Friesencold

Legos are the all the rage around our house lately. Or as TJ would say, Lego. I always called them Legos – did anyone else?

Bauer has also been pretty excited lately about putting on his Kenny Chesney outfit: jeans, button-up shirt, cowboy boots, and cowboy hat. No pictures of that, but here’s Cash trying on the garb.

TJ has gone skiing today to Devil’s Head in Wisconsin with his buddy John, so it’s just been me and the boys around here. I had planned for us to get back to church today (we have missed a lot this month due to various sicknesses), but yet again we couldn’t go. Cash was running a fever of 103.8 last night and was just not himself at all yesterday. He is a lot better today but I still didn’t want to put him in the Toddler room at church. I am not feeling well myself, in fact (go figure, with all the sickness I’ve been around). It’s a head cold and it’s gettin’ old. I feel like if I could go outside and breathe in some of that fresh cold air, it would really feel nice about now.

We ran out of facial tissues unfortunately so we really needed to make a trip out this morning. The roll of toilet paper just wasn’t cutting it for all the blowing we were having to do around here. So I took the boys out for a couple small errands and we bought 12 boxes of Puffs at Target (we are not fans of the Kleenex brand, which is why I said facial tissues above), along with some Dove Dark Chocolates, sponges for the dish scrubber wand thingy, 12 oz blackberries on sale for $2.99, and a few avocados for a buck a piece.  Isn’t it fun to know what’s in someone else’s shopping cart, besides 2 little boys?

This book I’m reading, Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr, is really turning my world upside down. These lines just earned 5 little stars in the margin on page 90:

“Life does not care what I like or don’t like. It doesn’t matter a bit. If we stay in the world of preference and choice, we keep ourselves as the reference point. As if it matters what color I like.”

Whoa, what am I supposed to do with that? There again is the focus on “I.”

I am really grateful to a God who lets me be a part of this mystery. He let me be born and as Rohr says earlier in the book, “God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. As we take another it means that God is choosing us now and now and now. We have nothing to attain or even learn.”

I think I am starting to see what life is asking of me, and that is to die. Die to everything I have ever known or exalted about myself. Death first, then life can come. Losing myself to find myself. And this isn’t pie-in-the-sky “feeling” stuff. This is lived out in the daily-ness of it all. This is me giving Bauer my attention when he calls for me to look at something – I can choose to really look or to pretend to look. This is me getting up to pick up Cash’s fork off the floor again when I’d rather TJ or Bauer get up and do it. This is me letting go and oh, how it might hurt to do so. But it is the hurting that will bring the healing.

Two more quotes from Rohr:

“What can’t happen if we live entirely within the small “I” is, quite simply, love. Love is almost not possible there….When we live out of ego, we impose our demands on reality. But when we live in God’s presence, we await reality’s demands on us.”

“The private self is clearly an illusion largely created by thinking. My life is not about me. I am about life!…Don’t take this private thing so seriously. The primary philosophical and spiritual problem in the West is the lie of individualism. Individualism makes church almost impossible. It makes community almost impossible. It makes compassion almost impossible.”

Wow – There is just so much here, now. And I am here, now. And God is here, now. And all of that is just about the most amazing thing ever.

That, and this: How did Richard Rohr come to see all of this, and not just to see it, but to write it in a way that I can feel it more deeply than I have felt most any other thing in life? The answer only makes God even more real and true.

Dear God, please make the itching end soon.

Lots of TV (which he loves), lots of oatmeal baths (which he likes), and lots of the pink stuff (which he hates).

In better news, Cash got his stitches removed today. How come he didn’t even flinch when they took the stitches out, yet he fights me like crazy every time I try to brush his teeth?

I am engrossed in the book The Kite Runner which my friend Julie recommended. It is breaking my heart. I just want to read more so there can be some redemption. At least I hope that happens because any good story has redemptive value. If nothing else, I am already finding more compassion and emotion inside myself than before starting to read this book, so that’s redemption enough at this point.

I am also very much in the grips of Richard Rohr’s thoughts in Everything Belongs. I really cannot write about it just yet. There is much more sinking in to be done first.

And last is the book I’m reading called The Magic of Chia. Sounds kind of like The Coconut Oil Miracle, doesn’t it? I am learning more and more about chia seed and look forward to adding it to our diet. I hope to post about chia sometime in the future, once I can get my thoughts together on it.

Does anyone mind that all I write about lately is the kids’ ailments and the books that are helping me survive?

He’s not as happy as he looks. Today has been an itchy day. But I am glad this is going to count for us, as far as Bauer not ever having to get chicken pox again.

Cash, however, is as happy as he looks.

When he gets his paws on the Dustbuster, you can just leave him be for a while.

Just be prepared for some tears when you finally take it away.

