* I am completely out of ideas for blogging, which can't mean anything but a Mundania post.
* An appropriately-numbered Mundania post, considering tomorrow.
* It's a busy week for us low-key Joneses. We have something on every evening. (That's the way Darren phrases it, and my first response is always, "I'll probably have on clothes, although that's not a guarantee for some of the kids in the house.") We usually avoid having something planned for every night. That's what purgatory would be for us: "Welcome to the World In-Between! Let's see... oh, yes, both of you are assigned to the Type A room. They're repainting it right now, so just join right in. Afterward you're all going for a hike, after which you'll plan a seven-course formal dinner, while attending a soccer game, before returning to the room. At which point you'll be repainting it, of course."
* Speaking of painting a room, by the end of this week we should have two brand-new, freshly-painted rooms to use. And the best part is, we haven't had to do a single thing. We hired a friend to convert our garage into a playroom, a guest room, and a small storage room. Well, okay, we paid him for it, but we're always happier to pay for the work rather than do it ourselves.
* For zoning purposes, the guest room is actually a "storage room." Which it is -- they'll be mounting several shelves on the wall. Daniel, the builder, suggested that if we make the shelves just a little bigger, we could store guests on them.
* One of the Big Events of this week is Trick-or-Treating. This year, Stuart is a Pharoah, compliments of an easy no-sew guide from Family Fun magazine. Addie is an angel, sporting a large set of wings constructed from coat hangers and a white scarf. I love the idea of making costumes, but my zeal usually outstrips my ability. This year is a success, though.
* The other Big Event of the week is our Sixth Annual All Saints' Day Party. It's funny to remember that at our first one -- which was Darren's idea, sorry to spring THAT surprise on you -- I was very pregnant with Stuart. How time marches on!
* Probably I should feed my kids breakfast.
-- SJ
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
The Social Dynamics of Children
When we were looking for a new house 5 years ago, we were immediately attracted to the neighborhood because when we came to view the house that was for sale, there were kids playing everywhere. When we moved in 3 months later, we were delighted to find that right across the road was a family with a daughter the same age as Addie. She and Mollie have now become fast friends.
There is a little girl down the street (I'll call her River) who is also good friends with Mollie. I often look outside and see Mollie, Addie, and River playing together. However, Mollie is the glue. River rarely comes over to play with Addie. When the 3 of them are together, Mollie is the one who assigns roles, decides what games to play, and generally runs things (even though River is older).
It reminded me of growing up on Chestnut Hill, where Blake was the glue. Keith and Evan and I rarely played together if it was just the 3 of us, and I never played with Camille and Justin. But we would all get together at Blake's house, where he would assign us roles, instruct us in what games to play, and generally run things. Most of my summer days as a kid were spent over at Blake's house, where I'd stay after we went to 9:00 hour in the meeting room above the garage.
It's fun to see these dynamics play out from the perspective of an adult. I think that Addie plays the role of Keith - if she doesn't like how something is going, she'll just go off to do her own thing (although her leave-taking is far more dramatic than anything Keith would have done). Stuart, I'm afraid, tends to be more like me - if he doesn't like something, he will cry to try to get his own way. I was very bad about doing this as a child.
Blake, by the way, is now in seminary. I think he'll make a good pastor. And I still enjoy having someone else in charge, which is a major reason I'm a deacon, not a priest. Keith is off saving the world and raising 3 boys (a prospect that daunts me).
--DJ
There is a little girl down the street (I'll call her River) who is also good friends with Mollie. I often look outside and see Mollie, Addie, and River playing together. However, Mollie is the glue. River rarely comes over to play with Addie. When the 3 of them are together, Mollie is the one who assigns roles, decides what games to play, and generally runs things (even though River is older).
It reminded me of growing up on Chestnut Hill, where Blake was the glue. Keith and Evan and I rarely played together if it was just the 3 of us, and I never played with Camille and Justin. But we would all get together at Blake's house, where he would assign us roles, instruct us in what games to play, and generally run things. Most of my summer days as a kid were spent over at Blake's house, where I'd stay after we went to 9:00 hour in the meeting room above the garage.
