Snowy Day

This is a picture of Merry and her friend Jenna, created today by Jenna, who is six and pretty as a pixie. Currently she and Merry are in the middle of The Boxcar Children series. Jenna loves making fairy homes outside by special trees. Her favorite color is green.

More snow tomorrow, more sledding, more winter!

new digs

Well, the move is complete. My computer is now in my bedroom, and I am having a little trouble initially with the swap. Where is my favorite tree, swinging with winter birds and the lace of summer honeysuckle? The creek foaming at its snowy banks and the slope running down to the woods?

Instead I now see the the lights of cars, flashing by my window, filled with invisible people in the dark.

So I'm mourning my spindly, rag-tag Black Walnut tree as I would a friend or a muse or. . .

But the point is, this is a temporary and welcome solution because now the baby can sleep in peace and I can type in the quiet.

Also, got some good news from the state of Pennsylvania this week: an artist's fellowship in fiction. What does this mean, practically? WRITING. Hurrah!

Elspeth's on a roll this week. An exorcist has been mentioned but I opt for tireless, patient discipline, an unwavering, positive attitude, the inward assurance that I am totally capable of dealing with every lawless act with calm. . .IN MY DREAMS. Mostly we survive, right?--and hope for the best and that sanity will eventually return to us all.

Snow Day

What bliss! Sledding in the company of good people!

The day was perfect: warm, in the 30's, snowing all day, with snow from our horribly cold week underneath. Highlights include Elspeth flying into the forsythia bush and our friend John almost hurling though our tire swing. We capped off the sledding with hot chocolate spiked with Khalua and lots of popcorn.

And of course we made the trek to our friend Sally's house that night for a huge supper-brunch so Martin could witness the Steelers winning their place in the Superbowl.

This has been a rare day, filled from top to bottom with the delight of dear human company.

Thanks to T M for the great pictures, since we are too lazy to dig up our camera.

Knight With Knees Knocking

No, this is not a treatise on the irony of the strong being internally weak.

Actually, Knight With Knees Knocking is a bit character in the children's story I just rewrote--five hundred times. Or almost that many. Martin continues to be a harsh, unfeeling, cold critic--and a very, very welcome one.

No, the deep thoughts I was pursuing as I dumped ingredients for pizza dough just now (besides the one where I struggled with myself briefly before deciding I should indeed eat the rest of the loaf of chocolate-banana bread completely by myself and with complete impunity) were as follows:

1. I'd like to write poetry again.
2. Ooh, that flour looks GOOD in that glass jar with a lid and a scoop. Ow, Baby.
3. I want to eat peanut butter cookies.
4. Maybe I should read a good book while the kids nap.
5. I am possibly a socialist at heart.
6. My head hurts.
7. Cup of tea! Cup of tea!
8. Lead is not good for children.
9. I am not a homeschooler (even though I. . .technically. . .am).
10. Absolutely. I will eat the rest of the banana bread.

How did I improve the world with these thoughts? How did I act on my inner life?

Here I am writing piffle. I have finished a bowl of banana bread slices. I have drunk a cup of tea in vigorous, hurried swallows as though someone will take my sustenance from me if I do not down said victuals in a hurry.



What makes your knees knock, people?

Me, I get those caps clattering when I:

a. Swallow my coffee while it's still super, just pressed, just poured, hot.
b. See Martin clean any part of the house of his own volition.
c. Smell homemade bread baking.
d. Finish writing a letter and affix the stamp.
e. Bury my nose in the neck of one of my just-washed daughters.
f. Fall asleep on the couch without any worries about who will wake up and need me.
g. Shut the door of my office. . .ALONE.
h. Crunch a waffle.
i. Hear good guitar music. (Music is a tricky thing, since everything from Mariah Carey to showtunes have knocked my knees before I acquired what Martin says, nasally, is TASTE.)
j. Find myself in the middle of a really good book--(I have read enough to be thoroughly engaged and lose myself, but I am not mourning the end of the book yet.)
k. Feel the warming earth blow through my open kitchen window in the spring--a warmth accompanied by the popping of onions in a hot pan.
l. Finish writing anything that has surprised me.

