant to go to bed. We've had some success telling him that he needs to recharge his powers at night, which is why I think he switched to being Anna right before bed tonight. "I'm Anna," he argued proudly. "I have no powers."

I argued right back, and told him he had plenty of powers. "You are full of true love," I said. "You are brave and kind. And you need to recharge all of those powers tonight. Go to sleep!"

He didn't buy it (but he is finally sleeping.)

This morning, both kids woke up ridiculously early and ended up in bed with me and Sean. While Sally slept, Walter gently took her hand. "You are Anna," he told me over Sally's fuzzy head. "I am Elsa." "Who is Sally?" I asked. He looked down at her fondly, and smiled. "Our baby!" he said. She woke up, stretched, smiled and cuddled up to Walter. "Waltee!" she said. "Waltu!" Walter looked proud, "Yay!" he said. "She's saying my name!"

And I soaked up that essence of Walter and Sally, which, by any other names, would still be as sweet.

And then they started to pinch and annoy each other, which is, after all, also essential.

Blatant, unmediated bragging

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 03:33:00 +0000

I wear my sunglasses at night

Sally tinkled on the potty tonight. Yes, that Sally. The one who is 16 months old.

I'll have to check with my friend Pastor B., because I think maybe his daughter used the potty at some even more ridiculously early age, and maybe this sort of thing happens all the time in the world of girls, and particularly in the world of girls who are younger siblings of children who are in the midst of potty training, but all that being said ... we are impressed.

I went back through some old blog posts and I don't think we documented Walter's first potty use. My guess is that it happened some time during my first trimester of pregnancy with Sally, when I did lots of sleeping and next to no blogging. I'm OK with not knowing, though, because no matter when Walter did it, Sally's potty use tonight was quite an accomplishment for her. And for him, too. As Sally sat down on the potty before their tub, Walter gave her lots of encouragement. "Yay, Sally! You can do it, Sally!" And when she, grinning, had a little tiny tinkle, we all celebrated together, and acknowledged that having a potty role model in Walter has certainly been a contributing factor in Sally's interest, persistence, and delight in this new experience.

Now, if only Sally could teach Walter how to lie down and go to sleep at bedtime.

"Jesus wants me to go potty" and other Christmas stories

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 19:19:00 +0000

We have had some good, good holidays. Sally, who has been non-stop sick for who knows how long, rallied for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (before immediately falling headlong into the next upper respiratory infection.) We spent Christmas Eve at church, with our now-traditional soup-and-sandwich meal between services and the magical mixture of small children and open flames in worship. Sally wore a fierce hand-me-down black velvet suit and stomped/sashayed around the halls of Redeemer with the confidence of a tiny CEO. Walter knows all the words to every Christmas song, and I think I caught him singing along with the congregation on one or two. We got into our Christmas Eve pajamas (at first, Walter was disappointed ... JUST pajamas? We explained that all other presents would come the next day) and set into serious Santa-related work. Before he went to bed, Walter spontaneously and genuinely thanked me for the pajamas, and made some statements of questionable theology/mythology:

"I think Jesus wants me to go potty, now. He will be so happy!"
"I think Santa will like that I'm wearing these pajamas. WE SHOULD READ THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS! He will like that so much."

A friend asked how we decided to include Santa in our Christmas celebrations, and how we're navigating the potential confusion and problems that Santa can bring. Honestly, we're figuring it out as we go along. Santa is imaginative play for Christmas time; Jesus is real and central to our lives at all times. Thinking and talking about both requires that we engage our imaginations and dream about things we can't see. It may be a little confusing, but Walter already feels the difference. And then there was this conversation, while he and I wrote his letter to Santa a few days before Christmas:

"Mama, are you Santa?"
(Unprepared) "Do YOU think I'm Santa?"
"Yup!"
"Santa is a fun game to play, isn't it?"
"Yeah ... E. is Santa, too!" (E. is a girl from church; Walter has quite a crush on her.)

So, who knows. On Christmas Eve Walter was very excited about Santa, and seemed to have suspended disbelief almost entirely. We put out his letter with a plate of cookies, a plate of carrots, and an empty glass with a straw (we figured Santa would want fresh, cold milk.) Sean reminded Walter that Santa wouldn't come until we were all asleep, and Walter, who resists bedtime with the brilliance of a thousand lawyers, very seriously said, "Well!" (pulls up blanket, lies down on pillow, smooths and arranges blanket around him,) "Well, we should go to sleep right now, then!" Sally went down pretty well, too, happy to be able to breathe for once and excited by all the excitement around her. She said "Santa!" a few times that day, delighting us all.

Kids in bed, the adults in the house went to work. Umma and Baba worked in their room in the basement, Baba adding another experience to his long, illustrious career of assembling complicated toys on Christmas Eve night (this year: an easel. So wonderful!) I cleaned up the living room and made space for the new toys: a dollhouse handed down from a family in the congregation, the easel, a chair for Sally, and more wrapped presents than felt seemly to me. It turned out not to be too much, I think ... the presents weren't all for the kids, after all. But the sight of all of them that night gave me pause. We decided to save stockings for our New Year celebration at Umma and Baba's house, to spread out the joy a bit.

I collected Walter's letter to Santa and replaced it with Santa's reply. Here's Walter's letter, transcribed faithfully (with little to no leading) by me:

Dear Santa,

My name is Walter. I am three years old. My little sister's name is Sally and she's one. Mama's name is Mama. My dog is named Hankie and he went to the vet. Sally did some helpful things like coloring books and paper and a snowman (but it couldn't work.) My Daddy is named Sean; he's a helpful guy. I really like watching Winnie the Pooh. I like to do coloring books. My favorite colors are pink and purple.

For Christmas, I would like a purple blanket with my name on it, please. That's all.

Thank you for bringing me a present.

Love,
W (Walter's signature)

[You'll note that Hank's dinnertime trip to the vet was still fresh in his mind. Not sure what the part about Sally and the snowman that couldn't work is all about. It was fun to record exactly what he said, knowing that this moment in his verbal expression is a fleeting one. ]

Here's Santa's letter:

Dear Walter,

Thank you for writing to me and for leaving such a delicious snack! I enjoyed the cookies and milk very much, and my reindeer loved the carrots.

You are such a good boy, and such a good helper! You are kind and loving. You are a wonderful big brother, too.

For Christmas I brought Sally a nice chair (she loves to sit on your chairs, I know!) For you, I made a special blanket that combines your two favorite colors into a pinkish purple, and it has your name on it! I also had my elves make something extra special for you, too. [Editor's note; a purple bath robe with Walter's name on it.]

Keep up the great work with your dry-all-day and good sleeping stickers! [Walter's eyes went wide and he gave a huge smile, at that line.]

Love, Santa

PS I found the jingle bell you wanted to give me. I love it. I left you one for you to keep and play with, too.

The kids slept in a bit on Christmas morning. Baba was in place, ready with the camera, waiting for them to come into the living room and see everything. I don't remember realizing, as a kid, how excited adults are about Christmas. But we are! It is so exciting for us. Walter and Sally came out and immediately started playing with the dollhouse together. They moved over to the easel from Umma and Baba and checked that out, too, with great earnest concentration. They found Sally's chair, which Walter thought should be his ("Purple is MY favorite color!") but they took turns sitting in it with no conflict throughout the day. We got them sitting down and read Santa's letter. Their attention, at the point in the day, was absolutely rapt. Walter opened his presents from Santa and was utterly, totally delighted with both blanket and robe. That probably would have been enough for presents, right there.

We took a break to make breakfast, Walter taking the lead on making the traditional Christmas morning puff pancakes. They didn't rise very much (the chemistry is tricky) but they were tasty. After breakfast we opened presents, and it was very fun. Sally got a stuffed kitty, a box of little Frozen books, a set of self-inking stampers. Walter got a stamp set, the Frozen soundtrack, and a huge roll of tickets with a star-shaped puncher for playing train. I got a soda stream for making my own selzer! Sean got a year-long subscription to Field Notes, his favorite source for little notebooks for writing down story ideas. I record this, not to revel in the materialism of the day, but because these gifts we gave and received this year to seemed to fit us especially well, and reflect who we are and how we like to play together.

We took a break for lunch and nap and there were still more presents to open (Walter had opened most of his at this point ... the adults were a little behind on our stacks.) We tried to open only one present at a time, giving our attention to each person while they were opening. This broke down a bit as the day went on, but everyone was in good spirits. We had a wonderful dinner together and Umma and Baba headed home.

The next day, Sally started to get sick again. Was that the pink eye? Or the bad cough? It's all blurred together. She had a very, very sick and sleepless couple of days and nights before we gathered ourselves together and headed down to Umma and Baba's for Holidays Part II. The change of scenery and the improved adult-to-kid ratio was exactly what we all needed, and by the time we headed home it was clear that Sally was truly on the mend this time.

Our days with Umma and Baba were filled with much fun and many firsts. Walter watched "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" (animated, of course) for the first time, and enjoyed it. We also broke down and rented Frozen, a little nervous about the scary parts and feature-length screen time, but we broke it up with an intermission, talked to him during and after, and it went really well. Hilariously, Sally started saying, "Elsa" and singing, "Goooooo!" (Let it Go.) She went to the window, pointed at the bare grass outside and said, "Elsa. Snow. Snoowwww. Snow, please!"

The one-week-delayed stockings were a hit and a complete delight. (Walter, when we told him there would be stockings the next day: "I think Santa will probably just bring us some cookies. Because we already had a lot of presents, right?") The little stocking presents, separated from the big and abundant presents of Christmas, brought Walter to great exclamations of joy. "A LITTLE PINK WHISK! LIPSTICK!" (that's what he calls lip balm, a standard Edison-Swift stocking gift.) "A COOMMBBBBB!"

Sally seemed to especially thrive these holiday days, even when goopy and pukey. She tried to jump with us while we were playing xBox and ended up with this adorable stretch of joy. She showed off her yoga moves and did lots of dancing and mischief making. She also nursed. Constantly. We had been getting pretty close to weaning, I think ... down to once or twice a day. And then she got sick, and then it was all over. No more going to sleep on her own, no more cuddles that didn't involve nursing. She was literally attached to me at all times. Sally asking to nurse tends to escalate quickly from inquisitive, to conversational, to demanding, to panicked ... transcribed, it's something like this: "Mo? Mo mo mo mo mo. Mo?! MO MO!! MOHHHHHHHHH!"

Now that she's really feeling better, we're starting to ratchet down the nursing again, but it's hard on me to go through the painful process of my supply being too much again. My body is worn out from these past few weeks. Walter asked, "When will Sally be done nursing?" I replied honestly: "I don't know. Sally, do you think you'll be done nursing, soon?" "No!" she said, cheerfully, Definitively.

I love our nursing time together, but I trust that, as with Walter, Sally and I will still be close and snuggle when the time for weaning comes. Figuring out when that time should be is tough, though. It was easier with Walter, because around the time he started seeming ready for it I needed to wean anyway because I was pregnant with Sally. Not sure how it'll happen this time around.

Sally's vocabulary is out of this world, and growing every day. She says, "Walter" so clearly now! She also sings, especially Twinkle, Row Row, Itsy Bitsy, Baa Baa and Let it Go. She likes to count. If you say, "one" she'll say, "two" and sometimes even "three." She loves to say not just "no" but a very sassy little, "No way!" I think my favorite Sally pronunciation is "yocks!" for "socks" and "ishies" for "shoes." Her smiles are just incredible, and she is very generous with them. She's also been giving wonderful, whole-hearted, full body hugs and snuggles. I thought they were just a symptom of being chronically tired and sick, but she's continued to give them even as she feels better. Baba tears up every time she lays her head down on his shoulder and gently pats his back.

He's had a rough day here and there, but Walter is doing very well overall. He's stayed pretty healthy, which gives me hope for Sally. He is very earnest and serious sometimes, but also very silly and funny. There's no way I could possibly keep up with all the wonderful things he says and does, but here are some recent examples:

"I didn't play Frozen today. But I THINKED about Frozen all day."

I don't remember what exactly we were talking about, but it had to do with noses. After a bit, Walter chimed in. "While we're on the subject of noses ... I am going to get your nose!"

"I have no tinkle in my body."

Walter and I were lying in bed, watching a cooking show. Suddenly, his head popped up and he scrambled off the bed and headed toward the stairs. "I need to go check on the roast!"
"Ok!" I said. I worried about him slipping on the stairs in his socks. "Be careful!"
"Because it's really hot, right?" he said. "It's OK, I'll just peek." And away he went. He returned with a wooden toy fish, wrapped up in a string, roast-style (Sean tells me Walter wrapped a hot dog like a roast the other day. He's very proud of the roast that he made with Daddy for Christmas Eve.) I pretended to eat the fish and said, "It's so moist! I love the flavor." Head up again, scrambling down the stairs: "I forgot to add the flavor! There's no flavor in there. I'll go get some lemon!"

While riding home from daycare, Walter observed: "Not all of these houses have chimneys."

Looking at photo magnet of the family when I was pregnant with Sally: "Was Sally just under your shirt, or all the way inside your body? Why can't Daddies have babies in their bodies?"

Instead of a saying "reindeer," Walter often calls Sven from Frozen "Kristoph's reinSven." This is almost as cute as when he just tries to say Sven, which comes out as something like: "Fzvennmen."

He often has a signature phrase or word that we tend to then adopt as a favorite family thing to say. When he was younger, there was the sweet and memorable, "How about that to you?" These days, he tends to add "right" to many things. "We are going to see Henry today, right?" Me; "Right." Walter; "Right!"

