A review for MotherTalk

The Pregnancy Journal by A. Christine Harris

I received this book in the mail a couple of weeks ago and set it aside: This won’t take long to review… a few thought-provoking paragraphs about pregnancy amid lots of empty space.

Yesterday I opened it. Oops. There’s tons of great info in this book.

This is a day-by-day guide to pregnancy with space for journaling every week or so (and a larger writing space every month), which sets a much more realistic expectation for pregnancy journaling than I was prepared to find in this book. The back of the book has an extended journaling section for “Labor and Delivery Details.” The format is perfect for people who want to record a few pertinent details but don’t have the time or inclination to get into extended meditations on pregnancy. (If that’s your thing, then get this book and supplement it with a good spiral notebook.)

Each day includes a short piece about the baby’s development, a paragraph about changes in the mother, tidbits about nutrition, childbirth in other cultures, and fascinating pregnancy trivia (do you know how fast blood travels through the umbilical cord?*). Towards the end of the journal, parenting tips are sprinkled throughout. The book has great information in it but is also easy and soothing to read. This would be a good choice for women who are anticipating pregnancy and childbirth to be profound rites of passage, but who might find Birthing from Within (a book I adored) a little too woo-woo.

The challenge with books organized chronologically is that the reader might be wondering about a topic in week 8 that the author doesn’t address until week 15. Thankfully The Pregnancy Journal has a good index.

*Four miles an hour.

So I read a lot about simplicity and “living lightly” on the earth. It’s a topic that has financial, environmental and spiritual implications. I’ve pondered in this space the gift and curse that is the iPhone–having the means to organize my life and respond to people and issues as they arise, yet finding it difficult to unplug.

I love the idea of simplicity and frugality, but some of the contradictions amuse me, others bug me. The fact that many aspects of “simple” living are incredibly inconvenient need not be said… except to say that I don’t have time to hang my clothes on a clothesline, and I certainly don’t have time to fight the homeowner’s association to allow me to do so.

Here are a few other examples:

• Keeping hand-me-down clothes and other items instead of buying all new stuff, which requires a lot of personal storage space on the one hand, yet not living in a house that’s much bigger than you really need on the other.
• Ditto growing your own food (necessitating a yard big enough to accomplish this). Aren’t we supposed to, like, live in town so we can walk everywhere and participate in the local economy? Yet we’re also supposed to grow stuff in our postage-stamp-sized yard.
• Buying locally grown and baked foods… and driving to 3-4 different places on a Saturday to acquire these items. (I know it’s still better than buying stuff that’s been shipped her from Chile, but still. It’s not simple.)
• Washing your clothes in cold water to save on energy costs, except for your sheets which must be washed in hot water to kill dust mites.
• “If it’s yellow, leave it mellow,” leading to a situation that “green” cleaning products are just not effective at alleviating. Enough said.

Can you think of others?

[Edited to add]: There’s also the one that encourages people to live near their work so they don’t have a long commute… but you’re also supposed to stay put in your house so as to put down roots in the community… so if you change jobs and the job is far from home…? You fail! FAIL!!!!!!!

Is the simplicity movement just another means of generating liberal guilt?

And how can spiritual communities help people take their commitments to the earth and their families seriously without setting the standards impossibly high and giving in to a greener-than-thou attitude?

Photo is from Walden Pond. By the way, I’ve heard that Thoreau’s mother did his laundry.

Del Martin (L) and Phyllis Lyon (R), partners for 55 years, exchange rings as they are married by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom in a private ceremony at San Francisco City Hall June 16, 2008 in San Francisco, California. Martin and Lyon were among the first couples to be married in San Francisco as same-sex marriages become legal in California.

Hat tip: Sullivan
Photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez-Pool/Getty Images.

So there’s been a lot of talk about sexism and racism in the presidential campaign. Some have said that Hillary Clinton was the subject of a lot of sexist media coverage. (A few of those people go on to say that they won’t vote for Barack Obama because of that sexism. On the part of the media. Mmmm-kay…)

Others say it’s not Hillary’s femaleness that made her a target, it was her Clinton-ness. Still others say that she received as much negative coverage as anyone else—maybe more, but that’s what only because she was a front runner for so long.