Well, I'll spare you the rest. I had a fleeting vision of going through the alphabet but considering I'm only doing super lazy writing at best, I'll stop and let you all contribute. What floats your boat? Rings your bell? Buzzes your buzzy things? Pings your palate? Rumbles your belly? Gurbles your gonads?

two minutes

No time for writing! Arg! The few minutes I could possibly steal are now gone, thanks to the fact that the baby has taken over my office for sleeping. A room reconfiguration is in the works, folks. . .

Well, here's a little song Merry was singing this morning at the end of breakfast:

--Praise Bird from whom all blessings flow. . .
Praise Bird all creatures here below. . .

--That's a strange song, I said.

--That's the song the birds sing, she replied, The birds think God is a bird.

So there you have it.
*
Yesterday (after a conversation in which Elspeth assumed we were "keeping" the little boy baby we were taking care of--We can't keep him?--she demanded), Elspeth offered me some invisible medicine for an invisible burn I received for the invisible food I had accepted from her hands.

--That's good medicine, I told her.

--Thanks. My mommy made it.

--Wow. What's it made out of?

--Squirrel.

This conversation should not have surprised me so much--there is a squirrel hunting season here (Elspeth is assimilating?) and I had just told her what sushi (or shushi as she says) is made from, to which she replied, YUCK.
*
Last night when we checked on the girls at 11:30 or so we found them snuggled together in one bed. This is true companionship especially considering Elspeth peed out at about three in the morning.
*
Last night we celebrated Elspeth's stunning accomplishments by throwing a Potty Party. Merry baked a cake from her own recipe and it was absolutely delicious--a carrot cake that will become standard in our house, I think. I'll post the recipe once we try it again.
*
Since Elspeth is hanging on me while I type, I'd better sign off. Oh sigh. I love parenthood. Martin came home from work yesterday full of being back and said, "Silence! I had forgotten the silence of my office!" Me, I had to deal with the curmudgeonly jealousy that threatened to whack me over the head. Silence? Office?

Ah, there will be a time.

I just heard a cry from the first floor: BEATRIX! YOU'RE WALKING!

Hmm.

minute

elspeth poured out all the sugar on the kitchen floor. i heard her wails and turned the shower on as hot as it would go. martin is below.

also today i walked into the sunroom to find elspeth had peed in exactly the same spot on the playroom rug as yesterday, and beatrix was again unloading the potted ficus tree in exactly the same spot as yesterday at exactly the same time elsepth was peeing AGAIN in the same spot as yesterday.

fun stuff.

Winter Doings

There are many, many winter doings to record, but it's late--almost one this morning--and I want to be a busy one tomorrow, mailing out packages and baking. I hope to finally finish my decorating tomorrow, too.

I've been struck this year at how Christmas is such a poignant time for many people--a hard time to be away from family, those who are absent for a short while and those who are gone for a long, long time. To those who suffer in this season, I bid you peace and hope you find unexpected joy.


My heart feels full of the many good people I love and who love me in return. Soon Martin and I will celebrate ten years of marriage, and soon we will mark Merry's 7th and Elspeth's third birthday. This season is so packed with celebrations that it is tricky to engage fully in each one, but I mean to try.

Advent

Outside my office window the rain beads on the bare red branches of the stripped black walnut. I suppose this is how my soul should be, this time of advent--still, waiting. But it is not. My soul feels more like a decked-out tinsel tree, laden with blinking colored lights, at times giddy and at time irritated by the tickling of fake snowflakes.

It is December 11th. Just around the corner are the girls' birthdays, our anniversary, Christmas, and a house full of family. There is so much to look forward to, and my mind feels fragmented and busy.

