More Than Many Sparrows

I recently purchased a bar of soap from Robin's Dale Handmade Soap, and I've been wanting to post my recommendation. In fact, when I purchased it, it was at a reduced price, which I accepted on the condition that I would post about it if I liked it. However, let me assure you that I am posting now completely of my own will and without any reminding by the seller. The truth is that I totally forgot the "post about it" part of the agreement, but every time I use this soap, I think, "Wow, I should write a review for this soap, because it's awesome." Then I think, "Oh, yeah, I think I said I would do that anyway." But the first impulse is to recommend because it rocks, not just because I said I would.

I couldn't decide between two scents and asked the seller to send whichever was the better of the two. I wound up with rosemary peppermint soap, which really is a perfect fit for me, because I love stuff that smells like rosemary and peppermint. The soap smelled amazing right out of the package, and it smells great every shower.

Something else it does is lather. I find that not all handmade soaps lather up that well, but this one does a great job. There's plenty of lather on the wash cloth for my whole bod without having to soap up twice. Plus, it has really lasted a long time. I received it on October 29, and I have used it in almost every shower since then, and I still have quite a bit of bar left. That's something else I've noticed with handmade soaps: they don't always last that long, but this one is trucking along like a champ, which makes me happy. And of course, the soap also gets me clean and makes my skin feel nice without drying it out.

The prices are really reasonable, too--again something that handmade soaps sometimes lack!

So, that's my review. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say who the LJ lady is who made the soap, but hats off to you! I love this soap.

But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours?


The naval-gazing continues on the topic of Why Can't I Just Decide on a Religion, but while the total exploration of said naval will become easily attainable in a few months when Inside Baby pops that sucker out, I seem no closer to discovering my solution than I was 1, 2, 6, or 8 years ago, or more.

The specific thing that is sticking in my craw right now is Apostolicae Curae, the 1896 papal bull of Pope Leo XIII that calls Anglican orders "absolutely null and utterly void." Further, the 1998 letter of JPII, Ad Tuendam Fidem, and then-Cardinal Ratzinger's accompanying commentary: the latter lists as "truths connected to revelation by historical necessity" and matters requiring "firm and definitive assent," in the same sentence, the legitimacy of the Pope, the canonizations of saints, and Apostolicae Curae. Those failing to give firm and definitive assent to these would “no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.”

They just don't make it easy to stay in communion with the Catholic Church. Or they make it very easy. One of the prayers in my prayerbook from back in the St. Stephen's days, an "Act of Faith," gives a brief list of the biggies we believe in--God 'n Jesus, the Holy Ghost 'n the Blessed Virgin--then goes on to say, "Moreover, I believe whatsoever else the Catholic Church proposes to be believed." Even the things they just kind of "propose" to be believed! Now, that DOES sound easy.

It just feels like such a pile of petty stuff to have one's salvation be dependent upon, especially given that Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. If "the whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments," where does it fit in that we have to have any kind of opinion on others' holy orders? How does it help me love God and love my neighbor to say the Anglicans are just playing make believe? Or to insist that women can't be priests? Or that homosexuals can't get married? Or that artificial contraception negates a couple's fidelity to one another?

One thing I do know is that I start to feel myself loving my neighbor less when I get too wrapped up in worrying about what he or she is doing with his or her own life, when I get too concerned about what is going on in others' personal affairs. I love my neighbor more the more I stay out of his business.

Historically, of course, I've always felt much more comfortable if my church would tell me what to believe. That's a pattern repeated over and over since I was, like, 12. I've said it in so many words numerous times. In fact, I can think of only maybe three periods in my life when I was happy in my church and my faith. First, when I was in middle school and early high school and belonged to my evangelical youth group. There were lots of answers there, for any question you felt like asking. I had to stop going there because my mom made me; that had been at the Episcopal church where I grew up, but the evangelical answers-ready atmosphere was relatively new, and she didn't care for it. I felt unhappy in the new church environment, where I complained that all you got to answer your questions were more questions.

The second time I was happy was when I was becoming a Catholic and going to St. Stephen's. Talk about answers.

After I left there, I was never really happy until I joined Holy Comforter during my two-year foray with with Piskies. There were no ready answers there, but for the first time, that made me happy.

Then... that wore off. I started feeling nervous, especially about the sacraments. I felt that if the eucharist didn't have to be real, that it "could be" a symbol if you believed it was, then that meant it was a symbol, and it couldn't be real. Which meant there had to be an answer, and a definitive one, for any of it to work.

Even so, having answer given to me has not made me happy since those St. Stephen's days. Being back with the Catholics for a number of years now, I haven't even found much comfort in those ready-made answers. In fact, I find them very off-putting.

So this is the cycle my life continually takes: seek answers, latch on to something that will give them to me easily, hit a brick wall where the answers don't seem adequate or truthful, find something less structured and more palatable, then get fed up with the lack of structure, get nervous about not knowing any answers, and begin to frantically seek answers again.

At the same time, I really am not at a point in my life where I want easy, ready answers. Every time I come across something that tells me what I'm supposed to think about something, I immediately and uncontrollably resist it. The only way I have been able to handle being a Catholic these last several years is by going around with my fingers in my ears, singing "lalalalala." And also by having a small child, which makes it impossible, at least for a solid year, to contemplate anything more ethereal than eating, sleeping, and pooping (for child and for self!).

The last time I posted about these issues, people reassured me that there is wiggle room in the Catholic church, that it just may not be visible at the moment because of who is in charge. And Jason tells me that the Church changes, just very slowly. But I really have a hard time seeing the wiggle room; the catechism is starkly black and white. And the Church may change, but if that's not within my lifetime, nor my children's, then what good is it to me? If Mass every Sunday is as unbearable for the rest of my life as it is now, then if that is my only option, one day I will just stop going. I will be one of those people who identifies as Catholic but never goes to church, who longs for some kind of spiritual refreshment but knows there is none to be found in the "true" church anyway, so stays home. That's about what I do now anyway. I go to Mass on Sundays (usually), and I go to confession a few times a year, but my participation is otherwise so filled with resistance and grumbling and even defiance that I honestly might as well not be there. I think I'm just hoping the title will get me to heaven.

But if I tried again to be Episcopalian, that wouldn't break the cycle. That doesn't seem like a realistic option--though I wish it were. I just don't think it would propel me forward any more than I am now. All that will happen is that I will stick around for a few years, then freak out again and want to go back. By then, I'll have kids who know what is going on, and they will carry that into adulthoods filled with confusion or rejection or feelings that religion is nothing but a vehicle for fear and craziness--everything but religious faith.

Nothing sounds like the right next step. Not leaving again to become Episcopalian, not staying and hunkering down and dealing with it. But why should grumbling and resistance be the status quo? Forever?

Maybe the real problem is that the cycle already is broken, because finding someone to give me answers doesn't work anymore. If I can't go around in circles like I always have, then I don't know what to do with myself. Or if having answers doesn't give me that sense of well-being and security that it has before, then I don't know where to find it. What am I looking for, exactly? Answers, or a sense of well-being and security? How will I find what I am looking for if I don't know what it is? And is what I'm looking for what I should be looking for? Shouldn't I be looking for the truth? Is the "truth" the same thing as the answers? Does having a sense of well-being and security mean you are following the truth? Doesn't feeling insecure and not at peace mean you're going in the wrong direction?

As an aside, all the religious instruction I was brought up with was completely lacking in answers, which I found extremely unsatisfying. However, I don't think you have to belong to a church that has answers to every minute little musing in order to give satisfying answers to your children that also encourage them to think and pray on their own.

I've wondered sometimes if I would have ever become a Catholic if I did not do it at the moment I did. If there had never been an opportunity to do so in high school (which would probably only be possible if I had never become close friends with Jason--sorry, Jason), would I ever have felt strongly enough compelled by anything I learned about the Catholic church to join it? I kind of think not, but I'm not sure why, so I can't say that definitively. Now that I think about it, it's probably unfair to categorize the time between the evangelical youth group and St. Stephen's as an "unhappy" time in my religious life. In fact, at the Episcopal church where my mom made us go, I was attending regularly, and I did like the priest and the things he had to say. I attended the adult education and found it though-provoking. I even decided to get confirmed. It wasn't an environment of giving a lot of concrete answers, but it was a pleasant environment. It wasn't just nominal, either. Perhaps if I hadn't shared physics class with Jason, I would not only have learned more about physics (ha!) but also learned more about being an Episcopalian and continued on that path toward a fuller and more adult spiritual life without needing anything spoon fed to me. The outward appearance of my life would probably not be much different, because I would probably have still gone to UWF, still met Lee, still gone to grad school at UNO, and so on. And once all of that started rolling, that window of my personality, when I was 17 and 18 and so susceptible to personalities like Fr. Perez's, would have closed. Maybe I wouldn't have some of the deep-seated and difficult to understand elements of fear in my psyche. Maybe I would be interested in Catholicism, because it is interesting, but never feel passionate enough about it to convert.