I was not a Hillary supporter, but I cringed at a lot of the coverage of her. (Sickening video there) I loved her line from her concession speech about there being 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, allowing the light to shine through like never before. But I was disheartened by some of the comments I heard and read.

So what makes something sexist or racist? Is it solely in the eye of the beholder? Do we just know it when we see it? Is it solely a matter of intent?

Randi Rhodes was suspended from Air America Radio for calling Hillary and Geraldine Ferraro “f*cking whores” during a comedy show. Is that sexist? I’ve heard people say no, that Rhodes called several male politicians the same thing in that show—she was criticizing them for having sold out their principles. In this case “whore” has nothing to do with selling one’s body sexually. And yet I think that epithet has added potency when applied to women. So I would argue that it was sexist, even though Rhodes would say she was an equal opportunity offender/criticizer.

Similarly, I’ve heard that someone came up with a T-shirt that has Obama’s name with a picture of Curious George on it. The T-shirt designer said it’s because Obama has big ears. That may be (though I seriously doubt it), but I think such an image is racist, because of that additional layer of potency due to past uses of “monkey” to demean black people. You can make a T-shirt with a monkey and George Bush’s name on it and it’s commentary. Connect that image to a black man and it’s something else entirely.

This doesn’t encompass every example of sexism or racism. I’m just trying to think of a response to “I said the same thing about [some other group], so how can my comment be sexist/racist?”

I had a doctor’s appointment today. Nothing wrong, just the regular checkup.

I had both the divine miss M and sweet baby J with me. This went fine, though it took us an hour to travel a distance that usually takes 20 minutes.

My face has been breaking out a bit lately. Past experience suggests the problem will go away when I stop nursing, and in any case, it would never occur to me to mention it in a physical. But the nurse brought it up, asking whether I had seen anyone about it. When I said “No,” she said incredulously, “Why?! You’ll scar you know!!!!”

Yes. I’m perched on the table in a paper gown, handing J his pacifier with one hand and helping M dial the Fisher-Price phone with the other and she’s acting like I’m medically negligent for not visiting the dermatologist.

And in spite of all that, my blood pressure was 80/60!

Quoted in a letter to the editor in the latest Christian Century:

Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category… The opposite of radical is superficial; the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal.

…Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade.

–Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

A note to the nefarious:

You have been warned.

Our first box of Community-Supported Agriculture arrived today:
-strawberries
-a basil plant
-spring onions
-asparagus
-kale (you knew there had to be kale)

Exciting!

(Photo is from a CSA website)

I’ve been feeling like Bilbo: “stretched… like butter, scraped over too much bread.”

The upside of having a bullet-proof organizational system is that you can always, always, find a way to maximize any available moment.

Wait, that’s the downside.

So, I’m going to pray more. This has already produced interesting results.

I’m also going to goof off more. Just as soon as I…

The series I’m working on for Denominational Magazine will explore spiritual/Christian themes in various works of children’s literature. Here is a draft list with blurbs for each…

September 2008: Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
Our series begins with the second installment in the classic Chronicles of Narnia, in which the Pevensie children return to Narnia and take up the struggle to assist Caspian as he reclaims Narnia in the name of Aslan, a lion who serves as the Christ figure throughout the series.

October 2008: Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
A lonely preacher’s kid finds a sense of belonging through the companionship of a scruffy stray dog and various other colorful characters in her small Florida town.

November 2008: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
The sixth volume in the Harry Potter series, the book explores Lord Voldemort’s tragic past as Harry comes to terms with his destiny–to fight Voldemort in a battle in which only one will survive. We feature this book in November in anticipation of the film adaptation, due to be released this month.

December 2008: The Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle
The followup from L’Engle’s classic A Wrinkle in Time, this book has Meg and her friend Calvin O’Keefe racing against time to defeat the Echthroi: sinister, mysterious beings which threaten to tear the universe apart.

January/February 2009: Holes by Louis Sachar
Unlucky Stanley Yelnats finds himself sentenced to hard labor at a Texas juvenile detention center. The boys are forced to dig holes in the desert, day after day… what are they looking for?

March 2009: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
A classic tale of friendship and imagination, Bridge to Terabithia chronicles the unlikely relationship between Jesse Aarons and his new neighbor Leslie Burke, the mystical land of Terabithia that unites them, and the real-life tragedy that rocks Jesse’s world.

