Borrowing the Will of the Dog

This morning, for the first time since our dog Macey died, I went on a brisk walk down our road, where she and I used to walk. I had woken up all stiff this morning, most likely from spending half the night with a restless baby attached to me. I needed to loosen up, and a walk and hot shower do wonders. Outside the morning was chilly and the sun had a beautiful slant through the trees. . . and I missed my dog. She and I had walked together for her entire life, daily for the first few years, then later on several times a week. There would be periods every now and then when I did not walk her for months at a time, like when I put myself on bedrest at the end of my pregnancy with B, or when I fell and tore that ligament in my knee and took a loooooooong time to heal. But whenever all was well, Macey and I were walking companions, and I loved seeing her pad pad energetically in front of me, tail curled high, ears forward, eyes alert for squirrels or cats. Her shadow to the side looked like a fairy-tale wolf.

I missed her most today when I was walking back along the same road home. I was suddenly just so tired and it was hard to make myself keep the aerobic pace on the way back. It brought to mind a line from the movie "Awakenings," in which a doctor experimenting with apparently catatonic patients found they would catch a ball tossed to them. He theorized that, having no will of their own to move, they "borrowed the will of the ball" for that moment.

Macey was so strong that she would gladly and almost effortlessly pull you when the road was steep (very helpful along trails in CO). I jokingly called her "the Macey train," as in "jump on aboard" because she could pull more than one tired person along at a time. But I never realized how much I depended on her just to get me going, and keep me going, psychologically too.

Walking won't be the same for a while.

our "Nightmare of Christianity," or as we fondly call it, "Home"

I saw two nights ago a link from Google News to an article called "The Nightmare of Christianity: How Religious Indoctrination Led to Murder," by Max Blumenthal, writing in The Nation.

The article is about the background of Matthew Murray, the young man who went on a murder spree in Colorado in 2007, taking out his inner demons on the unfortunate people who happened to be that day at New Life Church, in Colorado Springs, and the Youth With A Mission training center in Arvada.

The byline of the article reads: "The authoritarian culture of the Christian right pushed a deeply disturbed young man named Matthew Murray over the edge."

Those religious nuts. Let's find out how they did it:

An authoritarian Christian-right self-help guru named Bill Gothard created the home-schooling regimen implemented by Murray's parents.

Uh, oh--there's your first danger sign. They were home schoolers. Only kooks who want to isolate their children from the scary world of free-thinking home school. And they were supposedly Christian, which is synonymous with creepy medieval totalitarianism.

. . . Gothard first grew popular during the 1960s by marketing his program to worried evangelical parents as anti-hippie insurance for adolescent children. Based on the theocratic teachings of R. J. Rushdoony, who devised Christian schools and home-schooling as the foundation of his Dominionist empire, Gothard's Basic Life Principles outlined an all-consuming environment that followers could embrace for the whole of their lives. According to Ron Henzel, a one-time Gothard follower who co-authored a devastating exposé about his former guru called A Matter of Basic Principles, under the rules, "large homeschooling families abstain from television, midwives are more important than doctors, traditional dating is forbidden, unmarried adults are 'under the authority of their parents' and live with them, divorced people can't remarry under any circumstance, and music has hardly changed at all since the late nineteenth century."

Woah. First I have to shake off all that loaded wording--the red teacher's pen in me is rising.

Mr. Blumenthal, throughout the article, is clearly antagonistic towards Christianity, and leaves blatant holes in his argument that Murray's parents and their Christian religion are responsible for the massacres. (My 6 years teaching college writing,* in which I held my students to very high standards of balanced, well-supported argumentation, does not serve me well here--I would have quite a few words for Mr. Blumenthal if he were my student.) Most startling is with what broad strokes he paints the life by which Murray "had been indelibly scarred by a lifetime of psychological abuse at the hands of his charismatic Pentecostal parents."

They have large families? Oh, that is also a rationality red-flag--perverting "pro-choice" to mean the freedom to choose having as many kids as they want, and thereby selfishly threatening to overwhelm our planet's ability to sustain humankind. Yes, we have a large family, at least by modern Californian standards.

No TV? There are still people around who think the lack of TV is abusive? So, exactly how many mind-numbing, consumerism-indoctrinating, lemming-making, life-dissatisfaction increasing, weight-gaining hours of TV = love? No, we don't have TV.

Using a midwife instead of a Dr.? When decades of research proves that countries that still use midwives and home births as the norm have a shockingly lower infant and maternal death rate in childbirth than we do here in the good old "modern" US? Yes, we use midwives.

No "traditional" dating? Does anyone ever stop and think about how recent "traditional dating" is, anthropologically speaking? How many parents who have violent reactions when they hear someone else's kids are not going to date have stopped to think about why their children are? It is strange to me that people get so bent out of shape if you want to forgo a "tradition" that is only about 3 generations old, to return to older, much more time honored--and in my opinion much healthier and more successful--ways of being in relationship with the opposite sex outside of marriage.

No, our children are not going to date in the "traditional" sense, not if I have anything to say about it. Almost all the parents I have mentioned this to have freaked out and have given me all kinds of dire warnings for our future as over-protective parents when our kids become teenagers. So, just to clarify, our kids are not going to be teenagers either. They are going to be young adults, and they already know the difference between the two.