That's another thing: passion. There is a level of religious passion that I do not possess anymore. There is a level of passion about everything you're doing when you're 17 or 18, or 21 or 23, that begins to fade and mellow as you grow older. It's kind of exhausting to think about being so zealous. Perhaps that passion and zeal are what energized the cycle, and the lack of them--or lessening--is why I feel so out of gas now.

I just want to be somewhere. I want to settle down. We have our family; we have our house; we have our town. I'm ready and starting to put down roots in all these areas of my life. I want to be able to do that with a church. But all the soil seems so hard. I just want to be. I just want to get on with it. I want to have a track, a starting point. I'm so tired of sitting here, tied up and unable to move. I want to get going. It's like I'm sitting in a car at the end of the driveway, with my bags packed and ready to start the journey, and the car just won't start. No amount of turning the key or jumping the battery or kicking the wheels is making it go. I want to just take my bag in my hand and start out on foot. That would be better than just sitting here.

Okay, so I just totally botched up my metaphors, here. Do I want to get somewhere and be there, or do I want to go on a journey?

That's enough thinky thinking for today. It helps to write it out. If you are reading, thanks for coming along for the ride. Or sitting down next to me on the couch. Or whatever.

I had a terrible weekend of exhaustion and nausea, which finally culminated in the worst headache ever last night that actually woke me from sleep at 4 a.m. By 4:30, I had decided I was going to get out of bed and go to the corner store to buy a Diet Coke and some Tylenol, because I hadn't had any caffeine that day and knew my body was withdrawing, and all the Tylenol we had in the house was expired and hadn't done anything to the headache. When Lee rolled over and mumbled something, I told him my plan, and he immediately said he would go. And he did and was back in 10 minutes. I took two pills, gulped some soda, and managed to get another hour and a half of halfway decent sleep.

I had a doctor's appointment today at 3:45, and I didn't realize I was nervous about it until after lunch when I had to begin watching the clock to make sure I left on time. After last week's scare and some continued anxiety, I was just plain nervous about how the exam would go, even though I've been trying very hard to be sensible, rational, and calm.

The appointment again revealed an active Inside Baby with a strong heartbeat, and I left the office feeling great. Then I went to Target to pick up some items, and I browsed the Christmas section and felt filled with a general sense of well-being. Then I came home and continued to feel fantastic and ate supper without a hint of nausea, and I'm up now at 10:33, writing this entry with vigor and zest.

So, last weekend: psychosomatic symptoms, or normal pregnancy crap? We'll never know.

Blair will say I'm schmoopy for saying so, but Lee has been amazing during this pregnancy. He's always amazing, of course! But, seriously, he has stepped up to the plate in a major way, particularly these last few weeks where I've felt especially anxious, nauseated, and tired. He has kept up our house and cooked and waited on me and just told me to chill out and gestate. Which is really what I have needed; it has helped tremendously to do very little but that.

I did manage to accomplish some crafting over the weekend, for which I am very proud of myself. First things first: I did repairs on three pairs of pants. The first was my brother Jake's. It had a split crotch seam that I easily sewed up, and then I found a burn hole and patched it up by stitching over a small piece of coordinating felt on the back side, and you can barely tell anything is different. The second pair of pants was mine, and it also had a split crotch seam, an unraveled leg hem, and an undone hook and eye. The third pair had another unraveled leg hem and a broken fly. Those last two I wore for months without repairing them, and now that I finally have fixed them... they don't fit anymore. See you on the flip side, pre-preggo pants! At least when I can fit you again, you'll be all ready to go.

Then, I sewed the last two rows onto this baby:


This is a rag quilt made from Penelope's receiving blankets from when she was a baby. I started this thing over a year ago in Waterbury, and it shouldn't have taken that long, but I craft in fits and starts in recent years. Plus, it sat in a box while we prepared to move, then it sat in a box in storage for six months, then it sat in a box while we moved into our house here.



I ragged-up the edges, the threw it in the washer for some more raggy-fying. Then tonight, after I took these pictures, I also trimmed off the hanging strings.



Penelope was pleased, and in fact she is sleeping right now all wrapped up in her "beenkit."



There, she's wearing a skirt I attempted to make back in, oh, 2006. I screwed it all up, and it never fit right (who but me could screw up a simple wrap skirt so terribly?). But my new desire is to make cloth napkins. I wanted to cut the skirt up and make it into several of these, but Penelope preferred to wear it instead. So I indulged her and instead made some very basic napkins out of some fabric I acquired at the Hat City Scissor Squad craft swap last year.



There's not much of the fabric, and some of it is faded, so I just used to parts where the print was strong, and that was enough for three cute napkins! I made napkins in 2005 with my friend Jennifer in New Orleans, and I used them for a long time but have gotten out of the habit, and many of the napkins I made then are worn out or stained or discolored from being washed with the wrong loads, or whatever. So I want to replenish my supply and begin anew at using cloth napkins, because they are so fun and so cool and oh-so-very green. La dee dah.

And now it's time to say goodbye to all our company. Or at least, it's time to go to bed. Maybe I will dream up some fun (but simple and quick!) project to work on for Inside Baby.

Well, Inside Baby gave us a bit of a scare this weekend! All is well, though, and we saw him or her wiggling around with a strong heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor today. But not before a lot of hands-wringing.

Saturday was pretty easygoing. We went to some thrift stores, and apart from some tantruming by Penelope when it was time to leave each shop, the day was leisurely and drama-free. I certainly hadn't done any heavy lifting (though Penelope herself is pretty heavy!), which is why I was so shocked when we stopped for a bathroom break and I had some spotting.

I know that's not necessarily a cause for alarm, especially since I've already seen the baby's heartbeat. And there was no cramping, and the spotting was really minimal. Still... after having the early miscarriage this summer, I felt pretty freaked out and depressed. I called my doctor right away, who said just to take it easy for the rest of the weekend and come to the office Monday to get checked out. She said if the bleeding got heavy or was accompanied by cramping, I could go to the ER, but there wasn't anything they could do if I was having a miscarriage.

So I took it easy. The spotting stopped, then started again on Sunday, then stopped again. It was altogether very depressing and anxiety-producing. I made up my mind that I was going to see the doctor Monday as early as possible and stay home from work until then; I wouldn't be any good to anybody being preoccupied about a possible miscarriage anyway.

As soon as we got Penelope off the Baby School, I called the doc, but they couldn't get me in until 1:30. So I spent the morning playing the Sims 2 and creating a new Sim family of us, complete with our Ranch.

Lee came with me to the doctor's office. The doctor did an ultrasound, and at first I didn't want to look at the screen until she said one way or the other something about the heartbeat. But then she didn't say anything, and I had to look, and I couldn't see anything but a blob of baby with no movement! My heart began to sink, but then, all of a sudden, she found the heartbeat. And I saw it, and it was so clear, and then the baby moved! And wiggled its arms! It was so cute!

The doctor said this was all very reassuring; I certainly found it so. And I will keep my existing appointment next week for another listen.

And then I didn't have to go to work, because our office closed at 2 for Tropical Storm Ida! And we're off tomorrow for the same reason, and then off Wednesday for Veteran's Day. So I'm getting a second weekend to make up for the sucky, tension-filled one I just had.

So, so relieved.

When I ask Penelope, "Do you want Mama to have a baby?" she always says, "No." But when I asked if she wanted a little brother or sister, she said emphatically, "Little sister." So she'll usually qualify her "no" by adding that she'll take a sister. We'll see how it goes!

Fall has been a busy time for Penelope. We have many adventures. Several weeks ago, we went to the Peanut Festival in Jay. Penelope got to ride a "pony."