Driving down to Umma and Baba's, we went over a bumpy patch of road. "Mama, are you OK? Did that hurt you?" "I'm OK, Walter, the bumpy road doesn't hurt me anymore." "But it DID give you an owie. When we were going to get my haircut." I started to cry (it was dark, and I was in the front seat, so I don't think Walter could see) and Sean took over reassuring Walter. The owie he's referring to happened over a year ago, two months after Sally was born, shortly after my gallbladder surgery. We were excited to all get out of the house and take Walter for a much-needed haircut. Sean took the speed bump at a fairly normal clip, but I was still so tender from the surgeries that it made me cry out in pain. Walter kept asking about it, until finally we could show and reassure him that my owies had healed, and bumps wouldn't hurt me anymore. But he still asks about it from time to time. Last week we had quite a bonk during a hug, and I needed an ice pack right away to avoid getting a shiner. This week, out of the blue one night, he asked, "Mama, are you doing better? After my head hit your glasses, how are you doing now?"

His empathy is a wonderful thing. But it breaks my heart when he worries about me like that.

"A Daddy" by Walter, age 3

I had this hope/dream/vision that we'd put the kids to bed early on New Year's Eve and Umma, Baba, Sean and I would play a game of cards, or maybe dominoes. Didn't happen. Both kids were up late; Sally was pukey (this is what we do on New Year's.) I miss doing grown up fun stuff sometimes ... not "partying" per se ... really, just board games, cards and dominoes. But Umma introduced Walter to Memory and Candy Land, and he did beautifully with them. Grandparents are the best at seeing when the kids are ready to try something new like that. I'd been worrying about the lack of representational drawing in Walter's life ... he mostly does swirls and squiggles. But then he started drawing "H" for Henry on his new easel (again ... grandparents) and I asked him to draw a flower and he did, and then he drew a person, "a Daddy," with a perfectly round head, wide-spaced eyes and a curvy smile. He's getting smarter every minute, taking it all in and putting it all together. He'll be playing Royal Rummy in no time.

With Sally, the change is even more profound, and I don't always recognize it, because she's physically so small, still (Walter is her height when he kneels) and, you know, she's My Baby. But she's not at all a baby anymore, really. She understands everything we say, not just the words, but the real meaning of what we say and how we say it, and what we're asking her to do. She comprehends the world around her and how it works like a child does, not like a baby.

Two nights ago I was having trouble getting her to sleep and decided to try something new. I'd left her crying in her crib, walking out without talking to her/making eye contact/engaging ... this is a sleep training technique. After she cried for awhile I went in and asked her if I could rub her back. "Yeah!" she said, catching her breath as her tears slowed down. I started to lay her down in her crib and she screamed "No!" and stomped her feet. "Sally, it's Ok." I said. "It's just bedtime. You're safe, and we love you. You're in your nice bed, with your baby doll and your nice warm blankie. If you lie down, I can tuck you in and rub your back a little bit. Can you lie down on your belly for me?" I patted the pillow with my hand. She thought about it, standing and clutching the crib rail, looking down occasionally at the pillow. I patted the pillow again. She decided to do it. She let go of the side of the crib and lay down on her belly with her head on the pillow. I covered her with the blanket and she snuggled in, smiling. I started to rub her back and she popped her head up and said, "Itsy!" What a good idea! I sang, "The itsy bitsy spider" while doing the actions for the song on her back, and she loved it, snuggling under the cover and smiling and giggling a little. When I finished, she asked me to do it again, and I said, "OK, I'll do it one more time. But then I am going to leave your room, and you are going to go to sleep." She nodded. I sang the song and sent the spider up and down her back. Then I ran my fingers through her her hair, said, "Goodnight, I love you!" and left. Her eyes were wide open, she was smiling; she did not cry. It was a miracle!

We remember to explain things to Walter; we don't always do that for Sally. But we need to, now, because she's ready for it. She's listening and learning and reasoning her way through the world at an alarmingly sophisticated level. She wants us to try reasoning with her--if she chooses to be unreasonable, then fine: at least we gave her the choice.

Last night Sally skipped her "right after daycare" nursing and had a full night of playing and mischief-making. By the time she looked at me and said, "Mo?" we both knew she was asking for bedtime, too. "Nigh nigh?" I asked. "Nigh nigh" she said, smiling, relieved. We nursed, and I let her linger there, until she fell heavy asleep in my arms. How many more nights like this? I don't know, so I held onto her for awhile and she started to snore. I put her down in her crib and her snores didn't miss a beat. Two nights ago, she was making independent sleep choices. Last night, she was my baby again. But of course, she is both.

We're all the cusp of things, these days. We are not quite there yet but also there already. Children have an innate, embodied understanding of eschatology. The mysteries of the faith are made momentarily clear in them: these little miracles, these incarnations. So, maybe Jesus does want Walter to use the potty.

He will (has been, is, and ever shall) be so happy!

The Longest Solstice (or Happy Sixteen Month birthday, Sally!)

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 04:57:00 +0000

"This day, Sean ... I mean ... this day. I have to write it down."
"Just start with the popsicle story."

OK.

Sally shivered gleefully in her highchair, stripped down to her diaper, sucking on a popsicle. Walter and I sat with our feet up on each other's chairs, lounging a little, luxuriating in popsicles of our own. Sean stood by the microwave, waiting for his dinner to be done. Hank sat like a sphinx in the middle of the kitchen floor. Riffing on a favorite Daniel Tiger tune, Walter sang: "When you're sick, you can get a red popsicle!" Sean cracked up, and then Walter and I did, too. Sally clapped, and to our delight, he sang it again.

Here's how we got there:

This morning I woke up with an undeniable lingering head cold, which in my profession is known as "the thing that happens every Christmas." I lingered in bed a little longer than I meant to, but got up when I heard Sally waking over the monitor. Umma (holding Sally,) Walter and I converged in the little hallway between the kids' rooms. Walter got out a few bars of the "good morning song" before I turned everyone's attention to the situation at hand: Sally had pink eye.

The sight of her eyes all gooped shut made me angry. When is this baby going to catch a break? She just finished an awful round of croup, and was starting to get back to her sweet, sassy Sally self. Now this. Ugh. I hugged her close and gently wiped the goop out of her eyes ... where it stayed, firmly ensconced in her long lashes. "OK, maybe I need to be slightly less gentle with the next cotton ball." Sally stayed still and leaned her face toward me to help me get a better angle ... she wanted the goop out, too. "Eyes, eyes," she said, smiling at me.

Sean took Sally to urgent care while Umma, Baba, Walter and I headed to church. It was a beautiful service. I always look forward to the Sunday we read the annunciation story, but I look forward to it with some trepidation, because those verses in Luke about Mary are so dear to me, so close to my heart, that I worry I won't do them justice in my preaching. Fortunately, my preaching isn't the only means of grace in worship, and today everything came together: the incense burning on the altar, the service we put together using music from Holden Evening prayer, the solos sung by teenage girls, bringing Mary's song to life. "Holy is Your Name," which always gets me. And the sermon turned out to be a good one, too. We didn't get it recorded, which is fine. Sometimes a good sermon should be ephemeral, like incense.

After worship, we all got into Baba's car and Walter was completely delighted to find me sitting next to him. He held my hand and we snuggled under blankets together, and he smiled and smiled. I wonder if he remembers how I used to sit next to him in the car when he was a baby, before we added that second carseat? I was very grateful to have that moment next to him, too, and his hand in mine.

The four of us had a very nice lunch and headed home to rejoin Sally and Sean. They'd had a nice morning together, too, even with the sickness and urgent care visit. Sally was hungry and in a good mood. Umma and Baba headed home. Sally did a great job with her eye drops. I nursed her and she fell asleep; after putting her down all cozy in her crib I joined Sean in his efforts to get Walter down for his nap. As we left Walter's room, we heard Sally throwing up in hers. In the manner of people who have done this countless times before, I took care of cleaning up Sally while Sean took care of cleaning up her crib. Walter left his room and ran around singing and laughing at our requests that he return to his bed. We got Sally back to sleep ... I don't remember how ... and it took a very long time for Walter to go down for his nap, but he eventually did. I didn't sleep; too congested. But I got a nice little rest.

Walter woke up about an hour too early, climbed into bed with me and watched some cooking shows until we decided it was time to wake Sally up and start working on dinner. Sean worked on a beautiful stuffed pork roast while I played with the kids. Sally did some truly amazing dancing--I have never seen such moves on one so young. When Sean went to bind the roast together, he realized the string mesh the roast had come in was gone. He also couldn't find his ball of kitchen twine. But, more pressing, where was that mesh?

There are times in adult life when it's not entirely clear which emergency you should attend to first. As we looked around for the mesh and realized it wasn't there, the "we need to get that roast in the oven and feed our children" emergency took a serious second to the "maybe our dog ate something that could really hurt him" emergency. The way we decided who got to take Hank to the emergency animal hospital and who got to feed and entertain the kids was by having one of those brief, but meaningful, check-ins that spouses do. We checked in with each other, and it was clear: Sean would take Hank, I would stay with the kids. Sean and Hank headed out into the dark night. (Sean: "I was imagining so many deer all the way to Kronenwetter.")

I got Sally in her chair and started heating up leftovers for dinner. We ate. I sent Walter to the potty ... where he peed all over the floor. I mean, puddles. I gave him a roll of paper towels and went back to helping Sally finish up dinner. Walter got the bathroom clean enough that Sally and I could come in, and I gathered up the paper towels and got him out of his clothes. By this time, Sally had pooped, so getting them both into the tub seemed like the obvious course of action. They were delighted, and co-existed in the tub very well (for the most part.) They took great delight in washing my right arm with great vigor and thoroughness (Sally: "Arm! Arm!") I got them both out of the tub before they wanted to get out but also, crucially, before they stopped having fun and started really bugging each other.

I got Sally dried and dressed, and Walter, too. Two clean kids, ready for books. Sean blooped to update us on Hank: a dog his size could probably pass the mesh with no trouble, but the vet decided to induce vomiting just to be safe. The mesh came up right away, and they followed up with some anti-nausea medicine, and Sean and Hank started the thirty minute drive home.

In that time, Sally demonstrated a very limited capacity to sit and read books, as well as a tenacious desire to stand precariously on Walter's rocking chair, bringing all of his books down off of the shelves (and onto her head.) I looked up from our book and said to Walter, "She's making me nervous. You?" "Yes," he said, somberly. We decided to call Umma and Baba. Sally did some more energetic dancing, was very happy to see Umma and Baba, and then cheerfully headed back to the bookshelf for more wanton destruction. She happened to step on one of Walter's favorite old birthday cards, and it played a few bars of the Israel Kamakawiwo'ole version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Both kids were enchanted. Walter took the card and looked at it, pointed to the writing at the bottom and said, "This is from Henry." "Did you read that, Walter?" "Yup!" he said, and smiled. I think he probably just remembered, because it is a favorite card and Henry is a favorite friend, but still. We looked up the song on youtube and watched several versions together, while Sally continued to squirm around and climb all over the world.

Then I heard her poop again ... and again with the assuredness of one who has years of experience with such things, I knew that it was diarrhea this time, and that my window of non-blow out opportunity was small, if any. Sally did not want to have her diaper changed and so the window closed, and so I cleaned up a very messy baby. (Me: "That tub might have been premature.") I got her clean and diapered and then thought ... what the hey ... she's naked, she's sick ... let's get her rehydrated. Popsicles for everyone! (Regular for me and Walter; pedialyte for Sally.) That's when Sean and Hank got home. "Hey, naked baby!" Sean said to Sally, who looked up from her popsicle and smiled winningly at him. I wanted to say, "They were clean. They were in their pajamas." But then Sean hugged me so tenderly ... I knew he was just relieved, and glad to be home. And very tickled by the comedic brilliance of our son, who can make a Daniel Tiger song his own with the best of them.

After the popsicles, there were wash cloths ("Maybe another tub?" I mused, but dismissed it. It was getting late.) After the wash cloths, there was Walter draping a knit blanket over his head and proclaiming, "I am the king! I am the king!" Soon he clarified that he was a king bringing presents for Jesus. He brought some shoe boxes and race car tracks to Sally (Jesus.) "Jesus, some tracks for you!" he said. "Jesus, some tracts for you!" Sean added. When Sally slid off my lap and went off to make mischief (again) Walter informed me that I needed to fill in. "You are a baby named Jesus!" I obliged.

I sat on the couch next to Hank while Walter and Sally piled up more and more presents for me (Jesus.) Hank watched the kids with what looked like great tenderness, or possibly the remnants of some nausea. He seemed (and still seems) a little extra tired. While the kids played, I got to pet him gently for awhile, which did us both some good.

Eventually, we got the kids to bed.

Today is Sally's 16-month-birthday. It's also the winter solstice; the Longest Night. Friends, I have to tell you: it was a long day. Also, the only picture we took today was this one, sent to my email from Sean's phone, with the subject line: "It's out!"

We didn't get a picture of Walter with his royal blanket. We didn't get a video of Sally's amazing dance moves. I didn't even snap a quick shot of my two beautiful kids in the bathtub ... that classic picture that parents cherish (and kids too, secretly, right?) for years to come. And that's OK. Some of these long days should be ephemeral, like incense.

But you can see why I had to write it down, right?

Let's talk about Sally

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 20:30:00 +0000

Just by looking at her, you can tell a lot about what kind of 15-month-old Sally is. She's always got a bruise or two on her noggin. She's not particularly clumsy, she just has no concern for her own safety. The big bruise in these pictures happened at daycare when she dove headfirst over the back of a toddler-sized couch. She also recently dove headfirst out of Sean's arms, and would have hit the floor, but (fortunately?) hit the wall instead, with such force that she bounced right back into Sean's arms. She's never been disoriented, no signs of concussion or serious injury. But she scares us, routinely. When we're able to stop her before an accident happens, she insistently goes right back and tries to do it again.

We gave a penguin-shaped icepack to Sally after she hit the wall, and tried to convince her to put it on her owie by having the penguin kiss her forehead. She decided the penguin's name was Owie, and will now, with great delight and desire, ask for him by name, saying, "Owie! Owie!" and pointing and gesturing emphatically.