You certainly don't have to agree with my perspective, just like I am not at all trying to defend the particular way of parenting described in the article, esp, the next two things on the list. Those two rules have to do with adults, not children, and when you are an adult claiming to follow Christ, then you are no longer under the headship of your human parents--you are under the headship of God the Father, the Lord of the Universe, and are completely capable of making adult choices and answering to Him alone. Parents, at this point, hopefully have done their job well and can freely let their children go to be fully-functioning adults in the great, wide world. And hopefully they have been preparing themselves and their children for this for a long, long time.

Here is one way I am looking at how the whole parenting/child thing could work out: Our expectations/values as parents for our children (and ourselves!) are like a road map that we set out before our whole family before we head out on our journey, to show them where we hope to end up. If everyone does their part, then there is a good chance we will all make it to our planned destination in safety and fun. Every family has a different destination and different route along the way, and no one's are better than anyone else's. The important things are that everyone in the family is on the journey together and everyone is treated as a necessary, valuable part of the "Corps of Discovery."** There are many, many ways you can go with this journey analogy, so I won't bore you any more with my own interpretation. (Although I would love to hear your own family's analogy in the comments!) But basically, I think if you have wise, effective leadership, there may be grumblings of mutiny from the underlings when things get really rough, but no real desire to act on it. If trust has been established early on, and reinforced along the way, then the underlings should be able to follow the leader willingly. And over the course of the journey, they will grow into capable leaders themselves.

There is a whole lot of idealism in this analogy, and you--my readers, my friends--of all people understand how much I am desperately trying to get myself "ship shape" as a good, trustworthy leader of my children. I am not the leader I want to be, and I have a feeling my husband would say the same thing. We are not perfect--but maybe perfection is not required for good leadership. Maybe honesty and humbleness and perseverance matter more. Here's hoping.

In the meantime, we are probably going to be judged as wacko and oppressive by many people--but I'll bet it will at least be condemnation of an equal opportunity sort, as we offend people from all religious and political and socio-ecomonic backgrounds. ; ) Rest assured, however, that we are not parenting without lots of questioning, introspection, reasoning, and prayer.

Which is probably what Matthew Murray's parents said.***

Lord, help us!

*That being said, please don't read my postings looking for errors--I make no special effort to proofread my postings, but I--unlike Mr. Rosenthal--am not being published.

**We are currently studying Lewis and Clark. ; )

***I am sure Murray's parents did have a lot to do with negatively affecting his psyche--I am not at all defending them as parents. I am defending the potential to raise healthy children with similar "rules" as his parents supposedly used. I wish the readers of this article could see some of the successful, healthy examples that I have seen.

The Wedding

Finally, the long-awaited posting of photos from D's sister N's wedding in CO! Sorry it took so long, Mom, there were just so many photos to wade through!

Auntie N has lived in various countries around the world since college, and two years ago felt led to India, where she has been living and working as a counselor, and training Indian counselors. Last year she met a wonderful man, S, and they were married this past Aug. in Colorado Springs, which is why we ended up road-tripping there for a second time this summer.

Uncle S's two sisters and their families live in the States, and his parents and many other friends flew from India for the wedding. The entire event was beautiful, exotic in all the best ways, full of significance, and a whole lot of fun. I won't begin to explain everything, but will just try to let the photos and videos speak for themselves!

Auntie N, Uncle S, and the four flower girls--my three and S's niece from Minnesota

Showing off their hennaed hands--all the female relations on both sides indulged in this traditional wedding festivity at a party a few nights before the wedding. I absolutely love wearing henna--my second time, the first time while visiting N when she lived in Morocco.

Flower girl G leading the way down the aisle

M and B following G, all three girls taking their petal distribution job quite seriously

The old church was very colorful--orange, maroon, green--and was perfectly suited for this colorful wedding. That is D's cousin-in-law performing the ceremony, here where D's dad is about to symbolically give his daughter to S.

Signing the wedding certificate. I just loved this photo for its color and composition--and N looks so beautiful.

The reception was held at the officer's club at Peterson Air Force Base, since D's dad is retired Air Force. The two videos I have posted well highlight the differences between the two cultures now coming together, and how everyone was game to leave their comfort zones and celebrate together.

In the video on the top, N and her dad have their dance, while D dances with his mom, until others joined them on the floor. In the video on the bottom, S dances with his mom and then the party really gets started.

After the reception, the wedding party and family members went to Garden of the Gods for more photos--gorgeous setting for it. Here are the newly married couple with both sets of parents and Sumeet's sisters. The garlands the parents are wearing they gave to each other as part of the wedding ceremony.

Sumedha and Suparna and me. They were such lovely women, inside and out, and they treated me like a new sister.

The Indian princesses

Blessing of the Week: pajamas!

more GOOD!


