A Snowy Adventure!

Carolyn tried out sledding last weekend. In general, she likes it--in a quiet, breathy, filled with awe kind of way.



It took a while to master actually sitting up on the sled.



Pa-pa took her for her first run down the hill.



Mama just had to get in on the fun, too!

C's First Christmas

I know I'm late getting Christmas photos up. But here they are anyway.




Are these for me?



My little Schroeder in the making. Thanks Pa-pa!



After a long day of opening presents and enjoying her first Christmas, Carolyn settled down for a long winter's nap with the Teddy Bear her daddy got for her.

Children's Museum in Kansas

During our trip to Kansas, we took the kids to a Children's Museum. To our delight there were displays especially for Carolyn-sized people. Here are a couple of photos I got there.



Playing with water is always a good pass-time.



Mmmmm.... Turtle!

A Chair is a Chair... Or Is it?

Today we got out the old kidlet-sized rocking chair that was mine when I was a baby. "Pa-pa" cleaned it up and gave it a little shine, and set it in the living room. When Carolyn and I returned home from shopping, I plopped her down on it, and she promptly settled into it. After a few moments of rocking, she was ready to find out what else she could do.

Within five minutes, she had used it as a walker--pushing it around the room to get to where she wanted to go, she peeked out from the bars on the back like she was in jail and explored the world as it appeared that way, and most notably, she used it as a ladder--pushing it up next to the gliding rocker, standing on the seat, and trying to hoist herself up onto the bigger chair--Grandpa swooped in and stopped that from happening though. (Darn it, Pa-pa!)

As I watched her I was struck with the thought that the world would be very different if we retained that innate creativity. If we walked into a room, and didn't just see chairs and desks and pencils, and computers for their given purpose, but if could see all the potential that they contained.

Babies teach good lessons, don't they?

Inbox Sweetness

I found this in my inbox today... He was in transit on the birthday day and the ones surrounding it, so it's a little late, but I don't mind at all.



*sigh* I love that man.

Coming Soon:

A return to regular life programming!

I realized at Mommy Group today that the Women's retreats that were being advertised were coming up AFTER our return to Washington! That means... Mine and C's return, and Andy's too!

Also it was finally confirmed today that we OFFICIALLY have a house to move into when we get back! It's three bedrooms/1 bath--right amount of space WITH A GARAGE, and a small yard, and for a monthly rent that we can afford! Plus it's within walking distance of my closest friend's house! I am just elated!

So... Soon and very soon I'll be back into a place where I feel like life is a little more normal. I just can't wait!

Quarter Century

A few years ago I would have said that 25 looked old. No... no... Not OLD. Not, "OH I'm so old...... old." But... adult. I would have shrunken away from the idea like I did my Ipteenth birthday (that's the one after 15 in case you are wondering).

I'm 25 today. It doesn't look old. It looks... Well it looks ok. I told my friend Ang a couple of years ago that I wanted to have a baby by the time I was 25. And... I have a beautiful baby girl now. That feels right. That feels good. I'm glad God planted that desire in my heart, and brought it to fruition.

I feel like I can stand up into 25 today. And what that means to me is, that I can stand up into the fact that I am becoming an adult. I NEVER want to lose the ability to be childlike. But I find that things that looked so "scary" in the 'grown-up' world, I am handling.

This year... This crazy year has aged me. In some ways I feel much older than I am. In others I still feel like a scared little girl.

But mostly today I just feel like me. I feel 25. I feel like I can be me. I feel like I can be here.

Only 24 more to go....

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Christmas Ruminations

So here's what I think.

I think we're all upside down about Christmas.

We spend all this time hustling and bustling and making it this huge big deal.

It's such a notably cheerful time of year, that people feel guilty when they need a refill on their cup o' Christmas cheer.

This year I learned even more about Christmas being a light in the darkness. This Christmas, I was really just feeling a lot of darkness. Grief upon grief will wear one down... missing one's husband will too.

