Rutabaga Dreams

We were up at the property over the weekend, and I thought I would share a few cute pictures of the kids. We had a lovely time, although it ended up raining on Saturday. We did get to take a nice walk around the property on Friday though, and I saw several wildflowers I had not seen before. Of course I forgot my wildflower book, but I’m going to try to look them at home and see if I can figure them out. If not, well, we’re going back up this weekend and I’ll try and remember to bring my books this time! Most of the property looks beautiful, except for the middle part where the house is going to go. It is a muddy mess, but I suppose that is to be expected. It is amazing how much havoc and destruction you have to cause before you can start building!

Anyways, here’s the pictures. I’m going to post some pictures of the house site over on the house blog too.

Here’s Gregory trying to figure out how to walk downhill. Note Emma in the background, trying to climb the slope. Do you think she’s glad to be out of the car?

And here’s Emma standing next to our big pile of logs that were cut down on our property. At this point we’re thinking we’re going to have someone come in with a portable mill and cut them into some sort of reasonable sized planks, then we’ll use them to build outbuildings and such.

Here’s Gregory, sampling some of the local dirt.

Yum, dirt tastes good!

Isn’t it pretty up there?

I decided to read Parenting in the Pew by Robbie Castleman because Emily listed it in her spring reading list and it caught my eye. Being largely new to this whole practice of raising children in the church, I’m always watching out for new books and ideas that will help me as I try to pass the faith along to my children.

I received my copy from the library via Link+ (all the way from Azusa Pacific University!) last week and I quickly read through it. The book is quite short - only 139 pages, including appendixes - and is written in an engaging, conversational style that is quite easy to move through even if you don’t have a lot of time on your hands for reading. Even though the book is short, I think it is well worth reading, even if you already agree with her main argument.

Castleman’s main purpose in writing the book is to get parents to think about why people go to church every week, and why they take their children there as well. She argues that it should not be for entertainment, fellowship, to keep the family busy, or just because it seems like the right thing to do but that it should be for worship. God wants us to worship him, and perhaps more importantly (at least for the purposes of this book!), God wants us to worship him in community. All of these other reasons for going to church aren’t necessarily bad, but they really are besides the point. They are the reasons we’ve created for going to church, not why God wants us to go.

After laying out her central thesis, Castleman proceeds to discuss just how to teach your children to worship, rather than to just sit quietly and not cause any heads to turn. She remarks, I think rather usefully, that many adults never really figured this out either, and that many of the people in the pews are really just doing the grown-up version of what they spent their childhood doing - namely not making anyone notice them while they silently counted the number of pews, tiles on the ceiling, or ear hairs on the old man sitting in front of them. Many adults raised like this eventually learned that there could (and should!) be more to church than this, but they lack the knowledge or tools to know how to pass this along to their children. They also don’t know how to keep focused on worship with their sometimes distracted and fidgety children next to them!

Castleman has some very good suggestions for fostering and teaching worship for a variety of ages, and has some thoughts on how parents can keep their focus on worship at the same time. The main caveat is that this book is somewhat less than useful for parents with children under the age of four as she advocates checking them into the nursery rather than bringing them into the service. She does suggest that this nursery try and teach the preschool age children about the order of the service and the appropriate responses rather than just entertain them with a verse, a song, a cut and paste exercise and a snack, but I feel that this is definitely a weak point in her book. However, this may in part be due to her church service and style. Her service, being Presbyterian, is quite different from what I’m used to (Episcopal and Catholic) and that long sermon does sound like it would be a challenge with very little ones. In my opinion, the shorter homily, followed by the liturgy of the Eucharist in both of the traditions I am familiar with seems much easier on children, but that’s really another issue entirely. Suffice to say that I think younger children can do more than she expects of them, especially in a church setting where the Eucharist is the focus.

I’m glad I read this book because it has made me think more about how I can involve Emma more during Mass. I know she’s usually paying attention, because she will answer Father’s rhetorical questions (quietly, thankfully!) during the homily, but she’s old enough and mature enough to start doing more than just exchanging the sign of the peace. On Good Friday and again on Easter I reviewed with her beforehand the appropriate responses to the readings, and we talked a bit more about some of the other responses during the liturgy. She tends to say them after the rest of the congregation has said them, but at least it is a start. I’ve also gone back to very quietly narrating to her what is happening and what is going to happen next. Even though she knows it, the reminder seems useful and it keeps her more engaged. Both of these services I attended with just Emma at my side, however, and I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to do this with Gregory with me as well. I think that I may take the easier road and continue to only bring Gregory if Matt comes as well. It perhaps isn’t the best route, but I think it is about as much as I can do at this point.