TJ took Bauer skating for the first time this past week.

He did okay pushing the bins around on the ice, and then he was done!

I’m done, too! Wish I wasn’t but it’s time for me to go fix dinner.

The fun never ends.

It was another trip to the ER for us this past Monday. Cash got a hold of a pair of scissors (from a desk drawer that is child-proofed, mind you) and before we could intervene, it was Bauer to the rescue. Unfortunately the rescue didn’t turn out quite as intended. As the scissors were being pulled away from Cash, his finger got sliced open and required 4 stitches.

Thankfully it was on TJ’s day off so I didn’t have to brave the ER alone, and the whole trip, from home to ER and back, took less than an hour. It’s always nice when the mishaps of life work out conveniently.

Bauer’s chicken pox are coming at a rather convenient time now too. It’s been 2 weeks since he was exposed to Cash having them, so this is about what one would expect. He started with just a few spots yesterday on his belly and chest and now there are more on his front and back. I am interested to see if Bauer’s case will be as mild as Cash’s, or with Cash’s being as mild as it was, if he will get it again from Bauer. There will be an updated pox post once there is more to report.

At the beginning of January, TJ and I implemented what we are calling “Arts Hour.” It takes place from 9-10 pm several evenings a week. The evenings vary, but it probably averages three evenings a week. The idea is to stop whatever else we are doing and participate in the arts, whether it is reading, writing, listening to music, playing music (this would be TJ and his guitar), or even watching some or all of a movie. What Arts Hour cannot include is the TV (movies are okay) or the computer. So if I want to write, I can write on paper to type onto the blog later, or I can write a letter to someone, which is something I really enjoy. So far this month, all I have done is read during Arts Hour. TJ has been reading some too. He isn’t quite as into Arts Hour yet as I am, but he is still taking time at least a couple nights a week to sit and read or sit and sit. Nothing wrong with just sitting.

What is this life if full of care / We have no time to stand and stare? -W.H. Davies

TJ is currently reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. The three books I’m reading are listed on the Books page of the blog. I really like reading books of different genres all at once. I like having a health or nutrition-related book to read because it keeps me motivated to prepare healthy meals and I just find the material very interesting. I like reading a good work of fiction because a good story is a great escape. And I like reading a non-fiction book by a favorite author such as Anne Lamott, Madeleine L’Engle, Kathleen Norris, Frederich Buechner, or Henri Nouwen because it makes me want to be a better me. It pushes me toward God in a way only words can.

We have our small group on Monday nights and I have decided to use one other evening each week to make plans with a friend for coffee or the like. It’s been good knowing I have the option to plan to meet a different friend each week, but also knowing there is a boundary set so I don’t end up making too many plans. It seems my friend outings have been on Thursday nights so far. TJ doesn’t get home from work until at least 8:30 on Saturday nights, so we don’t do Arts Hour on Saturdays. That means Arts Hour is usually scheduled for Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Friday would make a good night to watch a movie for Arts Hour, although we haven’t done that yet. Last Friday night, we went out on a date to dinner and the bookstore. We had a $25 gift certificate to a new restaurant in downtown Naperville, The Black Finn, so we got to eat for free, and then we sat in Barnes and Noble and read our books for a while. I guess we had Arts Hour after all, although I am just now thinking of that.

I like how setting aside the time to read seems to make time go slower. Even if I have a bunch of other things I could do to fill an hour’s time, stopping to read or listen to music or both while drinking hot tea and having a few Fudge Babies is about the most strategic thing I can think of in the way of slowing down my life and being intentional with its direction.

On the days when Bauer can’t fall asleep during naptime (like today), he has Quiet Reading Time instead. He will sit back there on our bed for a good hour or more and flip through book after book to his little heart’s content. When he runs out of books, he will get up and pick himself another big stack of books from the shelf and go back to his reading. He usually wants a snack (or two), but as long as he’s quiet, I’m happy because I like to do my own reading/writing during this time.

Bauer is really enjoying the Patricia Lakin books about the alligators named Sam, Pam, Will and Jill. We have read Camping Day, Snow Day, Beach Day, and Rainy Day, all from the library of course. They are all very cute and clever rhyming stories. Bauer picked up the phrase P-U (as in, something stinks) from Camping Day and now uses it in all sorts of contexts.

We also checked out every Ezra Jack Keats book that was available the last time we went to the library. I knew of Ezra Jack Keats from the one little board book we have called The Snowy Day about the little black boy named Peter. I didn’t realize Keats had created all these different stories with Peter and his friends who live in the same neighborhood. I love the words Keats uses as he writes the stories. I’m no expert, but I think his books are truly great children’s literature because of the way the stories and pictures draw us in and keep us wanting more. One of my favorites is Jennie’s Hat, while Bauer is partial to Regards to the Man in the Moon.

