J was home sick yet again, though we now have a diagnosis of ear infection. R spent the morning with him so I could accomplish at least a few things, but they were little things. In that spirit: three little things I would like to remember today.

1. On the way home from the bus stop this afternoon, C presented me with a crocus bud that she found lying on the sidewalk.

2. J’s stubby little hand unwrapping a stick of chewing gum I gave him at the grocery store.

3. If you peel and section a clementine and then leave the pieces out for a while, the membrane gets ever-so-slightly dry, so when you bite into them, they burst in a very satisfying way.

I just finished Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, which is a pretty neat read, if you like that kind of book, and I do. A lot of the content is on her blog but I liked the coherence of the book format.

A few interesting or surprising tidbits:

-Happiness and personal justice often conflict. She found in her research and her experience that the score-keeping that happens in marriages and other relationships (I did this, so you do that) does not add to happiness, in fact it inhibits it. There’s probably a big however to be had here about abuse and other gross inequities of power in relationships, but basically this seems right to me. One reason it doesn’t add to happiness is because of the “fundamental attribution error,” which is the tendency to overinflate our own contributions and downplay the other person’s.

-Novelty and change generally increase happiness more than routine and consistency. Again, I can see how this would be true. Good luck getting certain institutions to see it that way though (cough*congregations*cough). She doesn’t talk much about the fact that people are generally bad at predicting what will make them happy (e.g. people who buy a nice house in the exurbs that requires a three-hour commute each day)… but that idea seems to be relevant here.

She also is big on resolutions, but picked a few each month and rotated them regularly, which seems sensible. At the beginning of the project, she identified her Twelve Commandments, a longer list of Secrets of Adulthood, and Four Splendid Truths for herself. I couldn’t really define the difference between these, other than the fact that the Commandments are central, and the Secrets are a little more playful, and the Truths go a little deeper.

It got me thinking about what my Commandments/Secrets would be. Hers included things like “Be Gretchen” and “Do It Now.” Here are some of mine, including things I am good at remembering and things I’d like to be better at…

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
When in doubt, reframe it.
Process, not product.
Spend it all.
Be kinder than necessary.
Practice “yes-and.”
Do small things with great love.
Love what is.
Put on your oxygen mask first.
Eschew the generic.
Love God, love others, love yourself—
and realize that the boundaries between them are permeable.
You can choose.

…what would yours be?

I also finished reading Parenting with Love and Logic, which I’d gotten from the library, and am pretty much on board with that. In fact, I’d like to write a spinoff, Pastoring with Love and Logic, because so much of the stuff in there is applicable to the church…! The basic idea is to find a middle ground between helicopter parenting and drill sergeant parenting—to be ‘consultant parents,’ which help kids solve their problems themselves and not be subject to our rescue. This approach is big on letting kids own the problem and not blowing up about stuff but letting them feel the consequences of their decisions. I also like the approach because it comes from a place of balance between parental assertiveness (i.e. my needs as a human being matter) and kindness (empathy over anger). I have some quibbles here and there (some of the consequences would be seen by our sensitive kids as over-the-top harsh, especially with no warning beforehand). And a few of the approaches are problematic when you have kids of such different ages as ours, but it’s generally pretty solid. If there is interest from others and/or time on my part I might write a longer review/reflection on this book.

I’m also reading Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity, which is quite good and started especially strong, although the middle chapters are dragging a little. Part of the issue is that he’s mainly writing for recovering evangelicals, so some of his stuff I’m like “yeah, this part isn’t for me.”

————

The divine miss M is very reflective lately. Jerome Berryman identifies four existential questions of childhood, which deal with aloneness, the nature of freedom, death, and the meaning of life. M will sometimes withdraw to the side of the room and start tearing up. When we ask her what’s wrong, she says, “I don’t want to grow up,” or “I don’t want to have to leave home,” or “I wish I could be a baby again,” or “I will be so sad when you die.”

No comment on that, just something I want to recall. I don’t remember C doing this at all.

She’s also in a very sweet/empathic phase. We’ve had some pretty bad sleep in the reverendhousehold—it’s rare when we’re not visited by at least one child in the night—but three nights ago everyone slept all night long. Everyone except me, that is. I woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep until after 5. Grrr!!!!!!

I was telling M about this yesterday and explaining how much I was looking forward to a good night’s sleep. This morning when she came into our room the very first thing out of her mouth was, “Mommy, did you sleep well or did you wake up at 4:00 again?” Such a sweetheart.

————

Just a few notes on C: she appears to be stabilizing and is not as anxious. The Love and Logic stuff seems to help, as well as a few more minutes of sleep in the morning and the chance to do big-kid stuff.

Speaking of, she rode her bike without training wheels today. Woot!

Also, she and R are working on a model rocket. Today they painted it colors of her choosing: neon pink, neon orange and gold. She also gave it the name “Gold Nebula.” Awesome.

————

Not much to say about J. He had the croupy cough last night and has had a very high fever. He also has been requesting that we put a ponytail on top of his head. He will wear it all day long.

I, too, am sick. Just a cold, but I feel pretty wiped out. So I’m off to bed soon.

That’s “Poem to Prime the Pump” — lots of writing to do this afternoon.

for sweet baby j

tower

a wooden square on the bottom,
two or three teetering rectangles,
and something fancy on top:
the block with the bell inside it,
or the clear plexiglass pyramid.
it doesn’t really matter,
it’s all crumbling down
as the stout wooden airplane
finds the sweet spot
every time.

i’ve rebuilt the tower three times
before i realize.
let’s make it a fourth; for him
it’s just physics.

So I’ve been preaching weekly for about four months now, and I’ve been thinking lately about how the process is different. It’s mostly been as I expected. I enjoy it. Love it, even. Sunday is relentless though, and I cope with this by borrowing that old William Stafford thing I’ve quoted so many times here—how is he able to write a poem a day? By lowering his standards.

I lower my standards.

Admittedly, they were pretty high to begin with. No more. I’m not cooking a four-course meal once a month like I used to. I’m cooking each week, which means there are some Trader Joes items mixed in with the home-cooked stuff.

That’s not to say that I’m sloppy—I hope I’m not—or that I don’t care—I do. I don’t use canned stuff, though I do poach from old sermons, papers from my clergy group, you name it. And I certainly don’t plagiarize, though I do know that others have plagiarized from me, which doesn’t bother me as much as it maybe should, but there it is. Honestly, there is nothing new under the sun, and I’m with Google: information wants to be free. Especially when you’re talking about the gospel.

