limerick – Page 12 – little thoughts

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – in which some oddities of my family are revealed

Posted on 2016-03-102016-03-10 by kristinabean

Let me preface this week’s edition of {p,h,f,r} by telling you that all these pictures come from the same day, and that this day is not really that extraordinary of a day for us – I just happened to have my camera on hand for most of it. I feel like my goal is calm, ordered, semi-normal routines, but the reality of our family life is spontaneous, diverse, and weird. Or maybe it is just the things that fill in the routines that are strange… we still do have normal activities each day like naps and meals and baths 😛

{pretty}

On this particular day we visited the zoo for my nephew’s birthday. I am not a huge fan of large groups of people with small children trying to do the zoo together, but it worked out alright and we were able to go at the kids’ pace. We saw the flamingos and the monkeys and got to go inside the aviary, which are all highlights for my boys. One thing I love about the zoo is getting to see the incredible beauty and diversity of the animal kingdom!

Their eyes are a bit unnerving, but I love the graceful curve of their necks and the soft overlay of their feathers.

{happy}

Another nice aspect of our local zoo is that it has a small splash pad just right for smaller kids – it is a great way to unwind and cool off before heading home, especially when the weather is warmer. Limerick was already past his nap time but the water (and birthday cake) gave us an extra 30-45 minutes with the extended family.

Rondel hung back at first but about 10 minutes later he was down to his diaper, running and dancing and laughing in the water.

Limerick ran right at the camera with his signature goofy grin 🙂

{funny}

After nap we had a pretty relaxed afternoon, reading books, playing at home, etc., and while I was making dinner I left the kids to their own devices.

Maybe that wasn’t the wisest idea.

But it was certainly amusing! And we don’t use the dishwasher, so I didn’t really mind the boys playing with the rack. Later that evening I found a pile of random objects behind the office door and Rondel informed me that they had been recycled by his stuffed monkeys, who carried them there in their dump truck (the dishwasher rack).

Could there be a more random assortment of items?

{real}

This was part of dinner cooking in its early stages – baby gold potatoes cooked in chicken broth. Everything was going well and then I got distracted by the kids’ creativity and hilarity and came running back to the kitchen to discover all the broth evaporated (which was supposed to happen) and the potatoes all sticking to the skillet (which was not supposed to happen). Sigh. They still tasted good though! In my dream house, the kitchen wouldn’t be a little closet of a room disconnected from everything else…

There would also be better lighting for indoor picture-taking, I think. You know, if we’re dreaming here 🙂 One of the drawbacks of a town home is that there aren’t many available walls for windows!

Head on over to the link up at Like Mother, Like Daughter and check out some of the other blogs! It’s always fun to see the craziness that goes on in other people’s families, to know we’re not the only ones 🙂

family life

sick baby

Posted on 2016-03-06 by kristinabean

We had a rather frightening virus (most likely) settle in on Limerick earlier this week – his temperature kept going up to around 104 every time his fever reducers started to wear off, for about 4 straight days. The third day was a Monday so I took him in to the doctor’s office, where they measured his fever at 104.4 (so nice to have proof that the fever really is as high as you claim – they never seem to believe me otherwise). Flu and strep tests both came back negative, and fortunately the fever cleared up Wednesday morning so our best guess is a virus (and not a highly contagious one at that, thankfully).

Limerick spent most of his time nursing, sleeping, and wanting to be held, but when his meds were keeping his temperature down his buoyant nature bubbled back up and he did his best to keep up with Rondel like normal.

He pulled a stool up to our piano all on his own and spent a relatively cheerful 15 minutes making music while Rondel sang along 🙂

His little face was still so tired and sad though 😦 It’s quite nice to have him feeling himself again and running around wreaking havoc all over the place!

musings

stifled prayer

Posted on 2016-02-28 by kristinabean

I live my life with a wall around my heart.

It’s not that I don’t love people, or care about people – I just don’t want people to know my weaknesses. I don’t want to admit those weaknesses to myself.