It's fun to see these dynamics play out from the perspective of an adult. I think that Addie plays the role of Keith - if she doesn't like how something is going, she'll just go off to do her own thing (although her leave-taking is far more dramatic than anything Keith would have done). Stuart, I'm afraid, tends to be more like me - if he doesn't like something, he will cry to try to get his own way. I was very bad about doing this as a child.
Blake, by the way, is now in seminary. I think he'll make a good pastor. And I still enjoy having someone else in charge, which is a major reason I'm a deacon, not a priest. Keith is off saving the world and raising 3 boys (a prospect that daunts me).
--DJ
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Porcupines and Dead Horses
Darren got a new razor.
SMJ: "Will you shave your legs with your new razor?"
DAJ: "No. Mama does, not me."
AMJ: "Why does Mama shave her legs?"
Me: "M-E-N."
DAJ (more diplomatically): "Because Daddy likes it when Mama's legs are smooth."
AMJ: "But sometimes Mama's legs are echidna-like."
Echidnas are Australian porcupines.
***
Stuart engages in a form of conversation that Darren and I like to call "deceased equine brutality." He flays that dead horse. As follows:
Me to D: "Remember that time at the airport when that guy just sat in the pick-up lane and held up traffic for ten minutes? He wouldn't even go when somebody walked to his window and pointed it out. I was so mad I wanted to pop his tires. On second thought, that wouldn't have helped anything."
SMJ, coming in at the end of the conversation: "Pop whose tires?"
DAJ: "A man that Mama was talking about."
SMJ: "What was he doing?"
Me: (repeats entire story)
SMJ: "What tires?"
DAJ: (explains the use of tires on cars.)
SMJ: "Was he in a truck?"
Me: "Yes."
SMJ: "Oh. I thought he was just sitting on a post."
DAJ: "No, he was in his truck, and it wasn't moving, and it was causing problems."
SMJ: "What color was his truck?"
DandS: "Stuart! We are DONE with this conversation!"
-- SJ
SMJ: "Will you shave your legs with your new razor?"
DAJ: "No. Mama does, not me."
AMJ: "Why does Mama shave her legs?"
Me: "M-E-N."
DAJ (more diplomatically): "Because Daddy likes it when Mama's legs are smooth."
AMJ: "But sometimes Mama's legs are echidna-like."
Echidnas are Australian porcupines.
***
Stuart engages in a form of conversation that Darren and I like to call "deceased equine brutality." He flays that dead horse. As follows:
Me to D: "Remember that time at the airport when that guy just sat in the pick-up lane and held up traffic for ten minutes? He wouldn't even go when somebody walked to his window and pointed it out. I was so mad I wanted to pop his tires. On second thought, that wouldn't have helped anything."
SMJ, coming in at the end of the conversation: "Pop whose tires?"
DAJ: "A man that Mama was talking about."
SMJ: "What was he doing?"
Me: (repeats entire story)
SMJ: "What tires?"
DAJ: (explains the use of tires on cars.)
SMJ: "Was he in a truck?"
Me: "Yes."
SMJ: "Oh. I thought he was just sitting on a post."
DAJ: "No, he was in his truck, and it wasn't moving, and it was causing problems."
SMJ: "What color was his truck?"
DandS: "Stuart! We are DONE with this conversation!"
-- SJ
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Bless Your Pea-Pickin' Heart
I've been searching for post ideas for two days. I found a couple, but they got away before I wrote them down. It's not that I don't have anything to write about: but I was trying to come up with something that didn't involve the kids. Life has been good lately, but not terribly varied. Basically, I do Kids.
I'm also going through my old story files, and today inspiration struck: I'll just post one of my old stories! These stories have nothing to do with my kids, because when I wrote them, A&S&D didn't exist. For that matter, Sara Jones didn't even exist: I knew Darren, but we weren't courting yet. This story is one that I wrote for my newspaper column, Tales from the Creekbank, sometime in 1999. Here's a taste of the South for y'all.
"Bless Your Pea-Pickin' Heart"
In April, we start suspecting it. In May, we’re almost certain of it. By June, there’s no disputing it. Heat and humidity, cicadas and lightning bugs, rainstorms and yellow flies and magnolias, all in a world of a thousand shades of green – Summer has arrived.