I did'nt even want to look for the light in the darkness at times this year. That just seemed too much energy.

But... with an extra helping of grace, I was able to. I could only utter a haphazard prayer asking for slivers of light. And I found them. I found them in the hugs of my nephews and the smile of my daugher, in time with my sisters and brothers in law. In getting to know Andy's family, albeit under terrible circumstances.

And as I saw these slivers all I could think of was what a sliver of light even Christ's coming must have seemed at the time. Can you imagine? What's the big deal? Some rag-tag kid was just born in a manger of all places? Angels came to sing over this? They were hoping for a revolution here, folks!

When I picture Israel at the time of Christ's coming, I picture barrenness, dryiness, hopelessness.

And then a helpless baby comes to be the savior? Right....

But He was a sliver of light in the darkness. And as that child grew in stature and strength the sliver grew into a pillar of hope and light. And then... it seemed that it would go out... But in one triumphant sweep, what began as the sliver of light known as a helpless newborn, conquered darkness, and death (yes death!), and sin in a blaze of glory and victory.

So my prayer this Christmas, in the midst of my own darkness was that these slivers of light would grow... and that I would remember that humble beginnings of light in the darkness may turn out in suprising ways.

And above all that the joy that comes from that one triumphant blaze would be alive in me.

So I still belive it's ok to be less than cheerful at Christmas, and I think even with angels and wiseman it wasn't all hoopla that first Christmas. Most of all, I think Christ still penetrates the darkest darkness, Humbly, meekly, but completely and triumphantly.

Prayers would be good

Husband's Grandfather has had a heart attack. 2 of his major arteries are 75% blocked. He was advised that surgery would be very risky because of his age and the risk of a stroke, so they have decided to forego it. They've put him on medication to ease the pain, make him comfortable, and hopefully combat the problems to an extent. There is a chance he will recover enough to go home and continue being our fiesty Grandpa.

We're weary. Husband feels helpless being so far away. If you could pray, we would appreciate it.

I Got Tagged!!!

I am SOOO excited! I've never been tagged to do a meme before. And today Amanda tagged me! I am ridiculously excited about this. Ok. So here goes:

Seven Things Tag

Seven Things to do Before I Die:

1. Write a book
2. Get my Master's Degree
3. Go with Andy to some of the places he's been in port while being a sailing sailor (Hmmm... Rome maybe?)
4. Work successfully in a job that feels like it fits me and I fit it
5. Tip a waitress $100
6. Finish The Brothers Karamazov (I really like, it... but given I've been reading it for 2 years now I really need to get going in order to finish this goal.
7. Touch a dolphin

Seven Things I cannot Do:

1. Speak a foreign language (though... I have a rudimentarly knowledge of sign language)
2. Sew
3. Ski
4. Wiggle my ears
5. Play softball without wanting to be swallowed by a hole in the earth
6. Swim in the ocean without worrying about 'critters and itchums' (which is unfortunate because I LOVE the ocean)
7. Stop thinking... Ever...

Seven Things That Attract me to my Husband:

1. He knows how to sit and just be with me.... without an agenda but totally WITH me when I am happy or otherwise
2. His love of all things beautiful
3. The way the depth of his faith and thoughts will suprise me when I least expect it.
4. His dedication to perpetually 'wooing' me
5. The way he is with Carolyn
6. His willingness to cook and do dishes
7. He loves me... like no one else does.

Seven Things I say Most Often:

1. "No... We don't eat catfood!"
2. "Crup"
3. "Are you sure?"
4. "Oh myy..."
5. "Abba Du"
6. "A dink" (In answer to Dh's "Rink-a-dink-a-dink")
7. He/she needs a 'quit being dumb' card

Seven Books or Series I Love:

1. Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Anne Brashares)
2. Madeleine L'Engle's Time Trilogy
3. The World of Pooh (Milne)
4. The Ragamuffin Gospel (Brennan Manning)
5. The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
6. A Ring of Endless Light (L'Engle again)
7. Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now? (Seuss)

Seven Movies I would watch over and over and over and...