When hard things happen, whether it’s a chronic struggle like mental illness in a loved one or working while my husband gets more time at home with the babies, or an acute problem like a sick baby or a lost iPod, my brain immediately starts calculating all the different options I have. All the ways I could respond to the problem, all the potential outcomes, all the strategies and decisions and backup plans. I want to be the strong and competent woman, who meets life with confidence and grace, and never lets her head fall under the waves.

And I bring that attitude with me before God.

I keep that wall up even when I pray. Walls tend not to be easily assembled and disassembled, after all.

Limerick has been dealing with a high fever since early Saturday afternoon and I didn’t think to pray about it until tonight (Sunday night). I was just so wrapped up in nursing him, taking his temperature, giving him fever reducers, making him comfortable, and wondering what was making him sick to think about it. The plans, the automatic response of confidence and control, took over. I didn’t doubt my ability to take care of him well, so I didn’t feel the need strongly enough to pray about it. Do you hear how strange that sounds? I believe in a God who can heal the dying, and I believe that He cares about every detail of life, and instead of taking my sick baby to Him I try to handle it all on my own?

My worry, my need to be strong and take care of the people I love, prevents me from doing what they need most: interceding for them to God, lifting them up to Jesus. My desire to keep things under control and handle situations calmly and competently interferes with what ought to be my first line of response.

Soften my heart, Lord, and tear down my pride. Let me come to You humbly at all times and in everything, not only when the need is too great for my own strength and intelligence; let me put my fears to rest trusting in Your providence. Loose my tongue and gentle my heart, that I might lift the needs of the world to You instead of trying to fix them on my own.

family life, musings

unplanned babies (the blessing of limerick)

Posted on 2016-02-25 by kristinabean

After Rondel was born, we struggled a lot with the transition from “couple” to “family.” I had PPD for months, my husband was exhausted from being up with a sleepless baby and trying to encourage a miserable wife, and Rondel was becoming anxious and easily overstimulated. We were all on edge and our margins were just about the lowest they’ve ever been. And so, clearly, we thought it was the worst imaginable time to have another baby.

Although at that time I didn’t quite grasp the theology of the body that informs the purpose and ethical applications of sex, I had an instinctual dislike of contraceptives, for various reasons: I didn’t like having to take a pill everyday with hormones that were going to influence far more than just my reproductive system, barrier methods felt awkward and incomplete, like we weren’t actually coming together in the one flesh of marriage, and we obviously weren’t at a point to consider permanent sterilization as a means of contraception. So we were charting and tracking and being really careful – and then we found out we were pregnant, just 7 months after Rondel was born.

It wasn’t our plan at all. Looking back at the charts, it makes no biological sense that we got pregnant when we did.

But you know the beauty of it? Because it wasn’t our plan, because we were walking through the tension of stewarding our resources well while remaining open to God’s plan for new life, we were relieved of the constant fear that we’d made a mistake every time that things were difficult. This baby wasn’t our choice – he was God’s choice, and God is someone we can trust.

And as the months went by, we saw the profound good that Limerick brought to our family: the pregnancy hormones that snapped me out of PPD, the reevaluations of my lifestyle and parenting choices that made me a gentler and less anxious mother, the small and vulnerable baby that showed Rondel how to care for someone weaker and more needy than himself, the bold and mischievous toddler who is helping Rondel learn to share, negotiate, and adapt even as he learns those things himself.

If we had made it about our plan and our wisdom and our choices, Limerick wouldn’t be here, bringing his incredible blessing into our family – and that is a huge reason why, now, I would not choose to contracept or sterilize. Who knows what other unforeseen good God wants to bring into our lives? Why would I want to close myself off to that blessing, just because I cannot picture it clearly in my mind now?

family life

gently night-weaning

Posted on 2016-02-222016-02-21 by kristinabean

For various reasons, the time has come to begin night-weaning Limerick. He still co-sleeps, in a sidecar crib, and has always nursed to sleep. It was the path of least resistance for so long… but now, 15 months later, it has become a sleep crutch that prevents him from resettling when he wakes briefly during the night and thus wakes me about every two hours all night long. And the older he gets, the more difficult it seems to be for him to drift off while nursing, because he wants to engage and interact with me the whole time!

