This Punkie Life

Lately

2010-09-28T18:39:00.000-04:00

Been away WAY too long ... can I get back into this?

2010-09-17T13:49:00.000-04:00

I can't even believe how long it's been since I felt underwhelmed enough to pause and write things down. It's crazy. Occasionally, Rhett and I have mentioned things happening in our lives on Facebook, so I'll paste a few updates below from that source below.

In big changes, since I last blogged (or at least, in any meaningful way, We've moved to Siler City, NC. We bought a big historic home for a tremendous price - because the economy here is awful. We've both kept working at Carolina Outreach, until I resigned about a month ago. I am starting up a private practice now. Our sweet Gomer died too young, and Rexie died at age 12; and Dinah wouldn't stop peeing on everything, so she was banished to the outdoors. I have FINALLY finished law school, but still don't see law playing into my livelihood. We shall see.

9/12/10
I shot a little video of Daniel reading to himself on the way back from a trip to see his paternal grandparents in Bishopville, SC. . My dad posted it on FB, and I will paste the responses, but not their writers, unless I know them and know they would consent:
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Genius is hereditary, so this comes as no surprise to me. He already has better comprehension that most politicians.
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Two books at a time...good pattern of behavior!! :D Potential!
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What a cute little guy - and smart, too!
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Cousin Linda: Of course he is a genius! He looks so much like Em when she was little. Mandi's newest accomplishment is giving "high fives".
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My daughter read Moby Dick while in Kindergarten. Looks like your grandson is headed in that direction...
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Me: The two books at a time thing is definitely inherited from his grandpa. You have been doing that forever.
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My Dad: A long time but not forever. Daniel-sahn is starting much earlier than I did. I told Daniel-sahn's bishop today about how he told his mother to "Breath in. Breathe out" after urinating on her feet. He was so amused I went on to descibe the processions with the cross while singing knick knack paddy whack.

9/16/10
This morning, before breakfast, naked (pre-potty training strategy) Daniel PEED ALL OVER MY BARE FEET!!!!!! And when he got finished laughing and laughing and laughing (see photo), he looked at me with a perfectly straight face and said "Breath in; Breathe out, Mama."

Feedback on that post went ....
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Lettie: oh. my. goodness. i love him!!! not so much the pee thing..
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Charlotte: haha you have taught him so well!! except for the peeing part. his teachers need to GET ON THAT!
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Stephanie: Maybe you should sleep-in again??
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Michael: Yeah I think you should go back to sleeping until noon.
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My Dad: They used to say children were great zen teachers. I was not so sure, but I probably was not a good zen student. Daniel definitely sounds like one of the early masters of the Tibetan Kagyu lineage. Naropa would have peed on his student's feet, laughed, and told him to breathe in, breathe out.
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Me: I was an okay zen student, I think. I took his picture and savored the moment, warm and wet as it was.
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My Cousin Amy: How can you be mad when your child tells you to breathe in, breathe out? That's great! I need more people in my life reminding me to do that!
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Me: Spending a lot of "naked time" is theoretically supposed to help most toward potty training, so as shocked as I was, anger would have been completely out of line.
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My Dad: Today I told Daniel-san's bishop (Curry) about his Breathe in. Breathe out to a recently peed on mom. He was so amused I had to tell him about the processions with the cross while singing knick knack paddy whack.
#
Me: D routinely talks to crosses now. Like, all the time. And he has his very own special language for the cross. (When speaking to us humans, it's usually English or Spanish). He bathes with the cross and sleeps with the cross; occasionally accidentally clobbers me or Rhett with the cross. (He has several, the one you gave him is his favorite). When driving home, he asks "Go see cross?" He's your grandson in a beyond obvious way.

Today (9/17/10)
I hired a housekeeper/cook on grounds of having absolutely no domestic skills; and she came today. She's great, she's nice, and she speaks almost no English. So, I bumble around in Spanish, and she's timidly trying out English. Today, she asked me if the clothes on the floor were nasty. How to reply...? But, she's still working, and I love how clean the house already is, and dinner is starting to smell fantastic!

Daniel's vocabulary

2010-09-14T18:33:00.000-04:00

1. mama
2. papa
3. suzie
4. sing
5. song
6. one
7. two
8. three
9. four
10. five
11. six
12. seven
13. eight
14. nine
15. ten
16. eleven
17. twelve
18. forty
19. breathe
20. in
21. out
22. excuse
23. me
24. you
25. no
26. mine
27. please
28. play
29. again
30. please
31. grandma
32. laurie
33. GB
34. Cousin
35. Katie
36. Scott
37. Grandpa
38. snuggle
39. puppy
40. Dinah
41. cat
42. a
43. b
44. c
45. d
46. e
47. f
48. g
49. h
50. i
51. j
52. k
53. l
54. m
55. n
56. o
57. p
58. q
59. r
60. s
61. t
62. u
63. v
64. w
65. x
66. y
67. z
68. embarrassing
69. apple
70. grape
71. banana
72. hog
73. rock
74. shimmy
75. sippy
76. cup
77. pizza
78. cookie
79. ice-cream
80. piece
81. of
82. cake
83. turtle
84. Tortuga
85. duck
86. some
87. more
88. milk
89. juice
90. glasses
91. sid
92. very
93. hot
94. cool
95. cold
96. tomas
97. luisa
98. ethan
99. are
100. pick
101. up
102. down
103. arriba
104. abajo
105. boca
106. mouth
107. teeth
108. brush
109. dientes
110. hey
111. hair
112. Daniel
113. pelo
114. cabeza
115. head
116. lengua
117. manos
118. face
119. cat
120. doggie
121. perrito
122. lucy
123. Miss Faith
124. Samone
125. Samyah
126. Marley
127. Mr. Bernard
128. Rhett
129. Honey
130. Sweetie
131. bad
132. good
133. baby
134. "Oh - My - God"
135. Cross
136. b-bo (belly button)
137. happen
138. what
139. Amy
140.

Figuring out how I want to be remembered when I'm gone.

2009-05-06T11:48:00.002-04:00

The life plan template asks how I want to be remembered by various people and groups of people when I'm gone. And I'm trying to answer that. Here's my progress so far. I welcome feedback.

Rhett: I want Rhett to remember me as having adored him completely. I want him to be able to say that I never asked him to compromise anything that really meant a lot to him, and helped him to see all the things about himself that I adore. I want him to have felt supported whenever he felt vulnerable, and challenged whenever he became dissatisfied but was fearful to attempt or seek change. I want him to remember the ways I cared for him in every aspect of our relationship. I want him to remember lots and lots of shared laughter, tender moments, and times we supported each other through hardship. I want him to remember me as having been a good steward of my role as the mother of his son.

My Children: I want my children to remember that I never imposed any agenda on them for who or what they should be, other than a basic set of core morals, values, and capabilities. I want them to remember me as having consistently modeled those morals and values, even when I thought they weren’t looking. I want them to remember me as having provided them all that they needed in order to grow up and become self-sufficient adults, including plenty of room to fail. I want them to remember my presence at every event that they felt was important at the time, and at every event that they dismissed at the time but would later wish I had attended. I want them to remember that I at least tried to find ways to let them explore their interests, express their talents, and improve themselves. I want my children to remember me as having compartmentalized my own feelings about their feelings effectively, so that they had the emotional safety and freedom they needed to express their emotions freely and to know that I would love and respect them unconditionally. I want them to remember that when I made mistakes or wronged them, that I told them I was sorry and genuinely tried to grow and not to do it again. I want them to remember me as having paid attention to the culture that they were growing up in and to have made wise parenting choices based on that world, as opposed to my outdated recollections of the culture of my own youth. That doesn't mean bending to the will of the culture, necessarily; it just means that I won't pretend that my children live in a time different from their own.)

I'm taking a break from the spouse and children sections for a bit (again, I welcome feedback/ideas/insights), and am now working on how I would want my parents, colleagues, clients, and friends to remember me.

This is a useful exercise! It's really forcing me to think about the ways that my day-to-day interactions shape the whole of who I am. It's not that I'm particularly regretful about the things I say/do; it's that I think I miss a lot of opportunities to become more the person I want to be remembered as, and to create the memories I'd want to leave if I were to die tomorrow. I'll be more mindful for having done this.

Class pictures and life planning.

2009-05-06T11:30:00.003-04:00

Daniel had his class picture on Monday. How bizarre is that? He's one! I hope they don't think we're going to buy them. I can't fathom that they captured a cuter face than the one we ave so many good photos of. He was just coming back from being really sick. (His fever reached 105.3!!) Plus, he doesn't just smile for cameras (or photographers) on command. He examines them. He smiles when he's happy, laughs when he's amused or joyful, and examines when he's curious or confused. Monica, whose English is functional but not fabulous said that he was "serious, but normal" in his picture. I'm not sure what that means, exactly.

So, just as I once had an itch to make a baby, I now have an itch to start thinking about my long term career goals and the life Rhett, Daniel, and I want to build together. One tangible marker of this fact is that I am now somewhat interested in owning a home. (The concept always gave me the jitters in the past ... followed by heartburn, if I thought about it much longer than the jitters stage.) What's more, Rhett and I are thinking about settling down in ... of all places ... Siler City.

We never considered this before recently. It's schools are awful, by and large, and we didn't think of it as a place that we could likely find friends and community. But increasingly, that's changing. The historic district is downright charming; and the houses are remarkably affordable compared to anything we could even contemplate around here. We spend lots of time there anyway, since that's where most of our clients are, and it's close enough to Chapel Hill that we could stay connected to our same church and maintain our friendships. That is critical.

So, lest I get too tunnel-visioned, or anxious, I'm playing around with writing a life plan. I found a template on-line that I like. It starts broad and remains values-driven throughout. It starts out with the instruction to visualize one's own funeral. "When you are gone, the only thing left are the memories that you have created. What will people think about as they reflect on their relationship with you and your impact on their life?" It gets concrete further along in the process, but I'm not further along in the process.

So far, it seems like a very useful process.

By the way, click HERE to check out my dad's new blog

2009-05-01T22:15:00.000-04:00

An attempt to catch up -- few random memories and images of life these past ... err... months

2009-05-01T20:17:00.015-04:00

I know, I know. I've fallen unforgivably silent, and failed to document a million months of parenting wonderfulness and chaos.

To get some perspective, have a glance a the following before and after. (By this, I mean "before" and "after" - aka since - my recommitment to documenting our memories). Note the relationship between the purple "Bumbo seat and the child in/on/beside) it.

Before and
after/since .

It seems that I fell silent mid September of 2008, so this post is a pitiful attempt to catch up.

There was a fun and fabulous trip to Rhett's hometown to give our son some grandparent time. We had a nice time showing him off and around.

We auditioned a range of costumes for Daniel's first Halloween costume, including a witch outfit to celebrate
and a firefighter just because it's cute and our friends had it lying around the house. But ultimately we settled on a yoda costume, loaned by some friends from church whose kiddo, H, wore it the previous Halloween. I laughed and laughed as he crawled around getting the robe tangled under his knees. Here's a photo showing off the tooth he'd sprouted in between auditioning costumes and actually wearing it.

By far the coolest historic event in any of the lives of the Punkie Family was Inauguration Day, 2009. It snowed that day so not too many people made it to our celebration party, but Daniel was dressed up in his so, so fabulous "Yes We Can!" onsie. I've almost gotten the smashed-up carrot stains out of it and it's now hung up on the wall. It's my favorite piece of baby clothing ever. (Yes, we believe in freedom of opinion regarding political issues, but until Daniel develops an opinion, we are shamelessly attempting to indoctrinate him with ours).

Evidently I failed to photograph Christmas and my sister's wedding (oops), but there are photos out there somewhere and I might post them at some point.

On February 8 he turned one. (I'm still in shock!) We threw him a party and asked that folks bring canned goods for the Interfaith Council in lieu of gifts. He raked in quite a haul and got to make his first charitable contribution the next day at church. (Thanks everyone!!!) A few folks also brought him more traditional birthday gifts, including this extraordinary stuffed elephant made by Kerry, whose talents are unnumbered. Isn't it fantastic!?!? I love it almost as much as Daniel does!

Upon becoming "one" Daniel became eligible to start attending Pasitos Felices, a small pre-school in Pittsboro where a team of gentle, loving, well-educated teachers/caregivers speak exclusively in Spanish all
day. The one-year-old class's teacher, Monica, is so wonderful!! She is so kind and creative. Daniel loves her, even if he does still cry a little when his papi drops him off in the mornings. For any local folks wanting more info you can see the phone number on the sign in the photo below.

Rhett and I are really happy in our work. I've found myself working mostly in Siler City, with some Randolph County and a couple of Pittsboro clients. Rhett is more spread out - he drives a lot. Below is a photo that one of my 4 year old clients took of me during an art therapy session. It really does constitute progress that she got a portion of my face in this shot, trust me.

Here's a smattering of images I've snapped based on the fact that I had my camera nearby and my kid was present.

This is what happens when your child picks up $8 worth of brie and you say "it's okay, he doesn't know it's food."

Here's Easter Sunday

And here's my Girl Scout Promise to do a better job of keeping up from now on.

Poor, sick boy

2009-05-01T17:00:00.002-04:00

2009-04-07T23:15:00.003-04:00

County Social Worker Interview with Lisa Fischbeck

2008-09-25T20:31:00.003-04:00

Quote from County Social Worker Interview with Lisa Fischbeck, Priest of the Episcopal Church of the Advocate

Last year, during our visioning process, the Advocate was given a quote from the Sufi poet Rumi, 'the people are going back and forth across the door step where the two doors meet, the door is wide and open, don't go back to sleep.'