When I was younger, I didn’t depend on the calendar to tell me when summer was underway. In fact, I always thought that whoever set the “official first day of summer” at June 20 or June 21 (I suspected it was a group of stuffy scientists who wore white coats and never went swimming in the creek) wasted a good portion of the summer. In my opinion, summer started the first day that we could go swimming. Summer was in full swing the first morning we got up to go pea-picking.
Some June morning practically at the break of dawn, a parent’s voice would ring through the house: “Y’all! Get up! We’ve got peas to pick, and we have to get out there before it gets too hot to work!”
An indistinct moan or two, and an overwhelming silence from the rest of the bedrooms, suggested that we didn’t care if it got too hot before we made it to the pea patch. That, in fact, we would prefer that it did get too hot, because then there would be no need to get out of bed in the first place. Merely because we were out of bed and leaving the house about a half an hour later does not mean we’d changed our minds.
We were a ragtag crew as we walked to the field those mornings. Old T-shirts, battered hats of all types, jeans with ragged cuffs – it didn’t matter what we wore. It was impossible to dress properly for a pea-picking session. Shorts kept you cool, and also left your legs to the mercy of briars and yellow flies (which, unfortunately, have no mercy). Jeans offered more protection, and halfway down the second row of peas, they became so saturated with dew that each leg weighed an extra half-pound. Skirts were impossible to manage. You often walked three bushes down, only to find that the hem of your skirt was lingering back at the first plant, apparently talking about what they had in common and exchanging phone numbers. Socks collected water and dirt, and we often finished our picking sessions with our shoes more full of water than feet.
The worst part of it all was that none of it was a good enough excuse to leave the pea patch. Nothing short of serious illness could exempt us from pea-picking, and even then we probably had to show signs of imminent death.
When we got to the field, our grandparents and uncle always were there ahead of us. They usually had picked two or three bushels already. Each. We each took a bucket, since Grandma and Grandpa always thoughtfully provided enough for everyone. I tried to decide whether it was better to get a smaller bucket, which would fill up more quickly, or a larger one, which would hold more peas at a time. I never could decide which was better, probably because no one else gave me time to weigh all the advantages and disadvantages. “Sara, just take a stupid bucket,” was usually their advice.
Then we would start picking. Rows and rows of tangled green vines stretched before us, the long green- and purple-hulled peas waving gleefully in the warm sun. “Good morning!” they would call with malicious cheer. “You have to pick all of us today or else we’ll all die!” Whoever doubts that peas can say anything, much less with malicious cheer, has never faced an unpicked pea patch at 7:00 on a June morning.
Step. Pick. Toss in bucket. Step. Pick. Toss in bucket. I would pull off all the peas I could see, then poke gingerly among the leaves for any I couldn’t see. Vines and briars tried to hold hands with me, while various bugs and flying things busied themselves around my head. I usually didn’t spend much time looking for the peas in the inner parts of the tangles. Besides the heat, the wet, the bugs, and the dirt, there was always the thrilling possibility that someone would find, in Uncle Will’s words, “things that go slither and chomp.” We didn’t often come across a snake, although being bitten at least would have been a good excuse to leave the field.
Once we’d filled our buckets, we’d trot back down to the edge of the field and empty the buckets into big galvanized washtubs. Then we’d set to work again, filling up the buckets once more. We had to work quickly, because the early-morning cool didn’t last very long. Many mornings were very warm, and many mornings were rainy. I know because we were usually present when the two coincided. The grownups would say, “If it thunders, we’ll have to quit until the storm passes.” Of course, it never thundered, and a mere rainstorm wasn’t a good excuse to leave the field.
When the sun grew too hot, usually around 10:00, we straggled out of the field, collected all the buckets, loaded the tubs of peas onto the truck, and headed home. Once there, we’d change clothes, perhaps take a shower, then take a chair on the back porch, relax, and... shell peas.
Shelling peas was as much of a job as picking them. We’d pull our chairs into groups, with a couple of buckets to collect the hulls. Everyone took a pan or bowl and grabbed a handful of peas to start. I never could decide if it was better to get a pan, which could hold more hulls, or a bowl, which made it look like you’d done a lot more than you had. But I never had much time to devote to the decision. “Here you go, Sam,” Grandpa would advise, handing me a bowl.