When I blogged a while back about all the household things that suffered corruption caused by the cold and damp while we were gone on our month-long roadtrip, I mentioned a baby playgym that mildewed. E had just recently lost interest in it, and so I had not yet moved it from its "home" between the pac-n-play and the end of our bed, and it must have slid down on the floor while we were gone and trapped dust and moisture between the fabric and the hardwood floor, so that we returned to find it covered in little black spots. And of course with mildew, even after you wash and bleach it, it is clean but still ugly. So sad! But it was saved from the landfill by the amazing community resource that is Freecycle, and so a young mom met me at the nearby Startbucks parking lot one day to pick it up for her own baby girl. As I was giving this perfect stranger the playgym and its accessories, we chatted a bit, and I must have mentioned that my baby was a boy. Because she asked, out of the blue, "Hey, do you want any boy pajamas? Because I have a bag right here that I was going to offer on freecycle, but if you want them you can have them." I honestly did not think I needed them, because we have been blessed with so many hand-me-downs from D's cousins, who all had boys, but I took them because 1) D and I have made it a kind of life-rule to be thankful and accept whatever people want to give us--making sure it is truly a gift and not a loan--and because 2) why not? I did not even know what age her boy was, but thought I could always just look and see if any of it was useful and then pass along whatever was not.

But this exchange happened in the brief time we were home between our two summer roadtrips, and I did not take the time to look in the half-full black garbage bag she gave me, but just tossed it on top of the washing machine under the house to deal with later. So fast forward to this week. The house is getting chillier at night this week, and so I was wanting to put warmer pjs on baby E--but for a while now have only had one sleeper and one pair of pajamas and one warm oversleeper, all of which were size 12 mo but were getting too short for him to wear comfortably. I have been assuming our lack of sleepwear is because we have boxes of 12-18 mo size baby clothes from D's cousins awaiting us up at his parent's house in Chico--but with the wedding reception hubub and D's illness when we were there last, I totally forgot to bring them home with us. I assume we will be seeing his parents sometime this fall, when all our lives have settled back down a bit, but until then I figured I would be dressing him in soft daytime clothes and hoodies for bedtime--which is completely fine, it just means his wardrobe ends up more limited for daytime.

Two days ago, as I was continuing "habitat restoration"--as my friend Alberta calls it--I decided to open up that black garbage bag and deal with the contents. And by now you have guessed what was inside--sleepers and fleece oversleepers for a boy ages 12-18 months. And the 12 months sleepers are longer than the ones we have, so are perfect.

It seems like such a little thing, but it is such a big blessing, and most importantly, it feels like a warm hug from Someone who cared enough to once again meet my need before I even knew I had it. Some would call this coincidence, but for me it is too much of a coincidence to be so--it perfectly lines up with my understanding of the character of a loving, present God. This has happened too many times in my life for me to shrug it off--I can only be amazed that the creator of the universe cares about me and my family in such a personal way.

that's my girl

more GOOD today!

G did her start-of-the-year testing, conducted by our homeschool charter. Some homeschool parents are anti-testing, but I like it because it helps me see how we are doing compared to the national average and our district. So far, doing great. The tests are done on the computer, and keep adjusting the level of difficulty according to how well the student answers in each section, so you are not so much testing by grade level but according to understanding/knowledge. We were gratified to see the results: G is estimated to be performing at the 4th grade level (where she is technically this year) in math, 7th grade level in language arts, and 10th grade in reading!!!

what really cracked me up was the section in reading where they recommend:

Top 3 Suggested Learning Objectives :
The learner will differentiate between cause and effect within an eleventh grade persuasive passage.
The learner will determine how an eleventh grade persuasive passage is organized (problem/solution,compare/contrast, main idea/supporting evidence).
The learner will distinguish irrelevant information within an eleventh grade persuasive passage.

Darn that troublesome 11th grade persuasive passage. Will trip up an 8-year-old every time.

the good, the bad, and the abominable

just an update!

This past weekend we were up camping at Donner Lake with some other homeschool families. Fun! Learning!

Ok, it was actually not as good an experience as I wish I could report, only because we arrived there so late Fri night (er, um, Sat. morning) that we were pretty tired Saturday, and it seemed like everything was just off all day. Like we were eating breakfast after everyone and then when everyone headed up to the summit for rock-crawling, we found a note on our car requesting us to check in at the ranger station (even though we had already paid online) so then we felt like everyone was waiting for us (even though it only took a few minutes to register on our way out) and then by the time we met up with our group, baby E had fallen asleep and I felt so bad waking him, exhausted as he was, that I decided to stay in the car with him and let him nap a bit. I thought everyone was just going to climb around on the mountainside visible from the car and I would bring E in the back carrier to join them shortly, since he does not usually sleep long in the car, but the group ended up on an impromptu long, fun hike--through tunnels blasted through the granite mountain top by the Chinese railway workers, up to the top of the summit. Awesome! If I had known, I would not have stayed in the car! But, on the other hand, E slept almost the entire time we were alone, and I got to relax and read, which was nice since I was so tired. And then after we had lunch back at the campground, we realized G had left her shoes--her Keen sandals, new this summer--up at the trailhead. So while everyone else went to the Donner State Park museum, D and I took G (and E) back up to hunt for the shoes. Nope--she knew where she had left them, and even though we scoured half of the mountainside in the hopes she was remembering incorrectly, we finally concluded that someone had taken them.

Sigh. The worst thing about it, in my mind, is that this tailhead is only used by hikers and mountain climbers. So odds are the person who took the shoes was an outdoorsy/athletic type, who recognized their value. But wouldn't you think such a person would then know the shoes' owner would come back for them? Who would steal a kid's shoes from a rock-climbing trailhead? For all they knew, the owner was still around, coming back from climbing in a few minutes. This is kinda shattering my image of outdoorsy types.