That is such a vision for me of the church as that portal between the secular world and the sacred world, the world that is engaging in life and sometimes frantic and hectic, and the world that is calling us to be in touch with God and our deeper selves, and that is calling us to centered and calm...The church is that portal between those two world."

The County Social Worker is FINALLY online. Please check it out!!!!!

2008-09-23T07:38:00.003-04:00

I've tried to post this link several times and it's been being annoying. But this should finally work.
http://www.countysocialworker.blogspot.com/

I've finally decided to "out" us, because I have no reason to expect web-stalkers and it's not like I'm going to post our home address or anything. Besides, PP starts out his new webcast/online TV show by saying "My name is Rhett Brown." So, there you go. We're public and his webcast/tv show is awesome. I'm really stunned at how good he is. Check it out. (And post comments. He loves comments!!)

Hugs,
PM --> Emilie

Change is in the air (apartment, car, office, etc.)

2008-09-10T10:26:00.014-04:00

It seems like years since I’ve posted anything substantive. So, I’ll try to catch us up, but forgive the gaps and missing details.

We’re almost settled into our new home. PP is ready to tear his hair out because, as he was saying every day since the move until Sunday, “Everything keeps moving!” That’s how I settle into a new space. I move things around – furniture, non-furniture. I keep moving things until they are in a place where they make sense. Sometimes I’ll get too exasperated with whatever it is, and then I get rid of it. I might also repurpose it. That could mean using it in a different way as it already is, or a new coat of paint, or a power saw. You really never know. So you can understand his frustration. But Sunday we agreed that I get to putter and move things around for another two weeks, then things will be still (wherever, and whatever they are). So, I now have 11 more days, and counting.

We’ve shifted from chaotic business to being a little less busy, but still living with that energy of changes and shifts, adjustments, transitions. You know… So, it’s an effort for me these days to take deeper breaths, and slower breaths, and consciously assert permission to “just be” for a moment.

PK is rolling over all the time. Getting him to sleep or getting him to stay asleep is largely about convincing him to stop rolling around and be still. He sleeps on his stomach now, which the whole internet condemns, but our pediatrician advises us to tolerate. As he points out, the baby is going to sleep on whatever side he wants to now. He gets to decide. We’re doing well to confine him to the sleeping space. And that’s all true even now, before he crawls.

I say “before he crawls” as if that weren’t a serious likelihood at any moment. He’s trying hard, and even achieved backward mobility for milliseconds at a time. Forward movement is imminent.

People talk about babies achieving mobility as if it’s such a fabulous thing. Okay, sure, it’s pretty critical for healthy development and well-being; however, it’s also much harder! Yes, I look forward to my little giant being able to walk around outside of my arms (and my aching back and neck) because he is heavy. But mobile kids are just plain harder. It’s scary to see them running around on those unsure little legs. They call them “toddlers” for a reason. They fall, they get hurt, they stick their fingers in dangerous places and put dangerous things in their mouths. (Warning: Gross sentence to follow.) Last night, at a client’s house, I saw a toddler crawl across a living room at lightning speed and with almost no warning nearly got a cockroach in his mouth. There aren’t any cockroaches in our home (that we know of), but we’re going to have to be so incredibly vigilant about not putting our papers on the floor anymore, never leaving bathroom doors open or toilet seats up, etc. Our daily habits have to change – again.

PK has all-but outgrown the co-sleeper, and we do technically have a crib, but it’s not here yet. PP will have to go get it, which means borrowing a truck, also not a problem, but it’s a headache. Another transition. At this moment, PK is napping in our bed, and I’m watching like Hawkwoman to make sure he doesn’t roll out of it. Or get his face too into the sheets. Can you see how this might make me nervous?

But he’s breathing. I promise. I keep checking.

We’re also trying to get out of the habit of putting PK down to sleep with a bottle. He doesn’t have any teeth quite yet, but that, too, is imminent. And when the teeth arrive, good dental hygiene requires that they not suck to sleep. So, we’ve been using a cd I burned off of an Itunes podcast (Dr. Harry Henshaw) with relaxing music to help him make the transition into sleep. Last night and today I’ve used the same cd, and massage with sesame oil. I’m hoping he will associate the smell of the oil and the massage with the music, and therefore, with sleep. At first he seems frustrated because he still associates that cd with food, but he isn’t fussy for long before he decides to relax into sleep. He really is a good sleeper. We’ve been very lucky in that regard.

While we’re in the mood for change (not), it’s also time to start introducing solid foods. Here are a couple of snapshots of our efforts.

We ultimately figured out it's easier to clean up a nearly-naked baby.

School is back in session for all of PP’s and my clients, which makes it a little harder for us to schedule all our various appointments in a way that allows us to avoid using non-us childcare. But PP and I are lucky to have a trusted friend, A, who comes on Fridays after she finishes her indoctrination in corporate values (here, by “corporate values,” I mean the values of large groups of usually white men who cloak their malice in a legal entity, upon which our genius government has bestowed its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members. Swell). It’s otherwise known as “business associations” at the law school. I took it last year. Painful. The PunkieKid loves her. She loves him. It’s fabulous. PP and I can leave for appointments or steep ourselves in paperwork.

And then, there’s this little troublemaker.

No, he’s not staying. PP calls him Gomer. I can never remember that, so I variously call him “Homer,” “Gonzo,” and “Mo.” During the storm last week, our friend G came over to drop off a tripod, and as she was leaving she heard a pitiful mewing. He looks like he’s 8-10 weeks old, not neutered, and was starving. He’s sweet, but our cat, Dinah hates him. And he isn’t really all that fond of our dog, Rex. Fortunately, G’s sister just moved back from Paris, and she’s adopting Gomer. But she has to adopt a place to live first. Gomer’s here until then. I hope she gets settled in soon.

Speaking of Rex, he tried to die again the other day. It’s a long, painful, scary, miserable story. (We really, really love him) and I won’t go into it with all the details. But suffice it to say that bottle nipples do, in fact, plug dogs up. Literally. And he nearly died. He still tries to get to the baby bottles. The only upside to his flirtation with the other side is that he was actually not a complete spazz during our houseparty for the Obama acceptance speech. We had a total of about 22 people here (in our still not-quite-moved-into townhome). Rexie would have been a complete menace - a loving, licking, begging menace - but a menace nonetheless.

Instead, this was he. See the shaved down part for his catheter line? Poor Rexieboy!

That might be it for now. It might not, but baby is stirring and I think I'll grab a snack before full waking takes place.

2008-08-22T21:35:00.007-04:00

The move is underway!

2008-08-06T20:33:00.004-04:00

The move is underway!

Help looking for car

2008-07-27T13:25:00.001-04:00

Hi All,
PP and I had our car totalled about 6 weeks ago, and are finally getting around to replacing it. We're looking for (1) safe, (2) reliable, (3) good gas mileage, and of course, low cost. If you have tips or know people trying to sell one, let us know.
-pm

Moving

2008-07-27T10:53:00.001-04:00

PP and I are moving to Carrboro. PK is 5.5 months old now and is increasingly becoming a little boy (as opposed to an immobile infant). Soon he will be crawling, then walking, then running, and our little place is just too small. It has served us well and there are things about it we will miss (close proximity to grocery stores, wooded scenery), but we are excited about our new place too. The new place will almost double the square footage we have now and it will allow PK to have his own room, as well as allowing me to stretch out my crafting wings without imposing on the babyproofedness of our new abode.

As we prepare to make this transition, we welcome your prayers, your muscles, and any moving boxes you may have to spare. We’re also going to be painting our current place back to its original color, so anyone who wants to burn some calories (approx. 200/hr. for a 140lb woman, more for guys) or hang out with a baby while we paint, come right on over!

Preparation for the move has taken over a bit, so I’m getting a little behind on my 30-in-30 project. But have no fear. It will happen! Just, maybe late :-)

Memo to my beloved son

2008-07-23T14:39:00.000-04:00

To: PunkieKid
From: PunkieMommie
Re: Mama's Nose

Mama's nose is not a button. I know this may be hard to believe, and maybe also difficult to hear. But Mama's nose is not a button. Really, it's not.

More ideas for repurposing that drawer

2008-07-20T09:03:00.005-04:00

I am sorry to say that I don't have the original websites that I found most of these ideas on. But I ran a google image search for Drawer and Repurposed and most of these appeared that way. Anyway, it turns out I have several of these drawers to repurpose, and I've found some very exciting ideas to play with. Here are several of them. Enjoy!

The future of the desk drawer.

2008-07-15T20:34:00.005-04:00

You may remember this from yesterday. Yesterday it was red. I told you I was considering doing something shelf/art like with it.

I found a couple of options that I might emulate - the style, not the design.

I hung it up in the bathroom, where I think it might be moderately useful, to hang out while I try to decide on something (either a direction or a next step).

Ongoing project with bottoms of soda bottles... Can I have yours?

2008-07-15T20:26:00.005-04:00

In shock and awe, I've heard that some people don't understand what it is that I am going to do with all these bottoms of soda bottles.

Want to see?

Revising the rules

2008-07-14T20:47:00.016-04:00

Did I say I’d create one thing per day? I must have forgotten who I am. I don’t work like that. Telling me to do something – start to finish in one day – is like telling a blender to change the channel. So, let's revise. I will make 30-in-30, but who knows how many I'll have going
at any given time, or how many I'll finish on a given day. I'll keep you updated though; so here's a status report.

I have many things in the works. For starters, I found some fun playthings at the local dump. There's a shed where people drop things off for anyone who wants it. Often these things are in awful shape and not worth much as they are, but fun for upcycling. So, this lamp has seen better days, but I think it has it's best days ahead of it.
It now looks like this, but I'm not sure what the next step is to take with it. We'll see. Inspiration will strike.

Likewise, checkout this lamp, which may or may not be in for its highest glory. which now looks like this, and who knows what it will look like when it's finished. Ideas? I welcome them. I'm not sure where I'm going with this next.

Turning to the mega-mundane, I've been playing with ideas for how to create designated space for some of the families PP and I serve. There are a number of reasons for this, but room dividers can be really helpful for families with too many family members in too few rooms. So, my hot glue gun and I have been pacing around for things to recycle into room dividers. Here are two projects we've started so far.

There's also a simple wooden wall hook that I've started decoupaging with some leftover rice paper. I haven't figured out what design to put on it though. That's why it's been sitting around for a week. The green with glitter is just a background.

Also in the realm of decorative organizing, I've been playing with the idea of making some kind of shelf/art thing out of this old desk drawer. . I put a wall hanging wire on the back and now it's suspended from my wall waiting for its next cue. I'm not sure what that will be yet.

Then there's this jewelry organizer I found that must once have been from Bath and Body Works. I like it as a jewelry organizer, but I don't like the way it looks. It also needed a little repair work, but I did that earlier today. So we'll see where this one goes next. It's hanging on the wall with that desk drawer now. It awaits its vision.

I'm hoping to do something to salvage this wine glass, which lost its stem to the dishwasher several weeks ago. We have lost unnumbered wine glasses this way, and I think they're still perfectly good, just not ready for use in this state. I'm looking for some kind of super cool base that I can make to substitute for the stem. That said, I've been thinking a lot about making a chandelier that would diffuse light but would also display/dry wineglasses with a traditional stem. I've seen some cool examples of that; here's one of my favorites.

As I've said, much of crafting is about the process for me. I delight in learning new skills. One of the skills I've been fascinated by lately has been by this guy who does amazing stuff to raw eggs with a dremel tool. (Have I mentioned that I love the dremel tool?)
. I couldn't resist trying, but it's ugly stuff so far.
.

On the low-tech and nearing completion end, we have my in-progress drinking straw rainbow lampshade. It's in process but maybe you can see the direction I'm headed.

Lastly, I've got a wooden pallet and a really beat up side(??) table outside that I've been covering in blue-green paint that I found at the giveaway pile. We'll see where those go too. Who knows :-)

Piece #1 - bottle for B&S

2008-07-13T12:46:00.005-04:00

Last night we went to a Durham Bulls game with our dear friends, B&S. PP was honored to perform their wedding many months ago, and we are so going to miss them when they move to Boston at the end of the summer. Anyway, they seemed like the perfect recipients of the first of my 30-in-30 projects.

Here, you can see my child making out with it.

This project allowed me to practice a few of the new skills I’ve learned of late, and to develop one new skill. This is a glass riesling bottle that I salvaged from our neighbor’s recycling (with permission). I made the heart out of casting resin and red glitter, then drilled holes through the front and back sides of the bottle using my dremel tool (that was my new skill), drilled a hole through the top of the resin heart (also using the dremel) and strung the heart onto the bottle with floral wire. I wound the wire around the spout of the bottle so that they can either hang it or set it out by itself. I didn’t think of this until it was too late, but I think it would look cool with a strand of white Christmas tree lights in it; S also came up with the idea of putting some sand in the bottom. I love that idea too!

On a side note, if there weren’t a commandment (one of the big 10) against worshipping idols, I might bow down to the dremel tool. I so love my dremel tool!

Thirty pieces in thirty days

2008-07-11T10:32:00.002-04:00

I had a really cool experience a few weeks ago right after I finished my income tax exam. My friend, EHLL, came over to celebrate the semester’s end and happened upon a recent project of mine. It was a rusted old tray that I found at the dump where PP and I take our trash and recycling. I had primed it with rust-removing primer, painted it, and decoupaged it with a textured collage. It turned out right nicely for one of my projects, and I was really stunned to find out that EHLL thought it really was art. I usually get rid of the stuff I make once I’m done making it, because the point is to make it, not to have it. So, she liked it and I gave it to her. She even asked me to sign it. That was sweet, and although I’m sure it doesn’t really rise to the level of “art,” I have to admit there have been some projects lately that really turned out well.

e.g.,

What’s more, I’m getting some good feedback at work about the projects I’m making with recycled/unused/found objects that can have helpful implications for our clients. So, here we go. I’m giving myself a challenge. Thirty pieces in thirty days. For the next thirty days, I will create one piece of something somewhat useful out of found/recycled/unused stuff. I will buy only minimal equipment and supplies, and I will post the projects here (with tutorials, to the best of my ability). So today is day one. We’ll see what I make today! This should be fun.