So I borrow from Stafford, but I also borrow from Annie Dillard, who said to “spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the [sermon] or for another [sermon]; give it, give it all, give it now.” I used to hoard, unfortunately, but hoarding seems a luxury I cannot afford any more. And she’s right. Something new always comes along.

The final observation I have about this process has to do with one of the things I struggle with in writing, which is just getting something down and not editing and tinkering as I go. I am a major tinkerer. There really isn’t time for that with a weekly deadline—you just need to get something down. But when you’re writing a book or even an article, there is time and a mechanism for feedback and corrections; there is no outside editing process with a sermon. Once Sunday is over, that’s it. The rough draft IS the final product. That’s not to say that I don’t hone things, but there’s no wiggle room with the deadline. It’s just due, as is, that’s it. And somehow, it works.

When I first started in ministry I had this visualization thing I would do once a sermon was over. I’d think about it for a while, celebrate what was good, cringe over what didn’t work, and then I would picture the sermon as a kite that I was flying, and I would cut the string and let it float away. I am not feeling the need to evaluate and dwell on my sermons as much now. The relentlessness of Sunday is like the wind that pulls the string from my hand on its own. And that is OK.

I’ve been worried about and mystified by C lately. It’s hard to explain, but she hasn’t been herself. Or she has been herself, just more so.
C, intensified.

She is naturally a very competent and controlled person. Lately this has veered into outright anxiety. R and I have a code, “Knock-knock,” when she gets like this. It’s the beginning of a joke:
Q: Knock-knock.
A: Who’s there?
Q: Control freak—now you say “control freak who?”

For example, tonight R was planning to make enchiladas, but realized he was missing an ingredient and decided to make something else. C got very anxious about this, despite the fact that she wouldn’t have eaten the enchiladas anyway.

In fact, much of the control stuff is around food. We are huge fans of Ellyn Satter and her approach to kid nutrition and feeding. (Nutshell: parents are in charge of the what, when and where of meals; kids are in charge of whether and how much they eat.) However, I think we mistakenly believed that if we followed this plan, that kids would grow to be well-rounded eaters. Not so much. The reality is that C is a picky eater and just gets pickier by the day.

In our better moments, we realize that the Satter stuff doesn’t make someone a great eater; it just helps maintain good boundaries and minimize counterproductive battles at the dinner table. In our worse moments, we (ok, mainly I) fret that she’s gaining too much weight, that we need to encroach on her side of the equation because if left to her own devices she would only eat bread, peanut butter and apples. The stuff she likes to eat, she absolutely loves to eat. Which is not terrible—food is one of life’s great sensual pleasures, and the enjoyment of food is a gift from God, in my humble opinion. On the other hand, it’s also fuel, and too much of it isn’t healthy. And let’s face it, there isn’t exactly an abundance of ectomorphs in her family tree…

Her doctor is not concerned, and advised us to leave the whole thing alone, aside from helping to educate her on portion sizes.

She’s also gotten more aggressive with her younger siblings. She taunts and annoys them, even after they have told her to stop, as if to see what they’ll do—what will happen. It’s entertainment. Which then annoys us, so we respond from an annoyed place rather than a dispassionate/correcting one. Then I get annoyed by my annoyed response to her annoying behavior and………….

Poor C, our first born. She has always been our practice kid, the one on which we hone all our parenting theories, for better or worse. It’s no wonder she’s anxious.

Bottom line is that I don’t feel good about my parenting of her right now, because I realize we are in new territory. She is no longer a Little Kid, she is a Kid. And we’re not sure what she needs, exactly: more time with mommy, more time with daddy, more time on her own? time with kids her own age? time outside blowing off steam? introspective/introvert time? a parent who isn’t obsessing about what she needs? heh.

Part of what I feel I need to do is some basic reframing. One of C’s quirks is that she loves stuff. Things. Little trinkets, rocks, doodads. She gets VERY attached to things. Whenever we replace a piece of furniture or a fixture, she insists that we take a picture of the old item, no matter how butt-ugly it was. And she is loath to give things away. I get irritated by this, because I have few sentimental attachments to things and have been attributing her attitude to materialism and selfishness. Lately I’ve wondered what it would mean to reframe what is probably a very normal kid response more positively. To say that she has a sense of aesthetics, for example. Or that she values beauty. (Broken-record question during Olympic figure skating: Are those gems real?) Or that objects carry spiritual value for her, and to trust that as she learns how to be generous with others, she may turn out to be one of those wildly extravagant givers.

This is not to say that my children are perfect, nor that every behavior can or should be viewed positively… but this reframing has been a really incredible practice.

In the midst of all this, R believes that her primary issue is lack of sleep. She hasn’t napped for years, of course, but she goes to bed when M and J do (8-ish, though we’re reading chapter books now, which push things slightly later). Her siblings bound out of bed around 6 or 6:30, but when we wake her up for school at 7:15, we are waking her from a dead sound sleep.

So today was a really great day for her. I actually saw her smiling, which I haven’t seen much of in recent weeks. (I also have to consider that the blizzard, though fun, has been hard on her, a creature of habit.) I’m not sure what the key was, but here are some elements that may have made a difference:

1. We let her sleep as long as we could. I finally woke her at 8:15 and drove her to school rather than having her take the bus.

2. She asked me to pick her up from school because “I just need a break from my friends on the bus.” Yay for self-aware introverts!

3. R left for work early, which means he came home early, which means he had some time with the kids before the dinner crunchtime.

4. I am reading Harriet the Spy to her. It was always one of my favorites. I loved it because Harriet is one of the great characters of children’s lit—courageous and outspoken and completely herself. I had forgotten how harsh her assessments were of the people she spied on, though. At first I felt uncomfortable reading this to C, who is a very kind and sensitive kid. Then I realized—this is the perfect thing for a Not-Little Kid to be reading! Nicey-nice can be stifling, I think. Maybe Harriet is liberating.

Tonight after dinner she was working very intently on something. Later she sidled up to me and said with a sparkle in her eye, “Can you keep a secret?” Turns out she was spying and taking notes on her family. I presented her with an extra journal I had lying around. She took to it immediately, scribbled notes while getting ready for bed, and for once I knew not to hurry her along to brush her teeth and such. I told her that a journal is a great place to write down what was annoying her—especially when it was a younger sibling. When I tucked her into bed she was actually smiling there in the dark.

Some days are like that…

Earlier today I posted these little tidbits on FB:
C, upon entering the pool for her lesson: “[breathing deeply] I just LOVE that smell!” Yep, she’s a swimmer.