So then by the time we got back down to the museum everyone was done with it and waiting on us so they could go swimming. So then we got our kids ready, and followed the group down where we were told they had gone--and never found them. So D and the girls just played on their own while I went back to the camp with a sudden, horrible migraine. I could go on--but you get the picture. We DID have fun! And we are glad we went! But everything was just off, and would have been very frustrating if we were letting it be.

But there is some of the GOOD: that we had a good time despite lots of reasons not to! We kept our positive attitudes and just did our best and our friends were gracious and patient and helpful (my friend Alberta in particular was such a blessing to me, esp. with the cups of tea she served me (in a ceramic mug!) and how she kept saying in her chipper way, "This is so FUN!")

More GOOD happened when we got home and saw a neighbor out in her driveway, whom I have not spoken to since last spring. So I went to say hello, and had a nice time chatting with her and her life partner about Northern CA, and in the course of the conversation they offered us the use of their cabin up north! Whoo-whoo! This year we are studying the history of CA and one of the state parks near their cabin is a real gold rush ghost town! How perfect is that?!

The BAD is clear--losing G's shoes. Hmmmm, I may have to rethink this whole expensive shoe thing. We did the Keens for our roadtrips, so we had a pair of shoes that could do anything, and they have been awesome! And we did them because G's smaller sized Keens have been handed down to two sisters and they are still almost like new! So we figured if we got good shoes they would be worth it as more than one child could wear them. . . . I was not factoring loss/theft into the equasion. And leaving behind shoes would not have happened if I had been in my right mind--since I am officially the keeper of all things--and did not have that migraine coming on. We will wait to replace the shoes until at least next summer--hope that will help her learn the lesson about keeping track of her things too.

And then, more ABOMINATIONS awaiting us! Ok, this is going to be an ongoing thing so I won't keep telling you about every little household insurgency, but this one was just too classic: I wake up this morning to a rainy day, take the girls to some school testing, come home and leave my muddy shoes at the door, go to put on my cozy slippers for the first time this fall--and the leather soles are covered in fuzzy green mold.

Ewwww!

By the way, I have not forgotten that I have yet to post pics from our last roadtrip. Coming soon! : )

Hope anyone who stops by to read has a great week!

Blessing of the Week: LOL*

See, this blog is not all lamentations--I still have my sense of humor.

Do you?

Let's check--here is an excerpt from a quite funny (and very irreverent! don't blame me for the bits that are too naughty for your taste!) blog I check out every now and then: Let's Panic About Babies. (http://www.lets-panic.com/)

They write today about strategies for getting your baby to sleep:
New parents naturally become easy targets for any gimmick or “expert” strategy. You’re tired, and you want a patented 27-step sleep-forcing solution; who doesn’t? People who love their children, that’s who. People who love their children more than they love sleep. Hey: will sleep pay for your elder care facility? No. That’s up to the child who loves you because you sacrificed your sleep for most of her life.

But if you still insist you need “sleep,” because you are “human,” we do have some tricks up our sleeves. Observe!

Easy Way Out #1: Nurse Your Child To Sleep
This method is fairly self-explanatory. You have a boob? Put it in your child’s mouth. A full tummy, the nurturing warmth of your body, and the rhythmic thump of your heart will almost certainly lull the average baby off to average baby dreamland. It’s just a temporary solution, so don’t worry about how this is all going to work when the kid is nine. Don’t worry!

Easy Way Out #2: Straight From The Bottle
Not breast feeding? We guess some people just don’t love their children (that’s what parole officers are for). Prepare a warm bottle full of human growth formula, hormone-laced cow’s milk, or vegan organic soy-free distilled water, drain into baby’s largest head aperture, prop it up with a pillow or indifferently arranged blanket, and go back to whatever you were doing that was so important.

Easy Way Out #3: The Electronic Babysitter
Baby will feel as though somebody loves him after you roll the TV cart right up next to his crib and leave it tuned to PBS all night. Eventually some kids’ show will come on after this Hitler thing is over, right?

If any of you want to check out this blog to read more, the "ads" alone are hilarious.



*Mom, that stands for "Laughing Out Loud."

the little man turns one!

what I want on my tombstone

Sometimes when I am visiting the blog of a friend, I click on the links to other blogs that friend follows--it is partly like learning a little more about my friend, and partly about exploring the world of blogs, and partly like meeting a new neighbor. Sometimes it seems God orchestrates it, like when I ended up "randomly" checking out a blog whose writer, I was startled to find out, was undergoing horrible family relationship dysfunction, much of which I have experienced in the past. I don't know if my encouraging words meant anything to her or not, but I thought it was pretty amazing that I could say, to a stranger, "hey, you are not alone, you are not bad, I know some of what you are experiencing, I care about you and I will be praying for you!" And I have been praying for her, and the family member with whom she struggles interpersonally. So that could be a God-thing.