Controversial Parenting Practices for the Happiest Baby Ever!!

2008-07-08T08:18:00.008-04:00

There is no shortage of controversy over parenting practices, even in infancy. To circumcise or not, to breastfeed or formula feed, to Ferberize or … uh, … not. In toddlerhood and beyond it gets even harder. I have lots of opinions about all of these things. If you want to know, ask. In the meantime, let’s talk about swaddling. Evidently there is controversy about swaddling. I didn’t know that; probably because I don’t know many masochists. Apparently most parents stop swaddling after a couple of months. Well, I missed that memo and we've been gleefully swaddling for exactly 5 months now. (Can you believe PK is already 5 months old??!!?). I will have to read more about when/why people stop swaddling. I grew up in a Nez Perce cradle board, so that was normal for me. But I need to find out what concerns i might not yet know about.

Further, there is great range in swaddling methods, which my husband and mother don’t think I should tell you about. There’s the traditional swaddling method. Yeah, right. That swaddler never met my kid. Then there are commercial swaddlers. These are great! But at 15 bucks a pop, and a kid growing so fast I think he’s been sprayed with fertilizer, there are only so many of these around. Oh yeah, and said rapidly-growing-baby pee-soaks the swaddler every night.

And then there’s the tape method. We’re not the only ones who’ve thought of this. Okay, fine. I thought of it, but in the wee hours of the morning, PP was converted. Admit it; you’ve considered it too. See this, and this, and this if you think we’re alone. But no one wants to admit to actually doing it. Well, there's a drought on, dammit, and we're trying not to wash our three swaddlers every night, so what to do? We do wrap the tape around the blanket part of the fabric being used to swaddle him. Cute? Not really. Classy? Certainly not. But oh, the righteous, righteous, righteousness of these sleepless souls. They may be better parents than I am, but I get better sleep.

See my sweet and happy swaddled baby?

2008-07-03T08:02:00.000-04:00

As I write this, I have just crawled back into bed with my laptop. It’s not quite 8am and I’ve been lying awake for nearly two hours from a headache to awful to sleep through, but well managed with Sudafed, and now I’m so grateful to have spent this time awake and enjoying the sounds of the breaths of the two most wonderful men in the world. The bigger of the two of them is facing away from me; the littler of the two is swaddled and laying inches away with his sweet face slightly tilted my direction. I am watching little sleep grins cross his face even as I type. People tell you that you can’t ever get these moments back, and to enjoy it now; and I feel the fleetingness as I lay here and sense each moment whizzing by me. PK is 20lbs now. That’s twice his already massive birth weight. He has outgrown almost every piece of clothing that we had for him at birth, and I feel all too intensely how near these irretrievable moments are to over.

2008-06-29T10:29:00.000-04:00

Hello All,
I’m sorry for the long silence on my side of the blogging publication lately. I hoped you enjoyed PP’s sermon in my absence. I’m probably biased, but I really thought it was very good. Anyway, there’s been no shortage of happenings in our lives lately; and I’ve even had enough time to write about it all, but I’ve needed to spend some time in my head and heart before I started processing things through my fingers and onto the screen.

Yesterday was a really wonderful day. Weirdbird and L were both ordained to the transitional deaconate. L was ordained in Washington (state, not D.C.) and WB was ordained at St. Lukes, Durham. I was able to be at WB’s ordination in body, as well as in spirit, but my thoughts and prayers were very much with L also.

At WB’s ordination I served as cantor/litanist. That means I sang. I used to sing a lot – even majored in singing in college, but I found that (for me, at least) singing for its own sake is a lonely, even selfish use of time. It’s not fulfilling and I could go the rest of my life without singing as a performance again. I wouldn’t miss it. But it’s really nice to be able to participate in the big events in the lives of people I particularly love and admire. It doesn’t happen often – maybe once every year or two years? I don’t keep track. But anyway, today I was honored and deeply humbled to be allowed to take part in one of the seminal events in WB’s journey into priesthood.

There’s a good bit of anxiety that comes along with singing at the important events of loved ones’ lives. I don’t sing much anymore. I don’t have a teacher; and I never, ever practice. Singing is like any other physical activity. What you don’t exercise regularly will turn into blubber and mush. That’s usually how I feel about my voice. Blubber and mush. People say very kind things to me, so maybe I don’t hear myself accurately; but I do really want to give my very best because I know how important these events are, both in their lives and in the lives of the other loved ones gathered around them.

My sister is getting married on December 27 of this year, and she wants me to sing Ave Maria – the Schubert one, not the Gounod. That’s a commonly sung piece of music, and it’s commonly butchered. It’s deceptively tough because while the range is somewhat small, the tessitura sits right in the soprano break; also, there’s a tendency to go on autopilot and either let it get ploddy, or worse, not keep the sound supported with the air it really needs. I’m particularly bad about that these days because since I’m not all that practiced, I’m a bit shy. I don’t feel confident that the sound will be pretty, so I don’t want to let it get too loud; thus, I am overly stingy with breath. Being stingy with breath is a bad thing. First it leads to ugly singing, then to passing out. Frankly, I’m more concerned about the former than the latter of those two.

I’ll be back in a little while to talk some more about the big stuff that’s been going on/has happened recently. Topics to look forward to include PK’s baptism, the status of my journeys into “art,” and the car saga. For now, I must prepare to face the day.

Many blessings,
PM

"A New Religion" Sermon Delivered on June 15, 2008 at the Episcopal Church of the Advocate

2008-06-16T12:05:00.004-04:00

In Matthew, Jesus is a complicated man. He is culturally Jewish, teaching in the synagogues. He observes the law. And yet, he has begun a new community, attracting crowds from urban and rural areas, challenging religious and government authority, but offering meaningful community to those who are "helpless and harassed, like sheep without a shepherd." Jesus is a new take on the old, claiming that a kingdom has come near, even if that kingdom looks radically different than expected.

If Matthew's Jesus is about anything, he is about giving those who search for community an experience of God that is both familiar and new at the same time. The encounter between the child Jesus and the Zorastrian wise men of Persia presents a possible foundation for Matthean evangelism through which today's gospel might be interpreted. We're not told what label to put on the wise men after their encounter with Jesus. We're not told that they abandoned Zorastrianism, after all it was their eastern religion that led them to Jesus. We're not led to believe that they became Jewish, or that they started a pre-Christian community. What we do know, is that they left praising God, and that they found in Jesus, another way to travel home.

Earlier this week, I took a trip to South Carolina, to my hometown of Bishopville. Bishopville is an impoverished rural village, about the size of Pittsboro, with a population of predominantly poor African-Americans, and working-class whites, with a dying agrarian economy, and an industrial network mortally wounded by off shoring. Lee County Central High School is a 95% African-American school. More than half of its students are on the free or reduced cost lunch program. White students attend Robert E. Lee Academy, a private school that emerged in the early 1970's. Its sole purpose is resistance to public school integration. This is my hometown.

My trip to Bishopville occurred on Tuesday, which is primary election day in South Carolina. My dad was seeking a 13^th term in the South Carolina House of Representatives. I traveled down Highway 15 to Bishopville to offer support to my mom and dad, thinking that his highly contested re-election bid may be closer than in years past. To my surprise, my dad won re-election by a 16 point landslide.

The next morning, I had breakfast with my dad and the Bishopville town elders in the local Hardeez, where anyone with any influence or power gathers to do the hard work of governing. Inevitably, as folks talked about local politics, they began a discussion of religion too.

Just as the First Council of Nicaea tackled and refuted the religious controversy of Arianism (that is, the idea, that the Son is not co-equal nor co-eternal with the Father but rather a created being with divinely inspired powers), so this Hardeez council addressed the cutting edge controversy of the day. And what might this controversy be?

The new Methodist pastor in Bishopville has a Methodist pastor wife. She will pastor the large church in Camden. She will make $100,000 a year - twice as much as he does. She won't live in the Bishopville parsonage at all, and he will split his time between the Bishopville and Camden parsonages. For reasons obvious to all of us here, this is very controversial.

It's hard to believe sometimes that my community-of-origin and my adopted home of Chapel Hill lie on the same highway. It's true. If you follow Highway 15 south from Chapel Hill, eventually the road will become Main Street Bishopville. The infrastructure of the two towns, are connected, if only slightly; and the cultures are worlds apart.

Over the years, I've struggled to make sense of my home-state. I even toyed with the idea of returning there to “make a difference” in communities like the one from which I came.

It turns out, I'm not alone.

I read a study this week called “A New Generation of Southerners: Youth Organizing in the South." It said that a growing number of young adults (and I suspect the young at heart as well) find themselves torn between the decision to live in progressive, opportunity-rich hubs like Chapel Hill, and a guilt inspired yen to redeem the rural South. We yearn for, and often work for, what this author called a "New South"—a South exorcised of its slavery, oppression, defiance, and hostility to social change. Since the late nineteenth century, politicians, business leaders, and others have used the idea of the New South to to transform the Old South—with its entrenched poverty, conservative politics, exploited labor, racial segregation, and use of faith or rather, the language of faith, to keep minds closed and hearts from loving one another.

Young people and their allies to this day struggle against this Old South legacy. But they are also heirs to a legacy of bold resistance, strong cultural identities, community bonds, and place-based allegiances.

Across America, people are beginning to organize around "youth" as a unique political identity and a foundation for participating in a broader social justice movement. The South is no exception. Yet at the very moment in which a new cadre of leaders is urgently needed, the South's dismal public education system, its limited economic opportunities, and the entrenched poverty of the Black Belt, inner cities, Appalachia, and Rio Grande region have spurred an exodus of young people, especially Blacks, out of the South in search of better opportunities.

This study speaks to the contemporary experience of young adults in the south, but I dare say may baby boomers share this path.

I can't speak for my 20 and 30 something peers here at ECOTA. But I am a part of this mass exodus from the Old South. Chapel Hill is overflowing with folks like me - in search that new south. Where our children can learn tolerance and compassion, innocent of rigid, fear-based reductions of reality. Like the Israelites ran from Egypt, people from the deeper south come here seeking the Promised Land.

As we flee the Old South Ways, it’s really not surprising that so many of us also flee what we knew of God.

Most of us are well educated, young professionals, who have exposed themselves to world travel and cross-cultural immersion.

Religion tends not to be high on the list of priorities.-at least, not the religion of our parents.

But these adults don’t practice the religion of their parents.

Gone are the days when going to church was a virtue in-and-of itself. Today, the virtue is in not being a part of a formal institution. Research indicates that association with a denomination has less meaning today than every before. The virtue is in sharing relationships that plug them into something beyond themselves.

This thesis is echoed by Father Kirk Hadaway, Director of Research for the Episcopal Church. In an article on church attendance in America, Father Hadaway said, "If it's not uplifting, interesting, provoking ... it's perfectly acceptable in American society to not go [to church] anymore". "Churches that are providing a more uplifting worship experience and community are those that are growing. And those that do it well are not typical anymore."

However, just because many Americans (young and old alike) aren't attending church doesn't mean that they don't long for meaningful spirituality and community.

In January 2007, National Public Radio correspondent Judy Woodruff shined the media spotlight on this exodus from church in her piece entitled, "Experiencing Other Faiths to Find One's Own." This story features Gillian Siple, a Davidson college senior who describes herself as "spiritual." Siple spent the past year traveling and studying in Asia and Europe, immersing herself in religions other than her own.

Amid an abundance of information about religion easily available via the Internet and television, she says, "maybe the youth of today aren't sure if the way of their parents is perhaps the way that they want to follow, and I think that's wonderful."

With a small group of students, Siple, a religion major, lived in China, Thailand and India. She meditated in monasteries and ashrams, lived and studied among Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus — not your typical study-abroad program.

She remembers living at a meditation center in Thailand, wearing the traditional garb of a yogi. "I remember waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning and taking out my mat and I can remember just thinking, 'What if my friends saw me now? Would anyone recognize me? I am so far from the person and the life that I live back at Davidson right now. There's no remnant of that life on my body right now.'"

Even her faith began to fall away. She says that when she mediated, she felt an uncommon sense of peace. She wondered: Have I gone into this too deeply? Am I still a Christian, or am I becoming something else?

But back at Davidson College, she returned to the faith she knows best: Christianity. That faith is stronger now, she says. She attends prayer and fellowship meetings and heads an interfaith group on campus. She also meditates based on the teaching she learned in Thailand.

Siple calls herself a Christian pluralist, open to the possibility of the validity of other religious traditions.

After her tour of Asia, she spent a week at the Taize monastery in France, a place that attracts young people from around the world. In a Taize service, there is chanting and reading from scripture. But there are also long moments where more than 1,000 young adults sit quietly together in silence — not being told what to do.

"You do what you feel is right for your religious practice," Siple says. "I think that is what our generation is screaming for right now. People want not to be told what they should do, but to figure it out for themselves." It could be said that Gillian, like the Zorastian kings, met Jesus in Thailand and found a new way home.

To this point, I've been guessing that Chapel Hill is largely comprised of young adults like Gillian Siple. To be on the safe side, I did some research. According to Fizber.com, of the approximately 50,000 people in Chapel Hill, 30.4% consider themselves religious. The breakdown of this 30.4% is not surprising, 22% Protestant, 7% Methodist, 8% Baptist, 6% Roman Catholic, 2% Presbyterian, 2% Episcopalian. Interestingly enough, the Jewish population was listed as 0%, which we know isn't true. So much for statistics.

