Summer update: House hunting

 Right after that beautiful weekend backpacking, my husband and I and our youngest flew to Austin to look at houses for three days. Austin has one of the most competitive housing markets in the country, or it did this summer. House after house we toured. Several had already sold by the time we got to them. Others were definite nos. A few were possibilities. We put an offer in on two. One went over asking price, and over our offer, which was above asking price. The other we got for a little under their asking price - probably because it was priced too high.  I didn't really want to put an offer in on any. I still think we should have sat out the housing market for a year and rented while we decided what we wanted to do, but after renting for the last ten years, my husband really wanted to buy a home. And there is a psychological difference beween living in your place and living in someone else's that you are borrowing for awhile.   

A break from househunting for ice cream cones

One house we looked at had an armadillo in residence under the deck

So we bought a house. And already plans have changed. We've already switched schools for one of the kids from one Catholic school to the other. I've wasted hours fretting about this commitment we've made. We spent a lot more than we intended. Although we can afford the payments because of the crazy low interest rates, I didn't want to take on this much debt - I wanted to have more money to save and to spend and to give away. My husband sees this as an investment. He was tired of throwing away money on a rental. However, I don't see us staying here long enough to make any money, unless by a miracle, prices continue to rise. I don't see how they can. I am also terrified we bought at the height of a market that could be a bubble and burst, although I read articles saying it is a balloon market in which growth will slow but won't pop. Let's pray. I obsessively check Redfin and Zillow and see that the value has gone up a tiny bit, which allays my anxiety for a minute, until I also search and see properties that could have worked for us that cost much less. 

Why didn't I back out of the offer when we had the seven day option period? I keep asking myself that, and I can't find a satisfactory answer that gives me peace of mind. The attraction of this house was that it has space and amenities for all the kids to come home and visit at the same time.. We have a guest room for grandparents and other friends and family. We have a beautiful view of a forest preserve and a golf course. We have a pool and a pool table (I swore at some point I never wanted a pool again, but it's hot here in Texas...). We have a movie room! - never something I wanted, but it can be turned into a sleeping room for kids. We also have two wine refrigerators, another amenity I could do without - something I plan to sell if we stay. Instead of wine refrigerators, I wanted chickens and a big garden, but the HOA here doesn't allow fowl. Should have read those rules sooner. We have wonderful live oaks, one of which has died since we bought the house - it was probably dying since the winter storm, but we didn't notice, nor did the inspector point it out.  Ups and downs. Highs and lows.

At the time we were in the option period, I was afraid we wouldn't find anything better. I was afraid - and hopeful - prices would continue to rise. I was afraid our kids, who already were tearful about leaving California, would mutiny if we rented for awhile and then had to pack and move again. I thought we needed some stability. And admittedly, I loved the view, although the house is a suburban giant unlike anything we have lived in before - we've typically lived in older, smaller, cozier places with more character in walkable neighborhoods. (We can walk here, but just through neighborhoods - not to a cute downtown restaurant or ice cream shop. Scratch that, we did walk a mile and a half to the local softserve ice cream stand, which was delicious and cheap.). I was afraid if we bought the smaller place I liked with a couple acres on a more secluded property, the kids would be unhappy. Farm life is something I crave, not them, and that place wasn't really a farm anyway. Then there was the pressure to decide.  We were negotiating over the Fourth of July weekend when we had company visiting and parties and parades. We were in the seven day option when company started arriving for my husband's Change of Command and retirement ceremony. We had to think about that ceremony, not houses, so we just said yes rather than looking at more houses. After we committed, I was a nervous wreck and didn't sleep for weeks. I lost ten pounds. I still don't sleep well. I kept hoping the inspection or the appraisal would give us a way out, but they both came back fine. The appraisal was exactly what we had offered. So I suppose that is a positive. 

Now I waste time calculating the amount of money we could potentially lose in a worst case scenario, which is if we decide we don't like it here, or a dream job opens up (Notre Dame?) in three years or less and the market has crashed, but we have to sell. Actual worst case is if husband loses job and we have to foreclose, but even I, the queen of worst case scenarios, feel that is unlikely, even for me to imagine - although not impossible. 

Best case scenario is the market continues to expand, at a more modest rate, of course - I don't see how it could continue to rise much, if at all, at this point, but it has, even though it has already slowed considerably in the last two months. But even if the market doesn't expand, if the house just maintains its current value, we could sell in three years without paying any money over what we owe, but we wouldn't walk away with any money after closing costs, since we put so little down. So we'd be in the same situation as if we had rented, although we'd save the costs of maintenance.  In a bad, but not quite worst case scenario, the housing market deteriorates modestly or uncomfortably. In my attempt to confront possibilities, I've suggested to myself that we could owe the mortgage company around $300,000 if it sold for the price it was listed seven years ago. In that case, we might try to find renters, and based on rental prices now, we would only be able to charge enough to cover mortgage and interest, but not taxes and insurance, so we would lose money every month - although maybe not as much  as $300K, if the market recovered in a few years, allowing us to sell. 

These are the kind of mental gymnastics that drive my husband batty.  I shouldn't be letting them circulate in my mind, but maybe by writing them out here, I can exorcise them out of my brain a little and avoid revisiting the doomsday visions. We have been so fiscally conservative up to this point - although we have always stretched a bit on housing - that it feels almost sinful to spend as much as we are on a house with all this space we don't need regularly. I tell myself that I can at least moderate the use of utilities and keep them lower than some other owner might have, and so help the planet in a miniscule way. It is a nice neighborhood, and I have met several nice neighbors. LK has a friend three doors down already and I have walked with two neighbors, and I just hired the college student across the street to teach piano lessons. We do have great places to hike - no mountain vistas, but trails not far away.  And we have conveniences like storage and two sinks and a big range with six burners. Luxuries. We have a place for everything except books. I need to get some more shelves. . . 

To make me feel like we are getting our money's worth, we need to fill the house up with guests to make the space worthwhile - so come see us! Family, friends, internet strangers... all are welcome!  We'll treat you right, as my uncle from Fort Worth used to always say. 

Coming in the next edition: Summer celebrations and visitors from near and far. 