My brothers and sisters and I would get bored after a while – usually about the nineteenth pea. We amused ourselves by playing Twenty Questions, word games, or taking turns reading Trivial Pursuit cards to one another. At one time we had a Bible Trivia game, but then my siblings accused me of memorizing all the answers. They were just jealous, of course. Like Cain was of Abel on Bible Trivia Card Number 177.
Three or four bushels into the day, we would get tired of all our games and start throwing peas at each other. This amused us a lot, but it didn’t amuse the grown-ups, so we had to return to Twenty Questions.
After the peas were shelled, the grown-ups would blanch and cool them and then bag them for the freezer. The rest of us would sweep off the porch, empty the hull buckets, and, if we were fortunate, head for the creek.
Pea season seemed to last three and a half years – getting up early, slogging through dirt and bugs and vines, spending hours and hours shelling and sweeping. A person might ask why we would go through such an ordeal every summer, and then plant more peas so we had it to do again the next summer.
The person who asks that has never sat down to a table with Grandma’s biscuits, iced tea, and a great big bowl of steaming-hot fresh field peas. That’s when we decided it was all worth it.
-- SJ (or, to be more accurate, SR)
I'm also going through my old story files, and today inspiration struck: I'll just post one of my old stories! These stories have nothing to do with my kids, because when I wrote them, A&S&D didn't exist. For that matter, Sara Jones didn't even exist: I knew Darren, but we weren't courting yet. This story is one that I wrote for my newspaper column, Tales from the Creekbank, sometime in 1999. Here's a taste of the South for y'all.
"Bless Your Pea-Pickin' Heart"
In April, we start suspecting it. In May, we’re almost certain of it. By June, there’s no disputing it. Heat and humidity, cicadas and lightning bugs, rainstorms and yellow flies and magnolias, all in a world of a thousand shades of green – Summer has arrived.
When I was younger, I didn’t depend on the calendar to tell me when summer was underway. In fact, I always thought that whoever set the “official first day of summer” at June 20 or June 21 (I suspected it was a group of stuffy scientists who wore white coats and never went swimming in the creek) wasted a good portion of the summer. In my opinion, summer started the first day that we could go swimming. Summer was in full swing the first morning we got up to go pea-picking.
Some June morning practically at the break of dawn, a parent’s voice would ring through the house: “Y’all! Get up! We’ve got peas to pick, and we have to get out there before it gets too hot to work!”
An indistinct moan or two, and an overwhelming silence from the rest of the bedrooms, suggested that we didn’t care if it got too hot before we made it to the pea patch. That, in fact, we would prefer that it did get too hot, because then there would be no need to get out of bed in the first place. Merely because we were out of bed and leaving the house about a half an hour later does not mean we’d changed our minds.
We were a ragtag crew as we walked to the field those mornings. Old T-shirts, battered hats of all types, jeans with ragged cuffs – it didn’t matter what we wore. It was impossible to dress properly for a pea-picking session. Shorts kept you cool, and also left your legs to the mercy of briars and yellow flies (which, unfortunately, have no mercy). Jeans offered more protection, and halfway down the second row of peas, they became so saturated with dew that each leg weighed an extra half-pound. Skirts were impossible to manage. You often walked three bushes down, only to find that the hem of your skirt was lingering back at the first plant, apparently talking about what they had in common and exchanging phone numbers. Socks collected water and dirt, and we often finished our picking sessions with our shoes more full of water than feet.
The worst part of it all was that none of it was a good enough excuse to leave the pea patch. Nothing short of serious illness could exempt us from pea-picking, and even then we probably had to show signs of imminent death.
When we got to the field, our grandparents and uncle always were there ahead of us. They usually had picked two or three bushels already. Each. We each took a bucket, since Grandma and Grandpa always thoughtfully provided enough for everyone. I tried to decide whether it was better to get a smaller bucket, which would fill up more quickly, or a larger one, which would hold more peas at a time. I never could decide which was better, probably because no one else gave me time to weigh all the advantages and disadvantages. “Sara, just take a stupid bucket,” was usually their advice.