When she has a close call--almost hurting herself, but managing to stop or minimize the damage--Sally says, with the perfect cadence, "Whoa!"

If I'd managed to write a 14 month round up, I probably could have made a decently accurate list of Sally's first words. Now, it just feels futile ... the girl talks all the time, breaking out new words without breaking a sweat every day. She repeats words back to us, too, which makes the list almost limitless. She's still mostly communicating at Curious George level, I'd say. We're big fans of the animated Curious George series on PBS, and George doesn't speak, per se, but imitates speech in a way that's very communicative and easy to interpret, with some of the words ("Ok"and "uh huh" for example) being almost perfectly formed, and the rest a very intelligible mix of monkey and English. We understand our little monkey perfectly much of the time, and some things anyone meeting her would be able to understand, while others would require a bilingual interpreter (me, Sean or Walter, usually.)

Some of the things Sally likes to say (not a comprehensive list!):

Sticker
Bubble (one of her first words ... she loves washing her hands)
Thank you
More (this is her word for nursing, too, but sounds more like "Mo" when she's using it to mean nursing and not just more of something else.)
All done
Mama
Dada
Waba (Walter)
Baba
Umma
Pop Pop (still working on "Grandma")
Cheese
Please (she uses sign for this one, along with the word)
Kitty
Dog
Hank

Moo (What does the cow say?)
Baa (What does the sheep say?)
Woof woof (What does the dog say?)
*sniff sniff* (What does the bunny say?)
Ball (this was also one of her first words)
Row row
Diaper (she tells us sometimes when she needs a new one, and signs diaper, too.)
Fishy (she uses this to mean fish and shoes, too. It sounds like, "Ishies!")
No (a fan favorite.)
Yes
Uh huh
Here you go (said as all one word.)
Uh uh
Whoa!
Daniel
Sally
Baby
Elmo
Hot

And almost anything else you prompt or ask her to say. She will try it! She's game.

Sally's game for most new things, in fact, which makes her a lot of fun to be with. She loves all kinds of foods and eats cheerfully and heartily in a totally undiscriminating manner. She likes meeting new people and going to new places; she's almost always up for an adventure, even if she's tired or not feeling well.

It's (not quite, technically) winter in Wisconsin, so of course she's not feeling well. She got tubes in her ears a little over a month ago, and that seems to have ended the endless ear infections. She's been sick since then, but hasn't needed antibiotics. We're currently monitoring a nasty cough. Her upper molars are almost all the way in, and her bottom molars are close behind. She's got canines peeking through her top gums, too. It's kind of remarkable how cheerful she is given all of this, and the frequent head injuries, too.

And Sally is very cheerful ... and very, very sad. Oh, the sad. I was explaining to our friend J., who's expecting his first baby in February, that the sadness of toddlers is real. She cries real tears, and she means it when her face crumples and she starts to wail. But, if you give her a little space and not a lot of direct attention, she gets over it just as quickly as it comes on. The trouble comes when you have to intervene and pay attention, because she's doing something naughty or dangerous. The will is strong with this one. Very strong. And she's not open to being reasoned with at all, or being distracted or redirected. It makes a person tired, sometimes. Other times it's kind of funny and cute ... the way she rolls her eyes and sticks her chin up in the air, shaking her tiny butt and singing, "No! No no no!" as she walks away from me and toward whatever gaping chasm she's interested in at the time. She's very charming, Sally. But we try not to let on too much when her defiance strikes us as especially cute, looking ahead to days when it might not come in such adorable, relatively safe, forms.

Sally and I were having a serious disagreement about markers the other day... a disagreement that is actually ongoing (she keeps testing, giving me the look, to see if I'm going to stop her from writing on non-paper surfaces again. Persistence over the course of days, weeks ... that's Sally.) The disagreement made both of us crabby with each other. I have a strong will, too. Walter observed all this, and eventually said, "Mama, do you still love Sally?"

"Of course I do! With my whole heart, just like I love you! No matter what, right?"

Walter nodded, looking thoughtful. He's still not entirely convinced. So, we keep telling him, and her, and trying to show them in every way we can. The truth is, they are easy to love. Even when they are at their most difficult.

I pick Sally up and cover her in kisses. Walter makes funny faces and makes up silly words. Sean calls her "Salamander" and gazes lovingly into her eyes. She rolls her eyes at us, but, obligingly, smiles.

She knows.

***
Ok, so immediately after I posted this I thought of like a million more favorite Sally words (or rather, I heard her say them after she woke up from her nap.) So:
Bye bye
Hi
Hello (Hi-Oh!)
Duck
Quack
Eyes
Nose ("no")
Snow (also "no." Context is all.)
Agua (we kept correcting her and saying "wawa," until I heard her daycare teacher repeat it back to her as "agua." Bilingual baby. Noted!)
Hat (usually said while patting her head. "Hat hat!")
Arm, leg, hand, toes ... great at identifying and saying the body parts
On! ("On on on!" This can mean she wants something on, or that she wants something off, something open, something closed, etc.)

With all these actual words to choose from, she also still really likes chatting to herself saying, "dibbadibbadee."

Great example of Sally's persistence and planning and Walter's advances in Executive Function from tonight: Sally wanted to play in the "bags and wraps" drawer, full of expensive bags and sharp edges for tearing plastic wrap. After a struggle, I diverted her by opening the rag drawer and asking her to clean the floor, which she did. Walter joined in and they were very industrious together. Walter even disappeared for a few seconds and came back with a damp rag he'd taken to the bathroom, wet, and wrung out himself. They got lots of rags dirty and had a good time. Walter didn't even want to stop for Advent wreath and cake time. As soon as we all had cake in front of us, Sally told Sean she was all done and wanted to get down ... and immediately went back to the forbidden drawer. Her plan all along had been to wait until we were distracted, and the cake provided the perfect opportunity. When Sean stood and ate his cake in front of the doors, Sally relented. And asked for some cake. As soon as Walter was done with his cake, he went over to the drawers, and I watched him think about which one he was going to open. He chose the rag drawer, and resumed his task, very pleased with his good decision.

I was pretty impressed with both of them! Sally's learning how to hatch plots, and Walter's learning how to delay gratification. I watched him stare at a spoonful of whipped cream at Thanksgiving, waiting for the coffee to be ready so he could put it in the coffee, wanting to eat it right away but willing himself to wait. And he did it. He got his hand painted when we went to see Santa this weekend, and stayed perfectly still and did not touch the painting until it was dry. It was amazing to watch. And even though I don't like the contest of wills that often comes with it, I love watching Sally persist, and plan, and come up with all kinds of different problem-solving strategies in her quest to get whatever she's after.

Proud mama. Headed to bed before I think of any more words to add!

Walter's conversation with Santa

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 05:11:00 +0000

Last year, Walter was excited to go see Santa, but too shy to say anything to him. Since then, he's been preparing.

Santa: What's your name?
Walter: (very quietly) Walter
Santa: ?
Sean: Walter!
Santa: Hello, Walter! How old are you?
Walter: I'm three. (slight pause.) My birthday was in October.
(Santa and Walter chat quietly, and I can't quite make it out. Santa must ask Walter what he wants for Christmas, because the next thing I hear is ...)
Santa: A candy cane? Anything else?
Walter: Yes. A candy cane. (makes a pinching gesture with his fingers, just like I do when I say I want a snack.)
Santa: A big one?
Me: I think he's talking about the candy canes in the basket next to you. He'd like one of those. Can he have one?
Santa: Oh, of course! Is there anything else you'd like for Christmas?
Walter: A purple blanket, soft, with my name on it. (This is what he's consistently been saying for weeks and weeks. I kept asking him thinking it would change, and it hasn't. When we told Heidi today, she said, "Oh! Anna has one of those. A purple blanket with her name on it." So maybe he saw it during our weekend in Osh Kosh in August? Whatever the reason ... Santa is taken aback.)
Santa: I will get my elves working on that right away! Do you ... want anything else? Are you sure?
(I break in, now, getting Sally into the picture and talking about how good both kids have been. Through all of this, I never noticed that Walter was very gently holding Santa's hand, the way he does with people he loves and trusts.) ***

Walter was disappointed that he didn't immediately get his blanket from Santa today, so we explained that it's going to take some time for the elves to make it. On our way to the activity room, I said to Santa, "Pretty great request, huh?" Santa said, "That was definitely a first for me, yes!"

The blanket the elves were able to make turned out to be a little maroon, more than traditional purple, with violet letters for his name. I hope he likes it! Now ... to wait for Christmas!

***Edited later to add: Watching Baba's video of this, I remembered that at one point, Walter tried to reach past his sweater into his shirt pocket and said, "I have a gift for you, Santa." I realized he was looking for a little jingle bell he'd found earlier the day and decided to bring to Santa as a gift. I went to help him get it out but Baba shook his head and said the bell had been left at home. We promised Santa, and Walter, we'd put the jingle bell out with Walter's letter on Christmas Eve.

Laziest Blog Post Ever

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 02:47:00 +0000

In which I copy facebook status updates and compile them into a blog post. *Sigh.* New blogging low, reached. The good news is that both children are healthy again, but in the month since my last post we've had a rough time indeed. Sally learned how to use an inhaler, which demonstrated that she's incredibly reasonable and cooperative when she believes that what she's doing is entirely her idea.

Even in the most sleepless, snot-filled, terrible times, I manage to document some fun Walter witticisms on facebook. The written statuses are mostly about Walter, because he's a talker, and the photos I post are mostly of Sally, because she smiles for the camera (it is entirely her idea to do so.) No time or energy for photos tonight, but hopefully those will come soon. Sally turns 14 months old on Tuesday, and Walter turns 3 on Wednesday. Lots to catch up on, and lots to celebrate, but in the meantime ... some recent glimpses of the brilliance that is Walter:

Walter: What are little sisters made of?
Me: I don't know. What are little sisters made of?
Walter: (surveying his little sister.) Eyes ...
Me: Yes.
Walter ... and cake!

Walter at worship this morning, looking around at all the people gathered: "All these people are Jesus."

Walter, age almost-three, on the absurdity of advertising:
"Mama, why does that mini wheat have a face?"
"He's like a mascot, or a spokesperson. He's trying to get you to buy and eat more mini wheats."
(Pause.) "But Mama ... he IS a mini wheat."
"I know buddy, I know."

After dinner with K. and J., Walter says "*sigh* What a lovely evening."

Just overheard Walter asking Sean why our Christmas garland is still up. Oh, Walter ... someday your parents will have it all together, I promise.

Got put in my place tonight when I went to the stove to warm up a tortilla. Walter: "NO! You are a Mama! You are not a Dada! You can't cook!"

Today Sean said, "Look, Sally found your toy hammer" and Walter sang, "If I had I hammer! I'd hammer in the morning ..." Tonight, I said, "We're having church at the river tomorrow" and Walter sang, "When I went down in the river pray ..."
I love that boy.

(It's true. I do!)

A new month dawns

noreply@blogger.com (Pastor Annie) — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 03:39:00 +0000

Today, Sally is 13 months old. She is finally looking and acting like she's getting over the ear infection and cough/cold she's been struggling with all month. She's smiling easily again: her sweet, happy self. This is a relief. Crankiness combined with her usual level of deviousness is, it turns out, not a fun combination, and she was starting to get a bit of a reputation at daycare.

As far as this latest family virus goes, I'm a few days behind Sally, and Walter's a few days behind me. I have hope for him and for me based on Sally's recovery, but it could take awhile. Walt's not at his best these day, but he's trying, and with both of them there are always such bright and wonderful moments in with the difficult times. They are determined little people.

I'm too tired to write more ... it has been a month of no sleep, and I am worn down to the fraying edges of my being. But I want to record: today was a good day, for both kiddos and both parents.

Where there are naps, there is hope.

RFC: Sans Alternatives pt. 2

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 04:14:33 +0000

It's been a while since I posed the question in my last post, "What's an ethical outlet for legitimate technical activism?" Now that we've all had some time to gather our notes on the subject, let's continue. At the time, my thoughts were leaning toward the Code for America and civic hacking opportunities I'd been exposed to while working in Chicago, as well as SANS' own Dshield firewall log-sharing program. And while these are well and good, they lack a certain romance and scope that the more chaotic good alternatives offer. I was even starting to lean toward suggesting the training programs around the government's cybersecurity recruiting push might fit the bill. But in the wake of revelations that the NSA has subverted many internet encryption implementations, allowing it to intrude broadly on privacy of communications, security expert Bruce Schneier has presented a really compelling argument that the purest form of hacktivism would be for the engineers of the internet to reclaim it and re-engineer it robustly and securely and openly. He's offering the huge pool of talented and disenchanted hackers out there the opportunity to respond to abuse by building up, rather than tearing down, and I think it's a terribly welcome sentiment.

RFC: Sans Alternatives

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:07:00 +0000

Just emerging from the disorientation and exhilaration of SANSFire 2011, a huge computer security training event with weekend and weeklong courses, vender demos, and some really cool one-off presentations. (My highlight – a unified “lessons learned” assessment of the Tōhoku earthquake/tsunami, the Fukushima meltdown and the Sony Hack by Japanese security analyst Tomohisa Ishikawa.)

One of the traditional special events is the annual State of the Internet roundtable, where the Internet Storm Center handlers take questions on the year’s internet security events. Topics include big attack vectors and stories, the tech media, and – this being D.C. – politics and the military. I asked a pretty spontaneous question, inspired by a previous one about getting involved in computer security that hadn’t really been answered terribly broadly (“become a consultant”).

This isn't really my millieu. At the time, I didn’t really have any answers in mind to my question (I have some ideas now), and it seemed to catch the panel off guard as well, with most of their answers overlooking the activism aspect. (To be fair, their focus is tech analysis, not activism, and my question was a bit off topic.) So, I turn to you, my scattering of dedicated readers, for your thoughts:

Anonymous and Lulzsec and other popular “hacking” groups in the media right now seem to exist in a miasma of criminality and pranksterism, but also genuine activism. Who do you see out there right now providing a positive outlet for legitimate technical activism?