What weighs heavily

Sometimes the number of things that weigh heavily on my mind and on my heart act as a doorstop, blocking the door that lets out the self who gets things done.  Instead, I find myself sitting staring into space, or lying in bed too long, or aimlessly straightening piles of papers into new piles that I still don't read.  I'm sure not getting enough sleep has something to do with this, but I can't get enough sleep without somehow letting go of these heavy thoughts.

So here is a list of worries - prayer requests perhaps is a kinder way of phrasing it:

For people suffering from cancer - Right now our family is praying for four friends or family members with cancer. One of them has breast cancer that was caught early, and she will be fine. She's had her first surgery, and the doctors determined the cancer is not in her lymph nodes.  The other three have heavy doses of chemotherapy in their future, when they are already weak and tired and in pain.  My sister-in-law's father is also having surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. My father-in-law was hospitalized after a recent visit with complications from congestive heart failure.

For people suffering the loss or illness of children: A friend who suffered a miscarriage. A friend whose little niece died from a head injury inflicted by a horse. A friend longing for a baby. A friend whose baby is failing to thrive.

For for my own children: I fear for their safety as they learn to bike and learn to drive, weaving through traffic and navigating their ow way, navigating life. They all have sustained minor injuries to their bodies and to their hearts. Two more sons have torn ligaments in their knees - which means two more surgeries. Meanwhile, I also worry perhaps more than they do about the choices they make about their future and effects on their bodies and their souls.

The Spectre Death is always lurking nearby waiting for a victim. 

In less physically worrisome news: I have to finish planning a class and finish work on a paper for a presentation. The needs of the household always seem to present themselves more urgently when I have something to get done. Hence the late nights.

I like to blame some of my sleeplessness on this house and the traffic outside our door, which causes a different sort of angst.  Motorcycles, trucks, loud music, drunk sailors, and other sounds in the middle of the night prevent a restful slumber.  I keep watching the ads for houses to rent and keep my ear open to find out who is transferring, but for one reason or another - price, size, timing, inertia - the opportunity to move to a better location has not arrived. Aside from the noise and congestion from traffic, little things bother me about the house: the toilets run, the pool is green with algae again, even this late in the season, horn worms are eating my plants, the windows are grimy, the showers moldy, the screens black with pollution so that I fear for our health. I try to feel love for this house, and I do feel a fondness for it occasionally, but then something breaks or the pool goes green.  Have I mentioned I will never own a pool?

Then there is the general tiredness caused by middle-aged physical changes -- achy joints, new gray hairs and wrinkles, sore feet and back.  All the signs point to the physical decay of being halfway through life or more, though I still don't want to admit it - and I still worry about getting pregnant. 

'A different kind of angst descends when I read or listen to the news. Gloom! Doom! Spooky times!

October has arrived. Autumnal colors are not especially noticeable here in southern Californa, but the sense of loss and passing time - shorter daylight hours? foggy mornings? - is compounded this time of year. Now that I have exorcised these demons by writing them out, perhaps the spirits can rest instead of haunting the nights...

With sorrow

You know how in old movies and cartoons, sometimes a fluttering calendar is used to show that time has passed? The months start to flutter off the calendar faster and faster? That image resonates right now. The past two weeks have just been a blink, and time is moving faster. I want to take a metaphorical letter opener and stab it into the calendar so it will stop fluttering for a day or two.

I didn't know when I was writing that last post about love and death, that across the country another school shooting was taking place. I didn't hear the news until late in the day because I was getting ready to go on the road to visit the college kids for Junior Parents' Weekend. As I spent the weekend traveling, I didn't hear many reports of what was happening in Florida until I returned home. Now I am more grateful than ever that I did go on this trip.  It isn't often that we have the kind of time to spend with the older boys just visiting, and this trip was a reminder that they are becoming their own people, and our time with them is brief.

This school shooting coming so quickly on the heels of the shooting at the Texas church and the shooting in and the shooting in Las Vegas seems to be striking people differently, including me. What was once a rare, isolated, horrific catastrophe now happens every couple of months. A couple of years ago I didn't feel compelled to discuss or participate in political action for gun control, probably because a number of people in our family own guns.  Nonetheless, I have never felt safe with guns in the house because of too many reports of accidental deaths caused by brothers and sisters fiddling with a relative's firearm.  My grandfather once gave my husband a pistol, but it never came home with us. It stays locked in my father's gun safe.  I've quietly agreed with the arguments for restrictions on buying guns, any type, and for outlawing automatic weapons.  When we lived in Guam, a mentally insane man drove his car into a crowd of shopping tourists and jumped out yielding a knife.  His crazed attack on the crowd left two people dead.  Horrifying. But what if he had had an automatic weapon? How many people would have died? It would have been a massacre.

Enough is enough. There is no justifiable reason for automatic weapons to be available on the market.  The senseless deaths of those young people and teachers seem to have created a swell of support for action on gun control that is sweeping me out of apathy. I've signed a petition. Our kids are taking part in a walkout at school on the one month anniversary of the shooting, and I'll be there to support them in taking a stand.  There is no logical defense for keeping on the market weapons meant to kill a lot of people. The time for a change is now.

In the wake of these young people's deaths, I am ever more grateful for the time to spend with the older kids. Like others, I feel moved to show them more affection, to nag a little less. One of my daughter's teachers wrote lovely notes to the parents to compliment her students.  Another gave each student a valentine with a note of encouragement and praise.  These small acts of generosity honor the students who have died in ways their families will never know but that affect the hearts of those who are removed from the situation but still grieved by it and fearful for where the next episode will be.  Several months ago a young man made a threat at our school. He was apprehended and suspended, but I don't know what steps were taken to help him get over his anger. And I wonder what his situation is now. I remember to bless the kids, touching each one of them, as they leave for school.

Learning about learning

Often when I pick up a book because it looks interesting - judging by its cover - without knowing anything about it, it turns out to be forgettable. But sometimes it lives up to its cover. That's the way I feel about Allison Gropnik's The Gardener and the Carpenter.

Gropnik is a professor of psychology (and wife to one of the Pixar cofounders and a mother of 3), and she has done a lot of research into human and animal behavior, and the science of behavior fascinates her, and she has the talent to weave the science into an interesting book. Her name wasn't unknown to me, although I didn't immediately recognized it; I've enjoyed reading Gropnik's columns in the Wall Street Journal. A memorable one was her essay on children as scientists - they observe, explore, mimic, test theories and look for connections as they encounter the world around them.