I let M go to the water fountain in Costco by herself while I was checking out. She was not kidnapped, and even more amazing, nobody lectured me. I feel so Free Range Parent…

Then things sorta went downhill until tonight: Had many moments today when I felt like a waitress for the Party of Three from Hell. Tips weren’t so great, either.

After a fun morning, everything became a challenge. We all went out to ride bikes/scooters, and M got tired and cranky, so we decided to come in. So then C got upset because she and R were going to go on a short bike ride just the two of them. So then M wanted to go with them. But of course C got upset because she didn’t want M to tag along. Meanwhile J is dipping his hands in the puddles and scooping up big handfuls of sand along the curb and having a great time, oblivious to the sisterly drama. When we finally went in I wiped his hands off and the scratchy sand hurt his frozen paws and he started screaming.

Then it was on to hot chocolate. One wants marshmallows in the cocoa. One wants marshmallows on the side. One doesn’t want any marshmallows but will nag you for seconds on chocolate.

Our Girl Scout Cookies finally arrived, and M chose the lemon sandwich cookies for us to have for dessert, but C doesn’t like that kind, so she opted for a Tagalong, but then J saw it and started whining/screaming for one, even though he’d already had a lemon one.

On the upside, R opened up some of his homebrews and they taste great! He had one before dinner and one at dinner.

After J pooped in the bathtub he decided to go for a third.

We had a nice weekend. After C’s swimming lessons on Saturday, we put on all the snow clothes one last time and headed to Suburban Lake Park, just to see what conditions were like. R and I decided not to wear snow pants, though we took several up-to-our-knee footsteps in the deep snow around the playground. Each kid made a trip down the tube slide, which was the only part of the playground without snow on it. It’s so shady over there that it’s gonna be weeks before it all melts.

Then we walked around on the big open field, which was easier. We bounced on a tree that had fallen over, found some long-thin tracks from cross-country skis, and collected some of the sweet little pine branches that were strewn about from the winds. It was so quiet. Afterward we went to McD’s.

That afternoon R completed phase II of the beer-brewing, namely the bottling. This went very smoothly and he’s already planning his next batch. I’m happy that he’s so excited about this new hobby. It definitely plays to his strengths as a cook—he’s patient and meticulous. Wild and innovative has its place, but when you’re starting out with beer, best stick to the formula.

Yesterday morning was the first Sunday of Lent, and we had a good crowd in worship. Ran out of bulletins again. (OK, I think we’re just not making enough.) We had 57 in worship yesterday, which was the first day we actually kept count. According to our stats, we averaged 35 in worship in 2008, not sure about 2009. It’s not unusual for an interim period to be depressed in energy or turnout, but with a church as small as ours, you really feel those fluctuations. So people are very energized.

Yesterday was also my installation as pastor of Tiny Church. I had to remind myself that many members of the church, especially the long-term ones, may have never experienced this ritual—my predecessor was there almost 30 years. It was a really wonderful service. A friend of mine from my clergy group preached, and not only was it a great sermon, I fell in love with her robe (a href=http://www.womenspirit.com/ProductDetails.aspx?CATID=1&PID=3>this one in white) and think I’ve finally picked the one that I want. (I am using a hand-me-down Geneva gown right now, and when I left Suburban Pres they told me to pick out a new one and it would be their gift to me.)

My predecessor was also a part of the service. He’s been such a great support from afar and I liked the symbolism of his being there. We did a reaffirmation of baptismal covenant, which felt very powerful to me—reaffirming our baptism connects us with our past and our future.

An elder from Suburban Pres. charged the congregation, one of my Writing Revs charged me, and I was gratified by the turnout, including Speck (another friend from Suburban), and several friends from National Crankypants. I was prepared for a very small presbytery turnout since there was a multi-hour meeting the previous day—this made people’s presence even more special.

As R put it last night, “This church really has its ‘food’ act together.” I couldn’t agree more. Yummy food and plenty of it—and it’s all that great stuff you want from a church reception. The meatballs were a huge hit, especially with my kids.

This morning I was excited to get an e-mail from my sister, who lives near Disney. One of the Tiny Church families is down there right now with Make-a-Wish, and we had given them my sister and brother-in-law’s contact information. They are great at helping people plan their visit for maximum fun. They also had offered to babysit the kids while the parents went out one night. Here is what K wrote to me:

D [BIL who works for Disney] e-mailed his managers to see if there was anything extra they could do. He was thinking maybe they would give them the photopass CD for free or something, but they really went above and beyond. His manager e-mailed a bunch of the managers at the parks to see what could be done. One of the managers met them at the Dream Along with Mickey show (which is a show on the stage in front of the castle). After the show, he took them in the castle where they got to have a private meet and greet with all of the cast of the show, including Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald, Goofy, Peter Pan and Wendy, Cinderella and Prince Charming, Sleeping Beauty and Prince Philip, and Snow White and her Prince. This freaked J out a little, but everyone else loved it I think they also gave them a special meet and greet with the Star Wars characters and gave J a signed light saber. [The mother] had already planned to do a dive at the Epcot aquarium, so they arranged to have a photographer there to photograph her experience.

It’s really cool because it took a large number of people to work together and coordinate this, not to mention all the entertainers who took the time after finishing the shows to stay and greet the family. Anyone who wonders why I love Disney so much… it’s because of things like this! D talked to one of the team on Friday night and was telling him how thankful we were, and they were saying how thankful they were to be involved.

The kids stayed with us tonight while L and B had dinner with some friends. The kids are so sweet. We had a great time.

I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. This is the family I’ve written about before, that lost the little boy a week after I arrived at Tiny. I am a big believer in commissioning people for mission trips, and I had had this silly idea to ‘commission’ this family for their Disney adventure in worship or during coffee hour. Because if anyone needed a week of magic, it’s them. I wanted to give them Mickey ears and stuff… then the blizzard happened. Oh well. But I am so thankful for Disney, which yes, is a multi-national corporation, but they are also a ministry. This I believe.

This morning I went to visit a woman in the hospital and I checked my mailbox and found Carrie Newcomer’s latest album! I had ordered in a gift pak along with a T-shirt and moleskine journal embossed with a CN quote. I gave the CD to the woman in the hospital, who was so tickled. I love introducing people to her music.

Time to go pick up C from the bus stop!

That’s the title of the flyer I got at the ped yesterday. It’s frighteningly accurate:

During the 4th year (actually this is her 5th year, but it’s a common mistake) your child:
–resents being told what to do and thinks she knows everything
–may be stubborn and more difficult than age 3
–runs around like crazy
–resists your resistance and your rules
–is bold and full of life
–craves adventure and is very loud

etc.

I didn’t get one for 7 year olds. Oh well.