( Click for pics. )

It will be interesting to see how she does with a baby. She is very possessive of me. She recently began yelling at the cats if they happen to follow me out of the room: "No! MY Mommy!" She gets agitated when Lee kisses me or touches my hair. It could get very sticky when a baby comes home and is frequently in Mommy's arms, and especially nursing. I hope by then my very gradual, very wimpy weaning process will have come to completion, though seven months sometimes does not feel like long enough to make that happen!

At the same time, Penelope is in some ways pretty nurturing. She always seems concerned if we are out and hear or see a crying baby. Even in her books, she'll point to a picture of a crying child and say, "Baby crying!" She uses a very concerned tone of voice and furrows her brow. Then she'll say, "Okay, baby!" to make it feel better. So I'm hoping some of that will come through, even with the probably inevitable jealousy. And we have a lot of time to plan and talk up being a big sister. Maybe some books are in order.

I haven't posted as much as I've wanted to lately. That's because all I feel prompted to post is how tired and nauseated and hungry I feel, and how lunch time at work is unbearable because I sit so close to the kitchen and can smell everybody's lunches microwaving. The mingled aromas make me want to barf. So I therefore leave the office more often than not so as to find something to eat that doesn't trigger my gag reflex, which means I'm spending way too much on lunches. But at the same time, I'm also miraculously losing weight, even though I'm actually trying to do quite the opposite. Well, I'm not trying to gain weight, but that's what I'm supposed to be doing, technically. I do want to be healthy, though.

All of this is because of...



Inside Baby!

I waited until today to share the news of him or her with the general public, because today I had my first ultrasound. I am about 8 weeks and 5 days along, and Inside Baby is due May 26. The little heartbeat was just ticking away, and the baby's size was perfect. It was so lovely to see. According to Dr. Internet, he or she is in there right now, paddling along with little flippers and a rapidly diminishing tail, in all the size of a kidney bean.

Godspeed, Inside Baby!

Penelope, meanwhile, is all in favor, at least in theory. I asked her this morning if she thought Mommy should have a baby, and she said, "Penny have baby!" That made me think of the story that my Mammaw used to tell on my mom, that when my aunt was born and my grandparents brought her home from the hospital, my 4-year-old mom ran out of the house to greet them, calling, "My baby! Where's my baby?"

One of the sources of uneasiness I have right now with my religious Issues surrounds my desire and responsibility to impart religious beliefs to my children. The very prospect feels, depending on the day, impossible, embarrassing, unimaginable, or squicky. Maybe that's because I didn't grow up with religious instruction in my own home, and most of the memorable discussions having to do with religion were fights. Plus, there's very little religious discussion in my current home since Lee and I do not share the same beliefs.

I feel that I would somehow have an easier time sharing and teaching my beliefs with my children if I were an Episcopalian, simply because there's more wiggle room "allowed" in that denomination than in Catholicism. If we were Episcopalians, I could answer questions about the Nicene Creed by describing the historical climate during which it was composed and by offering explanations for what it means by saying things like "some people believe" or "the early Christians believed" or "one way to understand this is to say..." I could tell them what my own impulses are and how they have changed over time, and I would be able to assure them that their own interpretations will evolve as they learn and grow, and that I encourage them to think and pray and talk about these things.

In Catholicism, however, there is no such thing as wiggle room, and I can imagine conversations inevitably arising in which an older Penelope asks me from the back seat some random afternoon something along the lines of, "So... when they say 'Mary's Assumption into Heaven,' do they mean we assume Mary went to Heaven?" And maybe Lee is in the front seat, and he looks at me, and I'm like, "Um, no." And then I have to explain this doctrine that really is not that important to me and that I've never really understood why we "have" to believe it, but I've always just kind of rolled with it because, hey, it doesn't really affect me except on August 15. But if I tell my kid all about it and say that's what "we" believe, I'm kind of lying. And if I tell her about it and explain all that other stuff, like it's not that important to me, and so on, then I sound uncertain and wishy-washy.

Somehow, the Episcopalian scenario seems more like offering a range of possibilities and the opportunity to form one's own version of acceptance, while the Catholic scenario seems like saying, "Here's something not to believe in." And in the Catholic scenario, I can't really give the whole "some people believe" and "evolve and learn and grow" spiel, because there really is one certain way we are "supposed" to believe. Anything else isn't truly Catholic.

So that's the conundrum.

Today, Lee was working, and I wanted to go to confession at Little Flower, so Penelope came with me. She did really well for the most part and waited pretty patiently in line with me in the narthex, even though she wanted to go into the main church. She was rather vocal and impatient in the reconciliation room, but the priest was understanding and didn't seem at all put off.

Then we did go into the main church, and I whispered my prayers out loud for her to hear, and she whispered little two-year-old mumblings along with me. We also practiced making the sign of the cross with holy water and genuflecting (her interpretation is to squat, facing me, so she ends up with her back pointing in the direction to which we are supposed to be genuflecting). We lit a candle and talked about all the statues and stained glass and who was depicted in each. We've had similar lessons at this church before, and she seems to really be into it.

As we were leaving, she waved at the altar and said, "Bye bye, Jesus!" Totally unprompted. I could feel the old ladies standing around smiling, and her sweetness made me feel good.

That was painless, and actually quite pleasant. The mechanics of religion are easy to teach: here is what you do here, and here is what you do there, and this is what we do now. And it's fun for a little kid, and interesting. And it doesn't really feel squicky... as long as no one else is around.

In some ways, it was also strange. She's two years old and will believe anything I tell her. I could tell her stories even I don't believe, and she would believe them. But that's the thing. Some day, she'll be wiser, cleverer, more perceptive. She'll know if what I'm telling her is a bunch of crap. And why should she believe in it if that's all it is?

That's this week's musing.

Lee replaced my car battery, so the car starts perfectly now and doesn't switch to the Catholic station on its own. As a result, I've cut my Catholic radio torture in half, at least!

I need to ratchet up my attention to/involvement in religious crap in a more serious way than sitting around, moaning to myself, and catching a few sound bytes here and there on the radio between my office and the drive-through at lunch time. To that end, I've signed up for a Bible study class at St. Paul's. I've never actually read the Bible. Nice, huh? This class goes for 24 weeks and is supposed to cover the 14 "historical" books of the Bible, whichever ones those are. It costs money, which adds an incentive to keep going, and there are 40 other people signed up, so maybe I'll meet some decent folks. Or maybe I'll meet some crappy folks. Who knows. In any event, I will meet people, and then I will know if they are cool or crappy. I haven't been involved in any kind of parish activity since... um... since Holy Comforter, I guess.

The series the Bible course is using is called the Great Adventure, a cheesy-ass name, to be sure. It's author and speaker is this guy named Jeff Cavins, who I know has appeared on my favorite radio program Catholic Answers Live, but I don't remember him specifically or anything he might have said on there. Even though my overall opinion is that there seems to be more extremism on Catholic radio, and particularly on that show, than benefit to the potential listening audience, I also accept that everything and everyone on there isn't outrageous. Case in point: Fr. Trigilio himself actually replied to my previous post on this topic, in a totally decent way. I hope that he did not find the post because he was Googling his own name and "morning-after pill" to try to do damage control.

Maybe the class will be good; maybe it won't; either way, I'll come to the end having read at least 14 books of the Bible, which is a good start. And I will know what I'm talking about when I say I do or do not care for this-or-that Biblical interpretation offered by whomever. I will be informed.

Also in the spirit of being informed, I'm reading Elaine Pagels' book about the Secret Gospel of Thomas, Beyond Belief. We read this in my Sunday school class at Holy Comforter in New Orleans, but I never finished. I do find it very interesting, but it's difficult to get through because I keep getting the people mixed up and having to reread paragraphs because I forgot where they started. It's nearly impossible to get anything read at home; I read much better on my breaks at work, but those, of course, are limited. Still; interesting. Perhaps I'll follow up with some other reading about the early Christians; that could be very fruitful.

And today, we visited Christ Episcopal Church with some friends. It was very nice. Penelope stayed in the nursery, and Lee went to the service with me, and the sermon was thought-provoking and memorable. I enjoyed being there, and it was nice to share the experience with my husband. Penelope accessorized her purple plaid dress with red sandals, a pink velor jacket, and this hat:



Truth be told, she didn't appear to quite fit in with all of those well-dressed Episcopalian kids with their neatly coiffed hair, white patent leather shoes, ruffled socks, and dresses in floral prints or seersucker. But she enjoyed playing with the doll house in the nursery, so whatevs.