The point of all this is that ECOTA lives in the middle of the New South, surrounded by a community that is 70% "non religious" with young adults who are looking for community and spirituality, but may or may not be able to call themselves Christian (at least not in the way that our parents defined the word).

So to bring this reflection to a close, I searched for a quote from Presiding Bishop SHory, hoping that she might have offered a reflection or statement on the role of the Episcopal Church in our ever changing society. I didn't find such a quote, but to my delight, I found a number of more conservative voices in the Episcopal Church who were arguing that Bishop Katherine is not, in fact, a Christian.

Now, I've met Bishop Shory, and know this not to be true. However, given the needs of young adults in Chapel Hill, this label (intended to insult) could be a complement.

Our presiding bishop is a faithful follower of Jesus, the same Jesus who challenged conventional notions of religion, and yet utilized his culture and tradition to create community inclusive of all. Our Advocate community embodies Jesus’ witness.

The Advocate lives in the richness of the Anglican tradition, yet attracts persons of all faith backgrounds including persons ordained in the Methodist, UCC and Baptist traditions. There are lay people here from Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Latter Day Saints, Quaker, non-denominational, agnostic and atheist backgrounds.

We embrace the witness of scripture and tradition, but seek dialogue with our surrounding community through “Theology on Deck.” Our roots live deep within the soil of the past, but our branches stretch out to give safe haven to those to who have been rejected or wounded by the church.

When I moved to Chapel Hill in 2004, I was in recovery from divorce and five tumultuous years of parish ministry that took me to the brink of atheism. When I first came to ECOTA, I had difficulty calling myself a Christian. Here, I met my wife, and developed friendships that restored and nurtured my faith.

Like Gillian Sible and the Zorastian kings, I met Jesus here, in all of you, and found a new way home.

There are many in Chapel Hill who desire to integrate where they’ve been with where they are going. We are a community who offers this opportunity. We are a highway that runs out of the “Old South” into the new. As we discern the future of our community, foremost in our mind should be the journey of those who may hear of us, the experience of those who think church is the last thing that they need, and the yearning of those whose background may reveal Jesus to us in ways that we cannot yet anticipate. Amen

Trying to figure out the rules

2008-06-07T13:28:00.001-04:00

Well, so it looks like the jury is in on that "incidental" television viewing thing. Nuanced perspective. I like that. I believe in nuance.

Creativity run amuck

2008-06-04T07:51:00.002-04:00

There is s*** all over my home. But it’s cool s***. At least, that’s what I think. My wonderful, patient husband just sees s*** and he’s handling it like a champ. Why is it here? Why is it cool? It’s here because I want to do stuff with it, and it’s cool because I can think of a million purposes it can serve. I’m in classes again, you know, and when I’m in the middle of a semester (or the beginning, or the end) I have to do something to keep my soul from withering up and dying. I choose unused-materials craft therapy. I have (again) become bizarrely fascinated with the hidden potential in the items that normally wind up in recycling bins or at the landfill. Flimsy cardboard boxes from the granola bars or cereal, plastic milk jugs, empty tubes from toilet paper… There’s nothing like law school to send me off to alter the destiny of a soda can.

At the moment I’m justifying all this with what I consider a completely useful purpose. The families I’m working with very often seem trapped by their beliefs that they need a different apartment/house in order to dispel the clutter, and by their thought that they must have a million store-bought gizmos and contraptions to entertain their young. By definition, these families are poor, and birthdays and Christmas’s go by with little notice, much less gobs of gifts. The parents are stir-crazy, surrounded by papers and baby gear, tossed off children’s games with missing pieces and bikes they mean to get repaired one of these days. The kids are likewise bonkers because they can’t go outside – either too many drug dealers around or too darned hot – and they have nothing to do indoors (or so they think).

So I’ve taken to teaching them how to more creatively use the resources they do have. Soda bottles, baby food jars, sticks from outside, cartons from eggs, canisters from coffee and formula, etc. I see stuffed animals waiting to be born from the piles of outgrown baby clothes and storage bins crying out from junk mail, begging to become paper maché. There’s a paper maché bookshelf being constructed on my living room floor, and three cardboard boxes are in the midst of being paper machéd together. Soon (I tell myself) the boxes and shelves will house be the things that currently have no home or no good home, and I’ll perfect my skills to teach to families. In the meantime, there’s a collection of s*** in my home and I love my patient husband.

Can I please have your lids?

2008-05-28T17:09:00.003-04:00

Hi All,
Can I please have your lids? I need soda caps, detergent lids, milk tops, etc. I'm working on my new hobby - making toys from junk. I came across Lidmen. If you're interested, there are instructions and many fabulous examples at www.lidmen.com. But most of you won't actually want to do this. I DO! I also will never get enough lids on my own. Can you please help? Check out some

Neat, huh? Can I please have your lids?

Entertaining Baby - Green and On the Cheap

2008-05-25T10:34:00.003-04:00

PK is hitting some kind of developmental milestone or growth spurt, or something. He’s waking at night more (always to eat) and he’s eating and sleeping a lot. He’s been fussy a little more than usual, which still means he’s not fussy much. I’ve been really busy, taking 2 classes at the law school, still working full time, and being Mommie, of course. Studying the tax code . . . I never thought I’d spend a summer doing that. But it’s not as painful as I thought it would be. We’ll see how I do on the exam, of course, but I think I still know what’s going on.

In my few moments of spare time, I’ve been pondering how to make baby and children’s toys using recycled materials from around the house. I am interested in this for PK’s benefit, of course, but I also have a client whose family is really stressed by their inability to entertain a 6-month-old and a 5-year-old. They don’t have many toys, and don’t have much money to get toys. I’ve also been reading a bit about Waldorf philosophy of childrearing, and it’s emphasis on handmade toys and toys made of natural materials. With all the recalls and scares about toxic plastic these days, I suspect homemade toys are probably safer. It just seems to me that it must be possible to entertain little folks with recycled stuff. I’m testing that with my own kid and googling quite a bit on the topic.

I’ve been hoarding plastic bottles, boxes from various things, and. I haven’t figured out exactly what I’m going to do with all these, but I’ve started on a few little projects. For instance, I picked up a couple of dowels and am trying to make some version of this:

I’ve started making blocks out of formula cans, paper towel and toilet tissue tubes, and jello, rice, and tea boxes. Obviously, PK doesn’t play with blocks yet, but I think this is a good project to teach to some of my low-income families. I’m also considering making this cardboard playhouse and using some adaptation of this project to make toyboxes. I’ve been looking for some ways to teach this mom to nurture her child’s growing interest in letters and reading. This project seems like one way that she might do that now, and that I might do this for PK later. If I had a source to get lumber scraps, I’d be all excited about making and painting these wooden blocks.

This is mostly a fun diversion, for now, since PK isn’t too into his toys yet and this mom isn’t on board for crafting much. I really should be giving the time to my tax code. But I’d really like to get her on board with crafting, and I really enjoy learning more about low-cost, green parenting.

Join Us! PotatoPalooza!!!

2008-05-25T09:23:00.001-04:00

The Potato Gun Project is hosting a benefit Concert Sat 5/31/08 at 8pm at the Broadstreet Café in Durham.

All ages are welcome, teens are $3 adults $5.

The profits will go to the Independent Living Program at Carolina Outreach!

We would love to see you there. Please consider forwarding this to whomever you think my enjoy a show and help a great cause at the same time. Here are the acts

- 8pm Mike Copeland aka emcee Chill: Comedy (also the voice of UNC Men’s Baseball and Women’s Basketball)
- 8:30pm Lodge McCammon: Solo Acoustic
- 9:30pm Potato Gun Project http://www.myspace.com/potatogunproject
- 10:30pm Stratocruiser http://www.myspace.com/stratocruiser
- 11:30pm TRIPP http://www.myspace.com/trippband

Seriously... What were these people thinking?

2008-05-25T09:15:00.001-04:00

Doing our best

2008-05-19T18:11:00.002-04:00

PP and I were raised in the U.S. – a country founded on the squashing of other cultures. Neither one of us speaks any other language fluently, and we wish we were not the majority in this fact. Alas, a resolution passed by the U.S. Senate in 2005 admitted that only 9.3% of Americans speak both English and another language fluently. That is pretty sad, especially considering that 52.7% of Europeans speak both their own country’s language and another. Usually, surprise-surprise, that second language is English. It’s embarrassing that so many other countries effectively teach multiple languages to their children, and that nothing other than sheer arrogance seems to explain our lack of interest in raising multi-lingual children in the U.S.

From my travels in Japan and Western Europe, I have learned that most Europeans and Asians are taught to speak English. Whether they speak fluently or just functionally, they clearly recognize the importance of interacting with the world outside of their own nation’s borders. What about us? Alas, I’m ashamed to admit that I can’t even speak easily with many of the people who live inside the U.S. borders. The reason is that while average Asians and Europeans are taught English in schools, many people who come to the United States are here because in their native countries, there were no opportunites for education, no jobs, no clean water, or no medical care. Many immigrants were victimized or endangered before they came to the United States, and many more were victimized or endangered en route to this country. These are the people with whom I, as a social worker, need to be able to work. But they don’t speak English, and I don’t speak any language that these immigrants likely speak. I have colleagues at Carolina Outreach with whom I would be better able to communicate if I spoke Spanish; I have numerous clients with whom I work but for whom I cannot advocate effectively or provide adequate therapeutic services because I do not speak Spanish. To be fully competent in the social work profession, I would say it is nearly essential to have a better-than-conversational level of Spanish proficiency.

It isn’t just social workers, either. Business people need to be multi-lingual as well. According to Financial Executive International, “Nearly 85 percent of recruiters in Europe, 88 percent of recruiters in Asia and 95 percent of recruiters in Latin America either "strongly agreed" or "somewhat agreed" that being at least bilingual is critical to succeed in today's business environment. Recruiters everywhere agreed that in 10 years, it will be "more important than today" for executives to be at least bilingual (Europe, 74 percent; Asia, 72 percent; Latin America, 79 percent; North America, 66 percent). They also reported there is a "significant competitive advantage" for executives who are multilingual (speak more than two languages fluently)--Europe, 66 percent; Asia, 52 percent; Latin America, 79 percent; North America, 49 percent.” According to that same article, only 34% of recruiters in North America think that it’s even “somewhat” important to speak more languages than English. I think that’s tragic. Where do we get off thinking that everyone who wants to play must come to our table to do it? Why do we think that it’s “our way or the highway.” The fact that this is empircally true is not an excuse. It’s only empirically true because we’re stubborn and we’ve been bullying other countries with our wealth and military. That’s not a character I want to assume for myself as an American, and I really don’t want to do that to my son. I don’t want to do that to the world as I raise my son.

Kids can learn languages more easily during early childhood, and in fact, can even learn several languages at a time. The exact age that this changes is in question, but most people think it’s ideal to teach additional languages before 5, and agree that until about age 7, kids will absorb whatever they hear, in whatever language. So why so many monolingual kids? Easy. Monolingual parents. Ahh! I don’t want to limit my son’s ability to communicate with people of diverse backgrounds because of my own ignorance.

So, I’ve been researching the issue. Here’s what I’m trying in order to do the best that I can in laying the foundation for PK to be able to speak more than one language, and to grow up with a strong understanding of the importance of doing our best to facilitate communication with diverse people.

According to William Staso, Ph.D., it is possible to raise multi-lingual children in the United States, even if one is not one’s self multi-lingual. Here’s what he says: "First, obtain a tape recording of a male and a female speaking the language. The recordings should ideally last about an hour to assure all the language sounds and patterns are being used. Let your baby hear this recording at least once a week over the first 6 months. At or around 6 months you will then need to have a fluent speaker of that language begin to interact verbally with your baby for a couple of hours a week. As your child gets older, he/she will need someone fluent in the second language to speak with in order to develop language capability. You might consider having your child spend a few hours a week at a preschool setting in which that second language is used."

I’ve e-mailed the author with some questions. Specifically, how many languages can we do this with? We think we have access to Spanish, French, and Italian speakers who could interact with PK at least once a week. Staso says that exposing kids to multiple languages will usually delay their acquisition of speech, but as long as that doesn’t matter to PK, that's okay with us. Also, according to Staso, the EEG's of infants being exposed to auditory stimuli are identical whether the infants are awake or asleep. He cautions against having TV or radio on at a volume baby can hear, unless we want the baby to take in that information. So, if we play the recordings for PK while he is sleeping, will he benefit? When is the best time to play them? Also, how loud should we play the recordings? I asked this because in other reading I have come across several sources that state that male infants hear as much as 80% less well than female infants, and that this is likely to be the reason that so many male infants talk much later than most female infants.

All my questions asked and contemplation admitted, I’ll now disclose that I’m actually pretty skeptical about whether this can really work. Can only a few hours of exposure per week really influence a kid that much? But the answer to this question doesn’t matter for a couple of reasons.

1) We aren’t going to use recordings at any time to substitute for our own loving, engaged interaction;

2) Even if he doesn’t learn any actual language from the exposure, hopefully he’ll thoroughly soak in the diversity of sounds that exist outside of English, and will be more comfortable and enthusiastic when he begins his formal study of non-native languages in the future; and

3) We don’t have any other way of giving him a shot at learning other languages at this stage of his life. How sad is that?

Dads are Evolving

2008-05-18T20:29:00.002-04:00

I am convinced...Dad's are evolving. I learned this first hand this week, as our son PK and I spent time together. Many readers will know that PM and I now work for Carolina Outreach, an in-home family therapy company, that allows its social workers to set their own schedule. Carolina Outreach is a great company for which to work, not only because of the meaningful work it does with families, but also because of the flexibility that its social workers have to spend time with their own families.