And then sometimes God seems to want me to read what other people are going through; I shared one example in my last personal posting, about how hearing about a mother who lost her young twins made me love my children anew that day. Well, a short while back I jumped from my good friend Susan's blog http://suzeo99.blogspot.com/ to one of her "favorites" and was saddened to realize it was the blog of a man she had told me about, who lost his wife to cancer on the 8th of July, and then lost his young son to cancer on the 10th of July. I cannot even imagine how that family is feeling and struggling (there are two older children who still need their mom). But on the day I visited, http://superryan.blogspot.com/, the husband wrote in memory of his wife:

I have to say - I am not very good at funerals and typically avoided them as much as possible. Missy said to me many times over our 20 years together "If you can't stand up and say a few nice things about me when I'm gone - I'm going to be so mad! So I will share my top 5. She was Persistence - I thank Missy for her persistence while we dated long distance the year before we got married. It was difficult dating from two countries. She was compassionate - Missy had more compassion for both friends and simple acquaintances. She would do her best to lend an ear or help out in any way she could. She was resilience - From the working in the medical field, to a full time mother for 15 years, then back to teaching. Her battle with cancer was dealt with very quietly. She refused to show the pain that this disease inflicts, so as not to scare us. She took bad days and turned them into good days. She loved motherhood - We had always wished we had met earlier in life. We both wanted lots of children. She provided a foundation for Heidi and Will that will endure this terrible tragedy and have us all smiling fondly in remembrance instead of so very sad. She loved being involved with our community, as past presidents of the PTO and the Swim team, she always made a point to know an encourage all the children she would interact with. She loved me - it was that simple and I am very fortunate for it. She made my life incredibly easy. She ran our household like a well tuned company. Everything was always taken care of. The only thing we could ever get on to her about... is when bad weather would make the cable go out. Ryan loved to say, "did mom forget to pay the cable bill" I truly thought loosing Ryan was going to be the most difficult to handle, but loosing Missy has left a huge hole in my life. I never prepared for losing her the way we worked so hard together preparing for Ryan.

I am so sorry for his loss, and so happy that he had such a great wife. His praise reminds me of the verses from Proverbs 31 about The Wife of Noble Character. I used to loathe this woman--which I will blog about someday in "Why I Want a Wife Pt. 2." But the writer of this section of Proverbs, King Lemuel, goes into great detail about what makes a great wife, and some of his words sound like they could be describing the wife above:

A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life. . . .
Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
"Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all". . . .
Give her the reward she has earned,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

I want to be a great wife too. I hope I am with my family for a long time, but whenever I go, I hope I have inspired these kinds of thoughts and feelings in my husband and my children! And not in the "its all about me" sense--no, I mean in the sense of hoping, praying that I will be able to love and serve each one of these people that God has placed in my heart the way God desires. Because being a "good" mom and wife just to get accolades--or, even worse, to try to earn my way into their affections or God's kingdom--is just more self-serving. Nothing but dry bones. Striving to be a mom and wife "after God's own heart" (as He referred in His word to that infamous king of self-serving, David--if that guy, after all he did, can keep turning back and making things right with God and earn such a description, then there is hope for anyone, hope for me!)--that will do it. Because if I am pleasing God, then undoubtedly I will be pleasing my family too. If I am loving God through my actions and attitudes, then I am loving them too!

So saying I want to be remembered the way this wife was remembered by her husband--it is not about wanting them to think I am great. Although that would be really nice. ; ) It is about wanting, as I said in that other posting, to live and love fully and have no regrets at the end, whenever the end will be.

Elvis Presley, of all people, perfectly demonstrated what I am trying to say. The marker he placed on his mother's grave reads:

The Sunshine of Our Home
Gladys Love Presley
April 25 1912 - August 14 1958
Beloved Wife of Vernon Presley
Mother of Elvis Presley

and then in huge capitol letters on the side, it reads:

NOT MINE
BUT THY WILL BE DONE

A Photo Ode to Our Good Dog, Now Gone

A young Macey, in repose

Earlier this week, right after returning from our trip, I mentioned that our good old dog, Macey, had become ill while she was staying with D's parents in Chico this summer, where we left her while we were travelling so much. She had stopped eating, which is very unusual for her, and after a few days of that D's dad Joe took her to the vet. After several visits and lots of tests, all the vet could conclude was that she had experienced internal bleeding, but they did not know why, but she seemed to be recovering. The vet first suspected cancer of the spleen, which I guess is not uncommon in dogs her age (she was about 12 years old), but the ultrasound they performed did not show any tumors. Since she seemed to be improving, and since we did not have any other good options, D's parents left her and their old yellow lab, Jasper, at their house in the care of a neighbor while they (and we) were in Colorado for the wedding of D's sister. They came back two weeks later to find that she had not continued to improve, and called us on our cell while we were camping our way back to Chico to warn us that she was not doing well.

Sure enough, when we first saw her when we arrived back in Chico, I realized our dog was dying. She was completely skin and bones. Her nose was not just dry, but dry crusted. She could barely stand, and she held her head low when she did. When she was lying down, she held her head a little up instead of resting it on her paws, as if she was having trouble breathing. And her breathing was very labored and oddly rhythmed at times--sometimes she seemed to be fighting just to breathe and other times she could lay at rest. Frankly, it was her breathing that chilled me the most--it reminded me of when my grandmother died and how hard she was breathing for days, and I saw what hard work dying is.