So, yeah, keeping on. "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and manner of things shall be well."

I spent a bunch of time this morning watching YouTube videos by this adorable Episcopal priest, Matthew Moretz, and was surprised to find myself getting all teary over some of them.

What is this? Some resurgence of my Cathlo-palian drama? Won't I EVER get this all figured out?

Then I looked up and realized that today is the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Oh, yeah. This day represents not just the destruction of New Orleans to me, but also the beginning of the "terminal" part of my mom's cancer. It all goes together and doesn't end until right before Christmas. No wonder I'm emotional.

So, for New Orleans:

Something is wrong with my car battery. Every time you turn the car on, it takes way too long to finally start, to the degree now that I actually have a moment of real worry that it might NOT start this time, before it actually does. Then when it comes on, the clock has reset itself to 12:00, and the radio is always tuned to AM 1230, no matter what it was on when you left it.

It's weird that it should tune to AM 1230; that's the middle of the dial. When I've replaced batteries in the past, the clock always reset itself and tuned the radio to the first AM dial, somewhere in the 600s. AM 1230 is the Catholic station here. I already have trouble keeping myself from listening to it, and now, it is pursuing me even as I try to avoid it.

Catholic radio and I have a very volatile love-hate relationship. It seems to hate me and love to torture me; I seem to hate it but love to tune in and receive its lashings. Sometimes I think of how fortunate I am to have a husband who not only isn't Catholic but also has a very low tolerance for things like religious radio stations. He's not the type who would sit by and be able to ignore Jimmy Akin as he explains that the term "gay marriage" is like the term "square circles": it's nonsense, because no such thing exists. Lee keeps me from allowing myself to be totally surrounded and immersed in this stuff.

And I so have the personality that could be. Really. I have no trouble envisioning my life just a few steps off from where it is, and the make-believe version is filled to the armpits in Father John Corapi CDs and episodes of Mother Angelica Live Classics taped off of television and copies of the latest tome by Raymond Arroyo (are we absolutely certain this man is not the reincarnation of Peewee Herman?).

I tune in at least once a day. Sometimes the tripe is so cringe-worthy that even I have to turn it off, but I always listen long enough to know where it's going. Today on Catholic Answers Live was the "square circles" analogy. Jimmy went on to elaborate that marriage simply is the union of one man and one woman, and the union of two men or two women is no more a marriage than the union of a dog and -- a bear! Yeah, he totally caught me off guard there, like whoa! A dog and a BEAR! I thought he was going to say "a dog and a man," because that's what they always say, because that's just wrong. So anyway, allowing same-sex couples to "marry" is cruel, really, because what you are really doing is telling them they are married when really they are not. This causes all kinds of problems -- legal problems! Economic problems! Thanks for calling, Bob in Arkansas; hope that answered your question.

Anyone who has been reading here for a while knows I have Issues with my religious life. Sometimes, when members of the clergy or hierarchy have said or done things that I and my fellows have found repugnant, I've tried to brush it off. Yeah, that one bishop publicly excommunicated that 9-year-old girl's mother and her doctor for letting her have an abortion while he said nothing about the adult male who raped her. Yeah, the pope spouted off about condoms and AIDS in Africa. Yeah, that other bishop over there is denying communion to Democrats again. But, I would tell myself, that's not the Church! That's not really the Church. Those are just men. Men who represent the Church fallibly and loudly and sometimes inappropriately or even outside of their technical capacity to do so. Really, I would tell myself, the Church is the people.

That's actually not even theologically Catholic. But that's what I told myself, and that's what I told others in what I hoped was a voice convincing enough to make them -- and myself -- believe it. The Church is the people: the people on Live Journal who I've gotten to know over the years who have such interesting things to say about theology and who appear to lead very upstanding lives and who are fun and funny and who hate all that extraneous crap as much as I do. Or the people who usher at my church on Sunday and replace my car muffler on Monday. Or the people who run soup kitchens and answer crisis hot lines and teach kids how to read and collect gifts for the angel tree. Those people.

Unfortunately, what Catholic radio leads me to believe, more than anything else, is that I don't know if I really care for the people, either. The LJ people, yeah! Still like you guys. But they seem to be such a minority. Call-in shows on Catholic radio always get such gits to call in with questions.

For example, today Fr. Trigilio said something I actually found surprising and comforting: that if a woman is raped, she can take after-the-fact contraception to prevent herself from ovulating (but not to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting), and the Catholics are okay with that. Then, like an hour later, this woman got on who must have been on hold that whole time, and she said in the haughtiest voice ever, "Did I just hear Fr. Trigilio say that if a woman is raped, she can take the morning after pill??" By then, the mike was being run by Jimmy Akin, who hadn't heard Fr. Trigilio's broadcast, so he had to field the question on his own and gave, in essence, the same answer that the priest had before. The woman seemed to misunderstand that he was not talking about chemical abortions but about honest-to-goodness contraception, and while I was as surprised as she was to hear the words "as long as it's only for contraception, it's okay" coming out of my radio at that moment, she seemed incensed that even that would be acceptable.

A couple weeks ago, EWTN had a big event and broadcast all their shows with a live audience. During the Life on the Rock segment, they took questions from the teenagers in the audience. One kid came up and said something along the lines of, "I'm in high school, and I'm a really good Catholic, and some of my friends want to get tattoos! And I keep trying to tell them that's evil and wrong and a serious sin against God, and they don't believe me! What can I say??" Then the priest was forced to say, okay, no, it's actually not a "serious sin against God," but you do have to think about why you're doing it, and mutilation, and glory to God, and it's never coming off, and blah blah blah.

But that's just the type of callers they get. "I'm really good, and everyone else is really wrong and going to hell, and why won't they just admit I'm right?"

It's also becoming more and more politicized. It's always been unnaturally focused on abortion when elections are coming up, but now, with no election in sight for a while, and having said everything there is to say about abortion, and having stretched that topic so far beyond its natural boundaries that it has come to resemble Kate Gosselin's stomach before the tummy tuck, now? Now they need something new to complain about. Pretty much everything President Obama does, they find some way to pretend it's a relevant topic for religious critique, and then they speak about it in vast generalities and fear mongering phrases. They do this without explicitly talking about politics and by insisting that, in fact, this is far from a political issue, and we are not endorsing one political party over another. I call bullshite. Recent topics of discussion have included health care, health care reform, and the slippery slope to bloody, atheist socialism.

Here's the thing. My theology is, admittedly, quite rusty, as is my knowledge of actual Catholic teaching. I used to be much better informed, but the years of trying to wrap my mind around things like NFP vs. ABC and double effect and the three-font principle and heaven and hell and scruples and guilt... everything's all mixed up now. I really would enjoy listening to some authentic Catholic programming... or at least what I imagine would be authentic Catholic programming. Maybe this really is it. Maybe this is all there is.

I do have the potential in me somewhere to be a total EWTN nutter, but I manage to keep that impulse down to an ember. Unfortunately, my religious faith in general is but a smoldering ember. I feel uninformed and uninspired and... lonely.

...before I forget it.

Blair and Jason and Nora are in town, staying in a sweet condo on the beach, and we got to go over yesterday for Blair and Nora's birthday party (Blair's birthday is tomorrow, and Nora's was last Tuesday). Penelope had the usual angst surrounding gifts that were screaming out to be opened and enjoyed, but not by her. First we had to rein her in from attacking the pile of presents on the coffee table at the start of the festivities, and then we had to keep her from "helping" Nora open gifts and then open the packaging of the opened gifts. Then we had to keep Penelope's hands out of the birthday cake while "Happy Birthday" was being sung.

Penelope is very interested in birthdays and birthday parties and birthday cakes. For her own birthday last month, she received (from Blair and Jason and Nora, no less!) a play birthday cake set, which she loves and plays with every day. Her dolls and animals participate, and we sing the birthday song.

So when at last all the customs of Nora's party were finished and Penelope finally had her own slice of birthday cake to enjoy, she began to eat it, and I heard her say to herself in a low, almost defiant voice, "Happy birthday, Penny."