Then we would start picking. Rows and rows of tangled green vines stretched before us, the long green- and purple-hulled peas waving gleefully in the warm sun. “Good morning!” they would call with malicious cheer. “You have to pick all of us today or else we’ll all die!” Whoever doubts that peas can say anything, much less with malicious cheer, has never faced an unpicked pea patch at 7:00 on a June morning.
Step. Pick. Toss in bucket. Step. Pick. Toss in bucket. I would pull off all the peas I could see, then poke gingerly among the leaves for any I couldn’t see. Vines and briars tried to hold hands with me, while various bugs and flying things busied themselves around my head. I usually didn’t spend much time looking for the peas in the inner parts of the tangles. Besides the heat, the wet, the bugs, and the dirt, there was always the thrilling possibility that someone would find, in Uncle Will’s words, “things that go slither and chomp.” We didn’t often come across a snake, although being bitten at least would have been a good excuse to leave the field.
Once we’d filled our buckets, we’d trot back down to the edge of the field and empty the buckets into big galvanized washtubs. Then we’d set to work again, filling up the buckets once more. We had to work quickly, because the early-morning cool didn’t last very long. Many mornings were very warm, and many mornings were rainy. I know because we were usually present when the two coincided. The grownups would say, “If it thunders, we’ll have to quit until the storm passes.” Of course, it never thundered, and a mere rainstorm wasn’t a good excuse to leave the field.
When the sun grew too hot, usually around 10:00, we straggled out of the field, collected all the buckets, loaded the tubs of peas onto the truck, and headed home. Once there, we’d change clothes, perhaps take a shower, then take a chair on the back porch, relax, and... shell peas.
Shelling peas was as much of a job as picking them. We’d pull our chairs into groups, with a couple of buckets to collect the hulls. Everyone took a pan or bowl and grabbed a handful of peas to start. I never could decide if it was better to get a pan, which could hold more hulls, or a bowl, which made it look like you’d done a lot more than you had. But I never had much time to devote to the decision. “Here you go, Sam,” Grandpa would advise, handing me a bowl.
My brothers and sisters and I would get bored after a while – usually about the nineteenth pea. We amused ourselves by playing Twenty Questions, word games, or taking turns reading Trivial Pursuit cards to one another. At one time we had a Bible Trivia game, but then my siblings accused me of memorizing all the answers. They were just jealous, of course. Like Cain was of Abel on Bible Trivia Card Number 177.
Three or four bushels into the day, we would get tired of all our games and start throwing peas at each other. This amused us a lot, but it didn’t amuse the grown-ups, so we had to return to Twenty Questions.
After the peas were shelled, the grown-ups would blanch and cool them and then bag them for the freezer. The rest of us would sweep off the porch, empty the hull buckets, and, if we were fortunate, head for the creek.
Pea season seemed to last three and a half years – getting up early, slogging through dirt and bugs and vines, spending hours and hours shelling and sweeping. A person might ask why we would go through such an ordeal every summer, and then plant more peas so we had it to do again the next summer.
The person who asks that has never sat down to a table with Grandma’s biscuits, iced tea, and a great big bowl of steaming-hot fresh field peas. That’s when we decided it was all worth it.
-- SJ (or, to be more accurate, SR)
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Just for the Record...
She is a girl:
After our learning co-op spent a morning making medieval clothes, Addie told me, "Mama, a boy wearing a sparkly silk cape told me that my hat was beautiful! He liked it. I told him thank you."
He is a boy:
After I finished telling them a serial adventure story, we went over the most exciting parts. Stuart's favorite part? "When Decci threw up all over that soldier! That was funny."
-- SJ
After our learning co-op spent a morning making medieval clothes, Addie told me, "Mama, a boy wearing a sparkly silk cape told me that my hat was beautiful! He liked it. I told him thank you."
He is a boy:
After I finished telling them a serial adventure story, we went over the most exciting parts. Stuart's favorite part? "When Decci threw up all over that soldier! That was funny."
-- SJ
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Happy Birthday to Darren!
And it's here, it's now, it's today: Happy birthday, Darren!
For today's post, we've interviewed a few passing children to ask what their take on today is. First we had to drag two of the children away from a Bobbsey Twins book, which Addie was reading to Stuart.
Q: Why is Daddy special?
AMJ: Because we love him.
SMJ: Because he's funny.
DMJ: Da! ["Because I am his daughter."]
