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."