Penelope will be switching to the older two-year-olds' classroom on August 24, to coincide with the start of school in our district. My immediate reaction to this news was to feel apprehensive (natch). She's doing really well at Baby School right now, but it feels like she's just finally opened up. She talks at school and has little friends and even gets into trouble. But she likes things to be just so. Some mornings, we've arrived before her teacher, Miss Annette, had clocked in, and she and her classmates were supposed to stay in the younger class until she was on the clock and their room was ready for them. Penelope found this arrangement entirely unacceptable, and she made her feelings very plain. As a result, the next few times this happened, Miss Annette took Penelope with her to clock in and to get the room ready.

But there are several reasons I now know this move will be okay. First of all, kids graduate to the next level, and it's okay. It just is. In fact, it's good! It's how school naturally progresses. It's not something to be apprehensive about. Second, all of Penelope's little classmates are moving up with her, so she will be among her friends. Third, they will be visiting the new classroom and the new teacher every day next week in preparation. In fact, they've already made a few visits, and I've picked Penelope up in that room twice this week, where she was having a fine time as if that's where she always spent her days. Fourth, I've also had to drop her off in the younger class a few times very recently, and while I braced myself for the panic and crying, it never came.

The class she's moving to is the much-anticipated potty training class. Woo hoo! Very excited about that. I doubt Penelope herself will begin potty training right away (they work with three or four kids at a time, selected by age and readiness), but now at least it's something in the foreseeable future. They stay in this class for six months to about three years of age, again depending on their readiness and potty training success.

You know, I think I repeat myself a lot on here. I'm not sure. I post somewhat infrequently, and I try to go back and make sure I haven't said what I'm about to say... but I think I've said a lot of what I just wrote before. Bah. A casualty of posting so irregularly and yet being so long-winded when I do. And being somewhat neurotic and over-analytical.

Here's something I know I haven't posted. We have surpassed the two-years-of-breastfeeding mark, thus satisfying the gods of the World Health Organization, who demand a sacrifice of breast milk for two years, and then beyond for as long as is mutually agreeable to mother and child. (We far oversupplied the American Academy of Pediatrics' piddly little request for one year.) At least, that's how it has felt sometimes. The Internet is not very forgiving of issues like excess lipase and working a 40-hour week and dislike of co-sleeping. I am very accomplished in the field of self-imposed guilt and scruples; I've had more than a decade of practice as a Catholic. And so I have persevered with the breastfeeding--and the co-sleeping--to age two. And beyond.

Now? I'm ready for the weaning process to begin, and it seems sometimes that if I leave it to my child (as many moms do), we will never wean. Everyone says, oh, they will wean! They really will! Usually between two and three! But I just don't know. Penelope is far too committed to the boob. She will nurse for years to come. We will wind up like these people. And beyond.

Okay, that's pretty unrealistic. Still, now that the shackles of the WHO are loosed, I don't feel bad trying to nudge the process along. Lee and I have discussed a number of ways to achieve two goals: wean Penelope and get her to sleep in her own bed all night long. The second goal is not likely to be met until the first is well on its way. We are taking it slow, but step one is in action: no more nursing in public. We don't do a lot of nursing in public these days anyway, so it's not cutting out a big chunk of boob time, but it awards me back some privacy I've been missing, and it introduces the idea that Mommie gets a say in what her boobies get used for and when. Apart from public nursing, however, I'm still allowing Penelope to nurse whenever she wants, for the most part. I'm also not offering it anymore, but I don't have to. She asks.

And that's as far as that process has gone. Also, we are making an effort to be more consistent with our bedtime routine. This has been a real challenge to us. Lee and I both work, and at the end of the day, we've always just done whatever. It's not easy trying to buckle down and eat dinner together at approximately the same time and give Penelope a bath at approximately the same time and have non-TV-or-computer play time in her room with book reading for approximately the same time, culminating in me rocking (and nursing!) her to sleep for however long it takes, from 30 minutes to an hour, at approximately the same time... every single night. But we are trying. Trial and error has shown us that this is really the only way we will have a prayer of getting our bed back.

We've done pretty well the last week or two, I'd say, after falling off the wagon a couple times. It's always hard getting Penelope on board whenever we try to hunker down again, but she seems to have adapted to our new commitment to the routine. When I can get her to go to sleep for me (and it don't happen every night, TRUST me), she'll sleep in her bed for... two or three hours? One or two? Really, not long enough, but again, baby steps.

I freely admit that I've had my moments when I was sorely tempted to just give in to Cry It Out, one of the cardinal sins of Internet Mommy Land. The problem we would have is that Penelope already sleeps in her bed with the front of the crib taken off, so she can get out of it. Do employ any kind of CIO method, we would have to lock her in her room, with all her stuff, where I am certain she would scream her head off, parked by her door, until day break. It would be all "cry" and no "it out." She is very dedicated when it comes to her opinions on things like sleeping in her own bed. She naps perfectly at Baby School every single day, but apart from a handful of instances, she has never crawled into bed and gone to sleep. She requires the boob, be it in the rocking chair with me or in my bed with me. There is no other way as long as I am in the house.

The other problem we would have with CIO is that neither Lee nor I has the stomach to listen to our kid cry. As fed up as I have felt with nursing and rocking (endless, endless rocking!), I know he would fly to her rescue before too long. Even my hard heart would be softened long before any sleep was achieved.

And my heart isn't always a cold, steel machine that has no more desire to nurse or sleep with my two-year-old. There are peaks and valleys. Right now, I'm actually not that bothered. Right now, I sit in the dark room and rock and nurse Penelope and feel her warm weight in my lap and her long legs dangling off the side and think about how one day she won't nurse anymore. Or I wake up in the morning after she has come to bed with us, and we are curled up together, her little head in the crook of my shoulder, her sweet little face still asleep. One day, she won't sleep with me anymore. She won't need me to comfort her at the end of the day, won't need me to usher her off to sleep. She won't need me, in ever-accelerating ways. Which is, of course, the goal of this whole parenting thing. But still, I know I'll miss it. So I try, I do try, to enjoy it. To enjoy her.

We don't know what the answers are to the critical questions of "how do we get this kid to sleep in her own bed?" and "when is this walking, talking child going to get off the boob?" But so far in this parenting game, our strategy has been to take things as they come and try to be as gentle and respectful as possible while still providing structure and firmness where appropriate. We don't always know exactly what we are doing. With future children, we may do some things differently. But we feel pretty comfortable with the way we are handling things now.

Cute Penelope developments (in list form, inspired by kitchenwitch a few days ago):

- She finally learned how to make the "th" sound. It's very tonguey and spitty. She has not, however, learned the "sh"sound, so she substitutes the "th" instead. "Goldfith." "Wath." Classic.

- She also says "y" instead of "L." Asks me to turn out the "yights," likes to play with her "yetters," talks about her friend "Yogan" (or calls him "Yogi").

- She has one of those magnet drawing boards, and she enjoys it. She also likes to make me draw stuff: stars, cars, ladybugs, Powerpuff Girls, twos, eyes (I know, weird). She picks her image of choice and makes me draw it again and again. Just after this trend started, Lee said he found the magnet board covered in stars and eyes and was like, wha?

- In addition to talking about "yetters," she talks about numbers and "counts," though I think she's more mimicking that sing-song way that kids count than she is actually understanding the numbers. Still, cuteness! "Two, fee, four, fee, four." She's very good at her colors, too, and she seems to favor purple.

- When she wants us to go some place with her, like to her room, she takes us by the hand and says, "Come on, Mommy!" or "Come on, Daddy!" in the same voice we use when we say, "Come on, Penelope!"

- She calls herself Penny, which is funny because nobody else really calls her that. That's just how she pronounces Penelope. But since she says it, we've been saying it more, too.

- Lee bought her some DVDs of The Adventures of Penelope Pitstop (which is really quite terrible), which she calls "Penny Stop."

Less cute, part of the problem with sleep seems to involve dreams and, possibly, sleepwalking. We'll all be sound asleep in bed together, and suddenly she's screaming incoherently, or babbling about milk or something.

