11 Months

I sat Reuben down on the couch to attempt an eleven month picture. He immediately made a break for it. He dove off the couch (I barely caught him), walked over and happily flipped pages in Aaron's 400 page library book, and then tackled me (ouch). That should give you a pretty good idea of what life with the boy is like right now.

Positive Good

I read this yesterday:

I do not like the idea of helplessly suffering one's misfortunes, of passively bearing one's lot. The Stoics depress me. I do not want to look at life as an eternal making a best of a bad bargain. Granting all the circumstances, admitting all my disabilities, I want too to "warm both hands before the fire of life." What satisfactions I have, and they are many and precious, I do not want to look on as compensations, but as positive goods.

- The Handicapped Randolph Bourne

That last line particularly impressed me. I have felt lately that to expect more leaves one always wanting. But to be satisfied with what is, provides a foundation to build.

Dang, I sound like a fortune cookie. Maybe I should be a fortune cookie writer. That would be an awesome job.

Lunch Date

I have a soft spot in my heart for hypothetical questions. I often wonder why people chose to talk about the weather or grocery store or game when they could instead ponder the likes of: If any deceased human's collected knowledge and experience was yours for the taking, whose mind would you take and why? Or if it was in your power to save One and only one endangered species but all other endangered species would die off, which animal would you choose? Or if you could learn when and how a single future events of your life will transpire (and it could not be changed by your knowing) what event would you choose? (I'm just getting warmed up. Feel free to offer answers to these questions. I really enjoy hearing responses) I usually ask Aaron a half dozen of these puppies right as he starts to drift off.

I've always enjoyed these sorts of questions so you can imagine my delight when I found out about the college application process, particularly the essay prompts. Finally questions that were worth answering! and I had an audience! I loved running those prompts through my head, adjusting my response and extrapolating the outcome. I seriously considered applying to more schools just to get a crack at a few more delicious questions.

Since it's one of the most common, I spent a fair amount of time on: If you could meet with three famous people for lunch, who would you meet and why? Despite my question love, I found this prompt a bit unnerving.

For one, I never go out to lunch. Add to that, I'm fairly reserved and I don't usually like to speak much to people on first meeting. And I usually make really bad first impressions (just ask my in-laws) I knew I would make a TERRIBLE lunch date. To top it all off, there was the despair that no matter my agonizing, it would never happen.

But I've found a solution to my problem and it was right under my nose the whole time. Waa-laa! (Aaron is pressuring me to change this to Voila! the dirty francophile) The ESSAY! Essays are brilliant, synthesized musings of great thinkers. Essayists pours out opinions, offers meditations, dispenses advice, relates personal and professional experiences and do their darndest to be as entertaining or intellectually illuminating as possible in the process.

In short, reading an essay is in my mind the equivalent of going on the perfect date with Renee Descartes or Mark Twain or John Muir or Rachel Carson or Richard Rodriguez or a hundred other amazing human beings. With minimal work, the greatest minds are at your finger tips, vying for your affections.

So next time you're feeling a little lonely, consider picking up an essay.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Da-da- da! (That's the Reading Rainbow music) By the way Reading Rainbow just got taken off the air. Which is a TRAVESTY!! Good bye little rainbow butterfly!

Enjoy

I've really been enjoying the Freaky Fortnight article series currently on Slate. In which, a stay-at-home, writer mom and a full time editor dad switch duties or as she says "switch the balance" on the responsibilities they share. The writing is humorous, laid back, a bit predictable but insightful.

It touches a few subjects I've been mulling over. For one, it's interesting to me how each couple has to work out a game plan, a sort of divide and conquer list of duties. The classic: you bring home the bacon, I'll cook it up.

But in modern life there's a lot more to do than bacon baking. Who cleans the bathroom? Pays the insurance? Talks about feelings? Provides spiritual direction? I've known a lot of couples and so I've known almost as many ways to divide up the "To Dos". Many have sent shivers up my spine. (He can't cook a decent dinner?? She can't balance a check book?? Yikes!) But I remind myself, that's why I didn't marry guy x and he never would have married me AND to each his own.