Gropnik's book is partly an exploration of human behavior focusing on how children learn, and partly, the part that drew my attention to closer reading, about changing our understanding of our role as a parent to one that is focused on the relationship rather than focused on an end goal. And the final chapter addresses the question of why have children at all, if we are not in the business of producing a certain type of adult, in other words, if parenting doesn't have a pay-off.

Gropnik's argument is that parents should be more like gardeners who nurture and tend their gardens, than like carpenters, who craft their wood into an object with an end in mind. She points out that "parenting" as a verb is a relatively new concept. For instance, we don't "child" or "lover" our parents or spouses. The relationship between parent and child (or between spouses or friends) is not an action, but a state of being in relationship. Rather than trying to form their children into something or someone, parents should try to be available to their children, to provide them stability, safety, and opportunities to explore, to observe, and to learn (hence, the connection to The Nature Principle, near where this book was shelved).  She  rejects the idea that parents have ultimate control over what kind of people their kids become by saying that nurture is only one part of human development. She points out that despite the rise of parenting how-to books, there are no guaranteed methods for producing successful, productive, happy adults. Trying to follow a prescription or blueprints for parenting will only make us more neurotic and anxious, instead of more relaxed and confident in our identity as parents, so that we can actually relax and enjoy parenting.

This metaphor alone, without all the scientific data, isn't a new idea, but I need to be reminded to take a step back when I'm worrying about the kids' development. On the one hand, I want to give them opportunities to try new things and to develop the discipline of practicing in order to improve at a skill. But here's a statistical analysis of a parenting conundrum: I keep attempting to sign kids up for piano lessons because I believe music lessons provide a skill that brings joy eventually, help form habits of discipline, and form neural pathways that affect all kinds of other activities. My thought was I would have each kid take two years of music lessons. However, 5 of the 6 the kids who have had lessons never want to practice, and 4 of the 6  show no real musical aptitude. Only one kid now loves to sit down with his guitar or banjo or ukulele and strum some songs.  Occasionally, one other kid will sit at the piano or pick up his clarinet and play a song then wander away again. The sixth child only had about six months total of lessons here and there. Am I gardening or carpentering when I want the kids to take 2 years of music lessons? I'm glad I gave them the opportunity to learn music, but I want to support them in following their own interests, not mine.

Another comparison Gropnik makes is to dieting. We now have more nutrition books, more recommendations for losing weight, more types of food, and more access to healthy foods, but we are in many cases less healthy, and in more cases more neurotic about what we eat. Approaching diet as a science project takes away the joy of eating. Similarly, replacing the relationship between parent and child with a prescription for how to parent takes away the joy of parenting. 

Gropnik's book is not an appeal to return to the past, but she does use appeals to examples of parents in primitive cultures or in the distant past as a way of demonstrating both how children learn and human beings bond, and how we don't need a prescription for raising children. She encourages parents to rely on our intuition and traditions, on the example of our grandparents, who let children explore their environment and have the freedom of unstructured play, but also taught small children to do chores and practice cooking. 

There are some dangers in idealizing the past, and while grandparents are an excellent example of people who take joy in children, I wouldn't be surprised if my grandmothers were somewhat anxious as parents.  Gropnik frequently uses her grandson as an example of how children learn and uses examples of how she plays with him as examples of how play helps children problem solve and observe in order to learn. Perhaps because she is a grandparent and not the parent, she is free to be involved in a loving relationship because she is free of the pressure of "parenting." Grandparents have a special relationship with children predicated on love and enjoyment of each other's company. My behavior was certainly affected and moderated by my desire to please and not to disappoint my grandparents, particularly my grandfather, who frequently expressed his pride in us and his affection.  Perhaps her argument should be "try to be more like a grandparent to your child."

I have to admit that I skimmed a good chunk of this book, even though I enjoyed the writing and the ideas. With my reading turning more nonfiction lately, I read differently.  I do a lot more skimming. Does this count as reading a book? Often with nonfiction first chapter has most of the information of the book condensed into 15 pages, and the last chapter contains the philosophical reflection on this information and its effect on our choices. The chapters that were pertinent to how I might parent with practical applications were at the very end of the book. The first quarter, maybe third, of the book goes into more scientific detail than I care to read deeply about.  Two lengthy chapters are primarily dedicated to evolutionary explanations for a long childhood and for parental and romantic love, and in several instances, Gropnik uses animal behavior as examples of parental behavior. Animal behavior is interesting, but it doesn't motivate to change my own behavior or particularly clarify my understanding of human behavior, and frankly, neither does evolutionary theory.  For one thing it is largely conjectural -  I'm sure it's based on fragments of bone and artifacts of tools and homes, but how much do we really know about our predecessors' feelings? Can we recreate a life from fragments? And how does evolutionary theory account for grandparents? Gropnik recounts the idea that having older adults around in the community allowed the younger adults forage for food while someone minded the cave babies, but it's hard to accept that natural selection is the cause of this development in human society, and not some Intelligence.

Another reason I skipped most of the section on evolutionary theory as an explanation or guide of human behavior today is that we are so far removed from that environment - shouldn't our behaviors and approaches to love and childrearing have evolved and adapted to our current environment? I'm know that discussing our elemental nature in regards to human behavior throughout time is an interesting mind project, but I don't feel compelled to read about caveman behavior in order to be convinced about a way to rear children today.  So I skimmed, which seems to happen frequently when I read nonfiction - I don't want to read all of the science parts, just the practical and philosophical parts.

One of those sections was about how children learn, which is more interesting to me as a parent of a toddler who is helping to run a preschool co-op. One of my favorite subsections is called "In Praise of Mess," which proclaims the glorious fact that messes are signs of children learning, that children thrive in an environment where they feel free to make messes. Also: stories are important. Check. Despite the disclaimer that this is not a parenting how-to book, the preponderance of information proving that children learn by different kinds of imitation is a strong reminder to watch my own behavior and tone of voice.

Also interesting was the section on essentialism - how children infer that certain things have an essential likeness and way of being that makes them similar or different than other things. For instance, concepts of "boy" and "girl" are understood by very young children as essential categories.