The stats:
C: 49 in tall, 68%; 63 lb., 89%
M: 43 in tall, 94%; 44 lb., 91%

Each had one shot. M volunteered to go first, but said, “Ow.” C went second and braved it silently. I said that each was brave in her own particular way.

So I’ve been thinking about an Internet-related Lenten practice. I’m apparently not the only one—several friends are giving up Facebook for Lent. I wish them well but don’t feel called to that, personally. As Bruce Reyes Chow said last year (paraphrasing), I do a lot of pastoral care and authentive connecting with people via Facebook and other social media. So when pastors encourage me to give up Facebook for Lent, I say, “I’ll give it up for Lent when you give up the telephone.”

I’ve written here and on Facebook about various tools that allow you to control what sites you see and when. I’ve used Freedom for the Mac, which shuts down your wifi for an amount of time you set. That works for certain tasks—when I’m just needing to write a journal entry or a rough draft of something, for example—but for many things I need to consult something on the ‘net while I write.

Then there’s Leechblock, which you can use to block certain sites during certain times, or set a maximum number of minutes you can visit them in an hour or a day. This is good for those sites that suck you in unconsciously. (In that sense, I bet Internet addiction is a lot like other addictions—smokers who all of a sudden find themselves with a lit cigarette in hand. I don’t even remembering firing up the Huffington Post, yet here I am…)

There’s also Concentrate, which is a nifty program that is sort of a combination of the two.
In my research into these programs, I have read the comment more than once, “Geez people, don’t you have any self-control? Just don’t go to those sites! Just turn off the computer! Why do you need a special program?” Here’s how I respond: “Same reason people put a few cookies in a bowl or potato chips on a plate rather than eating them straight from the bag. Same reason people record the shows they want to watch rather than just sit down and channel-surf. Same reason I set the treadmill for 30 minutes rather than just walk on it until I get bored.”

As human beings we manage our appetites in all sorts of ways. Why not portion control with our internet use? Whether you walk away from the computer, or use a timer, or set up a block, it’s the same effect… or is that just a massive rationalization?

All that said, I am feeling once again like Bilbo, “stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” I get this way every so often. Having the Internet in your pocket means you never need to be silent or still. If you’re noodling over how to solve a problem, you can find something to read or a website to check instead of sitting with your thoughts, discomforting though they may be. This is a distracted and reactive way to live.

So my practice this Lent is simple and complicated at the same time. I already have my various Leechblocks in place—Facebook for just a minute or two an hour at most, a whole slew of sites for 15-20 minutes a day. That’s not new. The new thing for Lent is, no internet on the iPhone. What that means is no little 5 minute snatches of web-surfing. No obsessive checking of Facebook. These things have not taken over my life, but I’m a little too trigger-happy with it. I do have Kindle books on my iPhone so that’ll be my nicotine patch

A friend was recently talking about a conflict he was dealing with and the need to be non-anxious (so important in ministry). He mentioned how much better things went when he did not try to suppress his emotional response to the conflict, but instead approached it with curiosity.

I think this is an excellent posture to take with any Lenten practice, and mine is no exception. When the temptation arises, we should not berate ourselves or suppress what we feel, but just be curious about it. What is this urge really about? What in us is being neglected?

For those who observe the season of Lent, I wish you a blessed one.

The girls are getting dressed:

Me: Ooh, who’s going to get dressed first? M has her pajama pants off, but C has already put her socks on.
C: I don’t want this to be a race, because when I don’t win I freak out.
M: That’s OK C, I’ll go really really slow.

And that’s pretty much everything you need to know about their personalities…

Little she-who-is turns 7 today. All week long we were preparing her for fewer gifts on her actual birthday because of the disruptions from the storm. She doesn’t care. It’s her birthday and that’s reason enough for celebration. Love that kid.

Been working with some friends on a study guide for Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World and ran across this quote:

Most of us spend so much time thinking about where we have been or where we are supposed to be going that we have a hard time recognizing where we actually are. When someone asks us where we want to be in our lives the last thing that occurs to us is to look down at our feet and say, “Here, I guess, since this is where I am.”

The great Billy Jonas has a song, “Anyway you go you’re gonna get there.” It’s a nice statement of faith, or at least confidence, that things have a way of working themselves out. I don’t think the statement encompasses all of human experience, but most everyday stuff fits well enough.

On this, C’s seventh birthday, I’ve been thinking about 3:30 a.m. as the point at which “anyway I go I’m gonna get there.” I’ve given birth three times, with three very different labors. C came after a long exhausting labor, with about 25 minutes of pushing. M came very quickly; after almost two weeks of prodromal labor, I went from a sound sleep at home to a birthed baby in the hospital in 2 1/2 hours. J’s labor was somewhere in the middle, with most of the labor happening in the evening. But wherever and whenever they started, every one of my children was born around 3:30 in the morning.

I believe that people have a Place in which they are spiritually at home. Why not an Hour too?

And what is it about 3:30 for me? It’s the middle of the night, when everything seems scarier, worries are amplified, and there’s no one around to talk to about them. Labor requires you to confront all those demons. Heck, parenthood does that too—the whole “heart walking around outside your body” thing.

It’s also a quiet time; it’s a deep time, with its own gifts, if you can discern them peeking out at you in the dark. That’s parenthood too—we’ve had a pretty significant life disruption these last two weeks (though minor in the big scheme, of course). And boy, have nerves been frayed. But there have been so many gifts too that I’m not looking forward to normal life starting again. Maybe that’s the point of 3:30 a.m.—life at 3:30 is normal life.

Photo: Little she at two days old. I wonder what her Place and Hour will be?

I was snapping pictures of the art room/study and found myself calling it the “blue room.” I don’t like the connotation of sadness, but otherwise, I like it.

Here is what we’ve currently got. Still some art to hang, plus a small white board, and we haven’t figured out where the kitties’ food will go… which is not an insignificant concern since it involves two plates in the morning, two bowls in the evening plus water dish. I need to get the shelves better organized. But allow me to take you on a tour:

I think I’ve already shared the light, but it’s SO much more fun than the nasty chandelier (held up by twist-ties—no joke) that it bears re-posting.

Our little IKEA table sits in the corner closest to the kitchen. I’m not sure it’s going to stay in this room—it’s hardly ever used and is too small for the girls, especially C. But as you can see it’s the perfect size for J. Notice how he’s rockin’ with the LEFT hand.

This table used to be in the middle of the wall, with all the art stuff piled in baskets on top of it. We moved it to the corner, which makes better use of space, and moved the bins onto the shelf. You can barely see C’s head poking up in this picture as she does her homework. The frames on the wall are these, which allow us to switch them out with new artwork easily.