Q: What does Daddy do that is fun?
AMJ: Comforts me when I'm lonely.
SMJ: Play Age of Mythology.
DMJ: Da! ["Reads me books, but always one time fewer than I actually want."]
Q: If Daddy could have anything he wanted, what would it be?
AMJ: *mentions a present that Daddy doesn't yet know about*
SMJ: *mentions another present that Daddy does know about, despite Mama's best efforts*
DMJ: Yahhh! Wahhh! ["I don't care what Daddy wants. I want the COMPUTER!"]
I love you, Darren! You're an easy person to live with and an easier person to love. It's also convenient that what you want most happens to be what we've already gotten for you. I've been blessed to know you for ten years out of the last thirty-four, and look forward to making up the lack.
-- SJ
For today's post, we've interviewed a few passing children to ask what their take on today is. First we had to drag two of the children away from a Bobbsey Twins book, which Addie was reading to Stuart.
Q: Why is Daddy special?
AMJ: Because we love him.
SMJ: Because he's funny.
DMJ: Da! ["Because I am his daughter."]
Q: What does Daddy do that is fun?
AMJ: Comforts me when I'm lonely.
SMJ: Play Age of Mythology.
DMJ: Da! ["Reads me books, but always one time fewer than I actually want."]
Q: If Daddy could have anything he wanted, what would it be?
AMJ: *mentions a present that Daddy doesn't yet know about*
SMJ: *mentions another present that Daddy does know about, despite Mama's best efforts*
DMJ: Yahhh! Wahhh! ["I don't care what Daddy wants. I want the COMPUTER!"]
I love you, Darren! You're an easy person to live with and an easier person to love. It's also convenient that what you want most happens to be what we've already gotten for you. I've been blessed to know you for ten years out of the last thirty-four, and look forward to making up the lack.
-- SJ
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Selection from the Irreverent Song Book 3
This praise song is not one I like, and it sticks in my head and annoys me:
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord.
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord.
And He
Shall lift
You up
Higher and higher!
And He
Shall lift
You up.
It really isn't my fault, then, that the following suggested itself after a few times of loading the kids in the van, when I always announce, "In you go! Buckle yourself!" Darren helped me develop the theme.
Buckle yourself in the seat of the Ford.
Buckle yourself in the seat of the Ford.
For we
Shall soon
Speed up
Faster and faster!
For we
Shall soon
Speed up.
-- SJ
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord.
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord.
And He
Shall lift
You up
Higher and higher!
And He
Shall lift
You up.
It really isn't my fault, then, that the following suggested itself after a few times of loading the kids in the van, when I always announce, "In you go! Buckle yourself!" Darren helped me develop the theme.
Buckle yourself in the seat of the Ford.
Buckle yourself in the seat of the Ford.
For we
Shall soon
Speed up
Faster and faster!
For we
Shall soon
Speed up.
-- SJ
Friday, October 05, 2007
Mundania 12
Always A Clean Inbox... Our email program has gone from crashing every six months or so, to crashing about three times a day. I have the installation CD, so can stay online, but have no backlog of emails to worry about. Also no address book, so I don't have to be bothered with keeping in touch with anyone, with is a wonderfully liberating thing for anyone who LIKES to be lonely. Perhaps a bit belatedly, it occurred to us to save the addresses that come in in a WordPerfect file (WP because I'm saving them -- I'm one of the last ten people in the world to use WP instead of Word). So I have most of the important addresses: "important" defined as, "anyone who wrote me in the last week."
Who Needs A Computer, Anyway?... Either me or Stuart; I'm not sure who suffered more. This past week, in addition to the email frolics, our entire computer froze up. Well, not really froze up. It just wouldn't respond. In fact, it was a whole lot like Stuart when he's playing Age of Mythology (yes, he plays it by himself now) and I'm trying to talk to him. For two whole days we couldn't use the computer. Instead, we played outside, we played card games, I wrote out a story I'm telling the kids in parts at night, and Stuart and I lived with the constant reminder that the heartbeat of our living room was silent. This morning, I sat down to look at the problem again. Within five minutes I realized: the left mouse button wasn't working. A good, firm whack got it back into commission, and now the computer gives us that blue glow of comfort again. I think the moral of the story is that we learned to live without electronic entertainment, but that's a dumb story.