However, while I was convinced of the need for night-weaning, I was also convinced that I didn’t want the process to be one of prolonged or solitary crying. If he was going to cry, I was going to be there with him; if he was inconsolable and clearly not settling on his own, I was going to slow the process down and go at the pace he was able to handle. So I brainstormed some ideas for a new routine, and explained everything to Limerick a few times before implementing them, so that he wouldn’t be taken off guard when we did something new at bedtime.

“First we’ll nurse with the light on,” I told him, “and we’ll snuggle and talk about the day and pray together. Then, after you’ve had some milk, I’ll lie you down with your head on the pillow in your crib, tuck your bunny in next to you, pull the blanket over you, give you your bottle of water, and turn off the light. I will lie here right next to you and sing you a lullaby, and you can go to sleep.”

Why these steps?

First, the time of nursing and talking gives us a chance to connect at the end of the day, without any other people or distractions around, which is particularly important on days that I’m gone at work for hours. I want him to know that his bedtime isn’t just a task for me to accomplish, but a special time of calm and quiet for us to share. Also, he is still young enough that I want him to keep nursing, even though I can’t physically deal with the nursing all night long!

Second, the little details of the bedtime routine help to provide continuity and consistency from one night to the next, without making things too long or complex. The pillow helps keep his head elevated when he’s congested and the bottle of water gives him something to suck if he wants or a drink if he’s thirsty still after nursing (since my supply is getting pretty low, and it’s dry here in Arizona!)

Turning the light off after nursing helps to separate nursing from sleeping, so he doesn’t roll back to me for “kikis” after I try to situate him in the crib. This was a mistake I had been making on previous attempts!

Finally, Limerick loves music, and he seems to be far calmer physically when he has something to do with his mind – like listen to the words and melodies of songs. So the lullabies (whatever I happen to remember or make up) help him to relax, which in turn helps him to fall asleep.

As we were going through the routine, I narrated each thing that we were doing, reminding him of what we’d said earlier, until I ended by singing some old lullabies. His breathing slowed. His body relaxed. His hand holding the half-empty bottle dropped to his side. And I slid off the bed and went downstairs.

This was just the first night of the new routine. We’ve now had four nights of the new pattern, and in addition to falling asleep without the incessant nursing that was driving me crazy, he seems to be sleeping for longer stretches as well! Considering he is also teething right now, I’m quite surprised at how well this is going. Night 3 was a bit rough for him, and we ended up nursing a little bit more after the lights were off to help him calm back down, but he did eventually go to sleep on his own without crying alone or feeling like he was abandoned or unheard (it’s amazing how much calmer he got just from me saying, “You are really upset right now, huh?”). I’ve even been able to put him back down after a night waking in this way, which I didn’t expect to be able to do for a few weeks still! So there is hope, fellow gentle parents with poor sleepers 🙂 We can take care of ourselves and our babies in ways that won’t leave either of us resentful, bitter, or hurt.

family life

a family valentine’s date

Posted on 2016-02-142016-02-14 by kristinabean

It was warm enough this afternoon for us to take the boys to the splash pad a few miles from our house – and warm enough that half the town seemed to have the same idea! It was crowded, exuberant, and refreshing.

Limerick examined the whole splash pad and all the people playing in it very thoroughly and methodically, while Rondel ran back and forth from the fountains to me with ever-changing expressions and exclamations. We were there for close to two hours, only leaving when it was time for dinner, and it was so nice to be able to spend that special time as a whole family, enjoying our Sunday afternoon together.

Another neat thing about this particular park is how diverse the people are! I would guess that today it was about 50% Hispanic, 30% White, 15% African American, and 15% Native American, give or take 5% on each one. Granted, I’m a horrible estimator, but you get the general idea. I love that my kids get to see and play with kids who don’t look like them, especially since our church (despite having a black lead pastor) is primarily white. If they can grow up with diversity being part of their everyday lives, maybe they’ll be able to escape the undercurrents of white supremacy in our nation that give support to men like Donald Trump. Maybe they’ll be able to be proud of their traditions and culture while also valuing and loving the traditions and cultures of others who are not like them. Will they get that all from playing at a park? Of course not – but principles are absorbed into the heart and will through the daily experiences that confirm them.

How did you all spend your Valentine’s Day?