One night, she got out of bed and came to our room, simply calling out in a normal voice, "Mama!" Normally, she starts crying before she gets out of bed, and I come and get her while she's trying to find us, and she usually heads off toward the office and living room where we spend the day time. This time, she actually came to the bedroom and didn't even cry. And when she got there, she was holding this bead necklace. In the morning, I noticed that Mr. Penguin, her bedtime companion, was all the way on the other side of the room from her bed, next to her toys. Like she got up, discarded him, found her beads, then came to find us. It's possible she just got up and started playing, but it's so unusual for her to do that. She has NEVER done that. It would be unheard of.

A couple nights later, she was up crying, and when I got to her room, she was fussing in her dirty laundry basket and rambling about beads. Weird.

Time to adjourn to ( some pictures. )

Lee and I celebrated seven years of marriage Monday by taking the day off together while Penelope went to Baby School. We concluded the day by saying we have GOT to get a babysitter, because we spend far too little time together just the two of us. Alas, we can't always be taking days off to indulge our relationship. We spend too much leave tending to P when she is sick.

We started out the day exchanging gifts. ( Click to see what we gave each other. )

This kid I went to school with in kindergarten and first grade died last week in a single-vehicle accident. All I really remember about him is that I didn't dislike him and that he played He-Man and She-Ra with us. I guess the whole class played, so it's not much of a memory. I changed schools, and I never saw or talked to him again, but I guess we grew up in this town together, and lived here as adults concurrently. He's just one of those kids from first grade I remember. Now he's dead, which is weird, because he's still this 6-year-old in my mind. It's like a little kid died. His funeral was at the church where we went to school together. Also weird; we went to Mass there every Friday morning. Does anyone ever imagine that they are in the church where their last memorial will take place? Certainly nobody who is six years old does.

Also last week, I had a miscarriage. It was extremely early. I had the positive pregnancy test first thing in the morning on Thursday, then started bleeding soon after I woke up on Saturday. At that moment, I resigned myself to the fact that it was over, that the pregnancy just must not have been able to stick, and that was that. I was pretty bummed, but it was so early! I told myself it was okay not to be too torn up.

Then I got on the Internet and found out that lots and lots of people have heavy bleeding and cramping in early pregnancy and go on to carry their babies to term. So I spent the rest of the weekend scrutinizing my bleeding and wondering if it was possible I wasn't actually miscarrying. And kind of hoping I wasn't, but trying not to hope too hard.

I called the doctor on Monday--the same doctor I had called the previous Thursday to schedule a pregnancy appointment for August--to explain what was going on and to ask to come in as soon as possible to figure out what the status was. The nurse had me describe my situation over the phone, then said, "Oh, yeah, you probably miscarried." Yeah, probably! Tuesday, I went in, and the urine pregnancy test was negative, and they took blood to do an HCG count anyway, which was also negative.

The bleeding wasn't unusually heavy or uncomfortable; in fact, it was somewhat lighter than I would expect my monthly to be. If I hadn't been paying attention to the calendar, and if I hadn't been so freakishly regular since getting my period back after Penelope was born, I would never have thought to take a pregnancy test. I would never have known at all.

As it was, I knew for only two days. That was long enough to calculate the due date (March 21, 2010), join a due date community, and find out what the Chinese calendar said the sex would be (a girl). It was long enough to figure out that I must be about four weeks and change with a baby the size of a poppy seed. It was long enough to feel disappointed that it ended.

I told Lee that if I had to put my upset-ness on a scale of one to ten, I'd say it's a three or four. Four seems like too much, but three seems like too little. But I do believe even poppy-seed-sized babies have souls. Maybe this poppy seed's soul is with my mama, who cannot enjoy her grandchildren on earth.

I do feel okay, though. That is the blessing of knowing for so brief a time.

I'm as late posting this as I am writing thank-you cards, but we've had a hectic couple of weeks since Miss P turned two on the 4th of July. We've all been battling various illnesses (or maybe all the same illness, just at different stages), so at least 50% of the family has been out of commission most of the time. After I do this, I need to do those thank-yous.

Here's my big girl the morning of her birthday:


( Lots more pics behind the cut, including my annual compare series. )

I need to upload and post some pictures of Penelope's recent visit with her older sister, and of her birthday party, but I recently reached full capacity of my external hard drive where I keep my photos, so I can't put anything new on my computer or save any edited shots until I get some of that crap compressed. And since I'm psycho-paranoid about losing photos, that means also making backups. And backups of backups. That's churning on in the background right now.

I want to document, however, that the Baby School situation has improved dramatically. I no longer feel some of those ratio-related reservations. I do still wish they had smaller class sizes to begin with, but Penelope seems really happy there, and that's the most important thing.

We left off our saga at the end of Week 2 at the New Baby School. If I'm not mistaken, Penelope then was sick starting Friday night of that week and lasting until Wednesday of Week 3. She had a fever (in the 103 range a couple times!) and was very lethargic and, of course, stayed home from school. When she was finally better, she did go on Thursday of Week 3 and did fine, and that day, I made a point of talking to one of the owners in private about my concerns with the ratios, and also that incident with the chitchatting one morning. I told her what happened and on what days, and she wrote it all down. She said that the ratio thing is important to them, and they shouldn't be out of ratio, and in fact they have been asking the teachers to do self-checks every 15 minutes, and the owners have been checking up. The number of children coming in at various times of the day changes from time to time, and staffing needs have to be reconsidered. She also said that it's important that I feel comfortable leaving my child there, and if anything makes me feel off, to feel free to tell her.

It didn't seem like lip service, but even if it is, it's the kind I like.

After that, I haven't seen them out of ratio again. There was one day that was maybe iffy, where one side had a bunch of kids and the other side had only a few, and there was one teacher on the big side and two on the small one, but one of the ones on the small one was going OVER to the large side, and they were all talking about how many kids they had and planning who to send where. So they were addressing it; not a problem.

Even better, Penelope has been fantastic. The first couple of weeks, she didn't like going in the morning, which is understandable from a transition standpoint, but the last couple of weeks, she's been totally cool with it. I try to talk to her on the drive there about what a fun day she'll have ("Are you going to go outside?" "Yeah." "Are you going to sing songs?" "Songs." "Are you going to eat snack?" "Snack!"). If she's still iffy when we arrive (and let's face it, sometimes she has barely been up long enough to be dressed and snapped into the car, and she's not what we consider a morning person), then I'll bring her into the front seat with me for a few minutes and talk some more about what she's going to do for the day.

Then she's ready to walk in or be carried in (I'll ask, "Do you want to walk, or do you want me to hold you?" and she'll say what sounds like "I hold you!"). She helps me push her code into the keypad. When we get to her room, the kids are usually sitting at the tables and reading books or getting ready for breakfast, so I put her in her chair. She knows which place is hers; it has her name on it, and she is usually pretty annoyed when some other kid is sitting there. Also, the little boy who sits next to her often smiles and pushes her chair out for her. So I put her down in her chair, tell her I love her and that I'll come get her after work, and she gives me a kiss and hug and waves goodbye. And then I leave. Easy peasy.

It was never that easy at the previous Baby School, I have to admit. I'm not sure why. I never did the pull-her-up-in-the-front-seat-with-me thing before; I do that now only some days and because I figure this still may be a transition phase. But still, it was a frown-fest at best and a fit-pitch at worst when I dropped her off at the last place. Every time.

When I come to pick Penelope up in the afternoon, she runs up with a big smile and a greeting of "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" and gives me a big hug. Sometimes, she's just coming in from the playground and lets the teacher change her diaper before we leave. Again, this is a departure from the past. At the last Baby School, she ran away from me when I got there and sometimes screamed and cried as we left, and if there was any task to be done like a diaper change, that was a struggle, too.

I know I've written about that before, but I just have to repeat it for myself. It's very surprising to me. I just figured that's who Penelope was: the kid who fusses when it's time to go to or leave from day care. But she's not. She seems a lot more comfortable here at this new place, in ways I didn't expect. It's great!

There was another day in Week 4 (or the end of Week 3?) that one of the teachers commented when Penelope said "bye bye" that she didn't know she could talk. That did take me aback a little, because she most definitely can talk. She's not as chatty and articulate some some other children her age, but she likes to talk about airplanes when they go overhead (we are very close to the airport) and about food and about birds and about animals and about Elmo and... all kinds of things. And this time, the comment came from a teacher who I know sees her regularly, not someone I didn't recognize like the last time. That meant she really wasn't talking at school, which is concerning, because I hate to think of her being so withdrawn.