"Look at our van! It's got a REALLY BAD DENT!"... Which it does NOT. It's the corner of the front fender, looking remarkably as if it got crunched against a raised concrete sidewalk during an ill-advised attempt to back into a parking space. Since this is the first injury of this kind that we've inflicted on our vehicles, though, A&S are entirely overimpressed with the damage.
In Case You Hadn't Noticed... It was a pretty fun week this week.
Princesses, Mermaids, and Unicorns: The Heart of Classical Music... Inspired, I admit, by a Baby Einstein video, I pulled out the remnants of my classical music collection to introduce A&S to it. Me teaching music appreciation is pretty funny stuff: I know hardly anything, really, about music. The only reason I ever listened to classical music was because I went through the "All Music Except Sacred or Classical Is Evil" phase. Although I became familiar with many pieces, I never really understood them. All I can do is make up stories. But, as it happens, that's just what six-year-olds and four-year-olds like to do.
We listened to "Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium" and enacted an exciting underwater scene involving mermaids, mer-warriors, and sharks. (At first it was just mermaids, but then Stuart came into the room.) Several selections of the music from "Carmen" hit high on the popularity charts with a story about a princess escaping from rebels into a hidden forest camp. (Yes, that one.) With the "William Tell Overture," I was determined not to cast horses in the main role. Addie took the question entirely out of my hands by introducing unicorns, and they galloped to the finale after all. Even Daphne clamored to be held and danced with, and meanwhile I got help getting two rooms cleaned.
Any more suggestions for story-friendly pieces?
-- SJ
Who Needs A Computer, Anyway?... Either me or Stuart; I'm not sure who suffered more. This past week, in addition to the email frolics, our entire computer froze up. Well, not really froze up. It just wouldn't respond. In fact, it was a whole lot like Stuart when he's playing Age of Mythology (yes, he plays it by himself now) and I'm trying to talk to him. For two whole days we couldn't use the computer. Instead, we played outside, we played card games, I wrote out a story I'm telling the kids in parts at night, and Stuart and I lived with the constant reminder that the heartbeat of our living room was silent. This morning, I sat down to look at the problem again. Within five minutes I realized: the left mouse button wasn't working. A good, firm whack got it back into commission, and now the computer gives us that blue glow of comfort again. I think the moral of the story is that we learned to live without electronic entertainment, but that's a dumb story.
"Look at our van! It's got a REALLY BAD DENT!"... Which it does NOT. It's the corner of the front fender, looking remarkably as if it got crunched against a raised concrete sidewalk during an ill-advised attempt to back into a parking space. Since this is the first injury of this kind that we've inflicted on our vehicles, though, A&S are entirely overimpressed with the damage.
In Case You Hadn't Noticed... It was a pretty fun week this week.
Princesses, Mermaids, and Unicorns: The Heart of Classical Music... Inspired, I admit, by a Baby Einstein video, I pulled out the remnants of my classical music collection to introduce A&S to it. Me teaching music appreciation is pretty funny stuff: I know hardly anything, really, about music. The only reason I ever listened to classical music was because I went through the "All Music Except Sacred or Classical Is Evil" phase. Although I became familiar with many pieces, I never really understood them. All I can do is make up stories. But, as it happens, that's just what six-year-olds and four-year-olds like to do.
We listened to "Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium" and enacted an exciting underwater scene involving mermaids, mer-warriors, and sharks. (At first it was just mermaids, but then Stuart came into the room.) Several selections of the music from "Carmen" hit high on the popularity charts with a story about a princess escaping from rebels into a hidden forest camp. (Yes, that one.) With the "William Tell Overture," I was determined not to cast horses in the main role. Addie took the question entirely out of my hands by introducing unicorns, and they galloped to the finale after all. Even Daphne clamored to be held and danced with, and meanwhile I got help getting two rooms cleaned.
Any more suggestions for story-friendly pieces?