In our case, this flexibility means that PM and I split childcare responsibilities. When one of us is working with clients, the other is caring for PK (while doing paper work or running errands). I spend my time with PK making work related phone calls, doing paper work, or running errands for our family. Because PK is a serene little guy, I just strap him to my chest using our Mei Tai, and he goes wherever I go.

As you can imagine, PK is quite the conversation starter. When folks see him strapped to me, no matter where I am, people inevitably share stories of their children or grandchildren (or their desire to have them).

One such conversation leads me to the subject of this blog post, "Dads are Evolving." Earlier this week, I ran an errand for PM at UNC Student Health. PK and I drove to the student health center. Upon arriving, I helped PK out of his car seat, strapped him to me, and we began our errand running. As I walked toward the Student Health building, I noticed a larger 18 wheeler parked in front of the building. A man, say about 45, was sitting in the driver's seat. He looked as though he had been up all night, as evidenced by his disheveled hair and scraggly beard. It appeared that he had made several stops, and engaged in some heavy lifting, as his shirt and pants were covered with dried mud. When this "good ole boy" saw me, much to my surprise, he greeted me warmly, with a vibrant smile. He said with a laugh, "you've figured out how to do that pretty well. I need to get me one of those." I shared the vendor of our Mei Tai. He thanked me, and we parted ways.

Is this man an indication of a growing trend in America? Could it be that it is not only "yes we can" Obama liberals who want to be more hands on dads? Could it also be that the so called "working class" who voted for Hillary in droves in West Virginia, and who will do so again in Kentucky this Tuesday, also are ready to strap their kids to their chest while paying bills and running errands. Or even if they can't because of how hard that they have to work, in their heart of hearts, they wish they could.

The story doesn't end here. Later on my errand, I stopped in the Student Health convenience store to get a snack, while waiting on my wife's prescription. The store attendants where women in their early 60's, female representatives of the so called "boomer" generation that gave us Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al and Tipper Gore. These women were quite enchanted by our little munchkin. As I payed for my OJ and power bar, they told stories of their lives. Surprisingly, they told stories of the men in their lives, many of them now grandfathers.

These women all commented on how much their husbands have changed over the years. They lamented the early years of their marriage, when their husbands were loath to wash dishes, run the laundry, or engage in childcare. However, all of them gleefully reported that these same men, now grandparents, have taken an active role in the lives of their grandchildren, boldly braving the often dangerous terrain of poopy diapers and flying spit-up. Being grandpa also means that these men cook and occasionally clean. These women said that this change is at least in part due to the example of their sons and son-in-laws (all of whom are Xers' or Y2k's. After listening to these women's stories, I said, "men are indeed evolving." They all chimed in, "ours sure have."

So, dear friends, let me ask all of you to comment on my thesis "Men are Evolving" Am I right? Are men evolving? Are men becoming more nurturing, more hands on in the domestic sphere, more engaged in the day to day care of their children and grandchildren?

If you are a man, are you ready to strap your kid to yourself in public, and start running errands? Or more generally, do you desire and even need a deeper relationship with your children than was afforded men of generations past?

If you're a man, and you think that my description of masculine evolution has not or should not impact you or any other man, I'd like to hear you as well. Tell me why you are who you are.

If you're a woman reading this blog, and you're partnered with a man, are you ready to give him the same responsibilities for your child's care that have been "traditionally" given to women? If you are, it strikes me that you have a great relationship, with a man that you have grown to trust deeply. However, if you're not ready to trust your man with this responsibility, tell me why, and what it would take for your man to earn this level of trust.

Finally, if you are a same sex couple with children (or one that desires children), I'd love to hear of your dreams and/or experience of parenting. How does your household divide the domestic division of labor?

I look forward to sharing this conversation with readers. It will give this evolving man a great appreciation for the ways in which our beloved readers share life and love together in marriage, partnership, and in the raising of children.

2008-05-12T19:10:00.003-04:00

This is practice. DC Deafie says it will work.

The Sacrament of Friendship

2008-05-11T21:29:00.007-04:00

I'm grateful! But not just grateful in that generalized way that I sometimes get. When I've just seen a movie that inspires me (like Remember the Titans or Philadelphia), I am grateful to be alive. When I listen to a great speech, read a great article, or enjoy really good ice cream in a fresh and crunchy waffle cone (like I enjoyed last night from the Yogurt Pump), I am grateful. This gratitude is a warm feeling that comes over me when I am reminded that life is good generally speaking that is ;)

This week, I'm grateful for the particulars of my life because of the specific personal experience of being sick. I'm grateful to be healthy. I'm grateful to be at home. I'm grateful for friends. Most importantly, I'm grateful for my wife, the love of my life, my "baby momma", the more prolific blogger, Punkie Mommie.

Those who know me well can attest that I often tell anyone who will listen that I am "the luckiest man alive." I proclaim my good fortune because of my wife, PM. She's the best thing that ever happened to me. That's always true, generally speaking. But after being sick, and I mean really sick (with the dreaded Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever), for six days last week, I am grateful for PM in a more particular way. Here's why I'm so grateful.

When I came home from work ten days ago, aching all over, burning up with fever, feeling as though the world was spinning, and clueless as to what was wrong with me, PM took action. She took my temperature, and gave me Tylenol. She consulted WEB MD regarding my symptoms. She called in reinforcements by way of the CVS pharmacist, and the UNC Health Line. Before I knew it, I was in the car, and she was driving me to the ER (all while setting up childcare for our son). She stayed with me in the ER, facing her significant fear of needles, as various medical personnel poked and stuck me for hours on end with one sharp foreign object after another. She hung around during the spinal tap (administered for the purpose of ruling out meningitis).

Spinal taps are very unpleasant.

When I went home, and my symptoms worsened, she took me back to the ER, and stayed with me through the night until the doctors admitted me to the hospital. Upon my discharge from the hospital, she assumed (with the help of friends) all childcare responsibilities while I recovered.

Yes, dear friends, I am the luckiest man alive. I am married to the love of my life, who was there for me this week "in sickness" just as she has been "in health."

This week reminds me of why the church has for two millennia attributed sacramental meaning to marriage. That is, in some mysterious way, the care that two persons give one another through the discipline of practicing their marriage vows is iconic, that is a window into the mysterious life of God. The life of God is often described through the metaphor of Trinity; a concept on which I cannot easily elaborate with any brevity.

There are many anthropomorphic metaphors used to describe the Trinity. Some of them are more helpful that others, depending on one's point of view. Naming them all here would not be helpful or very interesting.

For the purpose of this blog entry, let me summarize this theologian's Trinitarian theology by saying this: it is God's nature to be in relationship.

When I think about God's love for me, it is very difficult to separate my experience of God's love from the love I experience through intimate relationships, like that of my life partner, my family, and close friends. This is no doubt why I chose to describe the mystery of the Trinity as I did.

Reflecting on this week, it strikes me that while marriage or partnership is a powerful icon, it is not only the love between married partners that points us God-ward. No two individuals can maintain the discipline of sacrificial love alone. As my father-in-law asserted at our wedding, "it takes a community as well as a couple to make a marriage."

Thus, one could argue, that not only is marriage a sacrament. Indeed, more broadly, friendship is a sacrament. All seven sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, Matrimony, Confirmation, Ordination, Reconciliation, Unction (or healing) have friendship with God and humanity at their core. None of them take place in vacuum. All of them require relationship, or to put it more positively, all of the sacraments offer the gift of sharing life with others.

This past week would have been close to impossible were it not for the many friends that helped PM and I practice our vows. So many friends offered their support, opened their home to our son, and offered to give their time to us for whatever need might arise.

I did not plan on getting sick last week. It was very unpleasant. I would not sign up for it again, nor would I wish it on my worst enemy. But all in all, I am thankful for the experience because through it I was reminded that God loves me, that I am not alone in the living of life, that my life partner is the greatest gift for which I am very grateful, and that I have many wonderful friends.

It could be that one can get through just about anything if one has good friends.

DC Deafie is in town!

2008-05-10T23:58:00.005-04:00

My dear friend, DC Deafie came down to see us this weekend. How splendid! It’s been three years since we last saw her. I met DC Deafie when we were both involved in a production of Children of a Lesser God at Raleigh Little Theater. I played Lydia, and I needed to learn to speak in a deaf voice. DC Deafie patiently taught me to imitate her distinctly deaf voice with clear, crisp diction. I was volunteering as an ESL teacher at the time, and on Friday night shows, after meeting with my ESL student, my voice always morphed into a garbled Korean accent. But that wasn’t DC Deafie’s fault. She was a great teacher.

When I moved to Chapel Hill for social work school, DC Deafie and I stayed connected and hung out a lot. She was my first friend in this town that I now lovingly call my home. She, on the other hand, has moved on to bigger and better things. She lives in Maryland and works in D.C. (hence, the DC part of her blogger name). She’s crazy busy and to make it onto her calendar is a rare treat, as well as an honor.

We’ve had a great time visiting all of her (and our) old haunts. I’d forgotten how much I love Bandido’s on Franklin Street and how comfortable those leather chairs are at the Caribou next to the Yogurt Shoppe. We also took PK out for a walk on this gorgeous, sunny day. We’re getting into UV eye protection for the little guy, on top of my neurotic avoidance of excessive sun exposure on his skin and a heightened new madness about bug spray. See his cute shades?

Have I mentioned yet that my kid loves her? She coos and goos at him like a pro, and he is mesmerized by her smile. He’s flirting with her shamelessly. And she’s been giving him lecture after lecture (some spoken, some signed) about the virtues of not spitting up the expensive formula. A good influence to boot! He’s peed on her once and spit up on her a whole lot more than that, and by some miracle she’s still here. What a pal! Based on the list of people that PK has chosen to pee or spit-up on, I am pretty sure those are gestures of affection. What a lovely weekend this is!

Returning to Normal & Three Random Things

2008-05-09T01:34:00.002-04:00

Returning to normal hardly seems like it should be among the difficult things about getting sick, but then again, it hardly seems like getting sick should happen at all. So there goes logic. Anyway, PP has recovered remarkably well and although he’s taking until next Monday to start seeing clients again, he’s been very much himself today and looks forward to doing a bit of phone and paper work tomorrow. God and antibiotics are so good!

So, Mya of Ruminations tagged me to share three random things about myself, which is lovely since it’s 1:14am and I have a bit of insomnia. Nothing like going on about myself to put me to sleep (or you, who knows?). So here goes:

1) I’ve mentioned this one before, but it never fails to shock people. I don’t eat vegetables. There are a few exceptions, but they are rare and unpredictable. I realize that according to medicine and science and all that, this is less than healthy, but I’m quite healthy and very happy as long as I’m not beating myself up about the fact that I don’t eat vegetables. (And, since I have given myself permission not to eat them, I’ve become more adventurous about trying them from time to time when people aren’t looking J)

2) I read constantly about parenting – absolutely constantly. I love that I now have a job where I sometimes get paid for reading about parenting. I am fascinated by the topic. I’m interested in how to raise both boys and girls, even though I only have a boy; I’m interested in how to raise kids with special needs, how to raise kids if you’re a single parent or older parent or adoptive parent or step-parent. I’m amazed by how the things parents do or don’t do, believe or don’t believe, say or don’t say, and how parents do, believe, or say them, all impact kids. I can’t promise that I’m a super-mom or anything. I’m definitely not. But at least I can cite three different experts on why what I’m doing/saying/believing is or is not harmful to my kid, and when there’s any dispute on the matter. By the way, Wendy Mogel, Ph.D. says that by being less than a super-mom, I’m doing great. I think I believe that. My kid is doing well by every measure I’m aware of.

3) I have an uncommon belief in the importance of incorporating extended family members (even irritating or pathological extended family members) into big life events. I’m convinced that marriage is easier, parenting is stronger, and obstacles are more manageable when we are intentionally allied with our families around those big, identity-shaping moments. The more I talk with people my own age, particularly in the marrying and baby-making phases of life, the more I realize that this is not a commonly held belief.

So now you know a little more about me, or maybe you already knew all that, but I just cured your insomnia. Either way, seems like a good thing to me. Maybe I just cured my insomnia too. Also good. But before I head off for some zzzzz’s, I get to tag three people. Yay!!! Okay, it’s your turn MamaPajama, Caroline, and Robin Lettuce Stack.

He may live

2008-05-05T11:39:00.002-04:00

Dear Friends,
Thank-you again for all your thoughts and prayers these last many days. I'm beginning to think my husband may live, and with him, my child and I are getting a little saner. PP slept reasonably well for much of the night and he has gone several hours this morning without a fever. I could kill the nurse who told us he couldn't have Immodium. (Some nutty theory about how if there was a virus in him, we shouldn't stop it from escaping. Not thinking, I suppose, about the fact that the need for the Immodium was a side effect of the Doxycyclene they had put him on?) The baby is sleeping, thank God, and I'm going to try very soon to go pay the rent and pick up PunkieRexie's anti-seizure meds. He had a big seizure while we were at the hospital on Saturday night and we definitely don't need a reprise of that performance. Poor puppy. He's been pretty stressed out with all this coming/going/stressful-energy. The outpouring of support from our church and other friends/family has been overwhelming (in a wonderful way) and we can't thank you enough.

