Breakfast Art

I enjoyed a bagel sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar for breakfast this morning. The remains inspired this creation. Yes, it's copyrighted.

Aunt Rebecca Comes to Visit

My aunt came to meet Carolyn last week. I think they got along well. . .

Monster Invasion

If you missed the inaugural post on these mutant horrors they insist are crickets, look here.

They're taking over our basement.

I saw the first one in late summer, at night. So I stopped doing laundry after dark.

Now, with winter and daylight savings, they come out before four o'clock in the afternoon, and I've seen more of them than I care to recall.

It's seriously affecting my laundry upkeep.

One of them even ventured into my kitchen last week.

I really don't think of myself as especially squeamish. I'll grab a garden-variety cricket and toss him outside any day of the week. I don't like spiders, but, if there is no masculine personage about to do the job, I am capable of killing them. (Shhh! Don't tell my husband. . .he'll think he doesn't have to spring to my rescue anymore.) Snakes don't bother me, unless they're dangerous ones. Mice may startle me if they suddenly scamper across my floor, but they don't scare me.

But these unholy things are something not meant to be bred, like the undesired outcome of a spider drunkenly mistaking a cricket for its mate. I think they're an evolutionary precursor of the orc. (That was a joke. I don't buy into macro-evolution. And I know orcs are a fantastical creation of the imagination. Though I did try to convince Kevin that, if we ever have a little boy, we could name him something like Oscar Roland Clark and have our very own real, live ORC. But I digress. . . .) They're starting to inhabit my nightmares--which would be common, pleasant dreams if they stayed away--and gazing at them in an effort to rationallly remember their harmlessness and brave the basement floor from the stairs to the dryer sends convulsive shudders down my spine.

It's really quite a problem.

Drawn to the Light

Carolyn likes light. This is not unusual for infants, of course. We make some effort, however, to keep her from gazing at the television when it is on--which she likes to do.

Last night, she was laying across my lap while Kevin was playing the Wii. I didn't think she could see the TV, because there is quite a collection of items piled haphazardly on our coffee table. She continued to stare fixedly in that direction, however, so I moved a small box on the coffee table directly in her line of vision.

!!!

A good ten minutes of plainly dissatisfied chattering ensued, in which Carolyn clearly and not-so-concisely conveyed her displeasure while we. . .well, I'll confess it, we laughed.

Quote of the Day

from Thomas Merton, via Wittingshire:

Ultimately the secret is perfect abandonment to the will of God in things you cannot control, and perfect obedience to Him in everything that depends on your own volition, so that in all things, in your interior life and in your outward works for God, you desire only one thing, which is the fulfillment of His will.

If you do this, your activity will share the disinterested peace that you are able to find at prayer, and in the simplicity of the things you do men will recognize your peacefulness and give glory to God...For the saint preaches sermons by the way he walks and the way he stands and the way he sits down and the way he picks things up and holds them in his hand.

There's not much to add here. The first sentence reminds me somewhat of what we know as the Serenity Prayer, which I've never been particularly fond of (purely for its popularity, I suspect). The last sentence, both by its structure and its content, is striking as well.

Vignette the First

I had some green tea from Panera today, and--between juggling Carolyn, checking my lunch (which wound up being left off the order after all that work!) for dairy, and ordering Kevin's lunch--I didn't have time to stir it after I added honey to sweeten. I forgot about it. . .until I got to the bottom of my cup, that is, when I was pleasantly surprised by a sweet liquid dessert!

Perhaps I shall regularly "forget" to stir.

Vignettes

For this new phase of life, in which time to type protracted posts is rare, we present a new category: Vignettes.

We could call them Short Rambles, but that sounds far less important and far less complimentary.

Carolyn Rolls Over

Today, I left Carolyn on her tummy on the bed, then left the room to get some things. She was fussing, then screaming, and when I came back a few minutes later. . .she was flat on her back screaming at the ceiling! Too bad I missed it!

One More Election Post

Dr. Albert Mohler on the election

the Archbishop of New York on the black and white nature of abortion

Randy Alcorn on abortion

Doug Wilson on the election

One Election Post

I'm sure it won't surprise anyone to know that I did not vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday. But let me tell you why I am heartsick that so many did.

Unless you've had your head stuck in the sand, you have to know that Obama has the most pro-abortion record of anyone in the Senate. As a state senator, he even opposed legislation to save babies who survived their abortions and were born alive. That is repulsive. The Freedom of Choice Act, which Obama has promised to sign, relaxes even the limited restraints on abortion many states have enacted. America already has the most permissive abortion laws in the world.

Yes, I disagree with some other Obama policies, policies that may disappoint, frustrate, or scare me. That is part of our political system, and it's a good part--different people with different ideas on governing make us stronger. Many of those issues have large gray areas. Abortion is black and white. And you cannot, absolutely cannot, be a good leader while considering any class of people sub-human, be it for race, age, culture, or faith. If the only ill in Hitler's philosophy was the perceived right of others to exterminate anyone of Jewish descent, could he have been a great leader? There is no "he's a good man, with the exception of thinking murder is okay." Thinking murder is okay eliminates the possibility of being a good man. That so many people, even people of faith who claim to value life, can turn a blind eye to the issue of the legalized killing of any class of people. . . .

Please don't quibble over whether unborn children are people. Babies show their personality even in the womb. Can you look at current ultrasound pictures, pictures that show babies moving and sucking their thumbs, and deny that they are human? Can you look at the pictures of Carolyn and tell me that, had we chosen abortion--as our first doctor repeatedly advised us to do in the 2 visits I had with her--we would not have been claiming the life of a person? The person that is Carolyn would have been lost--no identical replacement next time around. Every baby--every fetus--is unique and different.

It is ironic that, as we celebrate the progress America has made from the days when men of Obama's skin tone were denied basic human rights, we do so for one who would deny children even the right to life in favor of their mother's convenience and freedom from responsibility.

Weekend (Plus) in Review

It's been a busy few days! Kevin's mom and aunt came to visit last Thursday and stayed until this afternoon. Saturday was our 2nd annual apple outing with several families from church, and Carolyn's 2-month appointment was yesterday.

We really enjoyed the apple day. The weather was beautiful--sunny and nearly 70 degrees. After buying a whole bunch of apples (guess what I'll be doing for the next couple days!) and going to the dairy, we went to a state park and grilled lunch before taking a group hike through the lovely fall foliage. Carolyn slept much of the time, but she woke up during our hike and thoroughly enjoyed gazing at the great outdoors.

Carolyn's appointment yesterday went very well. She weighs 12 pounds and 10 ounces and is 22 inches long (more or less. . .she's not exactly cooperative with the stretching out and being still for a height measurement!). She got her first two vaccines, screamed heartily, and then slept through almost the whole evening. She woke up at 3:20 this morning running a good fever, but promptly vomited any grape Tylenol I forced down her throat. Fortunately, her fever subsided on its own in a little over an hour. We went back to sleep, and she slept soundly until 10 this morning. She's slept more than normal today also, but other than that seems to have no ill effects.

We have decided that Carolyn definitely has a serious sensitivity to dairy--any dairy in my diet results in great gushes of sour milk from her a few hours later. So I'm on a dairy hiatus until Christmas, when we'll try again and see how she handles it. Many infants grow out of a dairy allergy, so we are hopeful that will be the case here.

That's the news. Here are some photos to complement:

Daddy's the entertainer


The Five of Us


"Life is Good."


Family Photo