1. The Princess Bride
2. White Christmas (even if it's not Christmastime)
3. Shawshank Redemption
4. The Shadowlands
5. When Harry Met Sally
6. Return to Me
7. Anne of Green Gables

Seven Bloggers to Tag:

Becca, Lauren, Karen, Sarah, Tracie, Red, and Jodie!

An Open Confession and Apology

Hi. My name is Val. And I am rude. This is something that I'm only recently discovering to be such a character deficiency of mine. I always felt that I exhibited at least average manners. Apparently I was as wrong as could be.

My Mil. Spouse message board has cycled through a few topics lately about how very rude people are these days. *Waves sheepishly at my spouse board*

Apparently it is highly offensive to neglect to RSVP and even worse to be late with or to not write Thank You notes.

So... Here are where the confessions start:

Until this year I rolled my eyes at RSVPs... Especially for weddings in which I stood up as part of the wedding party. For the last wedding I attended, I was *SO* proud of myself because I had remembered to send in the RSVP. I even included a little note to the bride saying I couldn't wait to meet her (I was a friend of the groom). A week before the wedding I got a phone call from the groom's Mom wondering if I was coming. My heart sunk. I had tried so hard to be a polite person... but it hadn't gotten there. I stuttered and stammered and assured her that I had sent in the RSVP and I couldn't understand how it wasn't there.

Last week I found a small envelope with my RSVP still in it, complete with my little note. *UGH* Again I goofed.

I will also admit to being very poor at writing Thank You notes. I can't remember if I got all of the ones sent for my graduation gifts. I do remember trying. I know I still had a pile of *addresses lost and not in the phone book* Thank Yous from my wedding that I finally gave up on last year, and this year... Well this year I will tell you that I have earnestly tried to get Thank Yous out... But it's an uphill battle to get a shower and dressed each day. So... My post-birth Carolyn thank yous didn't happen, and I'm still working on those from Mom's funeral.

One of my problems with Thank You notes is that I always find generic "Thank you for the ____s" to be a tad impersonal, and I try to spice them up a bit. That takes more time, and energy, and then I find myself overwhelmed. In reaction to overwhelmedness I quit. Quitting is not conducive to completing Thank You notes. You see the problem.

There are my confessions.

Here is my apology: I'm sorry to everyone whom I have slighted with my lack of RSVP/Thank You note etiquette. I really am. It has not been my intention to be rude or thoughtless, but I realize that might have been the message I sent through my oversight.

Now here are my thoughts about manners and etiquette in general. I credit my Mom for giving them to me. But I don't blame her for my deficiencies (how many weeks after Christmas did I sit with a fat pencil in hand writing, "Dear Aunt ____ Thank you for the toy. I like it. Love, Val"?)

See... I think Manners are nice and all. And I do think they make our society a friendlier place--a more pleasant place to be.

But they are meant to do just that. They are meant to make people feel comfortable. At the point in which they stop making people feel comfortable and start making them feel inferior, out of place, or in any other way uncomfortable, they cease to be manners. I don't want to hold onto my idea of manners as some measuring stick for the kindness, worthiness, or goodness of others (and I'm *NOT* saying that those who feel strongly about RSVPs and Thank Yous are this way).

When people come into my home, I want them to know that I like them as they are. If you want to eat with your elbows on the table, I might just join you. If you belch every other moment... Well I won't join you on that one.... I try to adjust my level of mannerliness to the occasion: Formal dinner=elbows off the table, sit up straight, use proper silverware. Incidentally my palms sweat straight through such things. Living room with DH and friends: Ooops. I forgot to put my napkin on my lap and I reached across you for the garlic bread. Experiencing less sweating though!