Gropnik also praises apprenticeship learning and giving adolescents opportunities to engage in meaningful work as a part of education.  And while she is critical of medicating children who are mildly ADHD so that they can fit into a traditional school environment instead of adapting an environment to fit their style of learning, she is not dismissive of new technologies and uses a parable about a "device" that changes the world (the book) to suggest that new technologies are always developing and not only changing the way we communicate and socialize, but also the way our brains work. For instance, the ways we see and remember have changed over time as an adaptation to being a reading people. Reassuringly, she points out that the ancient arts - drama, music, poetry - have not disappeared, but have continued to flourish as technologies have changed.

Home schoolers might find reason to rejoice in some of Gropnik's research - she gives multiple examples of how school learning is not the most effective (partly because a "goal" - all A's and a college admission - for school assessment does not always accurately measure how a young person will manage as an adult).  Young children learn best by discovery, by practice, and by being shown examples (imitation), rather than by being told something and then being tested over it. Being a good test taker is not the end goal of education, and yet that is what schools seem to emphasize with assessment based learning, all reasons home schoolers rely on when questioned about their choices. Gropnik points out that learning to read and to do math are not ends unto themselves, but means of further learning, which is one of the most convincing secular reasons for choosing an alternative way of teaching. But she doesn't really address home schooling as such, even though she has praise for  apprenticeships and project based learning and mentorship relationships.

When I think of how our older children learned to read without really being taught and how much history, literature, and science they absorbed from our field trips and projects, I keep debating whether I should or shouldn't home school the toddler, especially for the early grades. On the other hand, this child craves social interaction, and while having a consistent caregiver is important to development, as children age, they also develop their interests and benefit from learning from masters about subjects I know little or nothing about. My ideal would be to find a small, Catholic classical school that uses project based learning, especially for its science and math classes, and had a rich arts and music curriculum. Now if only some billionaire would fund it ...  

Gropnik never mentions home schooling, although she does use the private school/public school conundrum as an example of how utilitarianism is not the best approach to parenting, or to forming public policy about individual children. The most interesting chapter is the last one, in which Gropnik addresses Mill's utilitarianism, the claim that what is good is what is the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and Kant's deontology, or claim of a universal moral principle, and rejects them in favor of Irving Berlin's value pluralism, the idea that there are multiple goods, some of which are incompatible, but equally valuable, for addressing how to think about the parent-child relationship. For example, public school is good for a great number of people, but for a particular child, it may not be the best choice. Value pluralism seems to apply to many parenting decisions - we are constantly coming up against competing goods. Even the choice to have a child cannot be subject to a universal or utilitarian approach. I particularly liked Gropnik's point that we can't know what our life will be like with a child because we become different people after childbirth. We are enlarged by love to place another person's life above our own.  As she writes, "Deciding whether to have children isn't just a matter of deciding what you want. It means deciding who you're going to be."

Unfortunately, many people do approach the decision to have a child from a utilitarian perspective, or decide that becoming a person who puts another person's needs about his or her own, is a limitation or, worse, an enslavement, when in fact, to love another person that much is an enlarging of the heart and a liberation from selfishness. She quotes Virginia Woolf: "'Never pretend that the things you haven't got are not worth having.'" in response to the idea that because not having children allows you to have more free time and fun, then having children will take away joy but limiting your participation in some solitary or adventurous experiences. But raising children is a valuable experience of its own (that still is compatible with many other valuable experiences0.

Gropnik's praises the experience of having children not from any measurable standard, but because it enriches our life on so many levels, in a great deal because the relationships we form with our children and the people they bring into our lives are also enriching. These relationships form the person we become. But she also recognizes the freedom of the individual to NOT have children. 

"Precisely because such decisions are so morally profound and life-transforming, we should respect the freedom of individual people with individual lives to make them. It should be obvious by now that I personally place a very high value, the highest, on caring for children. That is also true for many people in religious traditions, and is often articulated as the justification for opposing contraception or abortion." 

After making this statement, she confesses she made the difficult decision to have an abortion after she unexpectedly got pregnant at age forty. This is a surprisingly personal confession in a book that reads as relatively impersonal, although there are several anecdotes of her loving interaction with her grandson and a couple anecdotes of her actions as a mother to three sons. Knowing how much being an older mother to a young child has enriched my life, I feel sorry that she felt compelled to make that decision. Ideally, people would recognize that having one more person in the world to love and to love them would make their life more full. But this argument is only possible to make by witnessing to the joy of being a parent.

And here is where Gropnik's main idea - that as parents, we are in a relationship with our children, not involved in a project to produce a successful adult - is a very humane understanding that also applies to our relationship with our parents. And rather than build institutions that force us to adapt our relationships to our aging parents and to our young children to fit the institutions (large schools, retirement homes), perhaps we should adapt our institutions to fit our relationships. All kinds of policies could be adapted and resources allocated to support these relationships.

Gropnik closes her book with poignant example of the immeasurable value of the parent-child relationship and the importance of play to both. She describes a scene from the old silent movie Nanook of the North in which a struggling Inuit hunter makes a sled and plays with his toddler son in the snow with his son. The joy that both experience outweighs the hours and materials he invested in making the sled. Some experiences are priceless.

Gropnik's most eloquent paragraph summarizes her understanding of these relationships in this way: 

"Why be a parent, then? ...Being a parent isn't worthwhile because it will lead to some particular outcome in the future, because it will create a particular kind of valuable adult. Instead, being a parent allows a new kind of human being to come into the world, both literally and figuratively. Each new child is entirely unprecedented and unique -- the result of a new complicated combination of genes and experience, culture and luck. And each child, if cared for, will turn into an adult who can create a new, unprecedented, unique human life. That life may be happy or sad, successful or disappointing, full of pride or regret. If it's like most valuable human lives, it will be all of these things. The very specific, unconditional commitment we feel to the child we care for is a way of respecting and supporting that uniqueness. Part of the pathos, but also the moral depth, of being a parent is that a good parent creates an adult who can make his own choices, even disastrous choices.... But it's also true that being a good parent allows children to succeed in ways that we could never have predicted or imagined shaping."

So despite the fact that I didn't read a good chunk of this book very closely, I was enriched by reading it and reminded to relish the experiences that we have with our children and to fret less about the classes and lessons that they may not be taking part in or things they lack. I need to praise more and nag less. In the end, it all comes back to love. 