I loved these lines from La’s Orchestra Saves the World (by Alexander McCall Smith, which don’t we all know that by now?):

He looked out of the restaurant, at the passers-by in the street outside. Some of them looked worn-out, ground down by what he called general conditions. “General conditions are so…” he said.

Okay, so you wanna see something scary?

This is me first thing in the morning with a bunch of cold sores (yes, plural!) on my lips. I haven’t ever had this many cold sores at once. I think it must have something to do with my exposure to the chicken pox because I read online and have heard from two people that they are both in the herpes family. Anyway, I hope there is a good explanation for all this discomfort.

I posted a new recipe on the blog today, so after you read this, you can read that! I felt like I hadn’t put up any recipes in so long, and the one I put up isn’t even really a new one, just a variation on an old one.

I spent a good while today writing in my journal while the kids did not nap but were supposed to be. I wrote about my day with Bauer up to that point, and it was therapeutic though difficult to reflect on some goings-on. I am going to type out the 5 pages from my journal in a minute, but I just want to preface by saying I know it seems I only write serious stuff on here when things go sour but I guess those are the times I need to write more and that I need to be known in all my messed-up-ness.

I do have good moments with Bauer, some that I have written about, like doing the fun art projects we did a lot around Christmastime. And some that I haven’t write about, like yesterday when I was so hungry that I could hear my stomach growling but instead of rushing out of Bauer’s room the minute I got him settled for his nap so that I could go eat lunch, I decided to go back to him as I was walking away. I asked him if he wanted me to sing him his favorite song, which is a hymn called “The Love of God” that I learned because I always used to ask TJ to sing it to me, and now it’s mine and Bauer’s special song. I knew Bauer wasn’t feeling that well yesterday and that it would probably be comforting to him to have me lay down beside him and sing to him for a few minutes before going out of his room. So I did that, and it was good and then he was able to go to sleep, stuffy nose and all.

I even have good moments on the same days with the bad moments in them. So it’s not necessarily that I’m letting the bad moments define my days. I just feel like the bad moments are really good chances for me to stop (if I will take the time to stop) and think about why things are turning out the way they are and why Bauer must be feeling/acting the way he is and why I am feeling/acting the way I am. I feel like God is letting me use writing to figure myself out more, which gives me good reason and inner strength to hope for more from myself. I am happy to be living, I am happy to be changing, and even when I’m sad, I’m happy. Life is weird like that. But it’s the best thing ever.

Here’s what I wrote today. It is long.

“I worry about the message I’m sending to Bauer on a daily basis with my responses to things he does. This morning we were practicing some of his ABC Bible verses at breakfast and he was having quite a bit of trouble remembering what we call the “end parts” (Scripture references) to verses he used to know without a glitch. I kept having him repeat things and try again, and there were moments I could tell he was frustrated. I was getting frustrated too, and I could feel it coming out. It was like I wanted to make him feel bad for not doing better, which I think would be a good definition for shame. I was circling the letters of the verses I felt he needed more practice on, and I told him at lunch we would just work on one of those letters, the B verse. I quickly ended our practicing with the words We’re not going to do the last two verses because you don’t know those, even though I knew he knew the verses, just not the end parts.

Fast forward to lunch: Though I so didn’t want to, I reminded Bauer that we needed to work on the B verse. His memory seemed to be working much better because after just a few minutes of practice he had it down pat and wanted to go on to the C verse, then D, and even E. I wasn’t pushing him at this point to do more, but I think he could see how happy it was making me as he got them right and was relishing the praise I was giving, so he just wanted to keep that up. The whole time both the breakfast and the lunch scenarios were taking place, I was thinking this isn’t a picture of God’s love. God isn’t quick to frustration and definitely doesn’t try to shame us into doing better. I hate for Bauer to think my love for him, my excitement over him, my praise for the things he does, are so conditional.

Last night on American Idol, they showed the story of a girl with amazing talent who grew up in a strict religious home where she wasn’t allowed to listen to secular music. I wasn’t as worried about that as the fact that not only were her parents not there to support her and see her succeed (or be there for her should she fall) but that when she called her dad after making it to the next round, she asked her dad “Are you proud of me?” The fact that she felt she had to ask that made me think she didn’t grow up feeling unconditional love and acceptance. And I don’t think Bauer is getting that vibe from me either a lot of times. It’s like I have these standards I hold myself and others to, and how in the world do I stop the madness?