The ladderback chairs, I’m sad to say, are not very comfortable, and the cats have done a number on the caned seats. But I found some inexpensive cushions that sit on top of the seat and will at least discourage additional destruction.

Here you see the shelves and a cushiony chair with lamp. I haven’t finished organizing the shelves… I might get some additional bins, now that I’ve got space to store them. I’ve got popsicle sticks mixed with pipe cleaners mixed with pom pom balls…

The view from the window. There’s a table across the window that has a Root-Vue Farm growing on it—this is one of the sunniest places in the house, especially in winter and early spring. I’d like to have a few plants on it eventually, though I’ve probably maxed out the number of things I can keep alive at one time.

The desk and small shelf. This contains a few ministry reference books and a bunch of writing stuff. The desk has some treasures on it, including three Iona rocks, a picture of the Iona nunnery, and a small sculpture of mother and child I bought at 10,000 Villages.

I thought I’d start a post that contains all the blizzard updates. Will be adding to this, since SNOMG is far from over.

Since this is a specific event I’ll go in forward chronological order and add to the bottom.

——–

We’ve all but canceled worship on Sunday. Haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but gave the snow removal guys a “when you can get to it” order.

Fun to be reading The Long Winter to the girls on the eve of a blizzard. Pa is twisting hay into sticks for burning, and Ma just made a lamp out of axle grease, a scrap of cloth and a button. Pretty sure I’d last about 15 hours on the frontier.

National Weather Service: 21-33 inches. I share because I care.

I finished an article. R made granola. Kids were getting surly so we played a running-around-the-family-room game. Much happier now.

National Weather Service: 23-35.

It’s going to be a wonderful cozy weekend if I remember just one rule: when the kids get whiny or obstinate, if the girls fight or if J starts hitting, that’ll be a sign to start Red Light Green Light, a Wii boxing tournament, or a pillow fight. Ferreal. This is the key to the whole deal.

R is still in bed, C and M are playing quietly with their Tinkerbell dolls while sitting under a blanket, J has just asked for his Bin o’ Cars, and I am finally knitting the rest of a tank top I started for M two years ago. Luckily I made it a larger size… because I know how I am with these things.

R out shoveling. Kids started whining/arguing so I put my One Rule of Blizzards in action: after doing the YMCA, learning Greased Lightning and jumping around to House of Pain, they’ve turned into angels again. Currently all three are in the bath.

Watched Narnia with the girls. Can’t wait for the Deep Magic to come and thaw this Winter of 100 Years. Also, taught my children the Camel Dance. Of which I have video.

Our street has been plowed! Yippee for freedom; boo for not having another adult here on Monday for crowd control.

Now in the light of day I must revise my earlier post… we have NOT been plowed. It looks like some determined 4×4 plowed its way up the street yesterday, so there’s some snow pushed to each side but still quite a bit of snow between the tire tracks…

Teaching C to knit. She just finished her first row. She’s a natural!

The wonders of Skype: C just showed off her knitting to MaDear, and is now showing her a magic trick. In other news, there’s a 4×4 stuck on the main road in our subdivision. We run out of milk on Tuesday–might have to walk up to the grocery store if we’re not plowed out by then. Just a 15 minute walk on a good day.

Great afternoon in the snow. R made a tunnel. I pulled kids in the sled. We watched 4×4s power up and down the street. Kid energy crash when we came in. J fell asleep in his high chair. He got mad when R reclined his high chair, remembered the popcorn, grabbed a piece, but fell back asleep before he could get it to his mouth.

I heartell that there was a sporting match of some kind this evening.

No blizzard goes unwasted: For Christmas I gave R a gift of cleaning out his spices, organizing them, and replacing the old ones. Just cleaned out sixty, six-oh, bottles, jars and cans of expired/redundant stuff. SATISFYING

J is asleep; the girls are playing with friends down the street. House hasn’t been this quiet in a loooooong time.

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m rooting for the kids to go to school until July. That works great for me, a working mother who has to arrange for child care in the summer.

Más nieve… qué catástrofe. ¡El Niño es El Diablo!

February 8, 2010: The day I went from being “Mama” to “Mommy”… for the last time.

SO excited about tonight’s episode of LOST. However, this week my excitement is 35% plot-and-character related and 65% tropical-locale related.

Never in my life did I think I’d see a forecast of 7-15 inches and think, “Well that’s not so bad.”

Total accumulation of 6-10 inches? Why, I do believe I’ll head out for some sunbathing!!

Working our way through the entire Daring Book for Girls–inside activities only, of course. “Say say my playmate, come out and play with me, and bring your dollies three, climb up my apple tree…”

The seven-year-old (tomorrow) cries hysterically at the drop of a hat. Anyone?

I’m preparing myself for the imminent return of life as usual. We’ve had plenty of stressful moments these last 8 days, but I’ll be sad when we all emerge from the cave and go our separate ways.

Finally wrested the knitted tank top from M so I can adjust a couple of the straps and add some length. Picking up stitches–what fun! Never done it before. Adding ribbing along the bottom in the same color as the straps. Listening to The Help on audiobook while I work. House is quiet.

Leaving our street for the first time since February 4.

C asked to play around on PBSkids.org today. Just not got back to my computer and say what she’s been looking at–random videos of “how stuff gets made” from the Mr. Rogers site. Love that kid.

So our geriatric kitty with the kidney issues peed on C’s snowsuit lying in the hall outside the litter box. Then, when he was accidentally shut up in an area of the house with no litter (or food) for the entire night, he had no accidents. Pretty selective “issues”…

J pronounces it “otay.” Like Buckwheat.

I’ve got the low energy, back to work, end of blizzard, lots more winter blues.

Family outing to the chocolate boutique. Kids were barbarians, but we managed to score some bars: lavender pistachio dark, a mint chocolate called “ChocObama,” and the wild card: dark with tamari roasted almonds and sea salt.

I should supplement this post with pictures of the outside, but word pictures will have to do for now.

I have friends who’ve lost power and trees during Snowpocalypse 2010, but we’ve been fortunate to be snug and happy. The Virus has passed for the most part, and it looks as if the parents dodged this bullet. We’ve been in the house nonstop since Wednesday, so we’re a little cabin feverish, but we’ve also hit our stride, I have to say.