Life in Lent

We are over halfway through Lent.  I love Lent, even though I am not doing such a great job of staying off Facebook (I just intend to look at a pending house rental, or wish this person happy birthday, or see this picture of my kid someone posted, but then I scroll through 20 posts.... I am struggling with an addiction I claim not to have!) nor am I going to bed early (maybe twice I've made it to bed before 11). I haven't eaten sweets, but I have had wine on Sundays (does after the vigil Saturday night count as Sunday? Another sacrifice I thought would be easier to make.)

On the other hand, I have been reading lots.  And praying more  - which is easier because our Church is offering such wonderful resources: 24 hours of adoration and confession, a healing Mass, Soup and Stations on Fridays, a Lenten study for moms with free babysitting, a Taize service, etc.  They have all been beautiful, especially the 24 hours of adoration. It is so peaceful to sit in church in the darkness of midnight.  I don't know that I hear God's voice speaking, but my heart is open and full.

And we have also had the opportunity to do some extra acts of service. Today the teens served breakfast at the homeless shelter and then we all worked at a food packaging event where we filled bags of meals composed of soy protein, spices and dehydrated vegetables, and rice. 50,000 meals were packed. It was pretty amazing and productive, as well as a fun social activity. I love opportunities like this to get together with people we don't know well but want to know better.

I also love the quiet, introspective time of Lent. The freedom to say no to extra social events.  The greater dedication to acts of corporal and spiritual mercy, the greater focus on what is essential. Attention seems heightened. Affection comes easier.  Causes for adoration are plentiful.I just read a good article about why Catholics love Lent by Fr. Raymond de Souza in the National Catholic Register.  It mentions the extra devotionals offered by parishes and beloved by parishioners - as well as non-Catholics who love Stations or Taize, or other devotions, and come to be fed, but it also notes how penance and discipline suit us:

"We proclaim ourselves an Easter people, but we are not quite ready for a life fulfilled by singing the praises of God, as we will in heaven. Lent, though, seems to correspond to where we find ourselves, perhaps sitting for a while in the ashes of disappointment or failure, or perhaps in need of timely encouragement to take up anew the discipline of the Christian life.Easter may indeed give us a foretaste of heaven, but Lent provides support while we still eat the bread of affliction.Why is Lent our favorite season? Perhaps because it best gives to us what we need on the journey, having not yet arrived at the feast."

The anticipation of the future and the pleasures mixed with the pains of long journeys bear testament to the predilection for the journey.
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Another good article: "Stuff Nobody Wants" by John Horvat.  We have a lot of that around here. But this article takes a different look at that stuff. He sees in it a connection to the past and to familial roots. The loss of respect or understanding of the provenance of things can be traced back to the breakdown of the nuclear family and to the loss of the familial stories about our heritage and our family identity."Just as most individuals see themselves as unlinked to others, so also most families today see themselves as a social unit without connection to others—even their own.

"Thus, the modern nuclear family does not see itself as a continuation of a family tradition. Its members do not see the need to maintain an old home or property that should be kept “in the family.”
To them, the family is just the sum of living members composed of a father, mother, and children. Once one reaches adulthood, the individual becomes an autonomous being with few binding obligations and no need for the old stuff of their parents.
This is so contrary to the traditional notion of the family. Throughout history, the family has always been understood to mean the unbroken unity of the whole lineage of ancestors and descendants."

I have thought often about this, mostly in relation to my own longing to be rooted to a place and to be closer to family. I have thought that my relics handed down from my grandparents and relatives are accessories to our way of being rooted in a transient lifestyle. I want to return to our ancestral home, but as we leave little bits of our selves across the country, and learn to love places that we originally only tolerated, our roots have spread - perhaps more shallow than deep, but someday we will pause and be still.

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Another penance of Lent: Doing taxes and college financial aid paperwork, which are oh so painful, but finished!  I spent hours filling out forms - online - and calculating and recalculating to make sure I did everything correctly.  Glad to have that behind me for now. It did raise some awareness of the complexities of being self-employed, even though technically I'm not.

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Is it a penance to get a letter from the school about misbehavior? Yes, most definitely it is a lesson in humility, but also in patience in waiting for a response after spring break, especially since I question that the punishment fits the crime.

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Is it penance to try to potty train? Yes. I have cleaned up many accidents this week, but the toddler is at last interested in using the potty. I owe her new underpants. As much as I looked forward to potty training, it makes me realize that this unexpected baby is no longer a baby, and it makes me sad. Her third birthday is in just a few weeks. She has been - and will continue to be, I'm sure, - such a source of light and life. She is generous with hugs and amusing facial expressions. She is cuddly and independent. I want her to stay small as much as I anticipate her growing up.  I have loved having a baby in the house at the same time we are sending college students out of the house, even though that was not my initial thought.

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During the past few weeks of Lent, I have also done a lot of reading. The book selection at the library has been good, and a couple of people loaned me books. I want to write about them, but it's too late now, so it will have to wait for another time.

Till then, may peace remain!

Packing up meals

A job for everyone

Art enthusiast

Artsy photos at the art museum

Making art

Admiring the blooms at the Japanese Friendship garden.

A dress I made for a niece 12 years ago. 

Broken stuff I can't seem to fix or throw away.

New routines

The days have been a lot quieter around here with two kids off to college and only five at home.  How did we come to this stage so quickly?  The sense that I am missing something or someone is constantly gnawing at me. Five seems like a small number, but I still can't quite keep track of everything. I was late to pick up the baby at the sitters after an appointment because I thought I had time to run a quick errand.  And I completely forgot to pick up the fifth grader on Tuesday. She got left in aftercare for an hour. An hour. I didn't remember I had to go pick her up until her brother asked where she was when he came home from practice. Bad mom moment. Granted she had only had one full day of school because last week she had a week of half days, but I was in la-la land organizing photographs on the computer and trying to figure out some of our new technology (a new printer and an old laptop left behind by one of the college kids who upgraded his device).

Despite those lapses, for the most part we are resuming order around here.  When we returned from summer vacation and dropping the college kids off at school, the youngers quickly rearranged the bedrooms to establish a new layout in which three of them now have their own rooms. Yes, we have five bedrooms, a luxury. When the college kids come home, they will get their spaces back, but despite the clouds of dust the moving around kicked up, I'm happy about the arrangement myself. Everyone filled at least one bag of give away clothes and toys. Piles of dust and hairballs from under the bed spaces were swept out for the first time in a long time. No one can blame someone else for the mess on the floor. I cleaned out some of my clothes that have been hanging around for fifteen years, and gave away some of the baby's things that she didn't really wear at all because she grew a lot all of a sudden, and now we are feeling all tidied up and ready for the fresh start that fall brings.