I’d be very curious to hear other parent’s opinions on this book! Emily, have you had a chance to read it yet?

After recounting at dinner the latest episode of our baby boy being mistaken for a little girl, Matt asked if we could really and finally give Gregory a haircut tonight. So, I pulled together my courage, got out the scissors, and did it. Thankfully, there were no tears involved (on my part or his) and I think the haircut turned out pretty well.

Here’s the reason why everyone thought he was a girl

Here’s the first cut attempt. I wasn’t able to actually start cutting until Matt held him in his lap.

One side sort of done!

I thought the mullet was rather cute, but Matt insisted that I keep going.

The back!

The side!

I tidied it up a bit more after these pictures, but this is about how it looks. He definitely looks more like a boy now!

I did it! Last night was beautiful, and I feel so profoundly grateful and blessed.

(Thanks to Moneybags and The Curt Jester for the welcome and the image)

Last night Jen posted a very insightful reflection on her blog, Et Tu, Jen?. Here’s the best part:

And now, as with so many other things that used to seem hypocritical or restrictive, I finally get it. Those of us who come to faith late in life are not getting a better deal than those who believed all along. We’re getting a far worse deal. When you finally experience the peace of Christ, you realize that every day without it is a day to be regretted.

Amen, sister! I’ve been through this same thought process, and I’ve come to the same conclusion… but I have not been able to write about as adroitly as Jen just did. Thank you, Jen, for writing this!

I will be entering full communion with the Catholic Church. It somehow seems both unbelievable and matter of fact, ordinary and profound in ways that I can’t quite explain.

In the past few days I’ve been spending a lot of time at my church. I’ve attended Stations of the Cross with Emma (which she was fascinated by beforehand, and enjoyed) on Friday, Mass on Saturday evening (and I think 5:30 has to be the most inconvient time possible for a Mass) then Adoration after the kids were asleep and the house was picked-up, and then a fundraiser breakfast put on by the church men’s club on Palm Sunday, followed by the Palm Sunday procession and service. There’s a time a couple years ago when I would have thought that one or two of these activities would have been fine, but all would have been far too much. There’s a time only a couple years before that when the thought of attending any of these activities would have been laughable, if not completely bizarre. But instead, I enjoyed all of these things, and I felt happy and blessed to be able to participate in them all.

It brought tears to my eyes on Saturday on the way to Mass and again during the Presentation of the Creed to realize that my fellow travellers and I are so close - so close! At this point we have no more classes, no more rites - only the great Easter Vigil on Saturday night. This leg of my journey, one that started a little over two years ago by the urgings of the Holy Spirit, is about to come to an end. Praise be to God!

(edited to clarify the whole men’s club breakfast thing - we were not crashing a men-only breakfast!) 

These last few springs I have gone through the same ordeal.  I try to wear my nice winter clothes to church for as long as possible, but eventually I get to the point where it is too warm for slacks and sweaters and I need to change my wardrobe lest I melt into the floor before the second reading.  Every year I try to do a little shopping to see if I can find some nice spring/summer type clothes that a) are not too revealing  b)  too expensive  c) actually fit d) aren’t so fashionable that they’ll look odd next year  e) I actually like and want to wear.  Now if I liked to shop, I might be okay here, but I hate to shop.  There are so, so, so many things I would rather do than shop I cannot even begin to describe where shopping falls on the list.   I have a shopping stamina of about fifteen minutes, finding anything in that amount of time, especially with my requirements, is pretty much impossible.

I’ve been sewing recently though, and I started thinking…  maybe I should just give up trying to find something I like and just make some things instead.  After all, I  have made clothes for myself before, why not do it again?  So, I enlisted Matt this evening to help me find my measurements so that I could figure out what size pattern I would need.  I saw in an ad for Jo-Ann’s that Simplicity patterns are going to be $1.99 Thurs - Sat, so it seems like a good time to try and embark on this undertaking.

I’ll admit it - part of the problem with fit nowadays is that I am apparently somewhat underweight compared to modern US standards.  In stores, I usually have to wear a size 4, and many stores do not even carry that size.  In some stores, like Old Navy, I just can’t find things that fit well because not only do their sizes run large, their hip/waist ratios do not match up with my body.  So I took my measurements and matched them up to the Simplicity sizing charts and I found that I wear a size 12.  Wow!  12!  That was a bit of a surprise!  Simplicity says that their sizing is based on standards shared with all the other pattern manufacturers, and that their sizing has not changed for decades.  What a novel idea, don’t you think?  Anyways, I’m still rather amazed at this piece of information, and I’m glad I took the time to figure this out because otherwise I would have spent a lot of time working on something that just would not have fit at all!