R took yesterday off so I could get some work done. There wasn’t anything pressing at the church, especially since I was almost certain that worship would be canceled, but I’ve had several writing deadlines looming. I finished my monthly article and supplemental study guide for Denominational Magazine in record time—only five days past the deadline rather than 15 or more, as is my custom. I still have one more article for Feasting on the Word, on Zephaniah, bleh, but I am all gung-ho after receiving this note from the section editor, a former professor who now runs a Th.D. program at Little Old Southern Divinity School:

I’ve read your first two essays–they are wonderful, as I expected. You’re done with them. I thought you might like to hear that as you squeeze in your work on #3.

I made only one change in wording that I wanted to run by you. [blah blah blah].

Thanks SO much for your great work in the midst of family challenges and a time crunch.

Now, about that Th.D. program in homiletics……

Heh heh heh. Not.

While I wrote, R played with the kids, did a couple of minor projects around the house, and made these:

They’re peach pies. The star-shaped ones are even better. For dinner I made a black bean soup that was awesome and basically consisted of sauteing some onions and garlic and then opening cans. My father-in-law calls that Maximum Impact, Minimum Effort, which is my favorite cooking philosophy.

This morning we woke up to another marshmallow world. J and I were the first ones up, around 6:45. The snow had stopped but there was at least 16-17 inches on the table on our deck, and varying depths elsewhere. It started again soon after waking and snowed until just a couple of hours ago, around dinnertime. We have easily two feet of snow.

The early morning was pleasant. The girls were snuggled on the couch under an afghan that R’s grandmother knitted for him so many years ago (that would make her so happy). Each girl had a Tinkerbell doll and were dreaming up some game…

M: [rolling a ball, singing a song] The moonstone is rolling away…….
C: No it’s not.
M: [reversing course, continuing to sing without missing a beat] The moonstone is not rolling away……

J requested his Bin O’ Vehicles and picked out a small plane to fly around. He would count before liftoff, which sounds like “Too, Fee, Fee, Fee, Fee!! [airplane sound that every boy seems born able to do]”

I made myself some chai and sat in the corner with my feet up, working on a knitted tank top I started for M two years ago. Thankfully I made it big at the time, knowing how I am. It was going to look like this but I cannot find the ruffle anywhere in this house and all I have is the body of the tank. So I’m knitting some i-cords to attach and tie over each shoulder. It’s the only way I get this thing done before she outgrows it. Her belly already threatens to pooch out a little at the bottom…

Speaking of outgrowing things, I knitted a sweater for C three years ago that she just now can wear… as a somewhat cropped style. Yes, I’m a knitter of splendidly imperfect projects.

After R woke up we had his homemade multigrain pancakes which are awesome. Then he went out to shovel which just happened to coincide with the kids’ first whiny/cranky moment of the day. ??? I had resolved that every time they got into that state that I would get them doing something physical—dancing, red light green light, whatever. This morning it was “YMCA,” “Greased Lightning” and “Jump Around” by House of Pain. This afternoon (after a long bath and lunch) it was energizers: “Istanbul” (which I have on video) and “500 Miles.” If you don’t know what energizers are, you’re either not Presbyterian or you’re over the age of 50 or both…

While J napped and R did some computer stuff, the girls and I watched The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was on my mind since we seem to be experiencing one hundred years of winter, albeit with no Turkish Delight in sight. I was a little worried that the girls might find it too scary, but R read the book to them and I was able to prepare them for some of the intense scenes. When we did most favorite/least favorite at dinner they both said the movie was their favorite thing about the day.

Tomorrow’s plan will be more puttering, playing outside (finally) and a couple of home projects, including moving my desk to the art room. I also gave R a gift of service at Christmas in which I offered to clean out our spices, throw away the old stuff (some of which is a decade old), and replenish his stock at the Penzey’s near Tiny Church. I’d love to really organize stuff too, but I’m not sure how effective that will be in the current cabinet, which is the only space currently available.

I said after the significant snow we had in December that I enjoyed the weekend at home together, just the five of us, so much that I’m tempted to schedule a “snow weekend” each year during which, regardless of the weather, we just lock ourselves in and enjoy one another with no outside distractions. That said, some of my teacher friends are predicting that we don’t go back to school until Thursday. Help me Rhonda.

BONUS CONVERSATION:
While tucking M into bed:
Me: I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be snowed in with than you three children and your daddy. You all are just so special.
M: But Daddy is the specialest because he shovels!

It’s been a wild week at the reverendhousehold. Tuesday night J and C threw up almost simultaneously and have been puny since then. M threw up yesterday afternoon but seems a little better off. I was very worried it was norovirus so I’ve been bathing every surface with bleach spray stuff and my house smelled like a swimming pool.

Today everyone is looking better, and the symptoms have not moved to the southern hemisphere as of yet, so I’ve been a little less vigilant about the bleach, while still being uber-vigilant about the hand washing. Yesterday I washed my hands 30 times, easy. Body Shop Hemp Hand Protector=Worth Every Penny.

I’m reading The Happiness Project and enjoying it. Lots of fun little tidbits about what makes us happy, and not. For example: venting one’s anger does NOT dissipate it, it makes it worse. (Damn.) Also, people are made happier by change and novelty, not by routine. Heh—sure would be nice to convince the institutional church of that! Which goes to the point I’ve seen expressed many times, that people are terrible at predicting what will make them happy.

We had our third snow of the season this past weekend, our fourth two days ago, and our fifth is predicted this weekend. It will be another Snowpocalypse. Goody! I’ve already got Tiny Church people saying we should go ahead and cancel church. Can we wait until at least one snowflake falls?

R and I met for our “monthly” sit-down to plan family stuff. I put monthly in quotes because we’re not real regular about it. The next few months are about boring stuff like taxes and setting up 529 college savings plans. Bleh. But it will be so huge to have some of those niggling financial things behind us.

C has been bringing home books from the school library that are from the Black Lagoon series. The idea is that the principal (vice principal, school nurse) has the reputation of being really scary and mean and eating children and decorating the office with kids’ bones and such… until the kid has to go to the principal’s office or the nurse and realizes that they’re actually nice. The books manage not to be preachy and are kinda cute.

Anyway, the girls wrote The Mommy from the Black Lagoon today:

We have a mommy and she is from the Black Lagoon.

Her room has seaweed hanging in it. And if you come in without knocking, you get spanked 100 times.

If you don’t clean your room, our mom will put spiders in your pillow.

There’s supposed to be skeletons and bats and spiders and yucky bloody butterflies in the basement. There’s also a yucky bloody lamp that has a blood light in it.

And always outside there’s supposed to be bloody bloody flowers. [most of the preceding came from M and C finally told her to cool it on the blood because “you’re freaking me out.”]

There’s a trolley on the road that’s black black and filled with spidery kitties.

She also feeds you bananas that are green or brown, not yellow.
And guts.