New school and activity schedules are posted on the calendar. New folders and binders are organized for assignments. My desk is cleaned out and a large stack of papers has been either filed (i.e. stashed in a box in the basement) or recycled. I even posted a couple of a change of address forms for some financial documents that I hadn't yet sent in even though we have been in this house for a year.

I have this feeling that I need to tidy up a lot more than desks and closets.  The busy busy summer resulted in short tempers, gray hairs, five extra pounds, and a constant gnawing sense of loss.  Time, time, I need more time! The baby talks in complete sentences. The second child is off to college. The fourth child is in high school. What happened to the long days of summer spent lolling around the neighborhood pool or some playground while pudgy kids splashed and climbed, and it seemed that all we had was time?

I am still feeling thankful for vacation, for the opportunity to reset and refocus. We at least had a few days of nothing to do. Trying to work, albeit from home online, and keep up with the kids left me wrung out and anxious from all that I was failing to do.

Now that the house is quiet for a moment (the baby - I should say toddler - is napping and the kids are at school), and my class load has shrunk from four to one course, I can hear thoughts rattling around again. I made it to morning Mass one day last week. The toddler looked at picture books, and I listened, instead of listing. I missed having our big kids at Sunday Mass, but I was full of gratitude and happiness for them to be in their world.  I was grateful to see the other kids happy to be heading back to school.  Things are good.  I can think of a million little ways to improve upon their school, their faith formation, our routines at home, etc, but things are good.  For the moment: relief.  Praise and thanksgiving are again in the routine.

Field trip

We bounced on bubble horses.

It's my birthday! I'm celebrating by taking a minute to catch up with blogs. I've been indulging all day - my husband stayed home from work to go to Mass, and I let him chase the toddler. Then we got coffee and donut holes at the local diner and enjoyed them at the park. The big kids offered to babysit tonight, but it is the only night this week that we don't have something scheduled, so I told them all I want is someone to do the laundry, wash the dishes, and rub my feet. We'll see if it gets done!

In between end of the year awards ceremonies, field trips, field days, and band concerts, the toddler and I recently went to the local children's museum. It's a bit different than some we've visited. Instead of a play store, a fire engine, and a train room, this one had a creating space with paint and clay, and a sound and light room with relaxing mood music playing in the background and colored lights shining on sparkly sand. It had some gross motor skills play areas, a ladder house to climb, and a science station. My friend described it as an art therapy major's dissertation. With the poured cement walls and floors and open stairwells, the architecture is very modern. The spaces don't really connect in a logical way.  You wander around and then come upon something new. Oh what's this!

But LCJ LOVED it.  We tried to go back last week on a Tuesday, and it was closed. She had a meltdown in front of the door, and I had to manhandle her flopsy body back to the car. We later went to a different children's museum, quite a drive away, and the contrast was vivid. This one had the little dress up stations, a pirate ship play structure and slide, a bubble station, a water play area, a music making station, and a chicken pen.  The vibe was more of a Waldorf school play date than museum. Definitely for the under-7 set.  The toddler was absorbed, but it would have been more fun for both of us with a friend.

After visiting children's museums every place we've lived, I still have to rate the one in Indianapolis, where I grew up, as the best. First of all, it is enormous, but the layout is intuitive. Space leads on to space in a spiral design. The center of the museum is a carpeted ramp leading up the four or five floors. It has something for all ages, and the carousel at the top pleases everyone. It engages the senses and motor skills and has places to create with cultural and historical lessons tied in.  I don't remember it being as sensory overloading as the Houston museum which had lots of glowing flourescent lights, loud music, echoing chambers, and interactive computer stations, which I can do without, and which get boring quickly. We loved to visit the one in Portsmouth, Virginia, to play, especially on very hot or very cold days. It had the little town, a real plane cockpit and a real fire engine to climb on. The upstairs was mostly trains and a few physics displays. (bike and turn on a light! Balance the beach ball on the air stream! Touch the static ball!)  The price was right, and it was something to do, but I'm not sure it was actually educational.

We played with clay.

I've been feeling nostalgic lately, as the baby grows bigger, counts, sings "We're all in this together" with the nine year old, and sort of knows the alphabet song. She prays in the Mary chapel, "Hail Mary, hail Mary, hail Mary," and sings the Gloria at church to charm the old ladies.  She welcomes everybody home by asking, "How's school, Claire?" or "How's work, Daddy?" The other day, she was sent to sit in the naughty chair, and she held out her hands and asked, "Why, Daddy, why?" with enough drama to suit a soap opera director.

Meanwhile, her oldest brother is still at college. School is out, but he is staying to play in a couple rugby tournaments and work on campus. He survived his first year. Although he failed his Calculus final, he still pulled off a B in the class, his only B. He'll be home for his brother's high school graduation and his sister's eighth grade promotion.

We painted a wagon.

We made faces in the funny mirror. 

I couldn't be prouder of those two, who had to come into new schools When everyone was finishing. The senior was especially bitter and unhappy about leaving behind his old school and friends, as I have mentioned.  But yesterday we went first to a Mass for incoming Notre Dame students and their mothers, where we met some nice kids and got excited about the future. Then we went to a scholarship ceremony where he picked up $5000.  Last week he received a really nice faculty commendation from the AP government instructor, with whom he debates politics from different sides of the political spectrum.  His boss at the pizza parlor goes to our church and told us how much he loves him.  We go to another awards ceremony in a couple days at the fancy hotel for academic honor students, for both the high schoolers.  And a couple days ago, he got a call about a $5000 renewable scholarship that he won. Finally, yesterday evening we went to the confirmation party for a friend who asked him to be his sponsor for confirmation. He was greeted with high fives and cheers and immediately was subsumed into the pack of teenagers, while we mingled with grown ups we didn't really know, except the priests. But we met a lot of nice new people and were impressed with the beautiful back yard and good eats. We have a hard time believing him anymore when he pulls out a complaint about how miserable we made him when we forced  him to move.