I forget to say Please and Thank You sometimes. Sometimes I chew with my mouth open. I've been known to eat with my elbows on the table, and I'm still not entirely sure how to use all the pieces of silverware on a formally prepared table. For all of these things I again apologize.

When I am old and grey, instead of being the lady at the dinner table clearing her throat at the child who forgot to put her napkin on her lap, I want to be the feisty lady, who winks at the child and gives them a hint and later tells them, "It took me a long time to learn that one, dear. You'll remember next time!"

I want to make people feel comfortable. Not guilty.

THAT is what manners are about in my opinion.

But.... I still do apologize for those that I have prevoiusly slighted. Brandy, Lauren, Becca, Ang--I'm coming to your weddings (I was there, remember?).

And I do sincerely, fully, gratefully acknowledge all of those who have been so kind to me and my family this year in gifts and support. Your kindness DIDN'T go unnoticed. Thank you for being there (and hopefully you WILL find a note in your mailbox soon).


Confessions/Apologies/and Thoughts ended.

Fun Around the House

Such a sweet little face....



Whilst plundering the kitchen drawer, Carolyn decided she needed some coffee.



C's latest bedtime story. What can I say? She's very advanced!

Until Then We'll Have to Muddle Through Somehow

Even since I learned that the original lyrics of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" were something like, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, It will be our last..." I've rather liked the song. (I am a little bit twisted you know). I like that Judy Garland allegedly insisted that they change the lyrics to something more hope-giving when it was originally sung in Meet Me in St. Louis.

This weekend, as the Christmas songs have been blaring over the airways more and more the song hit me anew in a fresh way. Especially the line, "Come next year, we all will be together If the Fates allow But till then we'll have to muddle through somehow So have yourself a merry little Christmas now."

I think muddling through is about all I'll be able to muster this year. I plan to muddle through with style, and grace, and spunk, and even joy, but it will be different than other Christmases in so many ways. Even different than last Christmas. Last Christmas I clung fiercely to the idea of Christmas being a light in the darkness. I'm clinging even tighter this year, because the darkness feels that much more overwhelming.

But I know the light is there. I know that Christ is our light in the darkness... So as I put up the Christmas tree, and listen to the carols, and remember special Mom memories, and miss Andy, and watch the wonder in my daughters face as she lays eyes on the Christmas tree for the first time I will hold on to that. And as I cry with tears of loneliness and missing, and wonder how I will get through my first Christmas without my mother... and how I will carry on the "Mom traditions," as I wish for Andy's arms, and real conversations with him, and long for his hand to hold, and to see the light in his eyes as he opens his gifts from Carolyn and I... Through the goods and the bads of the muddling, I will let the light shine in me, and in and through my life.

I will truly live and love this Christmas. Even if it hurts.

I will muddle through and hold onto the light. After all, I'm called to be a light-bearer myself.

So... here I go to muddle. I have lights to string on the tree and decorations to put up.

What's Up?

The first week of college in our incredibly annoying, "Connect Class" we had to take these silly tests that were supposed to help us discover what our 'potential problem areas' were going to be for our academic careers. My results essentially said that I was socially inept. My summation of the results: Get friends even though you suck at doing so.

At that point, I didn't believe I was socially inept. At that point, perhaps I wasn't.At this point, I would say that I undoubtedly am.

I CANNOT for the life of me carry a conversation of small-talk anymore. I dread it. Today in church, a guy that I went to school with approached me along with his fiance. They wanted to see Carolyn. I had no idea what to say to them.

I really hate the general chit-chatting questions: For instance, "What's up?" Or, "What is new in your life?" Somehow it doesn't feel entirely appropriate to say, "I'm grieving the loss of my mother, my husband is deployed, and I'm doing the best I can to take care of our 8 month old while living in a house that is not my own, and you?" For that matter, part of me would like to reply, "Exactly why is it that in our culture it is the norm to ask questions that we don't really want the answer to? I mean really. When is the last time you heard that question and the person asking wasn't expecting a 'Nothing really.'" Those remarks would go over about as well as a turd in a punchbowl though, don't you think (Truly one of my favorite Momisms there. ;))?