Still, she had some spirit, and I was appalled when Joe said it was time for the nightly walk--it seemed so cruel to make her walk when she could barely keep up with my very slow pace, and had to stop at times as if she could not go on, and yet she seemed to enjoy it, and showed some interest in animal smells once we got to Bidwell park a block away (where they filmed the old black and white Robin Hood movie, if that gives any of you a mental image--not a tame park), Still, this was my "tough puppy," the dog whom I could previously only walk with a choke collar on because otherwise she would practically yank your arms out of their sockets with her pulling (where the Husky in her lineage comes through most)--and that was in her later years. For much of her life I used a prong collar--the kind with metal spokes pointing into their throat, which sounds so cruel but with all that thick fur around her neck she would pull against THAT too! I had never seen her so weak and unenergetic.

We were so glad to bring her home with us, and temped her appetite with real meat and gave her lots of love, and brought her dishes to her head so she did not have to work at all to eat or drink. And she seemed to be improving! She even seemed to be gaining weight, visibly. She was perking up, and barked a couple of times at people or cars approaching the house, something she had not done at all in Chico. She seemed to have more energy and was moving around to follow the sun (she has always loved baking in the sun), even climbing up the flight of stairs to the back deck. She was still breathing poorly at times, and was still clearly in a bad way, but we were starting to think it was only a matter of time before she was close to her old self again.

And then Fri morning D told me he got up for work, let her out onto the back deck like usual, she walked to the middle of the deck, and then sat down. And then slowly crumpled forward. A few minutes later she was gone.

We are not heartbroken, because we are the pragmatic type who treat pets like animals and not people. But we are still sad, and miss her. I keep coming around the corner and expecting to see her lying in her usual spots. D remarked as he backed into the driveway after church today that he had caught himself looking to make sure she was out of the way. And I will have to get used to not having her as our first response security system--she was admittedly quite intimidating to look at, and made a great watchdog! (I'll never forget having her out on a walk in our, shall we say, colorful neighborhood down in Seaside, and a large, scary gangster-looking man calls out to me as we walk by and asks, "Does he bite?" To which I replied, with a straight face, "Only if I tell her to.")

She was a less than perfect dog--she always wanted to be the Alpha, yet still had lots of dog friends back when we lived in CO, but ended up in her old age here in CA picking fights with any old animal that came her way (could also have been the Boxer side of her coming out). She never learned not to go after skunks, and one time she got one *right* in front of the air intake for our fireplace. It was winter and before we knew it, the house was filled with skunk. We could not even turn off the blower, since it is hardwired, for one thing, and also because that is the only source of heat for the house. I slept with the blankets over my nose and mouth that night (keep in mind our bed is right next to the fireplace).

Macey was not trustworthy off leash, so had to always be on a steel cable--even in a fenced-in yard, as she could easily jump a 6 foot fence, and once tried to take on a 7 foot. She would have made it, too, if I had not been fast enough to grab her by the tail and yank her back down while she hung for just a moment at the top.

But with all her flaws, Macey was a very good dog to us. She loved people, and upon meeting anyone would immediately flop over on her back so they could rub her tummy. I was never worried about her with the kids, even when they were little, because she never nipped. She did once or twice knock a child over by playfully backing up and not looking behind her. And she sometimes whapped a child in the face with her wagging tail. But all in the spirit of love.

She was also very smart. Back in CO before we had kids and I had lots of time to train a dog, Macey knew and would obey over 30 commands, most of which had verbal AND hand signals, so that I could move my hand to tell her to "come" or "sit" or "go back" or "on the rug" or "no bark" and she would usually comply. I could even give her a command from inside a house, if she could see me through the windows, and she would usually obey. I even taught her "left" and "right" and the difference between "street" and "sidewalk" when we were out walking. She would "do her business" in a special area of the back yard before we went on our walks so that I did not have to carry poo bags with me, and so we did not have dog messes all over the yard. I never could teach her to "heel," although I never tried that hard--I liked seeing her walking in front of me, her tail curled up high over her back (more of the Husky traits), her ears perked, her strong legs rhythmically padding. And she always would pull, although she was considerate when we were going down a steep slope and would go slowly for me then.

I realize now that I could write about her for a long time, and could tell so many fun stories. But you have humored me long enough, so I will end with my Photo Ode, to Macey:

She was a great one to cuddle.

2000, Our first Christmas with firstborn G



Hanging out in the sunshine with G


G used to crawl all over her, literally

Hanging out with baby M


4 wheeling in CO


With the third pup, B, and Macey's boyfriend, Jasper (up in Chico)


B gets a kiss--another thing Macey could do on command ; )

An unfortunate incident with our freshly painted carport

Even late in life Macey never lost her willingness to be a cozy pillow for little girls

Life Happens

It was interesting, going back and reading the last post I made before our trip (Why I Want a Wife) before I make the first post since being back. And as I sat down a few days ago to start this post, I realized how connected the two are. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my life, my children, my marriage, my house, etc. Well, ok, there is. BUT what I mean is that none of the wrong with these things can have any impact up on my heart unless I let it.