The eighth grader also has done well, earned academic honors and has gone from being one of my shyest kids to being a socialite. Fortunately, her friends are the ones winning the mental attitude awards at the sports banquet and starting "Best Buddy" clubs that pair students with other students in special ed classes for lunches and outings. We still butt heads about hemlines and high heels (she wants wedges for the promotion ceremony), but that's to be expected when it's incredibly hard to find junior sized clothes that are a decent length without looking Amish. She's tried new sports and is keeping up in Algebra and Spanish, two classes that used to give her trouble, and is willing to read the books I push her way by Peter Kreeft and saint biographies, if I give her freedom to read the books she picks up, which are usually stories about friendships or parents or pets dying.

The other three kids are also surviving and thriving. Sports are over for the spring for everyone, finally, so we have a brief lull in our schedule, other than my online classes. I've offered to sign everyone up for one summer camp, and promised to do some crafts and visit the water park. Summer stretches ahead like a blank slate, but it will fill quickly.

I've been reading a memoir of a priest's Camino de Santiago, To The Field of Stars, for my book club. The author is Kevin Codd, I think. I'm enjoying it much more than I thought I would. It could probably be edited, but now that I've grown familiar to his voice, I look forward to the detailed evening updates of his journey. He's my new friend. Yesterday I read the section where he talked about meeting a man from Argentina who couldn't believe Fr. Kevin was American. His Spanish was too good, and he didn't seem haunted by fear and anxiety like most Americans. This Argentinian criticized the American tendency to go, go, go, and to worry about the future and to fail to balance those highly intense personality traits with any family time, get togethers and celebrations - times to relax with friends and family. The Americans are no fun and don't want anyone else to have fun either.

To a certain extent we resemble those Americans. We have a lot going on. I can't keep up with my to do list. I worry a lot about the future. But we do celebrate. We do have moments when we sit down in the evening with all the kids and at least cram in one decade (and someone rubs my feet or braids my hair). Angel food cake and salted caramel gelato await me after dinner.  I am grateful that the toddler makes me slow down and explore museums again. Although friendly companions would make the trip more fun for everyone, happy memories keep me company when I tire of building castles in the sand.

We relaxed in the sand, light, and sound room. 

Mercy and memory

My senior in high school recently got a concussion in a football game.  In order to get clearance to play again, we had to go back to the doctor for a checkup.  The concussion was not serious - he never threw up, had a headache or felt dizzy after the initial impact. But to the doctor we went. One of the checks the doctor gave was to list three items at the beginning of the appointment and then to ask my son to rename them at the end of the appointment - apple, pencil, sky.  Oh no! I would not have been cleared to play! I forgot the second item. The last one, sky, stood out to me, so I began daydreaming about skies and then watching the assessment and then narrating the doctor's actions to the toddler who came along for the adventure.

Do I have a concussion? The beginnings of Alzheimer's or dementia? Short term memory loss? (The boy remembered all three, by the way.)

Maybe yes to the last three. But maybe I am just easily distracted and wasn't paying attention in the first place. This was a little lesson in reminding me to have mercy on my children as they forget oh so many things I just said to them.

While trying to parent both a toddler and teenagers, I have become very aware of parenting lately and the need for mercy, both on myself, as I lie awake at night replaying the many ways I failed the kids during the day, and on the kids as I lose patience with their forgetfulness or their failure to live the way I keep telling them to live for their own good!  Read more! Play outside! Finish your homework! Ride your bike around and admire the ocean or the sky or the gardens!  Study harder for your exams!  Finish those darn essays! Clean your room! Wash the dishes! Apply for scholarships! Get a job! Join a club!  So many, many things I tell them it's no wonder they forget.  Sometimes I sit down with them to review for a quiz or to proofread an essay, but often I am finishing dinner or folding laundry while I bark out commands.

No wonder they forget.   I am not teaching; I am telling.  Perhaps if the doctor had said "I gave the teacher an apple, she gave me a pencil, and I drew the sky," I would've remember the three items.

I think of the way I parented my older children when they are young compared to the life Baby leads now. Life has changed in many ways since the days when I had many small children and no big ones, and I counted hours of the day.  If I could just get through the day until my husband came home, I would make it to the next day. Sometimes he was gone for days and weeks; then I had to get us all out of the house so we could while away some hours in a diversion. I bought zoo memberships, botanical garden memberships, natural history museum memberships, and spent hours at the library and the beach and the YMCA.  We did Meals on Wheels and looked forward to the home school co-op one day a week. We walked slowly to and from playgrounds. We read books on the couch. We spent a lot of time in each other's company.

And a lot of those days I can't remember what we did. But I remember the feeling of long hours and the stories I have told about the fifth kid getting lost but really being locked in the basement, about almost driving off and leaving the second kid by the side of the road, about the fourth kid vomiting through a Halloween, the oldest claiming a puppy, the death of a rat and a dog, the sixth kid's broken arm, the third kid's early shyness.

Then the kids began getting more independent. They began having more homework. I had more leisure, which I filled with work and socializing. Parenting has become a mental rather than a physical activity, although it still requires a lot of energy to shuttle kids places and to deal with the mental meltdowns.  The big kids don't say cute things or get themselves into silly scrapes that get retold and elaborated. I find myself craving more hours in a day instead of fewer.

Another blessing: I can share some the physical responsibility for the toddler with the teenagers.  This is a welcome development. And the nine year old still is young enough to play with Baby, now that Baby is developing a sense of imagination.  This morning, my husband and I probably committed a parenting fail by laughing at the baby as she threw herself down on the floor to protest the confiscation of candy for breakfast. Then she got up and found the 9 year old and led her by the hand to the cabinet with the babyproof latch where the candy is hiding.  She knew who would access it for her.  She melted again when we gave her the uh-unh. The nine year old was willing to be an accomplice in candy snatching, but this time she was foiled.

My husband and I shouldn't have laughed at the wilted and tear streaked face that wailed out one long last wail when she turned to see us watching her. Will she learn from this episode that we are not going to let her eat candy for breakfast, or that she needs to be sneaky about getting someone to open the cupboard for her? Was this a genuine teaching moment, or was it just the first of many repeated reminders not to eat too much candy?