I just don't know how to answer chit-chat, and I don't know what to ask other people. Do I inquire about their jobs? Their family? Do I have time to really hear what they have to say? I just fumble and stumble. And sometimes I thrust C forward so that the focus shifts onto her. I can just smile quietly while people go on about how she is "Such a precious little baby."

I think my real problem is that my head is just so full right now, and has been for the last two years, really. Many aspects of my current experience are also very foreign to those around me. I haven't picked up a phrasebook for translating yet. Even if I did I think it might be like the episode of West Wing where it took three translators to get from English to a dignitary's Native Language. Wait.... if you're not familiar with West Wing, translation might be necessary here. Ok. I give up.

I think what I have to say is valuable and I want to discover the valuable insight of others as well. But if I have to get through chit-chat to get there, I'm in trouble.

So this is me confessing: It's true. I am socially inept. I beg your forgiveness for any social faux pas I may commit while conversing with you. And I apologize if I stand looking at you with my tongue lolling about for extended periods of time. I really do care about what you have to say. I am just anxious to get to the part where it's actually said. In the meantime, try not to say anything that would inspire me to hand you a "Quit being dumb card" and we'll get along just fine.

I'm really very approachable.

Anxiety

I will just feel so much better when he is in my arms again.... when I know where he is, and how he is, and can hold him.

And sometimes I wish I didn't have such a writer's imagination.

Happy (Belated) Halloween!

Make way for Duckling!!!





It's been a spectacular year for foliage... and ducks!



It doesn't get better than Halloween Kisses!

St. Ignatius says

"There are very few people who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves into his hands, and let themselves be formed by his grace." --St. Ignatius

I read that today over at the Sacred Space website. It's a very good quote for today. Most of the time I really suck at abandoning myself to much of anything. Lately, I feel like I have to have to be white-knuckling all aspects of my life in order to ensure that nothing gets dropped, and that Carolyn and I make it out of this season alive and not insane.

Today, I did some abandoning. I did a really scary, terrifying thing....

I asked for help.

God's grace is so trustworthy. It's always there. I can run away, or ignore, or flail and scream and kick, and it's still just there...

That doesn't mean God isn't big and powerful and couldn't snuff me out like a candle anytime he chooses. I know that is true as well.

But even so... He is good.

Maybe I need to work on abandoning myself into his hands, and letting myself be formed by his grace. The abandoning part today was scary as hell. But... it was good. Good like God is. Good because God is.

Whine:

Warning: I am about to whine. This is not a ploy for sympathy. It is simply a whine.

I miss my husband.

I wish he was here so I could not listen to him tonight.

I would really like him to say things like, "Val you aren't a bad Mom... You play lots with C. You make her smile. She loves you so much. I would totally lose my patience after the fiftieth time that she stuffed a leaf in her mouth or attempted to eat cat food, but you keep your cool... and have a marvelous finger-sweep technique."

Or...

"Val... even though you have tried very hard to eat your weight in sugar in the last three or four days, I don't think you look anything like the Goodyear Blimp or the Michelen Man, and even if you did you would be the prettiest Goodyear Blimp/Michelan Man I'd ever seen."

Or...

"Val, you aren't a horrible house-keeper. Chasing after a feisty, clingy, obviously mobile 7 mos. old is enough to make anyone want to skip cleaning litter boxes and reaching into the depths of the kitchen sink drain to clean out limp, disgusting, food."

And when I was done not listening to him say all of that, I wish I could see him shake his head, sigh at my stubborn unwillingness to listen to him, give me a hug, and then commence an evening of leisurely spooning.

Yes. That is what I wish for right now. I guess I'll just have to wait a few months.

I...

I miss my husband.