The amount of shared dependence increases substantially when a couple becomes a family. There's a LOT more to do in the domestic realm. Domestic doesn't mean feminine, but more often than not it trends that way.

To me couples and their families are better equipped when both people are handy with the life skills. Easily interchangeable "tasking" can be a much needed pressure release valve for a struggling spouse. Y has a long day? X does dinner. X is feeling sick? Y does dinner. In Biblical terms we're more "equally yoked."

But I know that's my own personal preference. So it's interesting to see a couple that's doing the literal translation - physically switching spots and then switching back without any expectation of disastrous results.

Man this is long. Anyway, what I find striking is the surprisingly HIGH amount of Guilt and Self-Doubt a lot of moms carry around with them. The first hurdle back to work Burton mentions is the surprising lack of confidence she initially feels. I know she isn't alone. I'm continually caught off guard by the LOW confidence I find in women around me. I want to tell a lot of them to go watch an episode of Mr Rogers or Sesame Street (You are special! There's no one else like you!)

I don't have a lot of those feelings and I'm not sure why. I wonder if it's because I'm simply emotionally insensitive OR if it is because I feel less constrained by wifely expectations because of my very capable husband OR because I have an independent income OR because I've NEVER felt very constrained by convention

And since we're on the subject of Sesame Street, what happened to Prarie Dawn? She was the only original female muppet and she disappeared. And what's up with Elmo's power grab? He nudged all the other muppets out and they were a lot funnier and less annoying than him.

Beheading

I mentioned before that we have an owl in our back woods. To be more specific, from the call, it's a Great Horned Owl, a mighty and fearsome predator. More fearsome if you are small and your relatives are rodents or small birds, but they have been known to take cats, small dogs even armadillos. The creepiest thing I've heard is they often eat off the head of their victim and then go on their way. Some call them "Silent Tigers" and in Appalachian lore they are harbingers of death.

I really hope I can get a glimpse of him. I've been letting Battle hang out on the balcony - maybe that will lure him in? Battle of course could escape to safety back in the house.

In Case You Haven't Watched Bambi Lately

This is the scene I was referring to.

Bird!

Reuben is growing up fast and lately he's started doing a lot of communicating. He's started to say Bird. It sounds closer to brrrrrt, brt, brt! so we get to reenact this scene from Bambi every day.

Consequently as he's toddled about and inevitably plopped to the ground I keep saying "Did the young prince fawwwll down?" in my best Thumper voice. Reuben seems unimpressed by my impression which I think is spot on.

He's also started doing a lot of signing. This is rewarding because Aaron and I have been signing to flat stares of seeming indifference for the last four months. It's rewarding to know it sunk in.

It's also great because we get a sneak peak at what is going on in the kid's head. He really likes the birds that come to our feeder. When they arrive he usually stops what he's doing and starts signing bird frantically and "whistling" to them. So I guess he's decided it is equally important to learn how to communicate with them as with us. I actually think he might spend more time "whistling" than speaking words.

Now when I say whistling I mean Reuben's adapted whistle. We whistled bird calls to attract birds out of the woods. Reuben started to try too and very cutely blew as best he could but to no avail. He changed tactics and now emits long high super-soprano shreaks instead. They are remarkable similar in sound to a whistle. So way to go Reuben. The Vienna Boy's choir awaits you.

I really need to get a picture/video of all this. This blog was supposed to motivate me but I've been really busy so I decided it'll have to come later and posted the picture I had on hand.

And what's that giant green thing he's happily leaning against? If you guessed a Giant Okra man from the Irmo Okra Strut you'd be right. Good Guess!

Here he is not smiling because he's trying to swallow a gigantic glob of fried Okra.

And here he is not smiling because he's in front of the scariest clown painting EVER.

Here's the close up. That's how it made me feel too.

See what I mean.