I’ll follow up with my own ideas later, but I want to hear from you, first.

Taking the baby blog out of mothballs...

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 16:46:23 +0000

Annie and I are proud to announce the relaunch of Like we invented it and Project: Baby. Oh, also, we're pregnant.

Better than the real thing

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:44:31 +0000

Wired's article on this very cool 360° panoramic photo of the Philosophical Hall at Strahov Monastery in Prague reminds me of our trip there in October 2008, while we were teachers in Slovakia. (Can it really have been that long ago?) And Wired's assertion that “viewing Martin’s web-based panorama might actually be better than an actual visit,” is actually quite accurate. While the Wunderkammer/natural history museum that opens onto the library is quite fascinating, there's nothing sadder than being that close to such a marvel of a library and being unable to browse.

While we were not allowed to take photos in the Philosophical Hall (I forget if it was against the rules, or if there was a photo fee), we did get some great, moody shots from the restaurant beneath the monastery. (As well as fantastic pork knuckle.) Positioned as it is deep in the Premonstratensian Order's former wine cellar, this cool little restaurant is named Peklo, which is Czech for inferno. Perfect place to grab lunch on Halloween, no?

Sad literary news

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 03:22:52 +0000

Very sad to hear of the passing of Diana Wynne Jones, author of the Chrestomanci Series, Dogsbody, The Ogre Downstairs, and Howl's Moving Castle, among others.

Her rich, familiar characters and effortless world-building sold fantastic, reality-crossing plots. All were crafted with sophistication and her respect for an ostensibly young adult audience won her plenty of fans of all ages, including Neil Gaiman. I never knew, until today, that she studied under CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien at Oxford.

Wynne Jones was never hugely famous*, even after Howl's was made into a movie. When Annie found out I was a fan, it was like discovering we shared membership in a secret society. Along with John Bellairs, Diana Wynne Jones was a literary titan of my youth, and her work set the standard for so much of what I love in fiction today. With dead-tree bookstores and public libraries shutting down by the drove, one wonders how anyone will get their hands on these sorts of magical, secret authors in the future. But I'm confident that, as long as there are kids who read until they've run out of books, who'd rather stretch up to an author than be talked down to, someone will find these treasures, in whatever format, and share them with their friends.

* Even though she deserves to be; Annie points out that Harry Potter pales considerably next to Jones' far more satisfying Witch Week.

Recipe: Bacon Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 05:39:34 +0000

We here at Team Edison-Albright try to be health conscious, try take care of ourselves, so I’ve been on the lookout for turkey breast at the local market ever since Mom and Dad E-S dropped off our new roasting pan a couple weeks back (from their market’s incentive stamp program.) Nice healthy lunch option, but I wanted to add a bit of a smoky flavor and didn’t have a grill available, so I slid a couple slices of bacon under the skin while cooking. When I removed both skin and bacon to apply my glaze, I discovered I had unwittingly created a chimerical abomination I like to call “bacon turkey,” pictured here.

The God-fearing human in me confesses shamefully to trying a ~~bite~~ slice; meanwhile my inner scientist is licking his fingers and muttering something about “reproducible results.” Needless to say, this one is not going to be featured on ReciPants.

Is it just me

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 03:51:39 +0000

Or has Google Reader been demoted to the "More" tab in the Gmail menu for everybody else, too? Eric Schmidt hands over the reins and everything goes to heck!

KDE 4.5 on openSUSE

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:49:36 +0000

I run openSUSE as my primary operating system – have done so since I worked at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which was a Novell shop. Right around Thanksgiving, I somehow ended up backed into the corner of needing to upgrade to KDE 4.5. I don't actually remember the order everything played out, but there was some poor video and resource performance, a game I couldn't get working for the nieces and nephews (okay, and for me on the plane), and knetworkmanager broke -- and my end solution was to plow all those problems under with a big upgrade and start fresh with whatever new issues cropped up.

Thankfully, the process of upgrading KDE to 4.5 is fairly pain-free in openSUSE, as long as you read the fine print. And the fine print is: The knetworkmanager applet won't work under KDE 4.5, so you'll need to switch to the knetworkmanager plasmoid; except, once you've broken the knetworkmanager applet, it's too late to switch conveniently -- you've lost all connectivity. Also, the plasmoid has it's own issues.

So, STEP 1 – you'll want to follow these instructions to make the upgrade, bearing in mind that instruction #5 really needs to happen before #4.

And, STEP 2 – to get wireless networking working in the plasmoid, you'll want to add the command:
qdbus org.kde.kded /kded loadModule networkmanagement
to your Autostart folder, as described in this post. I just dropped it into an executable text file called knm.sh, and that seems to have done the trick.

Forewarned is forearmed. Godspeed!

UPDATE -- I actually used YaST Software Management, rather than zypper as in the first link, but the outcome should be the same.

UPDATE 2 == At some point, I also deleted everything in these directories, because someone on the internet told me to, so if you're still having trouble, give that a go:
/var/tmp/kdecache-$USER
/tmp/kde-$USER
/tmp/ksocket-$USER

Humbly submitted, for your consideration

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:45:00 +0000

So the game I mentioned in yesterday's KDE upgrade post was Bit-Blot's Aquaria – the stand out success (for me) of last year's Humble Indie Bundle. It's a gorgeous underwater exploration and adventure game, with intuitive, learn-as-you-go controls and a commitment to immersive detail on par with Ultima VII. There's a rich backstory, a cool magic system, companions, even cooking.

The Humble Bundle itself is a pack of awesome, DRM-free, multi-platform games with pay-what-you-will pricing. The proceeds are divided (at your discretion) among charities (EFF and Child's Play,) the games' makers, and Humble. The current bundle looks very fun, but there are only 6 days left to grab it, so act fast if you're interested.

This year's big draw seems to be Braid, a clever little time-manipulation side scroller about dysfunctional relationships. Only problem -- it didn't want to run on openSUSE for me. Run from the command line, it complained:

Game Startup Error: Unable to set up graphics.
Reason: Missing required OpenGL extension.

To help fix this problem make sure you are running the newest version of your video drivers.
Lastly, you could try running this game with the -windowed command-line option.

The ubuntu folks, who always seem to crack these problems first, tracked the issue down to missing S3 texture compression support – disabled in the open source drivers because it's patented (further details if you're interesed). Their simple solution (where patent law allows) is to install driconf and re-enable S3, as described here.

Since driconf isn't in the standard openSUSE repositories, you can grab it from the build service. Mine didn't work out of the box, though – it was looking in the wrong place for the python module. So, I edited /usr/bin/driconf and added the line:

sys.path.append("/usr/lib64/driconf/")

which is where I found the file driconf.py. Then, if I were in a country where patent law allowed, I could run driconf, go to the Image Quality tab, and enable S3TC, and Braid would run like a charm. If I were not in a country where patent law allowed, I'd suggest giving Osmos a try, an addictive physics-based osmosis game. Haven't checked out the others yet, but will when I have some down-time.

Dog days of winter

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:06:39 +0000

Yesterday was Hank's first real snow day – he's seen snow before, but never accumulation – so we took the opportunity and swapped most of his designated walking time for play time. We ran around like crazy puppies, attacking each other, gamboling and rolling in the snow, bounding and sliding across the deck, and sprinting around every corner. He tasted it (black dog with a snowy nose is a picture I wish I'd taken for you), and re-cataloged all his favorite smells – even made his first yellow snow with some prompting.

By his evening walk, when it was cold enough to freeze my beard, he still had the strength of 10 lab/beagle-mixes (Google tells me this is equivalent to 2 great danes or 32.7 chihuahuas) and even managed to pull loose a couple times when I was off my guard. When we finally called it a night, he curled up on the couch in a way that suggested ski lodge, hot chocolate, warm fire...

But where's my chocolate?

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 02:29:22 +0000

As a relative newcomer to Perl, I was pleased to see Slashdot's link today to the Perl Advent Calendar (although I was disappointed to find it doesn't work in Opera.) I was even more pleased that it reminded me one of my favorite seasonal web design and development blogs, 24 Ways to Impress Your Friends would be spinning back up today. Over the next 24 days, various web luminaries will contribute elegant new techniques for layout, accessibility, development, you name it.

Look back through their archives and you'll find there's something for everybody. Today's entry – an introduction to Google's Static Map API – as it turns out, is not for me, at least not for my leisure. But I'm sure it is for somebody else. Actually the author indicates it is for the 2% of web users who do not have Javascript enabled (minus those using screen readers, I guess.) But I will definitely check back throughout the season.

Finally, my inner pedant points out that neither of these are actually Advent calendars, since Advent starts on the first Sunday of Advent (November 28th this year) rather than December 1st. Metric Advent?

Redeemer's new webpage

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 05:57:20 +0000

So, brag-hat on for a moment here – we just went live with Phase 1 of the new website for Redeemer Lutheran Church here in Stevens Point, WI (just getting the SEO out of the way early there) and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, even though all its little flaws are glaringly apparent to me.

It helps that we met our modest goal, rapid launch with all the essentials. Also, we're immediately turning around into Phase 2 – more robust, built on WordPress as a CRM – so I can instantly incorporate all those little fixes I'd otherwise have stayed up until 2AM tonight cranking out. And I like the overall look of it... I'm a fan of design, but not terribly skilled at it, and I exceeded my expectations for myself here. Still a long way to go, but it feels clean, inviting and modern to me, which was exactly what I was aiming for.

That said, suggestions, bug reports and design tweaks extremely welcome!

Furniture as time machine

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:17:59 +0000

In other news, time tourists go to a lot of trouble to enjoy some pretty mundane attractions, but then, why should they differ from any other history buffs?

Doing some time traveling of my own tonight — cut myself on some Ikea mounting hardware, and every keystroke is a sense memory of fingertip blood draws in the hospital as a child. I must have been in for asthma, and they may have only done it twice, but in my memory it was a month of daily finger pricks.

Jackpot

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 04:15:19 +0000

File under "More of the same..."

Hosed my system today updating some software, so I thought I'd go for the full-upgrade. One hour later, no external hard drive to be found anywhere, although Annie assures me we packed it. In the meantime, I turn up my wayward grammar and usage dictionary, as well as some Star Wars action figures and a cell phone charger we lost last year. Eventually find the hard drive...

under the passenger seat of our car...

where it slid when we drove it up here early last month. Bad news is I'm still missing the power supply (yes I checked the glove box), but the good news is that OpenSuse 11.3's upgrade option seems to have successfully solved my issues and is running smoothly. I'm tempted to try to dig up my high school yearbook on the off chance that I'll stumble across the power supply in the process.

Old Timey Unpacking Drama

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 03:59:54 +0000

We've reached the phase of moving in that I like to think of as stage Zork, where every household quest seems to fail for the lack of a single, crucial item – usually one that I just saw the day before. Today, while looking for my grammar and usage dictionary, I finally found the ruler I needed for assembling the wheelbarrow, right in the closet where I noticed it last week. When I was first looking for the ruler, I found and set aside our printer paper; yesterday I gave in and bought a new pack. And so it goes.

It's not all as frustrating as this sounds, though. Hank Goldberg is getting to know the other puppies in the neighborhood and the congregation; he gazes mournfully at us as we eat, even though I've never asked for a single kibble from him. Evenings we all cuddle up on the couch, fire up the woodstove and sometimes listen to the archives of our local NPR affiliate's Old Time Radio Drama program. It's quite cozy, but it raises the question:

Who was the talent scout that saw Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy performing in the Catskills and said, "This is an act made for radio!"

It's a palace for sure...

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 15:34:53 +0000

As Tom Waits sings,

What makes a house grand ain't the roof or the doors, if there's love in the house it's a palace for sure.

But it doesn't hurt when the house is as awesome as the one Annie and I have just purchased! After a painless, whirlwind 26-day turnaround (thanks to Bob Siskoff at M&I Bank and Chris Northwood at Re/Max in Stevens Point) we are very happy first-time homeowners. We've got pictures, if you'd like to take a look – bear in mind that these are from our first visit while the previous owners were still there, so it's not nearly so well furnished at the moment.

And just in time, too, as Annie has just begun her first call at Redeemer Lutheran Church. Check out all the ordination details.

And of course, you can always find our most up-to-date contact info at Anne and Sean.

Hank Hank Bo Bank...

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:09:04 +0000

Either Google is better at search than we think, or worse at transcription than I've imagined -- either way, our puppy seems to have a new last name:

P.S. Don't blog from work, unless you're on your lunch break.

Introducing...

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:00:24 +0000

The handsome little guy pictured nearby is the newest member of our family, Hank, the dog! His past is shrouded in mystery, as you may have guessed by those soulful eyes, but one could reasonably surmise that he has some lab and some beagle in there somewhere. As in all the best cases of puppy love, there's some tragedy in his background – loud clippers, a death-defying leap from a high grooming table, a broken leg. Thanks to the care and attention of Auds and Curtis, though, he's back running around like a champ. Auds is a vet, actually; she saved his life, and decided he was the perfect dog for us. And she was right; perfect dog period.

We were already planning a trip down to Lexington to spend 4th of July weekend with Auds and Curt, so we combined an awesome visit – including hiking to some gorgeous views and delicious pizza, a blast of a 4th of July party with horses and the perfect spot to watch dozens of fireworks displays, and just great fun catching up with two of our favorite people – with a trial run for my sinuses. One short doggie drive later, and we had Hank home in Chicago, where he'll be staying with Annie's folks until we have a place that allows dogs in a couple months.

He was originally a Henry, but Hank seems the most apt. We've been floating around some of our favorite variations:

Hanko Breadcrumbs Edison-Albright

Hanko Verymuch Edison-Albright

Hanko American Pasta Sauce Edison-Albright

That last one might be a bit much.