Advent is all about waiting, for preparing ourselves for the baby who changed the world and who changes us daily. Waiting for babies at advent is my specialty, and an experience that brings me closer to understanding Mary's waiting. As our pregnant pastor reflected last Sunday, and as I have often thought, being pregnant is a perfect metaphor for the advent season. At those times of waiting for Merry and Elspeth, I felt filled with life, life that spoke to me in secret ways as I went about daily tasks. I sat quietly as others talked, and the baby would rise to meet my hands. But that life was cloaked in secrets. I could not rush the opening of my gift; I had to wait, sometimes in great discomfort, sometimes overwhelmed by the enchantment of my baby's dancing. This baby, separate from me but inside of me, this new gift for the world and for myself, would be born through the paradox of pain and hope. All I had to do was wait.

But waiting is not very easy. For me, waiting makes me want to fill my life with busyness before an event arrives. I want to be so busy that I do not have time to be impatient. I want to occupy myself with lesser joys so that I do not have a moment to feel sorry that the greater joy is not yet upon me. But that destroys the magic of waiting, the silence that should enfold us, the solitude where we prepare ourselves for Coming.

This solitude is hard to find these days. As I write, Elspeth is up AGAIN from her nap and she scoots around the floor with the baby. I am just waiting for Merry's wail, where she informs me that Elspeth is UP and she is IN BED. I envy the tree outside my window. There are no squirrels or birds or two-year olds hanging on its branches.

But advent is also about seasons, and about accepting, with joy, the season that you and I have been given. Is my life crazzzzzzzy? Then I accept it with joy (this said sometimes through clenched teeth). Some day my life will be different, and I will struggle to accept that change with joy as well. I know myself all too well--always jumping to the next stage in my mind, assuring myself that tomorrow will be more exciting, more peaceful, more something or other.

Little baby, little child, I wait for you. Help me to wait well.

Solitude and Crazy Life

So I'm reading an entry on this great blog, Kicking the Gourd, and suddenly I find myself writing a paragraph or two on the comments. And suddenly I realized I haven't really written in a long time. Also, this comment turned into one directed back at me, with big letters: GO AND WRITE. Seriously, I lose so much time just messing around. By the time the girls are fed and in bed and the house has been saved once again from falling to the ground in a heap of cobwebs and dust, I just can't summon the energy to do anything but peruse some magazine or stare open-mouthed into the TV screen. So R.P., I would add that my life is imbalanced, too. Do I lack the commitment, the sisu, the devotion? Is it enough some days to survive, engaging all day with three sweet faces and congratulating myself that all five of us are still alive at the end of the day?

So with apologies to R.P. from K the Gourd, and with assurances that this comment was really for you, well, here it is:

i have a slightly different perspective on the "giving to people" thing than you. that is because i am in the midst of a crazy parenting phase in my life--three girls, one who just learned how to crawl--and I have to tell myself that it is okay to stop and do something else once and a while besides giving to other human beings. nobody gives perfectly, that's inarguable, and giving to another is a choice whether the motivations begin or follow the act. so i'm thinking, reading your blog, that life is all about balance. a life lived entirely in art and not in true community with humans is empty, no doubt. however, a life lived in constant, active giving to others can also be one of selfishness (to every sacrificial act, an ugly, self-congratulatory underbelly can be present).

i guess i'm thinking this way: i have to be fed by solitude, by communing with god through writing, silence, reading--i need to be filled if i am to be spilled out for someone else. on the other hand, being with people, actively serving and bungling through real life with my hands dirty makes me a much better, much more humble writer.

there is no dichotomy. the two work together, feed and eat one another. jesus' life shows us this. solitude, people. people, solitude. we desperately need both. take this perspective from someone on the "other end" of your spectrum: no time to write, exhausted by people. there are seasons to life, and each season demands that we back up, eye the scales, and balance again.