But there IS something wrong with my own way of thinking, and I have been struggling to figure out exactly what. Something clicked when I re-read the last two postings and now I see one important idea underlying both postings that had not yet registered in my thinking and so I could not express coherently. Like it or not, I am the heart of the household and the home. I am a tree that in its own gnarled and bent beauty can produce life-giving fruit--or can be cordwood. I am a garden of potential, the springtime hope of autumn bounty--and it feels like Spring is almost over, quick let's finish the planting! I am a very crazy quilt, the kind that was sewn and knotted by less than capable hands, an embarassing hodge-podge of remmnants--sheeny silk scrap and rough nub of 60's polyester and faded demin of grandpa's worn-out overalls and vintage cherry print of grandma's kitchen curtains--but which is still the one you reach for when you want to cuddle on the couch and nurse the flu or a bad breakup. I am all kinds of overused homey mothering cliches--the ones at which we roll our eyes, usually because we don't want to invest the time and effort to become them and so must flippantly discard them before they make us feel guilty.

But I am so desperate for wisdom now--in homemaking, in homeschooling, in child-rearing, in spiritual development--that I find it popping up everywhere, little tidbits of Truth waiting to be recognized for what they are. So I am all about the tired cliches right now--and the overused metaphors, as you can tell. ; ) But I am trying to see them anew, deconstruct them in my own understanding, recontstruct them into something tangible, helpful, hopeful. The crazy quilt image works really well here too.

And it is amazing how God is pulling little random bits of other people's stories together for me, to encourage and convict me. For example, the movie "Rachel Getting Married" (which I downloaded from Netflix the other night) was a hugely emotional experience--not only because the acting was SO real it was like watching a painful family conflict really unfold (the most real characterization I have seen since "Once"), but also because I responded as a mother to the heart Truth of a tragedy in the plot--the wrongful death of an innocent 3 year old boy--that is pivotal to the hurt and anger and guilt experienced by the characters in the movie. Considering the imaginary, but oh-so possible reality in that tragedy made me cherish my children anew.

Then another morning I came across a little fluffy human interest news video, of a family who has 18 children and is about to add one more. The parents seem like truly joyful, sane people, and said they firmly believe that children are a blessing. One of their oldest children is a young man who is himself expecting his first child with his wife, and when the interviewer asked him something about how he felt about his wife and mom having babies within the same year, he managed to get in a good word about God's provision and wisdom. (he did it by slipping the God talk into the middle of his answer to the interviewer and not the end, where it could be edited out later--take that, godless corporate censors!)

And then just a little later the same day, I finally went to a blog that my friend Susan had told me about, of another God-loving mom who has 13 children: http://weloveyoujoel.blogspot.com/. (If it sounds like I have been online a lot, that is my activity of choice while nursing--E is too old to wave books in front of, and laying down just makes me want to nap, badly ; ) Scrolling down a few entries in this blog, I came upon this:

"For such is kingdom of heaven"......there are so many entering there even daily...little children. Please pray for this very young couple/family, they have two year old twins boy/girl and the Lord took them to his heaven at the end of July. A terrible drowning accident. So today if you find yourself complaining, stumbling over toys, murmering of all they did not do.....remember this mother whose house is quiet, who would long for all that we sometimes complain about.

That is exactly the thing that God seems to be pounding into my heart this week. That we MUST enjoy every minute with our children--that we never know when things will change, when life will seem to veer off course in a disasterous way and we are left reeling from absence of a loved one, of rightness, of what we thought would always be "normalacy." These days, with my children home will not be forever. If I am fortunate, they will last as long as my children are little. The hard things are only going to get easier--once E can use the potty by himself and no more cloth diapers hanging on the line, once the girls can all read and do schoolwork more independently, once they are old enough to do things for themselves like their own ponytails and pouring of milk from the full gallon jug, once they are old enough to help me around the house even more than they are already starting to do. There will of course be new hard things at every different age, but I won't even begin to think about those now--as the Scripture says, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Amen! But the point is just to focus on today, and make the most of today. Love as fully as I can today. Appreciate each of my children today, and let them know it. Use my hands in the service of love, as a gift to Christ, for who knows how long I will be able to do so.

See, lots more cliches--lots more bits of Truth.

To finally drive these ideas home, just now as I sat down to nurse (I have been composing this post over the course of several days--lots of nursing and browsing in between!) and saw a news article about the trial for the kidnapper/killer of a young woman (I missed hearing about it when it happened). The article gave a poignant description of the woman through the eyes of her husband and father, but the details that really made me heart sick were these: that she was the mother of two small boys, one she was nursing and one she was pottytraining. She was doing these necessary, loving things for her little ones, and was taken from her home despite it. She probably went with her kidnapper so that he would not hurt her little ones. Motherhood is no protection from cruelty and unfairness--it just makes them all the more painful, sacrilegious.

Bad things are going to happen in life. If I am fortunate, I will be able to rear my children to adulthood. But maybe I won't. Maybe we will have the luxury of homeschooling for as long as it is working for our family. But maybe we won't. Maybe we will be in this dinky house we love for years to come, always managing by the grace of God to make it work. Maybe we won't.