Two Times tables

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:04:22 +0000

Illustrious employer got a nod in the NYTimes yesterday, but more importantly (and timely), I can't wait to figure out who my presidential hair twin is! Ladies model also available.

Okay, one article and one table. And I guess the table is more of a chart. Maybe "Hair to the Chief" would have been a better title?

Iron Chef Gar-sieze

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 01:44:19 +0000

We're fast fans of Iron Chef America, and I recognize the anime cultural connection, and enjoy the aesthetic of excess and bravado that makes it successful*, but has anyone seen the latest promo? The one for Iron Chef Garces' debut? TOO. MUCH. STROBE.

I don't know if they did a Next Iron Chef Production Assistant series to select the person who cut this thing together, but I try to only swallow tongue at delicatessens and taco shops. We can't even protect ourselves by looking away from the screen or closing our eyes, it seems to reverberate off our walls and into our skulls. Thanks for new episodes, but seriously, knock it off.

*The strategy of making a burned plate of garbage palatable by covering it with foie, gold leaf, and shaved truffles will forever be known as the Iron Chef Gambit.

Don't know why...

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 02:44:45 +0000

Three cheers for Panera Bread — provider of hassle-free, strip mall wifi par excellence! Compelled to ask, though, why the world needs a lite-jazz version of Nora Jones’ “Don't Know Why” arranged for saxophone and harmonica. The original was too hard core? Wait — now they're giving the same treatment to Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab.” Someone may be having some fun with me, I suspect. Oh well, baguette sandwich with a side of baguette means all is forgiven!

Anyway, I find myself with a bit of time to catch up on a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy etc. and so forth, here just past the end of the season. (Full disclosure: our tree is still trimmed and burning.) Our schedules wouldn't allow a trip to Pennsylvania, which was a disappointment, but otherwise had a wonderful holiday, including singing at the Christmas eve service, a nice long visit from Nicole, and a grand Sunday-after-Christmas luncheon thrown by Sue and Paul on the occasion of Annie’s guest sermon at St. Luke’s.

But I see you are impatient, so on with the presents (in link form)!

First is a gift from Paul to the whole internet: How we spent Christmas morning.
Annie and I also cameoed in a couple (less musical) Christmas videos thanks to a gift from my folks.
One of our photos and Annie’s eyewitness testimony were used in a French 24 news story about one of our favorite Slovak Christmas traditions.
Meanwhile, Slovakia has been handing out presents of its own.

I’m particularly thankful for my pocketwatch from Annie (more on that later) and we're both very grateful for the ornaments from our parents, which made our first Christmas home so special.

Update: Hey, you in the corner! Who eats the soup and leaves behind the bread bowl?

You brought myrrh?

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:52:24 +0000

In the midst of a frustrating morning tracking down information on the Flare visualization library, I suggested to Matt that he should spend his 20% making a "It's Not Just You" button for the Google toolbar. You know, when a site is inexplicably unavailable, and you think to yourself, is the site down, or is it just me? The second thing I do after refreshing the page a dozen times is to google the url, to make sure I've got it spelled right, see if anyone has mentioned it's gone down, and check the cache for the information I was after. Matt realized we could just use translate.google.com for the same functionality. I tried it out, and it was not just me. Of course, this is the situation 99% of the time, I'm sure, but now I can feel like I've actually done something about it.

In other Matt news -- actually, very other Matt news, as this is about a different Matt -- Matt Stanley, a friend of mine from high school has a really cool audio/photo story on the dying art of rail hunting. Not to be confused with trainspotting. By all means check it out, as well as the rest of his blog.

Finally, cnet presents an object lesson in the pitfalls of web accessibility by including a picture of a table of data. In an article on web accessibility.

None too soon

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:01:32 +0000

Via Slashdot: IT Security Breaches Soar in 2009

Rest easy, North America, I'm back in town.

Bacon blogjam

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:24:15 +0000

A job search can sometimes lead to a bit of a paranoid blogjam -- could this post be too controversial for potential employers?

Well, who could object to these links? The first, found via Chow combines two of my passions (cooking and typesetting) to pose the question of the ages: Cheese or Font?

The second also combines two passions, this time cooking and bacon. It's Homesick Texan's Bacon Jam! Enjoy!

...They're all going the wrong way!

noreply@blogger.com (novelgazer) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:54:13 +0000

Greetings from beautiful Streetsboro, OH where we are nestled in the gentle and affordable embrace of the Econolodge. Just off I-80, the Ohio Turnpike, which earlier today treated us to this road terror:

The classic oncoming UPS truck. Not pictured: Sean white-knuckling the steering wheel of our new Yaris before realizing the UPS truck was being towed.

Earlier in the trip, passing a herd of cattle, Annie poked up her head and called out to them a sprightly "Meeeeeeyah!" Mad cows, apparently.

Home!

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:14:16 +0000

The Eagle (the butterfly?) has landed!
It's 5:01 am and August in Slovakia, but here it's 10 pm on the same day we departed from Vienna. Long day! But a very good travel day all around.
And now it's time to take a tub. =)
Busy day tomorrow: we have to buy a car to drive to Philly for my approval interview on August 6. My dad has been doing research, so we're hopeful for a good/relatively painless day of shopping tomorrow.
Thanks for the "safe travels" prayers!

"You can do this!"

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:49:20 +0000

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." - Matthew 28:16-20
Daniel, a Slovak pastor and member of my internship committee, recently invited me to preach at his dad’s congregation in Háj, a small village in central Slovakia. The assigned preaching text for the day was Matthew 28:16-20: the Great Commission. As I prepared my sermon, I imagined that the disciples’ doubts that day on the mountain in Galilee were similar to my doubts at the missionary sending service in Kenosha, Wisconsin: what if I’m not good enough? Will my friends and family ever understand why I’m doing this? Am I up to this task?The great thing about this story is that Jesus sends the disciples out—Jesus sends us out—anyway. He doesn’t wait for us to be certain, doubt-free, or perfect. We are sent out, not because of what we’ve done, but because of what God has done: loved us, forgiven us, and empowered us to do things we could never do on our own. During the second service in Háj, my eyes kept going back to a woman in a beautiful white suit. As I preached, she smiled. “Keep going!” she seemed to be saying, “You can do this!” Daniel told me later that Anna is the president of the congregation, and that her granddaughter attends seminary in Bratislava, but is currently serving as a summer intern at Dr. Martin Luther Evangelical Church in Muskegon, Michigan. I realized that, on the same Sunday morning that Anna was encouraging me, someone in Michigan was probably looking at her granddaughter and smiling, letting her know “You can do this!,” even in the midst of any doubts she has. Jesus meets us, and sends us out, in the midst of our doubts and imperfections. That’s good news for missionaries, and for the people we minister with, too.

This post appeared on Hand in Hand, ELCA Global Mission's blog digest with contributions from missionaries all over the world. Check it out.

I never thought I would ...

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:50:20 +0000

... hike these ridiculous cliffs in Greece and, once up there, hike some more: monastery-hopping
... get a very thorough scrub down from a Turkish grandma--with Elly
... learn a little German via Austrian TV. Thank you ORF, and your constant Simpsons reruns
... film an homage to the "Czech brothers" SNL sketch with a bunch of wild and crazy missionaries
... attempt to teach the Trinity in the last five minutes of class, only to have my students call me on it with fantastic questions, like: "If Jesus is part of God and God is one, why does Jesus say, "My God, why have you forsaken me?"

... meet a wonderful family from Ecuador at a bus stop in Assisi, and end up spending a good part of the day with them in Florence.
... fall in love with the heart of Europe
... take Auds and Curt to the finest gluten-free pizza restaurant in Bratislava
... chaperone a youth trip to a conference in the Hague and end up keeping (and now, packing) my notes from the sermons--seriously good theology
... preside at communion for the first time from an ironing board in eastern Slovakia
... laugh so much with my internship committee and my supervisor
... preach a bilingual sermon on the Great Commission in the village of Háj
... face some of my worst fears--ones I didn't even know I had--realize how much I need God's help, and the help of the Body of Christ ... and come out OK

I think Sean and I both knew we were in for an adventure a year ago, getting antsy at the Summer Missionary Conference ... both ready to go and not at all ready to go. We guessed that we would come to love Slovakia and the people we work with, here. Ultimately, we were always just long-term visitors here: called to be partners, but also to remain outsiders. And yet ... we've become more invested than the average visitor, more at home than the word "outsider" implies.

Sunday will be my last service at BIC--David and Carla left for the US this morning, and I woke up with a strong sense of loss (and then went back to bed.) We are packing and getting ready to go, but not in a particularly stressed out way. Keep us, and the many, many missionaries in transition right now, in your prayers.

Annie are you OK?

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:48:35 +0000

Yesterday I finished the first drafts of the bulletin and my final internship evaluation; Sean finished the informatics year plan he improved and is passing on to the next generation of teachers. We rewarded our accomplishment by heading out to Open Doors Day at the Presidential Palace; once a year, the Slovak equivalent of the White House is open to the public. It is a big event, with lots of entertainment, free kofola, and a chance to meet the president and first lady and get their autographs (we did this, and our American greetings were received with surprise and warmth.)

Before we even got inside, however, there was, in good Slovak tradition, a program. A military band played surprisingly swingy, poppy tunes; majorettes twirled flawlessly; men in feathered hats shot blanks at each other in time to music, making us all jump and hold our ears in a delighted way. A well organized corp of the president's guard marched out to the center with their rifles to "Carmina Burana." As the group got into formation, the music quickly changed to "Misirlou", then to "Sweet Dreams Are Made of These" by the Eurythmics, and a professionally but also whimsically choreographed routine with dance and rifles unfolded. Another techno/dance tune followed, and Sean and I grinned at each other as we strained to see over the (now huge, excited) crowd.

At the end of the routine a new song came on; perhaps it had been added that morning. The soldiers marched in formation, stopping once to point their white-gloved hands to the sky. This version of Billie Jean made me remember all the other times I've heard that song this year: done in a Cab Calloway style at the Easter Market in Vienna, at various Lyceum events, while we shop for groceries at Billa. I will never forget this version: standing in the sun in front of the presidential palace in Bratislava, surrounded by Slovak school children, watching the precise choreography of the president's guard, hearing the MC announce after the routine, in Slovak, that it was dedicated to the memory of Michael Jackson.

It was just right. I am going to miss this place.

To boldly go

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Mon, 11 May 2009 08:50:12 +0000

There is so much more I want to write about, but in these minutes before class, this is enough: on Saturday we took Audrey and Curtis to see Star Trek at the movie theater at Aupark (our most convenient mall here in Bratislava.) It was wonderful for many reasons:

Audrey and Curtis were visiting us.
The Palace Cinemas have assigned seats--they are clean and comfy and the most pleasant movie-going experience imaginable. Real butter for my popcorn? Yes, please.
Slovak (or are they Czech?) subtitles are always cool and interesting to try to follow.
The crowd loved it. This should be expected of a wonderful new Trek movie, but it was especially wonderful to experience outside of the US.
What's not to love? It's a great movie. It makes me want to lose several days of my life watching all the Star Trek I can get my hands on. I will not do this anytime soon (sermon to write, project to get underway, paperwork ever-looming, worship to plan, classes to teach ...) but I hope to have a marathon at the first opportunity.

Star Trek has had a fairly profound influence on me, as you can read and listen to in my most recent sermon from BIC. It's a reworking of my senior sermon from LTSP and also the sermon I submitted for my approval essay. I was a little worried about making Trek and Lord of the Rings references in an international context, but the story worked well. Spock is universal. =)

Holy Week Highlights

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:37:06 +0000

Palm Sunday had everything: procession with palms, a children's play about donkeys, the Passion reading, a baptism, communion with a huge crowd ... when David showed me his watch during the last hymn I couldn't believe it. We were right on time. Trust your supervisor, padawan.

On Wednesday after chapel the teachers went out for lunch at a nice restaurant by the old bridge with outdoor seating. Outdoor seating has become a key motivator in our lives. You would not believe the gorgeousness of these days. It is as gorgeous now as it was hailing and sleeting every day about 2 weeks ago.

On Maundy Thursday I gave a children's sermon and, with the help of the BIC kids, did some footwashing. I'm not sure I can convey it, but it was both fun and sacramental. I gave a sermon with the theme, "If you're a disciple, your feet are going to get dirty." Jesus washes the dust of sin, death, and everyday weariness from our feet; as the body of Christ, we do likewise for each other. We hope to get that sermon (and a backlog of other BIC sermons) posted on our website, soon. Near the start of the service Sean and I joined David and Carla singing a shapenote arrangement of Amazing Grace; I couldn't catch my breath but it was still a dream fulfillment moment for me to sing soprano in a gospel quartet.

On Good Friday I got to be an acolyte, which I really do enjoy. David's sermon, "How close is God?" included the line: "You cannot be alone."

In the midst of this David and I did a good bit of preparation for the services and we managed to work enough through the week that Saturday was free. Sean cooked and cooked in preparation for the Easter potluck. I slept most of the day and went to bed early.

On Easter we baptised a sweet one-year-old boy and had a pretty great service all-around; one of our youth played trumpet, which I think is what really "made it Easter" for me. In David's sermon he proudly identified himself as one of the "April fools" ... "foolish" enough to believe in the "foolishness" of the cross, the way Jesus defies every expectation. We had a really good potluck where there was enough food for everyone (!) and it was quite delicious. Then a nap. Then one of our teacher friends (and later David and Carla) came over for grilled burgers, toasted marshmallows, chocolate bunny and stargazing on our deck.

The next morning we took the train to Vienna to do nothing for two days. It was glorious. This picture from the Schönbrunn gardens sums it up pretty well. More pictures here.