Giving Thanks

For friends (nineteen of us in our house this year, including my brother!),

For girls all three,


For warm applesauce fresh and local,

(Merry with our friend and pastor Carrie & inutero boy 2),

For this crawling, dimpled baby,


For snow,


For mischevious middle child,


For saucy gourds and pumpkins,


For candlelight,


For sleep


sleep


sleep and holidays.

Kenneth Wheeler, My Grandpa

My Grandpa passed away last evening right after supper time, very peacefully and surrounded by people who loved him and who sang him his favorite hymns as he died.

He was my last living grandparent, and I feel privileged that my girls were able to know him. Yesterday as Merry sketched at the breakfast table, completely out the blue, she began humming "I'll Fly Away," which was my Nana's favorite hymn. I took this as a sign, found the hymnal, and began singing for Grandpa: I'll Fly Away, Marching to Zion, and Pass Me Not. The girls joined in and I felt that God somehow took our songs to Grandpa since we could not be there in Ohio with him. (We'll head down on Wednesday for services).

The girls and Martin and I discussed at supper what Grandpa would eat for his first meal in heaven, after so long with Parkinson's disease, living in his weak, failing body--I think the consensus was pancakes. It's sad that he is gone but such a mercy too--he was taken care of at home by hospice care, by my mother who travelled to Ohio once a month for years, and most importantly, by his loving, generous wife--a woman whom I admire and who has shown me a real picture of Jesus: patient, gentle, and faithful.

We love you, Grandpa!

Baking Days, and Apple Days too

Here I show off some images from my first baking day. Merry convinced me not to buy bread from the store anymore and so I acquiesced. And then we figured out that bread done completely by hand tastes so much better than bread from the bread maker. And besides, did not my own mama bake (and mostly burn) buttery rolls for dinner? I remember her famous dough dance, when, in order to knead, she would haul off the dough to us across the room, jumping up and down on the furniture and whipping the dog into a frenzy. I remember one time in particular when she jumped onto the rocking chair and threw--was it dough or a head of cauliflower? Indeed I think it was cauliflower.

And am I not prepared to replicate the happy ethos of my own blissful childhood?

Merry at least is aiming to replicate Laura Ingall Wilder's childhood, but I may just be falling a little short.

Baking day was not the sort of day I imagine uber-organized Ma Ingalls spending, with everything organized, the bread happily and calmly rising under a checked cloth. No, with my three children, my broody baking day was far from calm, though it was fun. Skating in flour is always a good time! I decided to double the whole wheat recipe so I could get a lot done at once to freeze and the pile of dough was absolutely massive. I mixed with one hand (Beatrix on my hip) for a while as Merry sprinkled in flour, and then Merry did the lion's share of kneading. We had Sally and her boys for dinner and basically we all ate bread. . .and more bread. . .and more bread. IMMMM.


LOST (We finally ducked under some caution tape).

Well, the garden has frozen three times now; the lovely, tall pink and white cosmos and the marigolds and what was left of the tomato plants are black and dry.

Good luck to them. It is a little sad to see the garden dead, but mostly I am glad not to feel guilty anymore about not keeping up with the raspberries and cherry tomatoes.

In the meanwhile, Martin has completed the fence (!!)--pictures later. And we have been doing apple days things: the girls and I and friends found ourselves hopelessly lost in a corn maze; we and friends stuck our jaws tightly shut with caramel apples; I have stashed away loads of applesauce, and we have had to turn on our heat three times already. Baby's got a cold and Merry has healed well after her face was stepped on by a soccer cleat.
CHARMING WITCH

I chopped loads and loads and LOADS of celery from market and I can't for the life of me get motivated to take care of our endless hot peppers (thinking of drying but dread sewing them up).
BEATRIX ON THE HAY RIDE, AND MY HAIR

HARVEST IS IN!

So I've started my Christmas shopping and begun planning for company. I do so want my dining room wall to go away! I received an estimate and gasped, but I am conniving how to trim costs. . .and no, you worriers, this does not entail me with a sledgehammer, though in my parallel life I am a sledgehammer wielding menace.

Mommy, can you please go away?