And so, this week, I see the solution for my heart-issue with being exasperated so quickly with my house, my husband, my children, my work. I wrote earlier about my almost continual but completely sinful desire to escape from my daily life--and wondered how I could change my way of thinking. It is this: the opposite of escape is immersion. Attempting to flee from life is impossible and, as a mom, can only lead to all manner of chaos and atrophy and futility and despair. I have known this in my mind, but had a hard time connecting it to my heart. Now I see the flipped, positive side of the same coin--not just accepting, but embracing the toil and tears and frustration and monotony and living, loving, *being* with my whole self in that moment; this is where I will find peace. Purpose. The desire to escape is a lie that some evil minion uses to temp me away from the reality, the Truth of my own life. Because, really, where would I go? With whom? Wouldn't I choose this place, these people? Yes, actually. (Just neater. And cleaner. And without the fussing. ; ) And what would I do once I escaped? Have all the time I want to focus on no one but myself. And I will get to do that someday, most likely, when the kids are all grown and gone. And when that moment comes and I find myself yearning for the olden days when the kids were sprawled around the house coloring and dancing and reading and playing and talking my ear off--that is when Satan will have a big laugh at my expense. Or that moment could come sooner, in a more unnatural, shocking way, if I lost any of my children or my husband. I don't want to regret how I lived and loved.

A song is suddenly coming to mind, "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones:

I was alive and I waited, waited

I was alive and I waited for this

Right here, right now

There is no other place I want to be

And how even more appropriate to remember that the song came out when the Berlin wall was being torn down--Lord, please tear down in me whatever walls I have been building up between my inner self and my family, my domestic life. They don't protect some sacred inner self from loss of identity through motherhood--they chain me to my own selfish desires, which will always, only lead me to a wasteland of parched, barren heartlessness. I am at my end nothing but dust, and it chokes in my throat. I am done serving me; please help me serve You and love You, by serving those whom You love, and have given me to love.

(The cool photos were taken a year ago, by the talented Willow)

Home Again, Home Again. . . Again

Weeks ago I meant to post and let you all know that we were getting ready to bookend our summer with another roadtrip--this time out to CO for the wedding of D's sister Nicole to her Indian love, Sumeet! We took 2 weeks for the trip, and it was a lot of fun, but over so quickly!

Now we are back home, and the life is quickly setting back in--crashing in, actually.

a) illness. . .
Before the wedding, some of the Indian relations were getting sick, including the groom, who had a mysterious fever for several days but was, thanks for God, fine for the wedding day. After the wedding, various members of the US side of the family started to get sick--no fever, just violent hurling for a night and soreness and lack of appetite for several days after. I got it Mon of last week while we were still in Colorado Springs, staying with my dear friend Susan and her wonderful husband Luke and their delightful girls. D got it this past Sat night, while we were in Chico at his parent's house, where we went after CO to participate in a wedding open house his parents were hosting for all the local friends and church members who have known and supported Nicole in her non-profit work in India. With D sick, we ended up just coming home a few hours earlier and missing the party--but it was the right thing to do, and we enjoyed being in our own beds Sun night. And then last night B got it, poor little yellow-faced girl. (My kids are absolutely adorable when they are sick--they are sweet and quiet and big-eyed and sleep a lot.)

Please pray baby E does not get it!

b) our poor old dog. . .
When we left on our first road trip, we took our dog Macey up to stay with D's parents in Chico (what I call the pampered poochie palace) and ended up leaving her there until after this second road trip, since that just made the most sense. I blogged earlier about the mischief our very tough, rough and tumble dog caused on the way up in June, attacking a little helpless, naked dog that was too fascinating not to try gumming. She did not hurt the dog, but freaked it out so much it had to go on doggie valium for a month.

Fast forward two months: right before D's parents were going to head out for CO for the wedding festivities a couple weeks back, they noticed Macey was not eating much and was not her usual hearty self. So they took her to the vet and the diagnosis was that she was recovering from internal bleeding, but after several vet visits and tests, they could not tell what had caused the bleeding. And since Macey seemed to be eating again and recovering, D's parents left her with their other dog in the care of a neighbor while they (and we) were in CO. But they came back to Chico to find her not at all well, and even called us to warn us about her condition before we saw her. I am glad they did, because once I saw her, completely skin and bones, barely able to stand and walk, laboring to breathe, I realized our dog was dying.

We brought her home with us on Sun night, and I am pleased that she seems to be reviving a little! She has eaten a little (I gave her organic babyfood I had on hand, a turkey dinner someone gave me that I was not planning on giving E) and has even barked at people twice. Since we still don't know what was wrong, we don't know what is going to happen next, but we will give her lots of loving and hope she either improves or doesn't but does not linger long in this state.

c) the catalogue of abominations grows. . .
nothing like coming home to find a gummy red and green puddle dripping from the top of my open shelving in the kitchen to each shelf below and then to the floor. The culprit: old Tootsie Pop lolipops that had absorbed so much moisture they had reverted to technicolor liquid sugar, leaking out of their wrappers, through the wicker basket that holds misc. candy up there on the highest shelf, and on their slow, gravity-driven way. mmmmm.

What surprise will I find next?

d) the rebound behaviour has begun. . .
The girls have been pretty awful--they actually started the poor behavior a few days before the end of the trip. I guess they are finally road-tripped out. Even baby E is crabby and difficult. So this is going to be a GREAT week!

Actually, sarcasm aside, I hope it will be a good week. I want to enjoy the good moments. I want to be busy and efficient but put the kids and their emotional needs first. I want to enjoy my little house even in its all-over-again mess. I want to be a good parent, patient and firm and gentle. "Let your gentleness be evident to all--the LORD is near!" I want to rejoice in each morning and be thankful all day.

The beautiful sun really helped with my heart today! Thank you, God!

Wedding and roadtrip photos and highlights to follow!