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – a warm spell

Posted on 2016-02-112016-02-11 by kristinabean

After an exceptionally cold January, we seem to be having a record-breakingly warm February – which means the weather has been absolutely perfect for enjoying our cool and shady little backyard and patio again! The main disadvantage of the backyard is that there isn’t enough space for the boys to actually run; the two main advantages are that it is completely child-safe so my baby can play without feeling the need to constantly test the limits, and that I can slip into the house to do dishes or dinner prep if necessary (the kitchen window opens right onto the patio).

{pretty}

Look at those eyes. Oh my goodness. He’s so beautiful… and at the same time so mischievous! He takes delight in crossing boundaries in a way my firstborn never did – but he is also far more bold and adventurous. He’s at least six months younger than Rondel was when he finally became comfortable on a slide, for example, and he’ll go up and down time and time again, even on the tall slides at the playground.

The white stuff all over him is cloud dough; the back patio is the perfect place for messy play like that, and I let the boys migrate to the yard to play more before bringing them in for a bath.

{happy}

One of Rondel’s most-loved Christmas presents (which we actually opened nearer to Epiphany) was this set of construction trucks from my parents, supplemented with another construction set my in-laws had found for him over a year ago. These trucks live in a special spot in the garden, where I had a summer crop planted but then left empty for the sake of these trucks. Rondel spends so much time here digging with the trucks and telling me what they are building and doing, and I love watching him!

{funny}

He asked me to take a picture of him eating a leaf and this is the best I got because he wouldn’t look at me! In Arizona, early spring is one of the most fruitful times of year because all the winter crops are flourishing as the few night freezes fade and are forgotten. Right now we have four types of lettuce, arugula, kale, cilantro, oregano, and mint in our main garden, and English peas growing around the trellised garden by the walls (Yes! They can grow out here in the low desert! They just need the right microenvironment, which our tiny yard happens to provide.) Rondel, in his typical information-accumulating way, can identify all the different plants that we have, and enjoys snacking on them while playing outside. The arugula is apparently a bit too “spicy” for his taste, though 🙂

{real}

Limerick wants to do everything his big brother does, but Rondel isn’t always happy about having a small interfering shadow. I’m discovering that if I try to persuade Rondel to accept Limerick’s presence, he usually refuses outright, but if I redirect Limerick or let them drift together slowly, Rondel will make space for his brother to join him, and include him in his games. This was a rare moment where they were playing happily next to each other without Limerick destroying Rondel’s creations in his attempt to be like and play with the brother he adores.

Don’t forget to join the link-up today at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

family life

Limerick and Rondel together

Posted on 2016-01-302016-01-28 by kristinabean

Limerick has very little patience with adults trying to make him do something off his agenda, like dress him, change his diaper, hold him still, keep him away from forbidden or unsafe objects, and so on. To my mind this is completely reasonable toddler behavior and it doesn’t bother me at all. What interests me, though, is how incredibly patient he is with Rondel whenever Rondel decides to do something to him.

Limerick may be walking or crawling or climbing somewhere and Rondel will randomly grab him into a hug; Limerick just stops, rests his head against Rondel, and waits until the hug is done before proceeding with his activity. If Rondel pats Limerick’s head or squeezes his knee, Limerick just watches him curiously and doesn’t try to move away. And at the park, when Rondel decided to pour sand over Limerick’s head, he didn’t seem to mind at all:

just ignore Rondel’s very long and messy hair… I know we need to get it cut 🙂

Something about his big brother is unendingly and endearingly fascinating for Limerick, to the point where he’ll set aside almost anything else to put up with Rondel’s affection and attention, or follow him around the house to investigate what he’s doing. It’s not always rainbows and roses, of course: Limerick’s interest often leads to conflict with Rondel’s plans, and his still-developing coordination often causes unintentional bumps and broken constructions. But those moments of togetherness – whether they’re sweet and silly or rife with conflict and stress – are building their relationship and helping them to learn what friendship and family are all about.

family life

before Christmas is totally gone…

Posted on 2016-01-04 by kristinabean

…I’d like to share some of our pictures from the season! (And knowing me, probably some random meditative thoughts as well…)

I had wanted to find a tabletop-sized tree for our home this Christmas, but it didn’t end up happening. However, the city generously provided us with a Christmas tree by putting one up in the center of downtown – conveniently located about two blocks away from our house 😉

It is, I suppose, the urban child’s equivalent of a tree out in the woods, uncut, decorated with a single candle perhaps, and ribbons, and cookies and popcorn for the birds – the sort of tree described in Temple Bailey’s exquisite Christmas story The Candle in the Forest. It is what we have, beautiful and special, and we make it meaningful by sharing our delight in it together.