I threw up in the middle of the night, and I had to go in Mommy’s room.

I was worried there would be dripping pictures of Aurora on the wall.

Instead, there were sweet-smelling candles in my mommy’s room.

And my mom looked pretty normal.

She brought me to the potty, and then I threw up.

She cleaned up my bed and gave me a bowl.

I guess my mommy is pretty nice after all.

The End.

The kids are playing “dog” right now, in which C throws a soft frisbee and M and J catch it in their mouths… and by the end of this post, C is reading to the two of them. These moments are all too fleeting so I thought I’d take a minute to record a recent conversation with M:

I caught her peeking into my room, watching me while I was getting ready for church yesterday. She had a melancholy expression.

Me: What’s wrong sweetie?
M: I’m sad. I don’t want to grow up!
Me: Why don’t you want to grow up?
M: Because then I won’t be able to see you every day! [starts to cry]
[Pause while I hug her. I have to make a concerted effort not to explain it away with “by the time you grow up you’ll feel ready to leave home” or somesuch]
Me: You know what? When I think about you growing up I feel a little sad too because I love seeing you every day. …I’ll also be very happy, though, because it will be so fun to see what you do as a grown up. I bet you will have a lot of adventures.
M: [brightens suddenly] Hey, I saw a picture of you in a cave! Was that a dragon cave?

…Yes, growing up becomes more palatable if there are dragon caves involved.

BTW, I think she’s thinking of the caves at Bandelier, where R and I went on our honeymoon.

——–

Had a pretty nice weekend. Saturday it snowed all day and the kids played together for a really long time. They played with the Thomas set, our Little People stuff, and some plastic zoo animals Free to Be gave them at Christmas and by the end it was all a huge jumble. We also did some projects—the girls painted some clay stuff they’d done weeks before, then played with glitter and glue. (On second thought, I think I WON’T get a rug for the art room.)

Speaking of art room, I moved one of the shelves out of there and into the living room. It currently has various fancy dining room stuff on it like vases, some stemware, a few nice platters and things. It looks nice enough, but it does seem weird to have it all in the living room. But it’s stuff we use, however infrequently, and there’s no other logical place for it, so it’s the best solution we have. Maybe we could put some doors on the shelves (they’re Billys from IKEA).

The thought is that I will move my desk and bookshelf into the art room so I can work and write in there. I don’t really have a good place to do that right now, and I’m getting a crick in my neck from sitting in the big chair in the living room. Once I put my desk in the art room it will need a new name… study?

Saturday while we puttered around, R brewed beer. This took a lot of time and concentration and I think he was worried about the result, but things seem to be bubbling away in the little tube thingy so he feels a lot more confident. His one piece of advice though is to make sure when you brew beer that you actually have some beer in the house.

Yesterday we proceeded with worship and our annual meeting, both of which had a good turnout considering the 6 inches of snow. The annual meeting went fine; I pretty much ran it like they’ve always run it, but I definitely see some changes I’d like to make next year. In a church of 70 with 6 officers to elect each year, plus nominating committee, it’s basically a perfunctory game of musical chairs.

The one quirky moment was during the election of officers. The chair of nominations couldn’t be there because of sick kids but sent along the names, and somehow we ended up with 5 deacon nominees for 4 slots. Lack of organization or new pastor hazing? The world may never know.

I had a pastoral care thing after the annual meeting so I didn’t get home until about 3:30. It was enough time to play outside though. I have to say, most of the year it sucks being in such a hilly neighborhood (makes bike riding a challenge), but at snow time it makes for some fun—especially as the kids get older. We need a real sled, but we have some saucer things and a seat with a long rope. So we slid down the hill in our neighbor’s yard, and I pulled the kids down the gentle slope between our yard and our other neighbors, whipping the sled into a small snowbank at the end. This was quite a workout.

Now we’re on our way to a friend’s house to hang out and play. Have a good one, everybody!

I’ve been meaning to blog about this…

When it comes to PDA (public displays of affection, not personal digital assistants), I’m probably on the reserved side of things. But it’s different in one’s own home, and I think it’s healthy for kids to see their parents hugging and kissing as part of the normal order of things. So we do.

Lest I give the impression that I hug and kiss R for purely utilitarian reasons… it’s also a pleasant experience for all involved

Anyway, C has a PDA radar. She can be reading a book or engrossed in a game, but if R and I start to hug she will jump up, dash over to us and throw her arms around our legs. Lately she’s taken to looking up at us and making “mwah… mwah…” kissy-fish faces. Now her younger siblings have gotten into the game, which means things often devolve into a big family hug.

It makes us all laugh, and it sure beats the traditional “eww gross” kid response. I interpret it as a very sweet “There’s love here that I want to be a part of.”

spent several hours at the church cleaning out old stuff and organizing the admin office with a woman who I’ve decided is the [name redacted] of Tiny Church. Such a hoot… And the psychic lift that comes with getting rid of junk and making things tidy is HUGE.

18 things on the to-do list today. Sadly, watching more LOST isn’t one of them.

Jim LaFleur = Sawyer with a larger library and regular access to a shower? That’s an upgrade I can get behind.

Keeping a large inventory of kid hairbrushes is one of the better parenting decisions I have made.

I could sit and watch [C write, M dance, J play with his trains] all day.

“It’s not that the Democrats are playing checkers and the Republicans are playing chess. It’s that the Republicans are playing chess, and the Democrats are in the nurse’s office because, once again, they glued their balls to their thighs.” -Jon Stewart

Just realized that it’s been several weeks that the entire family has been healthy. And if after saying this, someone wakes up sick tomorrow, I will have proof on facebook that the universe likes to screw with me.

Homemade pizza tonight, followed by Pixar animated short films. Good Sunday.

We ran out of bulletins.

Company party: ready for some tasty victuals at the Oval Room, then R and I are spending the night downtown. The fact that I preach in the morning reins in the debauchery somewhat.

J is so stubborn that he’s asleep sitting upright on his bed, leaning from side to side and catching himself, rather than lying down in the bed because that’s what *I’ve* been trying to get him to do.

I love the new way of being presbytery, if it means listening to incredible people like Serene Jones.

Despite some 50 degree days, I am so tired of being cold that I actually googled the Great Wolf Lodge and indoor water park to see if they had any good deals for this three-day weekend. The answer was No. Oh wait, it was $569 a night; the answer was Hell No.