April 2009: The Book of Jude by Kimberley Heuston
Sixteen-year-old Jude finds her world turned upside down when her mother receives a fellowship to study for a year in Czechoslovakia. This book sensitively explores themes of adolescence, identity and mental illness, all against the backdrop of Prague at the end of the Cold War.

May 2009: The Giver by Lois Lowry
This book is set in a pseudo-utopian society in which Sameness is the ideal and strong emotions are all but eradicated. Jonas is a twelve-year-old boy who receives an unusual assignment–to become the sole Receiver of Memory, the only one who knows the people’s history and all that came before.

June 2009: The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron
Lucky is a ten-year-old girl who lives with her father’s ex-wife after the untimely death of her mother. Her favorite pastime is eavesdropping on Twelve-Step meetings, which inspire her own plucky search for a Higher Power–though she’s not sure what that is. The story explores family and faith with wit and grace.

July/August 2009: The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
Poor Holling Hoodhood is the sole Presbyterian in his sevent-grade class. His Jewish and Catholic classmates all leave school early on Wednesdays for religious instruction, while Holling is stuck with his teacher, who he’s sure is out to get him because she makes him read Shakespeare. The horror! Set in 1968, our series closes on a high note with this poignant and humorous book.

There will be an article in each print issue of the magazine, accompanied by a discussion guide available online. Should be fun.

It was hard to narrow the list to ten books. I tried to include some books that might appeal to boys, and I asked around a bit, but I don’t have a lot of elementary-age boys in my life so I don’t know what they read. I also wish this list reflected more ethnic diversity. Next year…?

I’m also looking for a name for this series. Any ideas? For the sermon series I’m toying with “the Word within the words,” but that requires a small-caps font for people to “get” it.

A little of everything:

• Sen. Obama, I’d be glad to be your pastor. My preaching is edgy only to the extent that the gospel is edgy. I don’t preach partisan, so, call me…
• We had a great time on vacation, visiting family, getting folks graduated and so on. It was not so much restful (a la napping on the beach) but it was restorative. We were in the car a lot, and I would say we made strategic use of the DVD player. I also had little brown bags of goodies that I gave to the girls at various moments along the way. We will be making a pilgrimage in August to the Church of Disney and I no longer fear the road trip. Highest price paid for gas: $4.33 in downtown Windy City.
• Our return trip involved two days of solid driving, but we decided to make the most of it with some recreational stops—an amazing children’s museum the first day, and the farm we joined as CSA members the second day. Part of the CSA membership is the option to do U-pick of additional items for free. So we picked strawberries. Great fun. And while there we saw the only other person I know who is a member of that farm. What are the chances?
• Today is the actual fifth anniversary of my ordination. Despite having to write my own article (I’m over it), there was a nice reception in worship at both services. Many people expressed surprise that it’s already been five years, but my children provide all the evidence needed to prove the passage of time.
• Speaking of children, they had a great time on the trip. Their grandparents’ houses provide all the interest and fun that a grandparent’s house should: vintage toys, hidden closets, and lots of people to play with.
• Quote of the trip from little she-who-is: Grandpa D was quoting a financial seminar in which the speaker said there are three things you can do with money: spend it, save it, or waste it. C replied, “You can also give it to people who don’t have any money.” I. Kid. You. Not.
• Image of the trip from the divine miss M: Thursday night we stopped for the night at a hotel. The girls crashed in one of the queen beds and while I was nursing J I saw M sit up and adjust her covers, then reach over and pull up the blanket so C was better covered. Awww…
• Then the next morning she gave C some of her cinnamon roll, which if you’ve stayed at a Holiday Inn Express you know that is a huge act of generosity. Don’t anybody tell me how many grams of trans fat are in those flaky pieces of heaven.
• Image of the trip from sweet baby J: Oh, just a generally jolly disposition. Aside from some night waking, he went with the flow beautifully.

Books read while I was gone included Dreams from My Father (my name is reverendmother and I am addicted to Election 2008) and two books for the children’s lit series, The Wednesday Wars and The Book of Jude. The former takes place in 1968 and has as its protagonist a seventh-grade boy who’s convinced that his teacher is out to get him. He is the lone Presbyterian in a class in which everyone else is excused on Wednesday afternoons to attend either catechism or Hebrew School. A fun story. The Book of June takes place in Prague during the end of the Cold War and centers around one young woman’s battle with a mental illness. Fantastic.