Every year we sing the same hymns, but every year I catch them a little differently. This year it was the last verse of "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," which we sang on Good Friday: "Lord, be my consolation; shield me when I must die; remind me of thy Passion when my last hour draws nigh. These eyes, new faith receiving, from thee shall never move; for he who dies believing dies safely in thy love." This tied in well with David's sermon message: you will never be alone. Even if your eyes DO waver, even if doubt and fear fill you at crucial moments--we are always safe in God's love. Easter, with its resurrection joy and hope, is especially welcome in my family this year. Blessings on you and yours as you celebrate: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Bon Voyage, Grandpa Swift

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:42:49 +0000

My Grandpa Swift died on Monday, March 9. He'd recently started dialysis for kidney failure. This morning, a group of friends from church and school gathered at our apartment for a short "saying good-bye" service, and right now my family is gathering in Pittsford, NY for the funeral. I am so grateful for the support of our friends and our community of faith here in Bratislava! At the funeral, my mom will read the eulogy I wrote this week, which I pasted below. I love that my dad found a photo to go with my memory of Grandpa making that amazing red hot applesauce.

The eulogy text is below. For photos, obituary, eulogy audio and a guestbook where you can leave or read memories of Grandpa and/or condolences for the Swift family, go to this website that Sean made: www.edison-albright.com/paulswift.

A Eulogy for Grandpa Swift

I have many favorite photos of Paul Swift, my grandpa. Some of them aren’t actual photos—just vivid snapshots in my memory.
There’s grandpa standing over a stove at Christmastime, making me my first bowl of what would become one of my favorite treats: applesauce with melted red hot candies.
There’s grandpa at my high school graduation party, out on the back porch surrounded by teenagers who sit in a semi-circle at his feet, gazing up adoringly at him as he talks about literature, mathematics, art and classical music.
There’s grandpa sitting in the cool, airy library at the house in Maine where we had two reunions, happily holding baby Monica in a beam of sunlight. You, too, can probably imagine a favorite picture of Paul Swift holding a baby; grandpa loved holding babies.

One mental picture I have of grandpa comes from the notes he recently wrote up from his time as a soldier during WWII. The way he wrote it makes this another vivid snapshot, and it’s one I find myself coming back to again and again since he passed away on Monday. In an entry from Manila dated August 28, 1945, Paul Swift writes:
“We moved to a much better site on the coast. We spent much time in the ocean. We took our big mattress bags, wet them and ran with them to blow them up. The end was tied in a knot and the result was a big float. I laid on mine and went paddling out into the ocean. Everything went well until I noticed I was far from shore. I cannot swim so if the knot in my mattress came undone I was a goner. Somehow the water washed me up on the beach.
I had left my shoes near a bamboo-and-stick shack, and not only were [the shoes] not there, but I didn’t recognize any of the other soldiers as my friends. I was certain that I had died.
Only later did I see another shack some distance down the beach. There I found my shoes and my buddies. How good it was to find that I was alive after all!”

On March 9, 2009, Paul Swift floated away from shore one more time. He paddled out onto the waters of a lifetime of memories: that makeshift mattress-bag float in the Pacific Ocean, the smell of bananas coming from the port in Panama, London rains, cold shocks of ocean over rocky beaches in Maine, Fourth of July bonfires reflected on Conesus Lake, and sunsets sparkling on the Gulf of Mexico. These waters flowed together into a source water: the water of his baptism.

The water that bathed his head in promises, that carried and sustained him through his life of faith, now carried him even farther from shore. It was the only shore he’d ever known, and he couldn’t swim. No one could swim this one on their own. That’s frightening. But the promises that were made to Paul in baptism—that he is a child of God, that his sins are forgiven, and that he will share in the resurrection hope of eternal life—these promises are the most reliable flotation device, ever.

And just like the ocean on that August day in Manila, these waters of life and baptism brought Paul safely to a beach. When he got to the beach in Manila, he was greeted by strangers: they weren’t the soldiers he knew and had come to call his friends (and they didn’t know where his shoes were, either). This time, when he reached the heavenly shore, Grandpa Swift was welcomed by a God who is no stranger to him. God has known and loved Paul completely, his whole life, and God has been with him through every moment of his life. I imagine God giving Grandpa a warm, loving welcome and Grandpa saying, “Uh huh, well! It’s good to see you, too!”
Grandpa wrote: “I was certain that I had died. Only later did I see another shack some distance down the beach. There I found my shoes and my buddies. How good it was to find that I was alive after all!”
Sixty-four years after this experience on the ocean, Paul Swift died. He was carried safely to that distant shore by the promises of his baptism, the hope of the resurrection, and the prayers and loving thoughts of his family and friends. Some of these family and friends are here today, some join in spirit from their homes across the country and around the world, and some of the saints who have gone before are with us, too, part of the great cloud of witnesses.
Together we gather to grieve and celebrate. Together, we hold tight to each other even as we let go. Waving our damp tissues, we say “bon voyage, rest in peace. We love you. We miss you. We will remember you, always.” And we join Grandpa in saying: “How good it is to be alive, after all!” How good it is for Grandpa Swift, as he starts this new, eternal life with God.
Let us pray:
Loving God, we are missing our grandpa, father, husband, brother and friend, Paul Swift. Thank you for welcoming him to his heavenly home, to his new life on a new shore, with all your love and compassion for him. Be with us as we mourn our loss, celebrate his amazing life, and give thanks for his new life with you. We pray, trusting in your mercy, Amen.

Randomness

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:53:36 +0000

Thoughts of a cozy brain on a sleety night:

Yesterday we found a pretty good Chinese restaurant in old town. This is a very cheerful development in Edison-Albright land.
All hotel and hostel reservations are made for our Spring Break trip to Greece. We're going to to Thessaloniki, Meteora, Nafpoli and Athens--Feb 14-20. Happy Christmas/Birthday/Valentine's Day to us! I found some good deals but the accommodations could be sketchy as a result ... I think we'll be pretty happy no matter what, though.
Speaking of trips: the Edison-Swift-Albrights went to Budapest over Christmas break and had a very good time. Pictures are here.
I had an amazing 28th birthday: it coincided perfectly with a ball organized by our students, so Sean and I got to get all fancied up and dance (I was especially happy to polka, my favorite.) It was lovely to see our students all dressed up--they did a great job putting the whole evening together.
I just finished the first section of our text for religion class, which focused on questions about God and suffering. Monday we move on to discussing questions about the trustworthiness and authority of the Bible. Last week we talked about prayer, and used depictions of prayer in popular culture to focus our discussion. One student sang and played guitar, many students sent me great clips from movies like Bruce Almighty and A Walk to Remember. In one class we got onto the topic of profound suffering: what can we say about prayer, about God, when faced with the reality of people who have lost everything, or who've known nothing but suffering to begin with? People who experience one tragedy after another, like some of the patients I met during CPE? We talked about the limits of apologetics to answer these questions, and I told them about my experience of finding profound faith in the midst of profound suffering in the people I met at the hospital. On a lighter note, I think Talladega Nights may have the greatest prayer scene in movie history.
I preached today. My microphone batteries gave out right before I started reading the Gospel. =P We got the audio recorder fixed, so once Sean finishes boosting the sound and getting rid of the hiss, we'll post it. In the meantime, here's how it concluded: "Our Psalm today (147) leaves us with some very good news: 'God’s delight is not in the strength of a horse, nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner.' God doesn’t love us because of how fast we can run, how much energy we have, or the good works we do. We can run, we have energy, we can do good works, because God loves us. God who numbers the stars, God whose hands hold us securely, this almighty God picks us up when we can’t run anymore,
giving us rest so that we can soar on eagle’s wings. Amen."

Merry Christmas to all ...

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 21:35:53 +0000

... and to all a good carp!

These lovely fish were swimming in our friends' tub as of yesterday. As of a few minutes ago, a lovely portion of them (along with traditional Slovak potato salad) is swimming in my stomach. Yay for friends! And carp!

And kapustnica!

Another traditional Slovak Christmas Eve dish we made and enjoyed this year. It is a sauerkraut soup with klobasa (sausage) pieces of pork or beef, dried mushrooms, and pieces of prune and apple. It is so, so good.
Also good, if not traditional Slovak Christmas food: homemade challah bread.

We'll have more stories and pictures up soon. My parents are here! So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Edison-Swift-Albrights in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Camp ... is great, actually

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:03:39 +0000

When I would leave for a week or two of camp, my mom knew all was well when she stopped getting mail from me. If she didn't hear from me, life was too good, busy and exciting for me to sit down, get introspective, and compose something meaningful like: "The girls in my cabin stay up all night making fart jokes. They are so imature (sic)." When the letters stopped arriving, she could rest easy knowing I'd found my place and maybe lightened up enough to make a fart joke or two.

This is all well and good, but that "don't write when all's well" impulse continued when I went to college (Sample email from my dad: "Just making sure you are alive. Sign on to IM sometime!") and right up to today, making me a terrible blogger, email correspondent, long-distance buddy, journal-keeper, daughter, etc.

So, uh, all's well! I have a bit of a cold, but I'm giving my immune system regular pep talks. I've been crazy busy but in a good way: finding my place, lightening up a bit, making fart jokes here and there (not really, but it's on my to-do list.) I've given a bunch of sermons which we haven't gotten around to posting yet--we'll keep you posted on the posting of those. These days I am unreasonably overjoyed by winter weather, cautiously optimistic about completing internship paperwork, and a little weepy with anticipation for my parents' arrival on the 24th.

A friend of a friend applied for a Horizon International internship and we exchanged a few emails before her interview. I had a hard time writing it--I kept getting stuck in meaningless generalizations I could have come up with (or at least guessed at) before I'd even come to Slovakia. So I decided to do a quick rundown, a "week-in-the-life." It just happened that it was Thanksgiving week--lots going on at church and school and really, really good times with our friends and colleagues here. Here's what I wrote:

“I’m having trouble doing justice to the experience … so I’ll try specifics! In brief, this was my week:
Monday: doctor’s appointment (I set this up, found the place and went to it by myself—an achievement), figuring out buses to get to school from the appointment, getting to school just in time (but without my keys! Doh!), teaching four classes on the topic of natural evil (how is God involved in hurricanes, famines, etc.?), meeting with my supervisor to go over what’s happening this week, begin plugging Sunday’s service into our bulletin template.
Tuesday: give a testimony of my life with Jesus to the weekly women’s Bible study I attend, more planning (for Sunday and Wednesday evening) and bulletin.
Wednesday: lead chapel worship at school, teach a class, help lead Thanksgiving Eve service at 7 pm, work on skit for stewardship Sunday.
Thursday: teach three classes, clean our house in preparation for guests for our weekend Thanksgiving celebration, shop for what we need to cook our offerings for the feast, go out for pizza with American and Slovak colleagues from school to celebrate actual Thanksgiving day.
Friday: cleaning, serious Thanksgiving cooking by my husband, getting bulletin ready to print, going to a goulash party with Slovak and American friends and guests who have begun to arrive and eating delicious venison goulash.
Saturday: Thanksgiving! Amazing feast, about 35 people gathered, skits, games, massive communal clean up and then off to the Christmas Market in old town Bratislava … and then back to the warm apartments for dramatic readings from Shakespeare and other fun times with our colleagues and guests. Somewhere in there, I print and copy the bulletins and they get folded by our friends (sweet!).
Sunday: breakfast with our overnight guests and then to church by 9 to practice for First-Sunday-in-Advent-Stewardship-Youth-O-Rama. Service includes: stewardship temple talk, short youth presentation to follow up on the conference they went to in Holland, Advent wreath explanation and lighting, a very funny and effective stewardship skit, pledge forms, offerings brought forward and prayed over… and the normal stuff (Communion, sermon, readings, etc.) Coffee hour then to the pastor’s flat for lunch of Thanksgiving leftovers and Christmas movies. First time this week my supervisor and I get to sit down and talk about the first communion class we are teaching … that day … at 3 pm. 15 people come to the class (parents and kids from 8 to 15) and it goes really, really well. Then I ate dinner, planned lessons for Monday and wrote this email to you!”

Was that a normal week? No way! But there really hasn't been a normal week. This week at church we have a baptism, recognition of first communicants and the Sunday School Christmas Program. And tonight is our first night going with our friends to the symphony! Yesterday all my regular classes we cancelled and I taught two classes of first years. At some point, we will put up and decorate our wee Christmas tree. Life is good, busy and exciting indeed.

*Toot*

Update goulash

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:47:14 +0000

Hi! (cough)

But really, I am so much better. Practically completely healed. Just a tiny little leftover cough and some shortness of breath--the worst part is really that I seem to have pulled a muscle on the right side of my torso, which hurts all the time but especially when I move. I feel like maybe I should start keeping that kind of thing to myself ... like I'm starting to get a reputation, here ... but, you guys, bronchitis is a really bad deal, and this muscle thing really hurts. OK, self-pity moment over. Sucking it up, moving it on!

This is my second week back at school post-illness and we've been doing some great things. I pulled "Be the Teacher" out of my old bag of tricks from teaching days in Texas: students broke up into groups and prepared lessons to present to the class. They all did an amazing job with this: we had skits, word games, graphic organizers, a rap (complete with beatboxing students) and lots of good questions sparking group discussions and insights into the text that I hadn't considered before. The question we were debating was: Given all the evil and suffering in the world, is human freedom worth it? What do you think?