I hope she learns to make healthy choices.  Maybe she will remember this episode because it was different. It might become a story, a part of family lore, about how the baby tried to get her siblings to sneak her candy.  Sometimes I have mercy on her and let her have a lollipop for breakfast, or at least a lollipop on the way to school so she will sit in her stroller.   Sometimes I have mercy on myself for saying yes to what I used to say no to and for the failure to say yes or to find time for the good things we used to do in the days of long hours. Many times I am grateful for the mercy that has been shown to me by my parents, my siblings, my husband, my children, my friends, my God,  over and over so many times that I am finally beginning to learn to appreciate the gift as one of the most precious I can receive.

Pulling on the reins

You know how old movies used to show calendar pages fluttering off into the wind to indicate the passing of time?  That's the way our days feel around here.  We are working on college applications again - round two.  I am seriously thinking about soliciting my services as an essay commentator for college apps. I have great ideas. I wish my son would use them. 

Instead of doing homework, my sophomore likes to play with clay.

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We are also enjoying sports, swimming, entertaining, and talking about Halloween costumes. I felt like a failure as a mom when my fourth grader thought All Saints Day was the day after Halloween because the church wanted to have something holy after Halloween. Wrong way around there.  I tried to explain, but she turned off her ears. And she absorbed even less of my explanation of All Souls' Day after a viewing of the Book of Life movie.  Day of the Dead skulls and brightly colored flowers just seem to be an extension of Halloween decor (of which she thinks we need more, more, more) to her.

Go Tritons! They are playing the "Torreys," which are a kind of pine tree.
The high school mascot is a tiki guy. Kind of fun mascot suit.  

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I also wonder if my mom license will be suspended for the fat lip Baby sprouted after she fell off my bed. I didn't see the accident, but I think she hit her lip on my bed rail. Or smacked it on the floor. However she did it, her lip was purple and swollen for days. We went to the dentist and have been told to watch it for infection. One of her front teeth is loose and may have to be pulled. And it is jammed into her gum, which means her adult tooth may have been bruised and could wind up discolored.  A stroke against vanity. 

That's one fat lip.

Hello, Blue Angels!

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In other news, we went to the zoo! A life long dream of mine has been to visit the San Diego zoo because when I was little it had all the cool animals. And it still does: pandas, polar bears, orangutans, hippos, koalas. But I think a lot of other zoos have caught up in quality.   We were all walked out after completing the entire tour of the zoo.

This is the way I feel on school mornings

Or maybe I feel like this resting meerkat.

Or maybe like this relaxed orangutan. 

My camera skills are lacking, but really I identify with this mother wrestling her baby bonobo.

Here I am with all the monkeys.

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Shortly after this event I was talking with another mom of 3 or 4 at a scouting event. We were laughingly comparing stories of injuries, when I realized I better stop sharing soon, because she was running out of misadventures, and I was just just getting started with tales of stitches, sprains, and casts. 

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Our youngest son is just beginning Boy Scouts.  He never was a cub scout, but his three older brothers are all Eagle Scouts.  My husband balked at doing cub scouts because of all the crafts and popcorn sales, but he's agreed to stay involved with scouting as our sixth grader is old enough to begin.  He doesn't have a lot of enthusiasm for it right now, although he is making some friends in the troop.  This troop does a lot of activities (last weekend archery, this weekend a twelve mile trek, camping the following weekend), but it seems we have some event or other nearly every weekend, and this troop must not do very much fundraising because the fees for these things are much higher than elsewhere. Is it just California? Is it living in an area of affluence?  Even the public school field trips and church youth group socials seem to cost twice as much as elsewhere.  It feels like there's a hole in my wallet where all the money is running out.

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This is a hallway at the high school. It says
"Somewhere something incredible is waiting to be known."

I complain, but the truth is we have plenty and job security.  I wonder sometimes how we kept to a budget when my husband's salary was a third of what it is now. Of course we had fewer kids and smaller kids and fewer expectations. Providentially things continue to work out - one thing may cost more, but we are driving much less and saving on gas, so we spend less on something else.

Soon enough this stage of life - of feeding, housing, clothing and entertaining teenagers - is going to come to an end.  One more will fly the nest next fall. Of course, Baby will just be beginning her pre-teen years when the next youngest turns 18.  How will we fill the time? How will we make use of all the blessings we have been given?  One of the characters in Lodge's book I mentioned in the last post turns to hedonism in his middle age; another wants to be a missionary or social worker. Ironically, they happen to be married to each other.  I can certainly see this happening in our marriage -  my husband will be ready to enjoy the fruits of his labor himself instead of always passing them to the kids, while I feel more drawn to asceticism.  But admiring asceticism and practicing it are two different things, and unless I continue to shore up my faith and to practice acts of self-sacrifice now (no more snitching Halloween candy!), I'll never be able to make do with less.

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Today I celebrate my success in making do with less was refusing to buy a cute little tufted chair at a garage sale that was only $1.  I was really tempted - that's like free! We have an old chair that is ready to retire.  But this little find had white jacquard upholstery - it was only lightly soiled, but enough so that it would have bothered me until I spent $100 to have it reupholstered or slipcovered, and it wasn't that cute or sturdy. So I left it at the garage sale for someone else to find. (Although I admit I bought a potted plumeria for $5, which was also a bargain because of its size. And, following Maria Kondo's advice, it will bring me joy by reminding me of Guam and adding some color to our little yard.)

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Now it's time to move into clean-up mode. We have about 50 teen-aged boys coming over for supper after football practice.  It's a tradition of this team to have team dinners that night before home games. I don't have to cook - other mom's are bringing pans of pasta, salad, bread, and brownies. But I do need to make sure I have clean bathrooms and the dishes are put away.  And that we have enough chairs. Just read Elizabeth Foss's article about hospitality, and so I'm not feeling stressed about cleaning up. Plus our guests are teen-aged boys.  They are used to stinky bathrooms, and perhaps even prefer them it seems to me.  To underscore Foss's point, I think our most successful efforts at hospitality are the spontaneous ones, where I don't worry about menus or flowers or cleaning cupboards and showers because I don't have time to fret, plan, or bark at the kids.  And to be honest, I regret some opportunities for hospitality that we have missed out on at our last duty station because I was too tired or too self-conscious about having a small house to invite someone over. 

I wish more neighbors would stop by for tea while I was in my pajamas like she mentions, although they'd have to catch me early to find me still in PJ's... 

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