Someone at the church suggested a banner out front that somehow indicates that we have a new pastor. There is a huge amount of traffic on our road—who knows, maybe it might interest a person or two? What does the Facebook hive mind think? And can you think of wording that’s not dorky? [there were some great suggestions, from “It’s a Girl!” to “New Sheriff in Town” and on and on]

On a big writing deadline, and am approaching the point of being a bit screwed if I don’t get serious about it. So of course I spent the last 15 minutes getting the hot chocolate just right–perfect number of marshmallows, correct temperature…

listening to the dulcet sounds of a Sunday bulletin being photocopied by someone other than me.

Our life is crazy and getting crazier by the minute. (Best FB response: my brother-in-law said “that happens with tile.”)

I received an Epiphany letter from a friend today, bursting with love and pride about her daughter, her daughter’s husband and their new baby, and her son, his partner and the child they are raising. Love makes a family.

I was recently told by a non-churchy person how much he liked me and how different I was from most pastors. “You’re so nice and genuine,” he gushed, apparently grateful I wasn’t damning him to hell. It makes me uncomfortable to be praised so effusively for simply being a halfway decent human being, but I would like to thank Pat Robertson and others for setting the bar so low. I’m happy to surpass people’s low expectations without even trying. [reference: his remarks about the Haiti earthquake]

J enjoyed the big-boy bed for its jumping-up-and-down qualities, and is not enjoying its sleeping qualities.

Thought for the day: If everything depended on our own plans, Sweet Baby J would not exist.

Did I mention that we had 11 visitors on Sunday?

My maternal superpowers are considerable, but I cannot control other people’s eyeballs.

Today was one of those days that makes it all worthwhile. But man, the stuff that people endure.

Pocahontas in Space!! James Cameron is a genius, simply for being able to cram that many James Cameron tropes into a single flick. Was really rooting for Jake Sully to cap his speech with, “This is our independence day…”

You know you’re a PK when you’re at swim practice and all the other parents are in sweats but your mom is in a suit, because she’s doing a funeral right after this.

One thing I miss about Suburban Church is receiving a word for the year. Printed on paper stars, these would be picked up on epiphany Sunday. The idea is that you “live with” the word for an entire year, meditating on it, etc. Last year’s word (from another source, actually) was FREEDOM. Feel free to suggest my 2010 word in comments–silly or serious.

I am holding in my hands Volume 1, Number 1 of the Tiny Church newsletter, published in 1959, which I found in one of my recent excavations. This was a funny, quirky little church back then too.

Was awakened four times by kids last nite, two hour school delay for an amount of snow that’s not enough to play in (though they will nag me to), lots of little dumb things to do today… Bleah.

We’re hosting a memorial service on Saturday in which the family wants no scripture, no message, one perfunctory prayer, and to call it “A Celebration of the Life of…” Which all sounds perfectly nice, but maybe I’ll sleep in that day.

Playing Wii Fit Plus with C, which isn’t as good as what I should be doing (treadmill) but better than what I want to he doing (sitting).

It’s a sad sign of adulthood when you hear about an impending snow and think about how much it will inconvenience various aspects of your life. I’m not quite wishing for *no* snow, but close.

This weekend I’ve been remembering the inauguration. The screwed-up-ness of the last year does not diminish the joy of that event for me.

I love Maira Kalman’s stuff; here are her artistic reflections on that happy day. She captures it well.

My favorite image:

And here is what I said about it at the time.

According to PolitiFact, a feature of the St. Petersburg Times, here is Obama’s record after one year:

* Promise Kept — 91
* Compromise — 33
* Promise Broken — 14
* Stalled — 87
* In the Works — 275

I’ll take it.

I wrote a year ago:

Some of Obama’s detractors think that people’s admiration, and even zealous adoration, for Obama means that there will be a mass disillusionment when he fails to live up to expectations. I do not worry about this. I think those people have missed the point. Sure, some people will be disappointed—good leaders always disappoint some people. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be leaders. And of course Obama will make mistakes. Probably some big ones.

But to be honest, I don’t have a lot of hope that we will make dramatic headway on the problems we face, Obama’s gifts notwithstanding. The world is too complex to believe that the president, any president, will solve the myriad difficulties present in the 21st century. But the manner in which we address them matters. I don’t expect miracles from Obama. I expect that a smart, pragmatic, well-spoken, genial, and well-read leader will build consensus and inspire ordinary people to do beautiful things.

Obama campaigned on a theme of change. Change does not come instantaneously, and it does not come without some grief. But what we hope for is someone who will lead us through the thousands of tiny incremental changes that must be made—by all of us. Helen Keller said, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” That is the promise of an Obama presidency.

I still stand by that.

I know there is disappointment among his supporters. I certainly relate to what people are saying. As I said in an e-mail some time ago, I’m as sad as anyone that it looks like we aren’t moving the ball further down the field on health care. And it’s tempting to put the blame squarely on Obama’s doorstep. Was he just not who he said he was? Is he just incompetent? Or is our political system way more screwed up than we thought?

I’m picking door #3. (United States Senate, I’m looking in your filibusterrific direction.)

Incidentally, it’s an exquisite Catch-22 we’re in. If it weren’t for Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy, health care reform would not have gotten as far as it has. But it’s exactly the election of moderate/conservative Democrats that make the current proposals such weak tea… at least in the eyes of some. Others see the current reforms as the fall of Western civilization. Go figure.

Having read Obama’s books, I never expected him to be Dennis Kucinich. “Change” is a difficult campaign slogan because it can mean anything people want it to mean. Obama has changed the tone of the presidency, domestically and internationally. He’s done more than that—check out Rachel Maddow’s assessment—but even if he had done nothing else but that, I’d be grateful.

So I say thanks.

Thank you, President Obama, for caring more about making progress (however compromised and painstaking) than about winning the news cycle.

Thank you for keeping your head while all about you were losing theirs and blaming it on you.

Thank you for consistently being a calm, reasonable, intelligent voice, whether in response to
1. principled disagreement
2. opponents who care more about diminishing you than advancing their own agenda, or
3. blatant racism.

Not every one in the first category also fits in the second and third category, but there’s still plenty of the latter two to go around. Thank you for not “returning evil for evil.”

Bob Woodward asked George W. Bush how history might judge him and the Iraq war and he responded, “History, we don’t know. We’ll all be dead.” We won’t know what the fruits of this time in our country’s history will be for a very long time. But I can’t imagine the phrase, “History, we don’t know. We’ll all be dead” coming out of Barack Obama’s mouth. And to that I say Hallelujah.

Photo by Callie Shell. She writes: I loved that he cleaned up after himself before leaving an ice cream shop in Wapello, Iowa. He didn’t have to. The event was over and the press had left. He is used to taking care of things himself and I think this is one of the qualities that makes Obama different from so many other political candidates I’ve encountered. Nov. 7, 2007.