The above is what Elspeth asked me in the bath the other night, before she bounced a ball off Beatrix's head. It had been a red letter day for Elspeth. I stood in the doorway and took notes, attempting to remember in just what sequence the craziness happened.

Wednesdays are my extra kid days, because that is when I keep an eye (and teach music to) two or three additional sweetpeas while their mama is at the doctor. Usually my friend Sally takes pity on me and whisks Elspeth away for the morning to run with her son, Benjamin, but today Sally was absorbed in oldest son's field trip and not in the series of small comic crises that knit the fabulous Cockroft fabric.

Let me also preview this day by recalling the memory of a recent nightmare I endured: someone gave me a long-division problem. My dream-self tried to slog through this problem but hopelessly lost her way, and the dream ended in despondence and hopelessness. This horrible dream became reality when the oldest boy arrived with a whole slough of long-division problems. I optimistically sat down beside him at the table and began working alongside him on a piece of scratch paper until Martin took pity on me (laughed, actually), and sent me away: "You can't trust Aunt Kim with numbers. . ."

So Martin stayed with the children. . .hallelujah. . .and I zoomed off with the two smallest to farmer's market, where I spent approximately sixty dollars on the end of the season items, most interestingly, a bunch of celery made up of gorgeous stalks about three feet long.

A hot-dog for Elspeth and I was back again. The kids were finishing up their work, Martin was on his way out the door, and all was right with the world. And then, to crown the morning, the handsome UPS man dropped off Martin's and my early Christmas present to each other: a player for our SansaFuze (our nifty Mp3 player). I took it out of the packaging with one hand (the other, needless to say, busy with Beatrix on my hip), and set it up. Turns out the process was longer than I expected--the thing needed software downloaded, which I started--and I don't know whether it was during this process that one of the children spilled hot soup all over herself or not. Shortly after this clean-up, the three kids left with their grandma and I called Martin, pumped about the SansaFuze player, and blasted him with music over the phone. Sounds great! I enthused. I had done my research on this one, planned carefully for a long time, waited until just the right time to buy--and like all of you who live on one income or pinch pennies regardless, we were pretty excited to spend money on something we really wanted (besides milk or water or eggs or diapers).

I had anticipated playing some stunning guitar music on this player for a long time, and after I hung up the phone, (regardless of the fact the children should have been going down for naps), I turned up the volume. And noticed that--yes--the speakers were buzzing! Like an old car stereo. I couldn't believe it--I was inordinately disappointed. After troubleshooting for a while and then calling Martin completely exasperated, I tried to put the disappointment behind me and bundled the children off to bed.

(The other night, I must tell you, Elspeth learned how to successfully climb out of her crib. Was it the third time she came downstairs, cute as a button in her nightgown, or the fourth time Martin paused our movie, when we realized our days in the shade (our days of legal and approved toddler confinement) were over?) At any rate, after several disciplining sessions on Wednesday afternoon where I dragged Elspeth off the bed and deposited her back in her big-girl bed, I felt surprised and encouraged to hear--absolutely NOTHING from her room. Splendid! She had fallen fast asleep!

So I read chapter after chapter of Dr. Doolittle to Merry, all about the despicable Pirates of Barbary and how Dr. Dolittle (with the help of a rather large shark) convinces Ben Ali, the most horrid of the pirates, to give up his rude ways and become a birdseed farmer instead. And Ben Ali agrees. This scene is enough to give hope to the most exasperated parent. Change is possible, and indeed it seemed as though it were as I read to Merry in peace and quiet while Beatrix and Elspeth slept obediently in their proper places. Like little bitty angels no less.

I was finishing a chapter in bliss when I heard the front door creak open. Martin was home already? Could the day just get better and better? But no, it was not my dear husband at the door but the middle child, all devil, cute as a button, covered in sand, who had let herself quietly down the stairs and out the door and who had been playing unsupervised for about an hour or so. Let me tell you too that Martin has made one gate for the fence, but not the gate that matters most: that is, the one at the end of our path for the postal carrier which leads unhindered into the road a foot or two away.