Hugs, PM

Update on poor PunkiePapa

2008-05-04T22:56:00.000-04:00

Hi All,

This is just a quick update and note to thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, and e-mails. PP seemed to be getting worse rather than better, and was admitted to UNC Hospitals early this morning. He was feeling much better after he got to the hospital, though. He had gotten quite dehydrated because he was sweating so much with the fever. They gave him lots of fluids and started all his meds through IV’s instead of orally. He came home at 5pm and by 9pm we were talking about readmission. His fever was way up again, and the side effects of the massive Doxycycline regimen he’s on were starting to be worse than the RMSF itself. Phone consult with one of the doctors in PP’s primary care office convinced him that some changes to his care from home would be better than readmission, and indeed, he seems to be feeling a wee bit better now. I hope he keeps mending. This has been really scary. I’ve found myself experiencing my worry for him more intensely than I’ve ever experienced worry before. I’ve cried a lot and felt a lot of nausea. I’m in perfect health; I’ve just been worried about my sweet husband and terribly missing about our sweet son.

PK spent the night with some very good friends of ours and obviously enjoyed himself. He spent the day in lovely spirits, and I can’t tell you all how grateful we’ve been for C&J, E&M, and J&K, all of whom have watched our little one in the last few days. But PK has been confused by all this bouncing around and he seems happy to be in my arms tonight. I’m happy to have him here. I’m glad his papa is here too. I just hope he gets better soon. All of your thoughts and prayers are welcome!!

We've spent the night in the Emergency Room

2008-05-02T03:20:00.001-04:00

and I'm very tired. PP got 4 (yes, 4) ticks on him while conducting therapy under a tick-loaded tree last Thursday. He came home, thoroughly inspected himself, extracted the 4 stowaways, and we assumed all was well. (Our pediatrician mentioned recently that most of the time people don't get sick from tick bites unless the tick is on for more than 24 hours. Apparently, that's not the case when there are four of them.)

PP came home and seemed in awful shape. He collapsed on the couch fully dressed, wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a heavy sweater over the t-shirt, pronounced that he was freezing and covered himself with a blanket. He didn't even take his shoes off. That is NOT my husband. I took his temperature. 101.5. He never gets sick. So I went to CVS to ask the pharmacist what I could do to prevent our 12 week old son from contracting whatever his dad had, and what I could give his dad to keep him comfortable while we waited for it to pass. She immediately asked me about tick bites. She told me that this is not cold and flu season anymore, and even if it were, his symptoms didn't sound like cold or flu. She thought he sounded like a textbook case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Amazing that she thought of that because RMSF only occurs in 7.1 cases per million people in the U.S. Anyway, she said we needed to get him medical attention asap because it can cause irreparable organ damage and even be fatal. So she suggested we call UNC HealthLink to ascertain whether it was already serious enough to warrant an ER visit. We did, and they said it was, so we went. It was a long night.

The 900 doctors and nurses who talked to/looked at/consulted over PP all though RMSF was a likely cause but that meningitis was almost as likely. To test for that, they had to do a spinal tap on PP. It was so awful. It's not usually a painful procedure, but they explained that some people's bodies are really resistant to having needles inserted between their vertebrae and for them, it's awful. Yep. He was in so much pain from the procedure that I actually threw up. (Way to be supportive, right? But I couldn't help it.) PP is a strong man with a helluva tolerance for pain and sickness, and I've never seen him suffer like that. In fact, the only person I've ever seen in more pain than that was my grandmother a few months before she died. I felt so helpless to help him. I wonder if that was how he felt during my labor experience. At least he kept his lunch down. Like I said, he's really strong.

They seemed to be really worried about him. It was starting to look like they were going to admit him. But instead, they pumped PP full of so many different IV antibiotics he should be invincible for the rest of his life. Seriously, he should be able to walk on water. Then they had him take a different mega-antibiotic orally. But they never could get his fever all the way down, and they say he has to take this ultra-huge dose of another (different) antibiotic for the next 10 days. They couldn't predict for us when he'd be back to normal, but they say that he will be. We pulled into the driveway a few minutes before 3am and he's in bed already, comatose.

I can't express how grateful PP and I are to our wonderful neighbors, C and J. I walked over to their apartment (unannounced) with a nearly naked baby and a diaper bag, then brought over a big plastic box of diapers, formula, bottles, blankets, swaddlers, and a car seat, and said "can you keep him for a while? I have to take PP to the hospital." The on-call doctor from UNC Healthlink had already said PP might have to be admitted, so I was preparing to leave my sweet baby for overnight if needed be. They were so wonderful. It is so comforting to know that we
could so completely trust them with our child. I didn't worry about PK even once during the whole event.

2008-04-30T13:25:00.000-04:00

It’s been a while since I’ve written. Sorry about that! Things have been really busy and quite wonderful, though often hectic, as PP and I have started our new jobs.

Stupid Human Tricks: I know this sounds crazy, but PunkieKid has taken up saying what sounds like a first word. We talk to him all the time, and sometimes I run out of things to say, so quite often I am reduced to saying “Hi!” over and over again in various versions of an animated voice. Not surprisingly, PK often mimics the sounds her hears us make. Most of the ones he repeats are nonsense syllables, but lately he has taken up saying “Hi!” At first it was just when he mimicked me, but recently he’s taken up saying it without provocation. He often says it to strangers whom he meets at the office or out and about. We know better than to think it means anything, of course. It’s not possible that an 11 week old baby is actually saying “his first word,” but when he says it to strangers it never fails to get a lot of “oohs” and “ahhs.” I think we should take him to Letterman to be the star of his “Stupid Human Tricks” segment.

How to Accomplish Much While on Baby Duty: PK is awake more and more these days, and that is wonderful, but it’s becoming a bit of a chore to get our work done on the computer. It’s the end of the month, so monthly reports are due on clients, Person Centered Plans (don’t ask) have been recently due on two of my clients, and notes are due on everyone by midnight. There has been a great need for uninterrupted (or rarely interrupted) computer time these last few days. This morning, PP is at the Durham office and I am at home with the munchkin. I’m getting creative in figuring out how to entertain my sweet little man while also getting my work done. Remember how not long ago I figured out that PK would kick his right foot in order to make the play gym toys dance for him? Well, now he can do it on his own. I tied one end of a satin ribbon to his foot, and tied the other end to the link of the play gym that holds his favorite toy (the cardinal) and a rattle. Then I moved his foot a couple of times to let him see the toys dance, and I came back to the computer. That’s where I am now, and PK is kicking merrily away and flirting with a stuffed bird. It’s so cute I have to stop for a moment to photograph it. Look!

Thoughts on Work: I’m working with a family that has a 5 month old. It looks to me like the 5 month old is beginning to develop positional plagiocephaly. In and of itself, that’s not a big deal, but it points to how little attention and stimulation the baby is getting. I’ve talked with the mom some about it and how important it is to pick the baby up a lot; I even got her a front carrier through our agency, but I don’t think she’s using it all that much. It makes me really sad. I hear the baby cry a lot when I’m there, but these parents have a different philosophy on baby crying than I do. They don’t mind just letting him cry it out – but it seems like he’s always crying. It certainly doesn’t meet the statutory criteria for maltreatment, but it’s clear that parenting is really too hard for this family and that they don’t have the knowledge or support they need to be able to do the job that I believe children deserve. My rapport with the family is great, though, and their other (most critical) symptoms are improving rapidly, so I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to revisit this issue. Anyway, it’s interesting to note how hard it is for me to observe the far-from-ideal treatment of this baby. My skin used to be thicker. I used to be able to say “well, at least they aren’t…” I can still sort of do that, but I left them yesterday with a heaviness in my chest; a sad sort of helplessness came over me that it took a while to identify. I came home and picked up PK and just held and held him. It is going to be important for me to deal well with those sad feelings well as I continue to observe the parenting effects of this broken world.

Taking Fertility For Granted - or not.

2008-04-21T17:12:00.000-04:00

PP and I decided to try to conceive in the middle of February last year. By the end of April I was pregnant. One of my closest friends from law school and her husband decided to begin trying to have a baby the same day. They are still trying. PP and I have a couple of very good friends who have been together for eight years. They decided to have children a long time ago, but it’s harder for them because they are both women. We are so incredibly lucky to have our child and we are reminded every day of how many loving, capable people are still navigating the difficult path to parenthood.

Obviously, our friends need a sperm donor if they are going to have a child, but for numerous reasons they don’t want to use a sperm bank. They want a little more assurance than a bank can give them that the donor is a person who they would probably like if they got to know him. I don’t think they are unreasonably picky, either. They want their donor to be “under 40, in good health, and reasonably intelligent.”

PP offered, but our friends are also quite clear that they don’t want to know their donor. They want the donor to be like “a blip on the radar screen” of their lives. They don’t want the donor to play a role in the child’s life or to remain in relationship with him. I don’t blame them at all. Heterosexual couples don’t have to have some third party horning in on their relationships with their children. Hetero couples don’t have to pay exorbitant fees for each attempt at insemination. I totally get that.

So our friends have asked us to ask the male friends in our circle (the ones that they don’t know) if they would help these two truly wonderful women become moms through a home insemination. They are willing to travel outside the state. If I could do it for these women, I would. If I could do this for women I didn’t know but could be assured would be good parents, I would do that too. But I don’t know how to ask this of my friends. If you are male, are my friend, are reading this blog, and are willing, will you let me know?

Help???

2008-04-20T11:02:00.000-04:00

There's a fine line between being attentive and being neurotic. I am pretty convinced that having stressed out parents is bad for kids. On the other hand, laissez faire parenting also seems to be bad for kids. It's hard to know what we should focus on and what we should let be. In pregnancy, I was particularly attentive to a few things. 1) Stress: I was attentive to keeping my stress levels low since the beginning of pregnancy. I took a smaller course load; I got more sleep. 2) Medications: I got off of medications for ADHD and gave up my beloved allergy shots because the jury is out about what harms those things could do to a fetus. 3) I refused to be exposed to second hand smoke - ever, even for a short time. 4) Alcohol. Duh.

So far, people have commented frequently on how relaxed PP and I seem about PK. When asked what has surprised him about parenting, PP has more than once replied "how easy it is." We feel pretty confident that we can help PK when he needs something and overall he's a really easy, happy baby. But there are also things I worry about, and I'm really not sure how much I should. I welcome your feedback on this!

Things I've been attentive to in a way that I think is non-problematic:
1. No smoke around baby.

2. PK must sleep on his back unless he is in our arms.

3. We read to PK a lot.

4. We researched vaccines thoroughly before we decided to get them.

5. PK must wear a hat with a brim and long sleeves/pants (in a breathable fabric) if we're taking him out into the sun for more than a few minutes.

6. PK should wear cloth diapers as much as possible. That is, he sleeps in a disposable diaper at night and if we're going out to a place where we won't be able to change his diaper every 30 minutes, he wears disposable. That doesn't happen very often.

7. We believe strongly in babywearing. PK should not be in "stuff" if it's not essential. So we don't put him in bouncy chairs or strollers or a carseat as a means of setting him down. We do, however, put him in a carseat for car rides because it's safer; we put him under his play gym because he loves it; we put him in his bouncy seat when we're cutting things or using the stove in the kitchen. (Again, that's a safety thing).

8. We are serious about keeping PK away from watching TV or computer screens. PP and I both struggle with ADHD. It has been a serious problem in both of our lives and even with medication and good coaching, we continue to wish we could eliminate its impact on us. Because the AAP has so conclusively linked TV to ADHD, we want to do what we can to protect him from it.

9. PK is sensitive to energy. When people are stressed out or negative, PK feels it and cries. That means his parents, too. So if I'm getting wiggy about something, and PK starts to fuss, it usually means that I need to hand him over to his dad, and vice versa. So far that's been a pretty easy thing to do. It also means that when we're hanging out with friends or family who become anxious, we sometimes have to take PK for a walk outside of the energy.

Here are the things I worry about but don't know how worried I should be:

1. Lead Toys: We hear a lot about lead paint on toys lately. Most of PK's toys have been pretty inocuous, so far. He can't pick things up yet, so I know they aren't getting in his mouth. He doesn't really even touch them much. But the time is coming soon. How worried should we be? Should we get a lead tester and start testing all PK's toys before we let him play with them? Should we buy all his toys "new," as opposed to our usual habit of buying most things from the thrift store? (Our thrift store shopping behavior is largely about wanting to purchase items that we need without contributing to sweat shops or oppressive labor practices; we also have to live frugally.)

2. There are some TV shows that PP and I really like to watch (Brothers and Sisters, Oprah's Big Give, CNN News, and Monk). We never let PK watch the TV screen, but should we have it off when he's in the room? What about if he's sleeping?

3. As we are returning to work, PP and I have to do a large amount of work on the computer. These include writing "notes," writing "Person Centered Plans" for our clients, e-mailing service providers, filling out online forms, and researching resources. Sometimes PK is facing forward in the mei tai and awake. We try to keep him from looking at the screen, but as he's awake more and more during the day, it's getting harder. Should we put him down or try to distract him when we need to type, or is the worry about kids watching computer screens more about computer games than word processing?

Can any among you offer your thoughts? I really value input on these things.

Hugs, PM

Endorsements

2008-04-19T21:56:00.000-04:00

Hi Friends,
PP and I have been trying to figure out who we're going to vote for in the upcoming primary elections. We know we're voting for Page Vernon for District Court Judge and Barack Obama for president, but we've been pretty confused about the others. Fortunately, our friend has been getting to know all the candidates quite well as a part of her involvement with the Democratic Party, so I asked for her endorsements. This friend is smart, nuanced, politically savvy, and I agree with her on the issues. Hence, I trust her endorsements. I asked her to write them out for me so that I could pass them on to all of you. Here they are. I agree:

U.S. Senate: Kay Hagan vs. Jim NealI will be voting for Kay Hagan, but I do have to say that I like Jim Neal a lot. He is openly gay, which I of course support, and I think he would do a really good job. Friends that I really respect and value their opinions are supporting him and working for him. I have also met him and he is just a very warm and genuine person. But there are two big reasons I am voting for Kay Hagan: experience and ability to beat Liddy. Kay has served 5 terms in the NC Senate and served on the Budget Committee. With the economy headed where it is, I really want someone who has this kind of experience. I also think she has the ability to beat Liddy Dole. It will be a tough race, and plenty of people aren't sure if anyone can beat Liddy. But quite frankly, I don't think a man can beat Liddy. Women are winning elections, and I think Liddy would beat a man. I would say that all things being equal, I would vote for a woman to encourage diversity, but with Neal being openly gay, I think that diversity is very important as well. So for me it really boils down to her experience and that I think she can beat Liddy. I also have to say that either Hagan or Neal will be light years better than Liddy. At least both of those candidates care about NC. I think Liddy has been about the most useless senator in recent memory in NC.