The teacher kind of amended her comment and said that Penelope really just doesn't say a whole lot, that she mostly keeps to herself in one corner, and if any of the other kids come up to play, she leaves and finds something else to do. That part isn't particularly surprising; she usually prefers to play alone, even when we are around kids we know pretty well. But she does usually open up at least to a teacher or two who she warms up to.

In the following days, that teacher told me that Penelope was opening up more and more, which is good. In addition, I've noticed her becoming a much stronger talker at home, too. Just in the last couple of weeks, she's really honed her pronunciation of some words like yes and cup, and she's started putting two and more words together. For example, she likes to point out cars. Now, she not only points out the cars but also proceeds to point out "more cars." And she's started saying "thank you, Mommy" at appropriate times, sometimes adorably so. The other day, she came into the room holding my book, and I asked her to bring it to me. She did, and I said, "Good job!" and she replied, "Thank you, Mommy!" She'll also say something that sounds like "Where Daddy go?" or "Where Mommy go?" when she is looking for one of us. Also, she's become quite interested in repeating things that we say. We've heard her say crap and sucks recently--hah.

So by and large, things seem to be going really well at the New Baby School, and Penelope is doing great all around. I often worry because she is a lot less social than a lot of kids we know, and her speech isn't always as advanced as theirs. Sometimes I think about the high-ish lead levels she had when she was 1 and worry that she's got residual issues or delays. But I try not to compare her too much to other kids, because for the most part, she seems to be on track. I'm very proud of her progress.

And she turned TWO on Saturday, and I can hardly believe it! Sometimes, she'll even answer correctly when you ask how old she is, but she hasn't mastered holding up two fingers yet. Her party was fun, though for the first half it was shaping up to be a stark demonstration of her... independent social skills, and it brought new meaning to "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to." But that's a topic for another post.

I'll leave you with this picture, from Father's Day:

There are two things I feel like grumbling about right now. I guess I'll start with unrealized potential.

The biggest thing I have learned over the past three years or so of being out of school and in the workforce is that there is nothing I can't learn. Even stuff that previously seemed out of my league and simply not my style is totally attainable if I want to go after it. So far, I've proved this to myself in matters relating to auto insurance, cars, and medical evidence. I might not truly have the potential to make it to the top in the arenas of math and science, but a lot of stuff I just never even considered within my range of understanding is actually completely in my reach. Whaddya know.

Some things came easily to me in school, like reading and writing. I was always encouraged in those areas, and I liked them. That's why I ended up majoring in English and then getting an MFA in creative writing. I liked that stuff, and it seemed attainable. It held my attention. I had about nil career ambition until I was already working, so making choices for college and grad school wasn't about taking a direction or building a foundation. It was about doing what interested me. "Following my heart," if you will.

And there was a deliberate resistance to just going to school to do something that would make money.

I wish I had realized that there are plenty of profitable career choices that would have been interesting to me, and that I could have pursued a number of paths successfully. I wish I had understood the value of money, too. One summer, I almost decided to take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans to go to some Catholic school somewhere and meet my future uber-Catholic husband. Wouldn't that have been a riot? All that debt, just to get married and have fifty NFP babies and no way to pay it all back.

I could have gone to law school, for example, like a high school friend who at my age is a bona fide lawyer and has a husband and child almost exactly Penelope's age. I would have found that very interesting, and I could have made myself much better equipped for going to work and still been free to make the same choices for my personal life that I did, like getting married and starting a family. That part I always knew I wanted to do. It was having a job and a career I never saw in my future.

I got an MFA, and what am I doing with it? Nothing. Having a master's probably has given me an edge getting the last couple of jobs I've had, but I have been a very poor steward of this degree. I haven't written any fiction since I finished my thesis. There are all kinds of reasons, sure, but now I don't even feel compelled to write fiction. I have zero fiction inspiration. Which doesn't usually bother me, because I am who I am, but at the same time, it seems like a shame. Sometimes people from the MFA program will say, "What are you writing?" or "I enjoyed your stuff!" I have to say I'm not writing.

And writing fiction isn't exactly like riding a bicycle. You work at it to get better at it, and it's use it or lose it. I have been out of the MFA program now for longer than I was in it. And I have not used it. I was really proud of the level I achieved with my writing at the end of that, but I didn't maintain it.

So what I've done, now, is get a degree I'm not using and which does not give me any particularly marketable or profitable abilities. And I did this when there was a variety of degrees I could have pursued that would have helped me launch a career. I did this because it never occurred to me that I would even be able to do something like law or medicine or what-have-you, and so I never gave anything like that a second glance. What difference would it make if it interested me? I could never have done it!

And at this point, it's kind of too late. I have student debt and consumer debt, plus grown-up-sized bills like a mortgage, plus a child. The time for education has come and gone, at least for the foreseeable future. I need to concentrate on advancing the career I'm in.

I also need to figure out how to impart this wisdom to my children.

I want to make the disclaimer that I'm not saying I regret going to the MFA program. I loved the MFA program. I told someone recently that I count that time, and particularly my final year, as one of the high points of my entire life. I just feel like I was being short-sighted. Why did I want that degree? I knew I didn't want to teach and that I didn't want to be a Capital-W-Writer. You can be a writer or artist without getting a degree. Of course, study only helps... bah. You can't change the past, and I wouldn't change it. I'm just understanding the consequences of my actions, and it's a bit of a pisser.
The other thing I wanted to grumble about is religion, but that'll have to wait for another day.

Today, my friend's wife's contact wrote to my friend's wife, and she forwarded it to him, who forwarded it to me. Basically, if I want them to investigate, I have to call on my own to give the details.

I don't think I will at this point. I still want to talk to one of the owners. I haven't been by there, though, because Penelope has been sick and staying at home with Lee, and in fact she may stay home again tomorrow.

As I indicated I would at the end of my last entry, I talked to my co-worker whose wife does inspections, and then I sent him an email to send to her, asking some questions and giving a short description about why I was asking.

She didn't answer, but istead said she would "forward the complaint to the DCP inspector, and they will investigate."

Oops? I didn't mean to unleash the dogs, necessarily. I just wanted to be sure I knew the law.

Guess we'll find out soon!

"No way!" is what Penelope says now instead of just "No." I can't help laughing at her expense just a little when I hear her struggling against some stubbornness (a magnet that won't stick to plastic, or a baby doll that won't sit up in a chair, or some other such thing) and shouting, "No way! NO WAY!"

This is the end of week 2 at the New Baby School, and I have mixed feelings. On one hand, she's been in a good mood when I've come to pick her up. She's brought home a stack of artwork each Friday. They tell me she naps and eats just fine.

On the other hand, there have been a few events that have given me pause. Let me say before I get into them that I don't think these are... all that bad. They give me pause, and that's why I'm writing about them, but I don't have any fear that Penelope is in immediate peril of physical, emotional, or spiritual harm, so I'm not yanking her out of there just yet. And I hope I won't feel I need to.

Event #1
As I posted last time, on the second day, I arrived in the afternoon to pick Penelope up. To set the scene, you walk in the front door, past the front desk where the assistant director is usually sitting, and down a short hall, and there behind a waist-high door is a large room that is divided in two by a wall of cubbies that's about the height of an adult, at the end of which there is another waist-high door. The near side is for children ages 18 months to 2 years, and the far side is for young 2-year-olds. Penelope is on the far side. Sometimes the two classes combine, like when they go outside, but so far I haven't seen them combine inside. For some reason, I thought they would if one side was inequitably full of children, but I haven't seen it. And on that second day, there would have been a good reason to combine: on Penelope's side, the teacher had just three kids, but on the near side, the one teacher present had NINE, and at least one of them was screaming his head off. Florida law says that in classrooms of children that age, there should be no more than 6 children to a teacher, and no more than 12 children to a class. Even though both of these classes are in one big room, it's still divided, and so it still counts as two classes. I felt like I should say something to somebody... but I didn't. As I was leaving, the assistant director came and got the kid who was screaming and took him to sit with her at the desk, leaving the remaining 8 children with the one teacher, still out of ratio.

I kind of kicked myself for not questioning this, so the next morning, as we walked in the door, I asked the assistant director. "They're supposed to have six per teacher over there, right?"

Yes, she confirmed.

"But she had nine yesterday!" I tried to say it while smiling so as not to appear a humongous bitch. "And she seemed to be having a hard time of it."