What else is mad is how I know I’ve hindered Bauer’s creativity in the past, but I had a moment of enlightenment on that yesterday and vowed to change. In the book I’m reading (see Books page), Madeleine L’Engle quotes Finley Eversole as saying,

In our society, at the age of five, 90 percent of the population measures “high creativity.” By the age of seven, the figure has dropped to 10 percent. And the percentage of adults with high creativity is only two percent! Our creativity is destroyed not through the use of outside force, but through criticism, innuendo…

I had to read that to TJ last night and tell him that it made me think of all the times Bauer wants to build a “house” or a “stage” (the latest development in his building career) out of all kinds of toys, books, and other stuff from around the house, and I barely let him before I’m all over him about cleaning this up and saying stuff like don’t ever dump all the library books in the corner behind this chair again. I realized the error of my ways not only by reading this quote but also when Bauer and Cash were having a scuffle of some sort yesterday morning while I was in the bathroom drying my hair. I came out to see what was wrong, why Cash was upset, and it turns out Bauer was upset that Cash wanted to dump all the blocks out of their bin because Bauer didn’t want to have to clean them up. Or was it because he didn’t want to hear me telling him to clean up this mess?

Why does God give us the power to create (as in, give our children life) and to keep creating (as in, teach them how to live) when we fail so miserably at times? It’s like our kids come from him all innocent and untouched and built up in their souls inside for having just been knit together by God, and then they are given to us human parents who barely know how to love ourselves, much less someone else who requires so much tending to and engaging with. And over time, we break them down little by little, we reduce their capability for high creativity by imposing our fastidious state of mind over everything they touch, we focus more on externals for eliciting praise, and we do our God a huge disservice by not letting go and learning from our children.

My friend Lisa recently told me that each morning at the start of the day, she reminds her 4-year old daughter what each of their jobs are. She says it’s her (the mommy’s) job to take care of her two girls, to love and protect them. And it’s her daughter’s job to listen and obey, to play and have fun. I loved that idea when she shared it with me and have been thinking lately of how to make it my own based on what God is telling me my job is. I like the idea of Bauer’s job being to listen and obey, to play and have fun. You can’t help but smile when you say the have fun part together. I think my job description for now could go something like this.

Bauer, my job is to take care of you and Cash,
To love you boys and to learn from you,
To read to you and to teach you about God.

I first posted this recipe back in June of last year, and it is more of a summer recipe. But I made it recently just to have something different than our recent staples of super-stuffed tortillas, corn chowder, bean burgers, and spaghetti, and discovered that Cash loves it, especially the edamame. Another reason I wanted to make this recipe is because I wanted to try this variation, which calls for black-eyed peas and roasted yellow peppers instead of kidney beans and roasted red peppers. I actually like the black-eyed peas better because I think I just got tired of eating kidney beans in everything and because the black-eyed peas seem milder. When I made this recipe a week and a half ago, I used all the yellow peppers from the jar of roasted red and yellow peppers I bought at Trader Joe’s, so last night I had to use the red peppers. At dinner last night, Bauer, of course, asked why there were red peppers instead of yellow this time.

Yes, I already ate some before I remembered to take the picture. Served with corn and homemade potato chips!

Recipe 29: Three-Bean Salad with Quinoa (Variation)

1 cup uncooked pre-rinsed quinoa
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
1/2 lb green beans, trimmed, cut into 2″ pieces, steamed, and then rinsed in cold water
1 1/2 cups frozen organic shelled edamame, thawed
1/2 cup chopped roasted yellow peppers
1 15-oz can black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup Newman’s Own organic Tuscan Italian dressing
1 tsp dried tarragon (I omitted this)

1. Combine quinoa and 2 cups of water with a pinch of salt in a medium pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 10-15 minutes until water is absorbed. Let quinoa cool uncovered or put in the fridge for several hours to cool even more.
2. Put cooled quinoa, green beans, edamame, peppers, black-eyed peas, dressing, tarragon, salt and pepper into a large bowl and toss well.
3. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Serves 4.

Q: How many smoothies can one family eat?

I can hardly help buying the good stuff.

Thank you Meijer and Michael’s Fresh Market.

Thank you God.

Okay, so maybe I went a bit overboard.

Oh yeah, don’t forget the blackberries and the cut-up oranges in the fridge.

TJ and the boys have taken to playing hockey in the house…

even though there is plenty of snow outside,

which Bauer enjoys mightily.

That’s a lot of trains, Bauer.

That’s a lot of spots, Cash.

That’s right, our baby has the chicken pox. Since we choose not to vaccinate our kids, it’s good they’ll get it naturally and at a young age. We’re on Day 4 with Cash, and he seems to have a mild case so far. He hasn’t been scratching much, has been eating well, and has even slept fine at naps and nighttime (is this desk wood?). We’ve done a couple oatmeal baths so far and applied some Caladryl Clear lotion, just to keep the itching down. Most of his spots are on his torso (front and back), but there are also a few on his face, scalp, and legs. I expect Bauer to get them next, and hopefully he’ll handle them just as well as Cash has.