Governor:Richard Moore vs. Bev PerdueThis is a tough one for me, but I will be voting for Richard Moore. Quite frankly, I have not been very impressed with Bev Perdue. As you know, my issue is the death penalty. Both Perdue and Moore support the death penalty. Both were on the Council of State last year (Perdue as Lt. Gov, Moore as state treasurer) when they approved changes to the lethal injection protocol after refusing to hear from the inmates' attorneys (Insurance Commission Jim Long was the only person to vote against approving the change in protocol, which means Elaine Marshall, who I LOVE, also voted to approve it). Perdue has said she supports a moratorium. From what I can tell, Moore hasn't been asked that question. I tell you all of this basically to say that while the death penalty is my main issue, I can't vote on that because all of the candidates are pretty bad on it. However, I will say that when asked about the death penalty by the NAACP at a forum, Moore said that while he did support the death penalty in certain cases, it was not implemented fairly in our current system (I give him credit for that answer because the NAACP is incredibly anti-death penalty, and I can't stand it when politicians pander to groups). He has a law degree, was a federal prosecutor for several years, and served as head of the NC Department of Crime Control and Public Safety while in the NC House of Reps. This is a big plus to me because I don't think Perdue really has any experience with the justice system. While I usually don't like former prosecutors being governor because I think there is an inherent conflict of interest, he never prosecuted someone currently on death row so he will never have to decide on clemency for a defendant that he personally prosecuted (as Easley has done several times).

In looking at other issues, I just like Richard Moore a lot better. Perdue's campaign ads attacking Moore have been misleading and exaggerated. And I think Moore has done an amazing job as treasurer. NC has been recognized nationally for what Moore has been able to do in securing pension funds. There has been some controversy recently over whether he invested pension money in groups that have supported his campaign for governor, but most of those accusations have not been proven.

Lt. Governor:Dan Besse, Walter Dalton, Hampton Dellinger, Pat SmathersThis is another tough one. I really, really, like 3 of the 4 candidates. The one I discount quickly is Walter Dalton. I'm not a fan of his. But I think Besse, Dellinger, and Smathers are all really great. I will be voting for Pat Smathers. I've had the opportunity to meet all three of these guys at campaign events around the state. Besse is a longtime friend of my parents'. Smathers' son is also a 3L at UNC Law (Zeb Smathers). So why Smathers? He has been mayor of Canton, NC for a long time. He served in the National Guard, and I think we need Democrats who have served in the military in leadership positions. I think they are the key to defeating Republicans this term. What I really like about Smathers is that he has the experience of working in a community and using the strengths of that community to make it better (not just use a cookie cutter form to make all towns look the same). Part of his platform is taking that type of mentality into the Lt. Gov. position. I also have to say that I have a tendency to pull for the underdogs, and Smathers and Besse are the underdogs. Either one of them would be great, but I think Smathers has a better chance of winning.

Superintendent of Public Instriction:June Atkinson vs. Eddie DavisI'm not sure of this one, but I will probably support June Atkinson. She is running for re-election and I think she's done a good job. I haven't looked into this race in a whole lot of detail, though.

NC Court of AppealsWynn Seat: James WynnThere's not much I need to say here. Judge Wynn is fabulous. He has been on the bench for a very long time, and was on the NC Supreme Court for a few years. He has never been in a primary in his 18 years of being on the bench. This year, 2 complete unknowns are challenging him and forced him into a primary. As Judge Wynn says at events, all you need to run for the Court of Appeals is a law license and the filing fee, and that is all the other 2 have. Judge Wynn should win be a landslide.

Tyson Seat: Kristin RuthAs you know, these seats are non-partisan. So if more than 2 candidates enter the race, there is a primary to narrow it down to 2. The top 2 then compete in November. Kristin Ruth and Sam Ervin are the democrats challenging John Tyson. Tyson is pretty awful. Kristin is a district court judge in Wake County and has been on the bench for 10 years. I appeared before her numerous times last summer and saw her as very fair. I really like her and she seemed to really respect everyone that came before her, including the defendants. There was also an incident while I was there in the summer when a state trooper lied to her under oath. She found out and charged him with contempt of court. There was almost a hearing over it, but they reached a plea deal just before the hearing was supposed to start. I really respect her for this because she knew she was going to be running for the Court of Appeals and she knew it would cost her some endorsements (which it did, of organizations like the Troopers and other law enforcement). But she did it anyway because it was the right thing to do. I think she's great and will throw my full support behind her.

Insurance Commissioner:Wayne Goodwin vs. David SmithI have to say, I know nothing about this race. I'm going to look into endorsements and see what groups are saying about them.
Labor Commissioner:Robin Anderson, John C. Brooks, Mary Fant Donnan, Ty RichardsonFrom what I know, Cherie Berry (current Labor Commissioner, and a Republican), is going to be incredibly difficult to beat (but really needs to lose because she's terrible). I'm going to see who gets some key endorsements, like the Independent Weekly's endorsement, but as of now I really like Robin Anderson and think she would do a really good job. However, John Brooks has served as Labor Commissioner before, and is now running again, so there's no reason to think he wouldn't be good.

Treasurer:Janet Cowell, Michael Weisel, David YoungI'll be voting for Janet Cowell. She has been in the NC Congress for several years and has the financial background to do a really good job as treasurer. I think she'll be great. I don't know much about David Young, but I saw Cowell appear with Weisel and he was just not impressive at all. I think Cowell will be great.
State Auditor:Fred Aikens vs. Beth A. WoodI've seen both of these candidates appear several times at different events and I really like both of them. I am pretty undecided as to who I am going to vote for at this point. I am leaning towards Fred Aikens, but not sure yet. The Independent Weekly is going to release their endorsements on April 23rd, and I really want to see what they say about this race and who they choose to endorse.

10 Weeks Old!

2008-04-19T12:00:00.001-04:00

Visit to the pediatrician

2008-04-16T14:46:00.000-04:00

We took PK to the pediatrician yesterday.

Length: 23 inches - 85th percentile
Head Circumference - 16.5 inches - 85th percentile
Weight - 15lbs, 5oz - OVER 100th percentile!!

I had really been freaked out about this particular appointment because we've been thinking a lot about vaccines and what we did/did not feel good about for our son. At first, we took what we thought was a pretty moderate position. We wanted to get PK all the usual vaccines, but we wanted to get them spaced out more than they are normally spaced out, and we wanted to get them when PK was a little older. This seemed like the best designed approach for him because we are not putting PK in daycare so it seemed to us that his exposure to any of the diseases for which they vaccinate would likely be quite unlikely.

However, PP and I realized a couple of weeks ago that actually, we aren't able to keep PK's exposure risk as low as we initially wanted it to be. We have both returned to work, and while we often work from home, we also attend meetings at various social service agencies and at our own offices in Durham and Pittsboro, and PK sometimes comes with us to these things. We need to be able to bring him with us because if we didn't, we'd have to hire commercial childcare, and that's neither in our parenting philosophy nor budget right now. So, we had to reassess our risk. When PP worked at DSS he worked with the same population with which we are both working now, and he found that without exception, the kids were behind on vaccines. They also often came from families with poor hygiene and frequent illness. We concluded that in order to protect our son from the diseases to which he is actually likely to be exposed, we needed to get some vaccines.

We discussed our fears with a WONDERFUL pediatrician who isn't PK's doctor only because he works about 1 hr. away, and we settled on the vaccines for his 9 weeks well-baby check. I can't remember which ones they were, but they were the basics. We just opted out of the optional ones. There were three injections, which they gave all at once. I had dosed up the PK with Infant Tylenol before the shots and also gave him a glucose solution in a bottle a few minutes before. He handled the shots way better than I thought he would, and was clearly over it about 2 minutes after they were over. Geez. I'm glad that's over. It was really scary because even though I understand that the vaccines/autism link is questionable, I prefer to err on the side of avoidance. But this time, avoidance couldn't mean avoidance of risk. So hard. I guess this is the way it will always be. So hard, so hard.

Turning our attention toward PK's interests (as best we can)

2008-04-15T19:26:00.000-04:00

We've tried to be attentive to PK's development throughout our time caring for him (even during pregnancy), and we've now begun to turn our minds toward exposing PK to the sorts of things that will nourish him throughout his adulthood. That takes a couple of forms.

We've started doing The Daily Office from The Book of Common Prayer so that as he grows up, the spiritual tradition which nourishes us and into which he will be raised will not seem unapproachable to him. Likewise, we've been reading to him more and more. Reading to PK is turning out to be a lot of fun. We've been reading our own books out loud to him, as well as reading him the stories out of his Children's Bible, The Runaway Bunny, The Little Engine that Could, Welcome to Outer Space, Fuzzy Fuzzy Fuzzy, and several others.

I'm reading a book called Baby Read-Aloud Basics: Fun and Interactive Ways to Help Your Little One Discover the World of Words by Caroline J. Blakemore and Barbara Weston Ramirez. I'm reading it because I really want to read to PK in a way that helps him to ENJOY reading. I tend to think kids learn what they want to learn; I certainly did. And they may learn the things they don't want to learn, too, but they don't love it, and when it becomes voluntary, they don't do it. I grew up reading, but I didn't carry that into my adulthood as much as I wish I had. Books, of course, are the key to learning almost anything else a person wants to learn, so I'm hoping we can make this reading thing unintimidating and fun for PK.

PK really enjoys it when we emphasize interactive reading. That's not my strength, really. The experts say it's good to embellish the text and to freely augment the language on the page, but I am naturally inclined to read the words on the page. I'm also not prone to using silly voices, or as the experts say, parentese. I tend to speak to PK as if he understands exactly what I'm saying, and I tend to read to him in a matter of fact tone. But I'm working on that. I've read that the goofy voices are good for him, and he definitely prefers them. So, I try. PP's great at this, though!

One of the most rewarding things that we share with PK continues to be our church community. The church we've chosen in which to raise our child is one which has nourished me and PP since our courtship, and I love being able to set PK in the arms of any of the wonderful people with whom we worship each Sunday and knowing that he's with someone safe, loving, and kind.

There are some things we don't yet have ways to offer PK, and that we want to be able to offer him. Chief among these is that neither PP nor I speak Spanish, and we really wish that we could enable our son to grow up bilingual. It's already pretty difficult to work as a social worker if you don't speak Spanish, and I think that's rapidly becoming the case in many professions. Besides, it's just crummy that America has done such a lousy job of welcoming the influences of other nations. It's really not okay for any of us to speak only one language. I don't know how we can offer him Spanish, though. I hope we can figure that out.

Back to work

2008-04-10T07:36:00.000-04:00

PP and I started our new jobs today. We had realized that PP's job at DSS was just not a job he could keep and still be a parent. He had dangerous clients who had threatened his life and even tracked down where we live, and that scared me. Also, in the two years he has worked there, PP has worked between 60-80 hours each week, gained a lot of weight (from eating on the go, not having time for exercise, and getting too little sleep), and gotten quite burned out. We wanted him to be an active presence in the life of our child, so DSS had to go.

In order for him to leave DSS, we really both needed to start making an income. I've been in law school full time since we were married, and we've done a great job of living frugally on just one, social work (small) salary. But babies are expensive and we'd like to let go of some of our money worries, so I decided to join him in work as an in-home family therapist with a wonderful agency called "Carolina Outreach." In this job, we work from home and we set our own schedules. We'll each be responsible for billing 25 hours a week, which we can easily do by staggering which one of us works, and which of us stays with the baby. That was the goal: no daycare!

We did need to find some care for PK this week, though, since both PP and I had to go to training. We've been going to training each day this week, and I can't speak highly enough for this agency. There just aren't very many social work jobs that are invested in helping employees have healthy, happy family lives, but they are absolutely bending overbackwards to make our transition into work go as smoothly as possible. There's a meeting next week that both PP and I need to go to, and we won't have childcare lined up for it, so they said to just bring PK along.

I admit, I've been a little nervous about returning to work, but I went out on a visit to shadow one of the other therapists last night, and all of my remaining jitters went away. While visiting with the family, I remembered the feelings of confidence and fulfillment that I used to have doing mitigation. It's been such a long time since I've felt that way. Law school had really stripped me of that. This is so clearly where my natural gifts lie. I may still choose to use the law degree at some point, but this feeling of being in the right place is really precious for now. I have also been surprised that as C.O. makes it more and more clear that they understand that PP's and my first priority is, and is RiGHTLY the care of our child, I feel more and more okay about it when we have needed to leave PK with my sister each morning in order to go to training. Knowing that C.O. cares about us enough to ensure that we are able to give PK the care he deserves makes it easier to make space for fulfilling work.

Baby can play!

2008-04-10T07:08:00.000-04:00

We figured out that that PK likes his play gym last week when Grandma was visiting. I'd been a little confused by the play gym before that because I thought you were supposed to just put the baby under it and then he would take it from there. But not so! Grandma put him under it, and then began gently wiggling the arcs over the baby, so that the toys suspended from the arcs began to bounce around, and the rattles on the gym made rattling noises. PK was enthralled, and stared, smiled, and cooed for stretches of about ten minutes at a time.