"Well," she said, "someone could have been in the bathroom, or going for supplies, or something like that."

I think I just kind of accepted that answer, at least to the assistant director, and then I went and dropped off Penelope. As I came back out again, she stopped me and said, "Hey, I just want you to know that we are never out of ratio!" She seemed flustered, and she went on to explain that the ratios are larger when the children are napping, but otherwise, they take the ratios very seriously, and they never go out of ratio. Someone might have just stepped out for a minute. And as to the kids being upset, a couple of them were just getting through being sick, and a lot of children get upset at the end of the day when they see the other children's mommies and begin to wonder where their own are.

I left feeling at least like I had given the impression I was paying attention, which certainly can't hurt.

Event #2
I want to say this one happened Tuesday of this week. Penelope had gone back and forth in her mood at drop off time. She had good days the first week when she marched right in alongside me and waved goodbye as I left, and bad days when she started crying as soon as we turned the corner and she saw the Baby School. On this particular day, she was unhappy, and I sat with her in the car for a few minutes to try to talk her down. I reminded her of what fun she would have playing outside and playing games and playing with friends and eating snack and blah blah blah. She was not falling for it, and as we got into her room, she began to cry in earnest. In my previous day care experience, the best thing to do when that happens is to leave her in the capable hands of her teacher and depart quickly while the teacher jumps in with some slick redirection and/or comforting words. And in fact, it had worked out that way just fine a couple of times in week 1. But on this particular day, her teacher was chit-chatting with some other teachers and this woman who I did not recognize but who, from what I could gather from their conversation, had just gotten off of some kind of leave. She might have been a parent, and they were all catching up. As I began my quick exit, expecting Penelope's teacher to pick her up, I realized she wasn't going to, because she was busy. But I was on my way to the door, and I knew I wasn't supposed to waffle, so I just left. I lingered outside the door for a while, and Penelope continued to cry, but I couldn't see to tell whether the teacher picked her up. Eventually, I left, kicking myself for not physically placing my child in the teacher's arms, or at least saying loudly something along the lines of, "Oh, don't worry, Penelope! Miss Annette will pick you up RIGHT NOW!"

I did call soon after I got to work to see how she was, and Miss Annette said, "Oh, she's fine. She's playing. I picked her up, and she stopped crying right after you left." Which wasn't exactly how I remember it, but maybe it happened that way.

That day, my friend Kelly at work asked me how the NBS was going. She's the one who encouraged me to make the switch when I was agonizing about it before. I told her about the recent events, and she said I definitely was onto something feeling that these things weren't right. She said particularly that the teacher didn't seem trustworthy since she said she picked up Penelope when I know she didn't, and since she said she stopped crying right after I left, when I heard her crying for maybe a minute after. To be fair, it really was less than a minute between when I walked out of sight and when I actually left, which isn't that long. Maybe she did pick Penelope up soon after. Maybe Penelope did stop crying before long. I wasn't there, so I really don't know.

While Kelly and I were talking, a few others joined the conversation, and I found out that another co-worker had her son at this baby school from age almost 4 until he was ready for kindergarten. He's in second grade now. She liked it a lot and highly recommends it. She also said that the owners are really nice, and the assistant director is "kind of squirrelly" (I did notice that!). She said I should arrange a meeting with one of the co-owners so that I could discuss my concerns. Kelly agreed; "tell her you just want to talk to her about it before you talk yourself out of the place."

The thing about Event 2 is that, while Penelope may be the center of my universe, she's not the center of everybody's. At some point in life, she's got to learn to buck up when Mommy leaves. Yes, almost-two is too young to have to learn that lesson without getting hugs from somebody, but then again, if I'm going to leave my kid with paid strangers, I have to know that the consequence is that paid strangers are the ones staying with her all day. Sometimes, she might cry for a little bit before somebody comes to soothe her. Sometimes, yes, she might cry in a non-danger situation, and nobody might come to soothe her. Hell, sometimes at home she cries in non-danger situations (see the first paragraph of this entry!), and I don't always come and hug her and say, "It's okay that the baby doll won't sit in the chair! IT'S OKAY!!!!"

Event 2.5
When I came to pick her up that afternoon, she was outside with the two combined classes and the two afternoon teachers I recognized, plus one lady I did not recognize. Penelope hugged me, and we stood to leave, and I told her, "Say bye bye!"

She said, "Bye bye!"

Then the lady I didn't recognize said, "I didn't know she could talk!"

Okay, seriously? You didn't know she could talk? Please tell me you have only just spent the last sixty seconds with my child, because if you don't know she can talk, one of two things is happening: you are not paying attention, or she's spending her entire days in stone cold silence. She can't always talk intelligibly, especially to people who aren't me, but she talks pretty frequently.

Like I said, though, I did not recognize that teacher, and I know she's not one of Penelope's regulars. Maybe she's a fill-in, or maybe she normally takes another class and was just hanging out with our teachers during outside time. Who knows.

Event 3
This happened this morning. The teacher in the near part of the large room had only two or three children, so she was good, but on our side, there were already 7 or 8 kids when we arrived, and just one teacher. I stood there, holding Penelope, who thankfully was in an amicable enough mood, wondering what to do. There wasn't enough manpower! It was so obvious! The ratio was way off!

I left her, said good bye, and went to the squirrelly assistant director at the front desk. "Let me just ask you about the ratios again," I said. "Six kids per teacher, right? On each side in there?"

"Yes," she said.

"Okay," I said, "because there are 8 or 9 on that back side right now, and only one teacher."

"Really?" said the SAD. She ran back there, and I heard her say, "How many does she have?"

"I don't know!" the teacher said. There was counting. Then, "Ten."

"Ten? Are they all twos?"

More counting. "Yes."

The SAD came back and told me that, well, one of the staff members just wasn't there yet. And in fact, I looked out the window and saw Miss Annette walking across the parking lot. "Sometimes they all get here before we all do," the SAD explained. "The other teacher just hasn't gotten here."

"Well, I see her coming now," I said, and the SAD smiled as if to say, "see? No worries."

But, for serious, that does bother me. They have those ratios for a reason. I have never noticed one of our day cares to be out of ratio before, and I've spent plenty of time at our respective Baby Schools. I've heard teachers ask for backup so they could step out to the bathroom, and I've heard teachers conferring with each other when they knew they would be out of ratio in a few minutes when the next kid showed up but the second staffer had not. I'm pretty sure that legally they have to make those kinds of plans rather than just shrug off the ratio, even for a few minutes. I also know that in six months or so, Penelope will go to the classroom where the ratio is actually eleven to one, but for now, she's in this classroom. And the ratio is six to one.

After that, I went to Tom Thumb to get a drink on my way to work, and I recognized one of the patrons as somebody who had just dropped off her child in the near class of the two in the large room. I struck up a conversation. She must have heard me talking to the SAD about the ratios, because the first thing she said to me was, "It'll be fine," or something reassuring like that.

"I'm sure it will be," I said, "but this is only our second week, and I've seen them out of ratio twice!"

"And you will in the mornings," she said. "That happens all the time, but everybody is there by 8, and then it's fine."

She told me that her older child went there for a few years, and now her younger is there, and she has always been very happy. And she actually heard of this place because she was at a much worse place for a week. There, she saw a teacher throw a pen at a child, and she called someone with the state to complain and beg for a recommendation. They referred her to this place.

I want to have perspective. I'm not witnessing people throwing things at children. I'm not suspecting abuse. My kid's not coming home with bruises or burns. And I have talked to lots of parents, who recommend the place so highly, and I have seen at least two very positive online reviews--which kind of says something, because most day cares here have no online reviews whatsoever, and this place has two.

For those and all the reasons I talked about when I was obsessing over this before, I really want this to work. And I don't want to yank Penelope out of this place now if she's happy and adjusting -- ugh! She just moved! She would be so confused and weirded out! But WTF with the ratios, people? WTF?

I haven't made that appointment with the co-owner yet, but I probably will. Before I do, however, I'm going to talk to one of my coworkers who was out of the office all this week. His wife does inspections for the state, and I would like him to ask her for me if in fact the law allows for little lapses in ratio, like for bathroom breaks or when your second staffer hasn't made it in yet. I mean, maybe it does. I'd like to be informed.

In the meantime, ( click here for some recent bathy pictures. )