(If you haven’t read The Candle in the Forest, you should remedy that as soon as you can. It is one of my favorite Christmas stories of all times, for how well it captures the beauty of simple traditions and family love and doing the best with what one has; I have never read it without tears.)

Even Limerick was sufficiently entranced by the lights and ornaments to cease his endless running (usually into the road) and examine the tree! And Rondel couldn’t get enough of it – he asked to see the tree everyday for at least two weeks after the city put it up.

The specialness, the difference, of the Christmas season stood out to him for the first time this year – for some reason everyone was making everything more beautiful, and baking special treats more often, and lighting different candles, and secretly collecting gifts to give. We read the Christmas story to him over and over again, revealing more of the story as the day grew nearer, and he delighted with us in the coming Baby because of whom all the celebration was taking place.

Babies are very precious things in the minds of toddlers – they are just about the only people smaller than toddlers, and so I think they evoke feelings of responsibility, power, and protective love: essentially, they give the toddler a foretaste of being an adult and specifically a parent, and the toddler finds it quite an exciting experience. Not that they could bear that responsibility for long, of course, and they don’t try to – but when you’re always the small and the weak, who needs to be helped and taught and directed and cared for, it’s nice to find someone even smaller and weaker whom you can help teach and take care of. Babies bring that gift, the opportunity to serve and be a blessing to someone else, to even the smallest children – and in becoming a baby, God reminds us of the importance of that gift. For He did not come to be served, although as a human baby He was helpless and needy; rather He came to serve us, with His life, with His death, and with His intercession for us before the throne of the Father for all eternity.

(more pictures to come in a few days!)

family life

messy play

Posted on 2015-12-182015-12-17 by kristinabean

Sometimes I hate messy play because I’m the one who has to clean it up afterwards. Usually, though, I think it is the best – it engages the boys’ tactile systems in unusual ways, gives them a new or uncommon activity to delve into, and provides them an opportunity to create and imagine with different raw material then they’re used to.

Baking is one of my favorite messy plays because it’s highly edible and somewhat productive as well as being a lot to clean up, but outdoors messy play is also nice – not so tasty, but less work for me at the end.

One of our favorites around here is cloud dough (8 parts flour to 1 part coconut oil), which feels like soft, crumbly, slightly moist, moldable sand. I keep it in a box with a few different types of toys: spoons and cups for scooping and dumping, cookie cutters for molding, and a bulldozer for building. Then I set the box on the back patio (I’ve found there are too many distractions out front) and let the boys explore freely.

They typically play together well – Rondel is fairly good-natured about letting Limerick investigate everything he’s doing, and Limerick isn’t particularly aggressive about it. I think it helps with the cloud dough and similar activities that they don’t have a routine in which some toys are the sole possession of one boy or the other. It is always a joint affair.

And, ultimately, while Rondel is busy using the spoon or the bulldozer shovel to scoop cloud dough into the small buckets and cups, Limerick ends up just eating handfuls of it. (That, incidentally, is why I use an edible oil like coconut oil instead of mineral oil or baby oil like many cloud dough recipes call for. It’s also why I don’t use tempura paint to color it like I might when they are older…)

By the end, the cloud dough was everywhere – in their clothes, in their hair, all over the patio – but they were incredibly happy and so was I. The spilled cloud dough had become an opportunity for the bulldozer to build roads, and I was commissioned to bring out one of the HotWheels cars to drive on said roads. The boy who had been wiping off his fingers every few minutes at the beginning of the activity had cloud dough completely covering his legs and arms and was utterly disregarding it 🙂 So, all in all, a great success!