Other recent highlights:

Voting. Yay! With the help of the diplomatic pouch at the US embassy, civic responsibility has never been so easy. If I meet Craig Ferguson on the street, I will be able to look him in the eye (actually, I will probably giggle like a fangirl. But metaphorically.)
Bus pass: checked! During orientation we bought bus passes and the purchase filled me with a great sense of accomplishment. This sense came to full fruition when our passes were checked for the first time last week on the bus on the way to school. I was ready! Here's what happens: during a time when the bus is full but not totally packed, two guys in plainclothes get on the bus. In a longish space between two stops, one guy at the front of the bus and one at the back get out handheld machines to scan the bus passes. Anyone who doesn't have a pass gets off with the guys at the next stop and gets a ticket ( Slovak crowns.) So when you're visiting, be sure you buy your ticket before you get on and validate your ticket on the bus!
Travels: this weekend Sean and I are going to Košice where I'll be a guest preacher at an international congregation there. The weekend after that we head to Prague for some R&R! We are excited to have the opportunity to get out and see some more of Europe (we've been pretty homebound so far.) We did get a chance to go to Vienna last Friday with the Schicks which was such a treat! We ate wonderful Thai food and Viennese sweets/coffee and got a great overview of the city from our knowledgeable guides. I slept so well that night--it was a great day, fresh air, good food, good company ... (happy sigh.)

Both of my parents are now home from their travels in South Africa (and for my mom, South Africa and Malawi.) They are posting and captioning pictures ... I will give the link as soon as I get the word from them!

Siiiiiick

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:39:21 +0000

Hey y'all. I'm going to crawl back into bed in a bit, but thought I should check in. Super persistent (and super-no-fun) coughing sent me to the doctor on Monday, who gave me antibiotics, an expectorant, and a form to return to work in a week. I'm not sure I've ever had bronchitis before--I'm really more of a sinus infection kinda gal--but my mom gets them all the time and I have new found empathy/respect. Really, no fun.

The antibiotics seem to be working--I can tell because I am weak as a kitten and can't seem to do anything but sleep (the analogy breaks down in that I do not, as kittens do, have sudden urges to go tearing around the house or pounce on pieces of yarn.) Also, I woke up this morning still coughing, but coughing less often and more productively (ew). I can breathe a little better today, too. I may have it together enough to get some grading done.

I preached twice last week; sadly our sound recorder has malfunctioned ... especially sad since there was a completely wonderful guest choir from Washington DC visiting on Sunday. We'll post the text of both on the website, soon. I'm looking forward to healing and good things this month: preaching in Kosice the 26 and a trip to Prague over fall break. But now ... I'm looking forward to another nap. Prayers for healing are welcome! Also ... prayers for safe travels as my parents attend conferences in South Africa and Malawi.

Sermon Podcast: How much is enough?

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:05:07 +0000

You'd better believe I climbed those stairs up to the pulpit extra carefully for my first sermon last Sunday! I thought I heard (maybe on my January term trip) that the International Congregation didn't use the high pulpit, but Pastor David in fact does because the whole church is kind designed for it ... unless you're sitting right in the front row (neck cramp!) it probably the easiest way for pastor and congregation to see each other in that space. I am probably going to trip at some point; I am planning to do so with good humor.

The sermon is about forgiveness, which I think is a difficult topic. I welcome your feedback, in the comments or via email. Help me learn and grow! Grab our podcast or download the sermon text or audio here.

Water

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:27:19 +0000

It is the feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows, patron saint of Slovakia and a national holiday. Sean and I are listening to Morning Edition via whyy.com at almost 3pm, getting ready for school tomorrow and still recovering from a whirlwind week (teaching, sermoning, etc.) It's been raining lightly all day, a gentle, welcome tapping on our windows that makes me glad to be inside, warm and cozy. I love days like this, especially after it has been so brutally hot. Water can be comforting, joyful, renewing, and such a relief.

Water is also powerful and frightening. 6 hours after I gave a children's message on the joyful experience of using water to remember our baptism, Pastor Kristi at St. Luke's responded to terrible flooding in Park Ridge with a sermon on Noah, and God's rainbow promise to never destroy the world. Water has as much potential for destruction as it does for sustaining creation--it is absolutely essential to life and can be absolutely deadly. God uses this powerful sign to make powerful promises to humanity: you will not be destroyed, you are my children, you are forgiven.

Lots of prayer requests on my mind today!

Let us pray for the search and rescue workers in Galveston and for everyone still waiting for them.

Let us pray for everyone trying to get the basics in Houston: power, drinking water, gasoline for generators, food. May the relief efforts reach and assist them in their times of need.

Let us pray for everyone cleaning up from flood damage in Park Ridge, especially Katie and Phil as they also prepare for their wedding this week. Bless the members of St. Luke's as they remember God's rainbow promise.

Let us pray for everyone in the South and Midwest impacted by Hurricane Ike--bless relief agencies and home and business owners who will be "in it for the long haul" for recovery and rebuilding.

Let us give thanks for God's life-giving gift of water: water used for cleaning up after storms, to sustain the people who are in the midst of recovery, and to remind all of us that God loves us, forgives us, and gives us new life.

I talked to my parents last night--the basement of their condo building (the parking lot and storage area) was flooded 10 inches, and some of the items they had in storage were damaged or destroyed. They don't have power or hot water and my mom is on a big deadline for work ... they were keeping positive, but please keep them in your prayers, too.

Here's a picture of us praying at the end of the children's message, yesterday. We had so much fun sprinkling water on the congregation! You can see the kids are suppressing giggles, here. Water is a lot of fun when it isn't in hurricane form. We're going to post the text and audio of my first sermon at Bratislava International Congregation soon, but until then, check out the pictures here.

Which candidate would you rather have dinner with?

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:08:29 +0000

Yesterday Sean and I went to the American embassy (which is really a very pleasant place to go when your passport is already blue) and they mailed in our absentee ballot requests for us. I swear I was already filling out the forms when Sean found this Craig Ferguson clip, but I have to admit, it did inspire/exhort/shame me into actually following through that very day.

Pretty great, right? I'm very excited to get my ballot--now that we're online and a little more settled we're back to following the election news. Lately we've been reading articles to each other in the evenings, which isn't as sweet as when we used to read each other Sherlock Holmes stories before bed, but I'm enjoying it.

Tomorrow is my first time preaching at Bratislava International Church. I will also give a children's message ... =). Of course I'm nervous, but in that "this is really happening and now it's started and that's a good thing" kind of way. Today I had a wonderful meeting with Pastor David about my sermon, and right away he highlighted the areas of preaching I need to work on: using clear transitions, writing for speaking rather than reading, writing a sermon rather than an essay, fully illustrating my examples rather than assuming my congregation will have the same background information I do. I feel like I'm already learning so much on this internship ... and as of today, we've been here just one month. My parents taught me this mantra when I was quite young and I've spent most of my life repeating it (because it's true): I'm a lucky girl.

Back to improving that first draft! Keep me and the congregation in your prayers tomorrow--the topic of the sermon is forgiveness, which is a tough one, to be sure. Sean's quote (which I'm using in the sermon): "If forgiveness were easy, we wouldn't need Jesus." This is most certainly true!

Sweeeeeet

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:54:25 +0000

Many things here are familiar, or at least, it's not such a stretch to adapt to the differences. But when we want to impress our friends and family with an exotic factoid, we tell them about "sweet lunch."

"Sweet lunch" is a phrase we learned during orientation, used to describe days when dessert is served as an entree at our school cafeteria. Jelly donuts, pirogis filled with blueberry and dusted with chocolate, and spaghetti noodles covered with chocolate sauce are all sweet meals we'd seen or heard about. We went for a long time without directly experiencing it, though, and the anticipation made it take on mythic significance in my mind.

Our first real sweet lunch experience occurred on Monday--and it was really no big deal. Our friend and colleague Peter described it as "dumplings in vanilla cream": the dumplings were like pieces of challah bread, and the cream sauce was like a thin sweetened condensed milk ... not too sweet at all, and the bread was lovely and satisfying. Also lovely was the soup, which featured very hearty and protein-rich beans and sausage (yay!) and a piece of watermelon for dessert. My old fears about getting a balanced meal were banished and replaced by fears about whether or not I could balance all three plates on one tray--the women at the lunch counter and I had a good laugh as I tried to figure that out!

Speaking of sweet adaptations: we hooked our new-to-us TV up to the cable today and watched The Simpsons ... in German. I've seen those reruns so many times that only new voices and a new language I don't really understand could make it fresh again--I laughed a whole, whole lot. I also watched Scrubs in German--the guy dubbing Dr. Cox is brilliant. I'd like to think Sarah Chalke, who plays Elliot, is doing her own dubbing, being German and German-speaking and all. I'll have to see if they have credits for the actors doing the dubbing next time ...

...except that I really should be writing my first sermon, which is coming up on Sunday. I'm excited for the opportunity to preach here! I've got a hymn of the day picked out, which is a good start, and some good thoughts that are making their way to the page.

Goodnight! Sweeeet dreams!

Podcast: Annie's Installation

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:35:30 +0000

It's official! I was installed today as Intern Pastor at Bratislava International Congregation. During a particularly moving moment I started to tear up and couldn't help thinking, "Oh no ... I've got to sing right after this ...pull it together, Annie!" There is grace and I am grateful. You can find the audio of that portion of the service here.

So, remember what I said about keeping the windows open at all costs? Not tonight! It is raining furiously ... a completely amazing storm to cap a completely amazing week. I am going to make this quick so I can hop into bed while it's still raining, thundering and lightening-ing with intent. It's just about my favorite way to fall asleep, and living up in the attic as we do gives us a front row seat to all kinds of fireworks.

Check out our pictures. We've updated the Welcome to Bratislava set with more pictures of our neighborhood and apartment, and also added sets for our day at Devín castle and a craft fair at the Bratislava castle. The most recent set is one we've (tongue-in-cheek) titled Average Bratislava Weekend. It includes the first party at our apartment, the coronation festival in old town, my installation at Bratislava International Congregation, and a great batch of chocolate chip cookies, among other completely normal events. I joke, but I'm kinda serious, too ... I won't be installed every weekend, but exciting stuff seems to be happening all the time, all around us. Big city life? Flurry of activity before winter sets in? I'll keep you posted ...
The first week of teaching went well, but I'm too interested in getting a good night's sleep before starting the second week to say too much more about it right now. My students seem, as promised, really bright and ready to discuss and debate the big topics--it feels good, and gives me lots of good energy, to be teaching again.

OK, I missed the storm, but I'm still pretty motivated about this reasonable bedtime thing. Dobrú noc!

Let the sunshine (and everything else) in

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:22:27 +0000

I took this picture to show off our latest project: curtains for our bedroom windows. Hooray for privacy! (What a funny thing to write on the Internet.) Anyway, we love them--when we close them during the day the room has a warm, red glow that I think will be especially cheerful as it gets colder.

And it is getting colder, especially at night. We are keeping our windows open, though, and on the whole I'm enjoying this. Our open windows mean:

*thoroughly enjoying that slightly-chilly feeling of the mornings and evenings: perfect for snuggling or curling up with tea, a prayer shawl and a book.

*taking in the sounds of the city: busses and trolleys, classical music sing-alongs, wild parties late into the night (this can get a little old, but I have earplugs), cats in the courtyard, church bells near and far, fireworks for the holiday weekend. When we heard the fireworks we ran up to our roof-top balcony ... we really do have a great view! I've lived in big cities before (Houston and DC) but never right in the heart of the city like this--as much as I loved getting out of the city for an afternoon this weekend, living in the middle of it all suits me best, I think.

*living with pesky bugs. This wasn't so bad, at first, but as the weather gets colder the mosquitoes and bees are getting more aggressive. We take this as a sign of desperation and believe that our victory is near. Well, as near as the first real cold snap. They're just doing their buggy thing, feeding their babies with our blood, etc. We're just trying not to encourage them too much.

So, other than the bees and skeeters--which do add an element of excitement to our lives--we're loving the open windows. I listened to the bells today and wished I had our audio recorder set up to get all the great ambient sound. We'll have to capture some of that for our podcasts.

Podcasts may have to wait a bit--tomorrow begins a very busy week. The first week of school! Also, I'll be installed at the intern pastor at Bratislava International Congregation on Sunday. Lots of good things in the works; we'll report back as we can.

But first: I promised I'd report our first cooking or baking failure. We tried to make boiled ham, cabbage and potatoes tonight: the ham turned into a mass of inedible goo. We have no idea why this happened--perhaps the properties of ham are different here? Resistant to boiling? We ended up having a lovely cabbage and potato appetizer, followed by a delicious Tesco brand pepperoni pizza and a couple slices of freshly baked banana bread. Well-recovered! Quote of the night: "Sacrifice the ham to the bees!" "They don't want it, either."

Goodnight! Blessings on everyone returning to work after the holiday weekend, and to students and teachers going back to school!

So ... how's that move coming?

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:05:30 +0000

Cardinal rule of blogging: broken. I could make excuses about Internet access and bein' busy, but Sean's been in the same situation as me and managed to send out quite a few posts since we arrived. Of course, he was often doing this:

Yes, that is Sean precariously balancing his laptop on the sill of our bedroom window (no screen, sixth floor up), hoping to catch some wifi on the wind. We found that if it was both morning and not too humid, we had a fairly good chance of getting a weak-and -unstable-but-serviceable signal at that exact spot. Fortunately, you can't really beat that spot as far as views go. I mean ... castle! I love waking up and looking out to see it every morning through these huge, cheerful windows.

While we still enjoy standing at those windows, our wifi pirating days are over. These last few days have been remarkable in terms of taking care of the necessities: we have cable Internet here at the house, we have cell phones and bus passes. Today we started the process of getting our visas at the police station and tomorrow we will go for a medical check up required by the school--after this weekend (long weekend for national holidays) we'll also have a local bank account. None of this can be credited to our ambition or moxie: our hosts and guides have taken care of us and all the details--we've just shown up with our documents and been ready to sign stuff! We're feeling blessed in so many ways these days.