So, yesterday, I learned how to step it up a little, and the wonderful world of playing with babies is open to me now!

I've been reading this really cool book called Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love by Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn, and on Tuesday night I discovered games that the PunkieKid can actually play along with, at the ripe old age of TWO MONTHS! I put PK under his play gym, and then waited. I didn't wiggle the arcs. Then, when he kicked his feet, I wiggled the arcs. When his foot stopped moving, I stopped wiggling. I wondered if he'd figure it out. (The book said he would, and that it would be great fun for him.) The baby in Baby Minds took about five minutes to figure out the game the mom had set up for her, but little PK only needed about 40 seconds. He wrinkled his brow, looked ponderously at the arcs, and then began to kick his feet. First he tried one foot, then the other, then both together, and soon he was having a merry ole' time. He looked with perfect concentration at the toys bouncing over him, occasionally paused to see them stop moving, and when they did, began his kicking again. It was marvelous! We continued the game for about 15 minutes, till his eyes started to droop.

Then, last night I thought I'd see if this had been real (a two month old doing problem solving). I put him back under the play gym, but this time, I thought I'd change the rules. This time, I only wiggled the arcs when he kicked his right foot. Sure enough, he tested each foot individually, then together, and only when the right foot was moving did I wiggle the arcs. When the arcs didn't move for his left foot, he stuck out his tongue and looked perplexed, and even a little annoyed, then we were off to the races. He tried his right foot once (wiggle), then again (wiggle), and you could seek the expression in his eyes, "Eureka! I've figured it out!" And so he played. He did the right foot slow, then fast, then both feet together, all getting wiggles. I wiggled it fast when he kicked fast, and slow when he kicked slow. He was having a ball!

Then I goofed a little. I thought I might try changing the rules again when he had figured out the game. I thought he would enjoy solving the new puzzle. So, I stopped wiggling the arcs for his right foot, and waited for him to try his left. I thought he would, but he didn't! Instead, he kept trying his right foot over and over, and after about 20 seconds of trying his right foot and it not working, he got mad! His little lip stuck out and his eyes looked tragic, and he let out this pitiful wail he makes when he's mad. He has hungry cries, wet cries, sleepy cries, and gassy cries: all distinguishable from eachother. Then, there's the "no fair!" cry. We don't hear that one a lot, but he definately wanted those little toys to dance when he kicked that right foot. There he'd been under his play gym, master of all he surveyed, literally! Then I'd stripped him of his power. No wonder he was mad. Mean Mommie!

So I picked him up and comforted him, then put him back under the play gym, resolved to wiggle the arcs for any kick of any kind because he clearly wasn't happy. No dice. Then, PunkieAuntie, who is visiting for the week (while PP and I train for our new jobs) picked up the PK's left foot and wiggled the arcs. He stopped crying. His eyes widened and he looked at the arcs, and Kick! went his left foot. Kick! Again, the left foot. He'd figured it out! Off to the races again. It was splendid. Baby can play!

Took at Trip to Bishopville

2008-04-05T19:29:00.001-04:00

Tuesday through Thursday PunkiePapa and I took PunkieKid to Bishopville to meet his extended family on the Brown side. It was in some ways very stressful, in some ways really wonderful, and in all ways, very instructive to us. We hadn't had our sweet boy in the car for long prior to Tuesday, and we were pleased to learn that he likes the car just fine. We stopped a few times to change him and hold him, so as to make the trip as low stress as possible. Then, when we got to SC, relatives came.

First came PunkiePapa's cousin L, whom I like a lot and regularly correspond with. I had forgotten the pack-n-play that B & J loaned us, so L brought us theirs. She gave it to us! I tried to pay her for it but she wouldn’t let me!! What a generous gift!!!

Then came PunkiePapa's aunt and great aunt. Around the time they all arrived, PunkieKid got gassy and started to cry. He was completely inconsolable for hours. I felt so bad for him! But I got some great tips on gas treatment for little ones from all the wonderful experienced moms. (L has a four year old, and Rhett’s aunt and great aunt both have grown children). L suggested Levsin Drops, which are prescription only, but are miracle workers for baby gas. Rhett’s aunt and great aunt both swear by giving babies a little bit of water with a pinch of baking soda. That becomes like a little baby version of Alka-Seltzer. It’s a great tip, but unfortunately, it didn’t help him that night. I think it was just too big a day and he was just too tired.

PunkiePapa's dad, GB, is a member of the House of Representatives and he wanted to introduce PunkieKid on the floor of the House. We almost refused because the previous evening had been so hard for him, but sleep does a body good; especially a very young body, and PunkieKid seemed so happy Wednesday morning that we took him. He did GREAT! He smiled and cooed like a little junior politician. He slept through his introduction, and the accompanying standing ovation. GB cried as he introduced his grandson. It was precious. We had a lot of fun, but were all ready for our afternoon nap once we left Columbia.

The final piece of the trip was introducing PunkieKid to his uncle, C. We had planned to meet C at Pizza Hut on Tuesday night but he had been busy all week and forgot, so we met him Wednesday night at Zaxby’s instead. It was good to catch up with C and to introduce him to his nephew. The rest of the trip was pretty low key. We just hung out at the house with GB and Lorie (PunkiePapa’s mother) and let them bond with their grandson.
Thursday afternoon we headed home happy. Our little boy has met more of his family and been initiated into his most Southern heritage.

A Joyous and Solemn Occassion

2008-03-31T22:47:00.000-04:00

Post by PunkiePapa

"Dear Friends, The birth of a child is a joyous and solemn occasion in the life of family. It is also an occasion for rejoicing in the Christian community. I bid you, therefore, to join PM and PP in giving thanks to Amighty God our heavenly Father, the Lord of all life, for the gift of PK to be their son."

Our Punkie Priest, Lisa, blessed our family with these words from the Book of Common Prayer last Sunday at ECOTA. Lisa previously spoke these words at UNC Hospital, only hours after Daniel's birth. They were helpful in getting through those first few sleepless nights of learning to be a dad. However, the words took on greater meaning in our spiritual community.

It's certainly true that our Punkie Kid is a great blessing to us, perhaps the greatest blessing our our lives. He has changed our lives forever. Never again will we live soley for ourselves. PK's need for us, and our need for him, reminds us that life is only worth living when its goal is giving and receiving love. We will spend the rest of our lives, giving PK our love, and accepting his offers of love. Even as we are connected to him, even as he is from us, he is greater than the sum of his parts. Because we love him, and because we desire connection with him, we must be willing to honor and bless his unique and special identity; an indentity that will emerge slowly over the course of his life.

In this way, we are profoundly connected to the experience of God, whose internal life has been described by the relationship between a parent and child. I write these words with some caution, because neither PM nor I have God's full perspective. We can only guess at the God experience, and any attempt to compare it to our own is as Karl Barth once said "baby talk."

PM and I are falible, finite human beings. We love our son very much. We pray and hope for only the best for our relationship with him. We will make mistakes, and by grace, we will learn from them.

It is an awareness of our finitude that makes the BCM blessing all the more powerful when spoken in our community of faith. Yesterday, the community made a preliminary statement of support that will be fully embodied in Pk's baptism. Everyone there, young and old, single and partnered, those who have biological children and those who serve as spiritual parents and mentors said, "we're in this with you. Parenting is joyful, it is solemn. It is lovely. It is messy. We're thankful to be in this lovely mess with you." Parenting is a lovely mess. I'm reminded of this everytime PM and I get excited about poops and spit-ups, and everytime I hear other parents talking with excitement about the beauty and wonder of their life as parents.

This is profoundly good news. It's good news because it means that PM and I are never alone in our care for PK. When PK smiles and laughs with us after feedings, the community's prayers are with us. When PK screams at the top of his lungs with the occasional colic, the community of those who have shared this experience in the past are with us. As we take this journey with PK, there are experiences, both joyful and solemn, that we will share with him. I don't know the specifics of what they will be, but I do know that our church community will share them with us.

For many years, when facing a situation that causes me to feel anxiety and/or fear, I have imagined that my closest friends are present with me. For example, when testifying in a contentious court case, or attempting to address a difficult conflict at work, or in engaging a grueling paper work task, I have imagined that those closest to me are sharing the experience with me, offering me their support, helping me get through it.

On Sunday at ECOTA, PM and I were reminded that as parents, we have God's blessing. God will be incarnate through our closest friends, with whom we share community, with whom we share the joyous and solemn occassion of parenting.

The Quest to Get Back into Pre-Pregnancy Clothes

2008-03-27T20:17:00.001-04:00

I gained a bunch of weight during pregnancy and I can’t get into my clothes. This is not a vanity issue; it’s an economic consideration. I refuse to buy all new clothes. So, it’s time to get my weight back to something close to what it was pre-pregnancy. Before pregnancy I weighed 113 but that was a little thinner than I want to maintain, so I’ve set a goal. I’m at 141.6 now and I’m going to get back down to 120lbs, then reevaluate. PunkiePapa gained sympathy weight during the pregnancy. He got up to 232, and he’s decided to get back down to his pre-DSS weight of 200lbs. We’re a great team so I have faith that we’ll be able to do this together.

Defining the approach is the first task for anyone when they undertake to lose weight. “Just eat right and exercise” is what some would say (and likely, will say), but for me it’s just not that simple. You see, I am EXTREMELY finicky. I don’t like foods that touch each other (with a few select exceptions); I don’t like vegetables (with a VERY few exceptions); I don’t like foods that smell strange, look strange, or have strange sounding names. And when I say “don’t like,” I mean that I have a post-traumatic stress-like reaction when I try to eat them. I gag, choke, and might even cry.

I tried to force myself to “eat right” for the first 25 years of my life. The result was that I felt awful about myself for failing, didn’t eat enough of the healthy stuff and then ate gobs and gobs of junk food because I was so freaking hungry from my attempts at “will power.” I also weighed more than I wanted to. At 5’3, a good weight for me is probably about 120. Between ages 12 and 25 I tended to oscillate between 128 and 135. I went to countless nutritionists, several shrinks, an occupational therapist, and a hypnotist. All failed.

Finally, I gave up. I decided that I was going to leave myself alone and eat whatever I felt like whenever I felt like it. I got rid of my scale and my exercise bike. Nothing in my space reminded me of something that I “should” be doing or eating or not eating. I felt an enormous weight lifted off of me. My emotional attachment to food disappeared and my fears about food were lessened. I became interested in cooking for the sake of enjoyment and chose recipes based not on their nutritional value, but on the probability that I would enjoy them. When people invited me to dinner I accepted but when they served things I was nervous about I just told people without shame that I am permanently weird when it comes to food, and I trusted them to love me anyway (they did!). I even started trying foods I would previously have been afraid to try because I had given myself permission not to eat any more if I didn’t like them. I even like asparagus and tomatoes now, if prepared right or in the right recipe.

All of this was complicated by the fact that prior to giving up on my weight and my corresponding desire to eat what the world calls “healthy,” I was competing in the Miss America Organization (I know, I know; it was a bizarre time and I certainly wouldn’t anyone else to do it, but that’s a different story for a different day, and I trust you not to judge me unless you know the whole story). The MAO, as you know, had a “physical fitness” competition, aka “swimsuit” competition. At 5’3 and on the curvy side, that wasn’t an easy area for me. I worked with a trainer who sought to reduce my body fat by having me do absurd amounts of low-impact cardio. One summer I did some kind of low-intensity cardio for 85 minutes per day. I enjoyed the exercise, but the fact that it was “expected” of me meant that as soon as the state pageant was over, I returned to the couch. I never got under 128.

After I surrendered to my idiosyncratic eating desires and an utterly sedentary lifestyle, the strangest thing happened. I lost about 15lbs - down to 113. I certainly wasn’t looking for that result. In fact, I didn’t even know about it because I’d gotten rid of the scale. I didn’t find out till our preconception counseling doctor’s appointment.

I have stubbornly refused to adhere to any food expectations or to judge my appetite, even throughout pregnancy as I watched my weight climb to 175. But as I said above, it’s time to get my weight back to something close to what it was pre-pregnancy because I’m not willing to replace my entire pre-pregnancy wardrobe. So how do I go about losing weight. Yikes. I don’t know!! So I’ve decided on a few things that I’m willing to do, and if they don’t seem to be working in a couple of weeks, I’ll revisit this. Here are my goals:

(1) Drink 8, 8oz glasses of water per day. Don’t drink anything other than water until I’ve had all the water.
(2) Don’t drink more than one Sprite per day.
(3) Do some form of low intensity cardio for 40 minutes per day, four days per week.
(4) Eat a bowl of cheerios before 10am each day.

PunkiePapa is a little more zealous than I am. He’s already walking/running 5 miles per day, every day. He’s also reduced his carbs and sugar intake and is eating more fruits and veggies. Go PunkiePapa! I don’t want to do that much. But starting tonight I’m going to try to meet the above four goals and I hope they help. In the meantime, I’m going to go to the thrift store and pick up just a few things to tide me over as I prepare to go to the State House in Columbia, SC next week and to begin work the following week. I can’t expect myself to fit into much of my pre-pregnancy wardrobe before then.

Resuming the Chronicals

2008-03-27T20:11:00.000-04:00

The PunkieKid will be 7 weeks old tomorrow and I miss blogging. And very flatteringly, several of you have told me and PunkiePapa that you miss reading about our happenings. So, here we begin. I have several posts in my head and will try to get them all written out and posted in the next several days. Read as you can, and post comments when you can. It always makes us happy to hear the thoughts, advice and support of friends.

Love, the PunkieMommie and PunkiePapa