You shouldn’t be asked to write your own “Congratulations on Five Years of Ministry” article for the church newsletter. Just sayin’.

EDITED TO ADD: We’re in the car on the way to Windy City for family stuff and vacation. Congrats to R’s sister L who graduates from high school! I’ll check back in a couple of days.

A review for MotherTalk

The Working Woman’s Pregnancy Book by Marjorie Greenfield

Pregnancy is a huge topic, but let’s face it: there’s only so much you can say about it. There are lots of books out there and the difference is often not in the content, but in the tone. Some books are cutesy, others alarmist, others are sassy, others hippy-dippy. I have collected many pregnancy books over my three pregnancies and they run the gamut.

The Working Woman’s Pregnancy book offers a lot of the same information as many of the others, but in an even-handed, respectful tone that I appreciated. Marjorie Greenfield is an OB/GYN, and this is the only major book on pregnancy I can think of that is written by a female doctor. The book is encyclopedic in its scope, beginning with a self-assessment (are you ready to have a baby?) for all of us uber-planners out there, and ending with tips on making the transition back to work. Sprinkled throughout the book are countless quotes from working mothers; these were my favorite parts of the book, and they range widely in experience and parenting philosophy.

Amid all the strong opinions out there on all things maternal (natural or epidural? breast or bottle?), this book is very non-doctrinal, which I found refreshing. It takes its subject matter and its audience seriously, and its only agenda seems to be to provide a one-stop resource for women who will be balancing pregnancy and motherhood with work outside the home.

Does it succeed? I’d say it does. This book doesn’t go into exhaustive detail about the developing fetus, but provides lots of tables and good basic information. You can supplement that with a good pregnancy website like BabyCenter and be good to go. There is also not a whole lot in this book on pregnancy nutrition, but again, Dr. Google is your friend in that. The only book I would highly recommend supplementing this one with is The Nursing Mother’s Companion. It is the best book on breastfeeding I’ve found; its “Survival Guides” (with grey-edged pages for easy reference) are worth the price of the book.

Other items of interest in Greenfield’s book include general tips for coping with pregnancy and motherhood on the job, everything from how and when to tell the boss to great stretches you can do at your desk; some of the most outstanding diagrams I have seen in any book; a wonderfully helpful and non-hysterical list of circumcision pros and cons; and fantastic birth plan I really wish I’d read before my babies were born.

I recommend it.

Or perhaps 75 thousand of them.

Source

We got a new vacuum cleaner.

Hi,
Still here,
Busier than a one-armed paper hanger.
Too busy to think of a better cliche.
How are you?

Question the First: If you know of a church website that does its thing really well, please let me know, either in comments or via e-mail. I am looking for sites that are attractive, with a simplicity of design, are welcoming to visitors, and also useful to long-time members.

Question the Second: C has heard us discussing the election a good bit. We have been talking to her about the various candidates, and she knows that Hillary Clinton is running against Barack Obama for the chance to compete against John McCain to be President.

Got me thinking: Do you think it is better (whatever “better” means) to tell a young child about the historic nature of Clinton’s and Obama’s candidacies? Or is it better to treat them as no big deal? On the one hand, it’s important to know where we’ve been and how far we’ve come; on the other hand, there’s something powerful about the idea of women presidential candidates and black presidential candidates just being the normal part of things.

Discuss.

The first was an actual earthquake here in Suburban Sheol. I was at the church and heard this big rumble, as if a construction crane had dropped a bunch of really heavy stuff.

Turns out it was an earthquake, about a 1.5 on the Richter scale.

—-

The other day I was driving home from church with both girls in the backseat. We had the windows open and the girls each had baby dolls they were playing with. Suddenly M said, “My Ellie!”

I turned around and her arms were empty. I said, “Where is Ellie?!”

M cried, “She went up into the sky!”

I made a U-turn and called R, who was a couple of stoplights behind us. I told him to be on the lookout. I drove by as R was leaning out of the car to pick up the doll, who was in the middle of Big County Parkway.

She is fine, but M’s exclamation still cracks me up. Do you suppose Jesus tried to rapture up the doll and then went, “Nah…”