So, now that I really have no excuses, some first impressions of our new home:

Sean is still an excellent cook here, and my baking skills seem to have traveled with us as well. Of course there are some differences in the ingredients, tools, measurements and methods, but so far we're doing quite well. I'll be sure to document our first (and, from what I've heard, inevitable) spectacular cooking/baking failure. Until then, though ...Sean made one of the best spaghetti sauces ever with oven-roasted tomatoes, bell pepper, onion and garlic. I made a loaf of banana bread, which you can see featured in this picture along with a St. Luke's prayer shawl (we've had some cool days already!) I substituted plain yogurt for the sour cream and it worked beautifully. I also made bread pudding, but it was a Paula Deen recipe and maybe unnecessarily sweet. I think I'd like to make cookies next, but we'll need to track down a cookie sheet. Everything is just a little different, and it's hard for me to explain exactly how: sugar, flour, butter ... but so far it's all turning into yummy stuff. One interesting difference we've noticed in the grocery store is that we can't find celery but celery root, or celeriac, is everywhere, even little tiny convenience stores. Time to make some soup! Also, the quality of fruit, especially stone fruit, in the grocery stores seems better here. It had been a long time since I'd had a good plum.
On our first day in Slovakia, David and Carla took us to one of their favorite places for pizza. When we sat down our menu didn't have any pizza in it. We got a menu from another table--it, too, seemed to have had a page removed. We found out from the waiter that the restaurant, which continues to have the word "pizza" in its name, no longer serves pizza. This was especially weird because David and Carla had just gotten pizza there recently. Then a copy shop that had been open the day before closed without warning for renovations. Then Larry noticed the picture on my desktop: I told him I took it from the tower of Bratislava castle. "When?" he asked. "In January." "Right before it closed down for repairs... why ... it's you!" Yes, I am behind all these strange events. Beware. Bwah ha ha.
So, between all that and successfully predicting the weather (I've started getting migraines the day before storm systems move in ... blergh) I've been pretty busy, but not too busy to pick up some basic and useful Slovak phrases. I'm pretty good at saying thank you, hello (at various times of day), excuse me, I'm sorry, good-bye, please and I don't know. I've gotten good enough at these phrases that I have misled many well-meaning strangers into thinking I know Slovak; hilarity ensues. The only solution is to learn Slovak! Put it on the list!
My first Sunday in Slovakia I helped lead the singing and the prayers of the church, enjoyed sitting in the congregation with Sean, and got to meet many good folks after the service at coffee hour. My second Sunday I got robed and led worship with Pastor David, taking on parts of the liturgy previously off-limits to me (parts marked "P"!) I got to lead my favorite part of the service: the order for confession and forgiveness. It is such a reliable and powerful witness to God's grace--we confess that we are in bondage to sin, we cannot free ourselves, and we hear and receive the Good News that ALL our sins are ENTIRELY forgiven. What could be better? How about a baptism? We baptized an adult member of the congregation--it was baptism, confirmation, and first communion all at once, as in the Orthodox tradition. That baptism made everything feel even more precious than usual: the gift of water, the welcome of the table, the way the Word came to us in the sermon and the hymns, especially as we sang "Go, my children, with my blessing," the beautiful sending song by Slovak hymn-writer Jaroslav Vajda, who just passed away this summer. "In my love's baptismal river/I have made you mine forever/Go my children, with my blessing, you are my own." My parents and I sang this hymn and wept before I moved to Texas; Sean and I sang it walking down the aisle together as very-newly-weds; we sang it at St. Luke's again the Sunday I preached and the congregation prayed for our safe transition to Slovakia. I've always associated it closely with St. Luke's, and home, but now I also connect it with Slovakia, with the baptisms celebrated and remembered all over the world, and with finding home in Christian community near and far.

Well, now I've broken another rule of blogging and gone on for too long. No excuses, just one more picture.
This is our magnetic photo wall. We realized the day we left for Bratislava that we have lots of prints from our wedding and pretty much no other recent events. We also ended up with too many pictures of just the two of us and we know what we look like. Send us photos! We will display them with honor and care. Our mailing address is here.

Later, gators.

So ... how's that list coming?

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:51:47 +0000

Today is the day Sean and I depart for Slovakia; our flight leaves from O'Hare at 10 pm and will arrive in Vienna at 5:30 pm tomorrow. Today is also our two-year wedding anniversary. It seems fitting and auspicious to begin our adventure together this way, this day!

But, you may ask, what ever happened to that To-Do list you made back in June? It was completed, and quickly replaced by other lists. But it's worth taking another look, just to give me a small sense of accomplishment on a morning when we aren't ... quite ... packed (one of our brand new suitcases had a defective zipper. Eh, could be worse. We're going back to exchange it today. Plenty of time! =))

Done in June, July and August as preparation for pastoral internship and mission volunteering in Slovakia:

1. Sold most of our earthly possessions. This went really well, as previously reported. We are free of excess stuff and it's great. Very liberating. We hope to never own a car again. But before you make us saints of simple-living, know that we have probably over-packed for our trip. Neither of us is really sure how to pack for going abroad for a whole year--what clothes to bring or to leave--and we've both leaned toward "bring" since we have this neat allowance from the ELCA to go over our bag and weight limit. This is probably a mistake, but we won't know what was right to bring and what was wrong until we get there. If we do another short term mission assignment, we'll be better prepared for this part. Still, I'm going to take another look in the bags today and pull out what I can.

2. Went to the Jersey Shore, soaked it up. Sean is really hoping my first call will be to shore town. As long as there's a boardwalk with rides, soft serve, fried oreos and mini-golf, I'm there!

3. Prayed. For my family, missing Jason, and for my future students, the third years: at the end of this past year one of their classmates committed suicide. For my cousin L and my sister M who are sick. For safe travels and preparations for all the missionaries I met at orientation--and for all of us in that group, for support and love as we navigate transitional times. This is one that can't be checked off the list! Please keep us in your prayers, especially as we travel today and tomorrow.

4. Got trained. I'm still processing everything I learned at the Bread for the World Hunger Justice Leader training. The days were densely packed and each workshop was full of useful, engaging and meaningful material. If I'd been good, I would have blogged every night. Sleeping is for the weak. =)

This picture is from the training, and it's on the Bread for the World page promoting a really exciting campaign that all of you voter-types living in the US should consider taking part in: BEAT Hunger 2008. You sign up, Bread sends you emails when there are political events/townhall meetings in your area, you go and ask the candidates a question relating to domestic or world hunger, and maybe someone goes with you and records it and puts the whole exchange up on YouTube. Candidates start to realize that hunger is a real and relevant campaign issue, and should be a priority for them when elected as well. This will be tricky to do from Slovakia, but my dad signed up last night; you can join him by signing up here, and reading more about it here.

5. Wrote prayers for Sundays and Seasons. Look for my intercessory prayers in 2010: the First and Second Sundays of Christmas, Epiphany Sunday, Vigil of Easter and Easter Sunday. The Easter Vigil prayers were the most fun to write: if you haven't been to an Easter Vigil service, I highly recommend it!

6. Enjoyed New Jersey. We did! And we miss it. We've also enjoyed Park Ridge, my hometown. It's been very, very good to have this time with my folks, but I bet they'll be glad to have their condo, and they're regular routine, back! We're looking forward to getting into a regular routine of our own.

7. Enjoyed our family. This is also not something that gets crossed off the list. We will continue to do this, if from afar, over Skype, through emails and letters, and with the pictures y'all post. As we told our niece and nephew, "It'll still be good, just different."

We very much enjoyed time with our friends and family at the sermon/sending/anniversary party my folks hosted August 3. It reminded me of my high school graduation party, and our wedding reception, too ... so many good people coming together from different parts of our lives, interacting with each other in neat and unexpected ways, the room filled with warm, good feeling. Laurel said: "This is a good group, this is a safe place." It's true! We are blessed to have such a strong, loving support network. (And prayer shawls, from the St. Luke's Prayer Shawl Ministry--we also have one Mim made us for our wedding--we were advised to bring 'em all, as it can be cold indoors and outdoors in the winter!)

So, what's left to do? Replace that suitcase, finish packing, take it all apart and pack again, get on the plane. Do these things that are ongoing ... Enjoy our family! Pray! Wistfully remember New Jersey! Depart for a new place, knowing that we are loved unconditionally, glad for grace.

Table prayer

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:22:39 +0000

As I sat down with the children of St. Luke's, I realized I was pretty much a total stranger to them. So I introduced myself: "My name is Annie--I grew up in this congregation, just like you are now. As you know, this is a great church to grow up in." They nodded knowingly. And it's true! Demonstration to follow ...

So, I summarized the story of the feeding of the 5,000 (more knowing nods from the children ... they were quite familiar with the story already) and tied that into the work of the ELCA World Hunger Appeal, which St. Luke's supports. "The World Hunger Appeal is one way the church gathers all of our gifts for Jesus to bless and multiply, so that people have enough to eat." Then they helped me teach an extended version of "Come, Lord Jesus" to the congregation. Together, we learned:

Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest
Let these gifts to us be blessed.
Blessed be God who is our Bread
May all the world be clothed and fed.

One boy in particular volunteered that he already knew the prayer, so I asked him when he prayed it.
"Dinnertime!"
"Exactly! It's a mealtime prayer, a table prayer ... and I want to pray this prayer with all of you now, but we need a meal and a table ... do you see a table in this room?"

This was the part that amazed and impressed me: I didn't even finish the question before all of the children had turned and pointed to the table behind us, all set for Holy Communion. I learned to think of the altar as a table and Communion as a meal in seminary. Most of these kids were pre-reading age, most of them don't receive Communion yet, but they already have a deep theological understanding of the Lord's Supper as true nourishment. They know that we gather around the table, we are fed, and we are sent out to feed others. How cool is that?!

Which is exactly what I said at that point in the children's sermon. "Yes! You're right! That's so cool!" We all stood up and gathered around the table; we held hands and the congregation joined us in praying the prayer again. At the second service there were fewer kids, so the assisting minister, lector ("That's my mom!" I explained to the kids,) the music director, and presiding minister all joined the circle, too. I gave each kid a magnet with the words of the prayer (and the ELCA World Hunger website) to take home.

"Come, Lord Jesus" has always been meaningful for me; it is my family table prayer, a sign that I am home with people I love. Praying it in this new context--with the children and the table set for Communion--added a whole new layer of meaning and made me think about the words and appreciate them as I never have before. I'd recommend the experience for kids of all ages.

Geeked

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:01:30 +0000

Those who know me know ... I'm a cupcake fan.

In August 2005 we were starting to plan our wedding; I wasn't all that into it. I was excited about getting married, I just wasn't excited about ... getting married. I looked forward to planning worship, but I dreaded all the logistics of a reception. Then my mom said, "How about cupcakes instead of cake?"

That changed everything! I realized the reception could be a chance to share our quirky selves with our friends and family--enjoyable for everyone involved. We could have cupcakes instead of cake, lunch at the church instead of dinner at a hotel, and playing cards and a potted plant at every table. Cupcakes gave us permission to be creative and to be ourselves.

I enjoyed my cupcake-related research so much that I kept up with it after the wedding--seeking out blogs with good recipes and ideas. The best is the clearinghouse of all things cupcake, Cupcakes Take the Cake. I go there for all my cupcake-related news. =)

Which is why this totally made my day. Woo hoo! It may not be the most flattering photo, but it captures a joyful moment, and now it's been shared with others. Neat!

Here's another picture of us recreating the ceremonial "cutting of the cupcake" from our reception, 2 years ago August 12.

And here is my favorite cupcake recipe, a vegan applesauce spice cake I put together from several sources and tweaked into a never-fail favorite. Other cupcakes are prettier; none I've had are as consistently tasty. =)

Sermon Podcast: Bread for the Journey

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:47:29 +0000

I was honored to preach this morning at St. Luke's, my home congregation. The texts were Isaiah 55:1-5; Psalm 145; Romans 9:1-5; and Matthew 14:13-21. I also got to do the children's message, but I'll post more on that later! Also for a later post: a report on the wonderful party we had back at our house after church.

But for now, subscribe to our podcast (via iTunes or other software) or download and listen to the sermon here. The text of the sermon (not a transcript, but close enough) is available as a pdf here and as a Word document here.

It was a wonderful day spent with family and friends. Now it's 10 pm and my dad is starting to turn off all the lights around the house ... must be bedtime for Edison-Swift-Albrights. I will not argue! But first, a picture of me and Mommy, after the service:

You can see more pictures from the service and the party on our flickr page.

Sermon Podcast: When Jesus Comes to Dinner

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:36:03 +0000

Click here to listen to our podcast of Thursday's sermon. Below is the artwork we used as part of our reflection: a paper cutting of the loaves and fishes by Fan Pu, a Chinese Christian artist I met in Nanjing in 2002. What do you like/notice/find interesting about the picture?

Loaves Abound!

podcast@edison-albright.com (Sean and Anne Edison-Albright) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:18:48 +0000

Here we are after a whirlwind of wonderful worship: Sean was lector, assisting minister, usher and communion assistant (whew!) and I preached and assisted with communion. None of it would have happened at all without my dad, who designed and produced a handout (Gospel text on the front, Fan Pu's paper cutting of the Loaves and Fishes on the back), gathered loaf-looking pretzels and goldfish snacks for the after-worship fellowship, and made a DVD of a MOSAIC segment on Slovakia for us to use as part of our presentation after the service (he also ushered and assisted with communion ... Super Dad!) The Thursday night service is more informal--the sermon is usually dialogue-style, so I was able to use some of my teaching techniques. Sean's working on editing the audio file now to post on our website--I'll add a note here when it's up.

I'm tired and happy, looking forward to getting a good night's sleep and a good day's work in on Sunday's sermon. I've gotten great ideas and input from people, from the many insights of the folks at the service tonight to Carmen, who gave me a haircut this morning. She had me retell the story in my own words and narrow down what was most important to me about it--so helpful!

The presentation we gave after the service tonight went really well and I found myself reflecting on how nice it was to have a partner-in-mission to present with. Sean was great: very well-researched and knowledgeable as he talked about the Lyceum and the ELCA's relationship with the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia. It felt good to put some of that orientation training to such immediate use ... and it is good indeed to be a team.