It was through this gaping hole that Elspeth later that Wednesday afternoon kicked a pumpkin from our recent trip to a farm. The pumpkin bumped down the stairs, down our walk, and then in some parody of a picture book or silly song, went galumphing down the road toward an approaching car. "That's my pumpkin!" Merry cried. I bravely and clumsily took off barefoot after the runaway pumpkin with Beatrix bouncing along on my hip and retrieved it before a car made it into pie filling.

This takes us to the evening, where I somehow still had the gumption to act like a responsible adult and not order pizza. In an effort to lighten the nonsense in our freezer, I finally bit the bullet and thawed an enormous box of cheap fish which Martin purchased a good year and an half earlier in hopes that we would eat more [cheap] fish and live longer lives as a result. I have been avoiding this box of [cheapo] fish because I know something about [cheapass] fish: if it is cheap, it tastes like it was cheap. The same applies to bad, cheap fish as applies to bad men: you can try to disguise it (with breading, for instance), but you cannot change it. The nasty remains. But I am trying to be economical and not waste food, and so I cut open these leaking, smelly bags of fish and began to deal with what would become our supper. These tepid fillets kept coming. There was an ungodly amount of the stuff, and it did not smell good. I filled two large sheets full of fillets, fixed two different ways, and shoved them into the oven. And then I had to go to work ridding the kitchen of the essence de YUCK (as my cousin Jordana says) with a bottle of Windex and papertowels.

Martin finally arrived home and it turns out he had just had a lovely tea at the tea room in town so he wasn't terribly hungry--too bad for that poor man, because the nameless fish he had bought was plenty and the eaters were few.

What can I say? I took a bite and refused to eat more, and as I watched Merry polish off hers, I began hoping we would not spend the night retching. Martin had not eaten much of his, either--"What kind of fish IS this?" I asked him, and he shrugged. "I'm not sure," he said, "It's cheaper-than-cod. I bought it from Wal-Mart [a year and a half ago]."

GO FIGURE.

I scraped every last of those endless fillets into the trash, and we ate my friend Tonya's amazing bourbon applesauce for supper (in new, clean dishes, mind you)--even the baby ate the applesauce, and whether it was the bourbon or the sugar, we all felt happier for it.

That night as Beatrix splashed maniacally in the bathtub, sucking like crazy on her lower lip, trying in vain to reach one of the bobbing bath toys, I stood and watched my children and though I was alone (Martin teaching) and though I was still tasting the fish from dinner at intervals, I began to relax. The day was almost over, and though I did not know at that moment how Elsepth would fling a box of dried spaghetti noodles all over the sun room the very next day, I would be ready. For these days do run by all too slowly and then all too quickly: blink, and another day is ending, sigh too long and I miss the magic in the chaos.

Life Lovin'

I love autumn. And I unabashedly love my own life, with my three girls (in various states of crazy) and my silly husband who can dance a jig and build a fence.

Yes, a fence. Yes, dance. But not at the same time.

Yes, I DO love life. Sometimes I have to remind myself of this--sometimes when Elspeth is crawling out of her crib for the fifth time in one night or Elspeth is squirting out all my dish soap and all the baby soap and starting in on a bottle of hand sanitizer

or when Elspeth is spitting out dried beans all over the floor

or when Elspeth is coloring herself and the furniture with markers or when Elspeth is falling off chairs or when Elspeth is scribbling in books or when Elspeth is jumping around the baby's head

or when Elspeth is telling me NO

or when Elspeth is smearing sunscreen into the driveway or when Elspeth is throwing food or when Elspeth is gluing her sister's head to the bathroom tile.

Actually, this last one has not happened yet but it is just a matter of time.

I have to love every minute, every nanosecond, at least in some overarching way, because it is going by so quickly. I only have to look at Merry to see how quickly my babies grow.