-- SJ
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Darren Answers Courtship Questions
1. What is the disinclination toward traditional "dating" even between Christian young people?
In my case, the disinclination to dating was based on two things. First, I didn’t feel like pursuing any sort of relationship until I was ready to get married. For me, this meant finishing up school, so I didn’t plan to do any dating until I was done with law school. Second, I’d seen too many friends do the “date and break up” thing in high school, where break ups were expected because everyone knew it wouldn’t end in marriage. Being a reasonably logical person, I couldn’t figure out the benefits of developing an intense emotional relationship with a girl that I knew I wasn’t going to marry. Note: this is slightly different from the standard conservative courtship view, which frowns on developing any emotional relationship with any girl except the one you know you’re going to marry. I don’t find that logical either, and anyone from our conservative homeschool background can tell you the horror stories of the disillusionment that occurs when a young person finds out that the person they’re courting is not the one they’re going to marry, even though they “followed the rules.”
I think part of the reason this was successful for me was that I’m simply not a big “people person.” I’m not one who needs many deep friendships to be happy in my life. Even now, I can count the number of deep friends I have on one hand, and still have fingers left over. Having a “courtship” mentality probably helped me to be more friendly with girls than I otherwise would have, because I wasn’t looking for some sort of dating relationship. Thus, several of my best friends when I was single were girls, but I always tried to take care that they knew there was no romantic interest from me.
2. Is there anything wrong with "heartache" in the learning/teaching process about love and potential marriage?
I would distinguish between avoidable and unavoidable heartache. I don’t see anything wrong with the unavoidable heartache that comes, for example, when a crush dissipates. Having had first-hand experience with this (and no, you’re not going to find out who!), there was no sin or wrong-doing involved; it’s just part of life.
But I do think there is something wrong with a mindset that gets involved in emotional relationships just for personal pleasure or gain. Dawn Eden’s book “The Thrill of the Chaste” deals with this pretty effectively. After all, one definition of sin is seeing another person as an object for my gratification or gain, rather than as a person created in God’s image. And sin always leads to heartache that could have been avoided.
This, of course, leaves a pretty big gray area in the middle, and in my opinion, that’s something to be worked out between God and the individual. Part of being a parent is to help the individual hear God on this matter, which will involve setting rules when the child is young (e.g., “No dating until you’re 17”), just as we set rules in any other area of life (e.g., “Pick up your room every night before bed.”) However, these rules become less relevant as the child grows older. If we’ve done our job as parents right, the child will be more likely to listen to God – but it’s still their decision. As David DuPlessis said, “God has no grandchildren.” Their relationship with Him is something we as parents have a big influence on, but in the end, their choices are their own responsibility.
3. Why do most parents take a much more active role as opposed to the way your folks did it, where they let you be adults and decide amongst yourselves? (I do understand the homeschool concept of girls living at home until marriage, but the courtship ritual, I would imagine, would be a perfect chance for the girl to "practice" (for lack of a better word) coming into her own as an adult and future wife in a household.)
Sara’s answer is right on: we have awesome parents. I’ve met and heard of a number of homeschool parents who have serious boundary and control issues. Thankfully, ours aren’t like that.
4. Are there rules (either stated or unstated) about kissing/holding hands before marriage during courtship?
Yes. I’ve heard of parents who set rules as specific as “You may first hold hands when you are engaged. You may kiss once when he proposes. You must not be anywhere alone, just the two of you, until you are engaged. You may not kiss until you are married.” Our parents didn’t set any such rules; they trusted us, because they knew us – and besides, we were older than a lot of courting homeschool couples than I know about. To me, there's a big difference between 18 and 26.
When I was in Bible School, one of the things that was drilled into me was that as men, we were responsible for the physical aspect of romance and courtship. We were responsible to see that we were pure and holy. It was discourteous and indeed sinful for men to push women for too much physical intimacy before marriage.
So, in our courtship, I was usually the one who set rules for myself, and then shared them with Sara so we could discuss and agree on them. I had made a commitment not to kiss until I’d gotten married, and we kept this one. Beyond that, there weren’t a lot of rules. You wouldn’t be interested in them, and even if you are, you’re not getting them :).
5. In very traditional courtship scenarios, how much control do the parents have versus how much their son or daughter has over the various decisions? What I mean is, do the children decide for themselves if they do, indeed, want to court the other? What about marriage? Do the kids once again have the final say as to whether or not they feel that the other will be a suitable spouse?
I’ve heard a number of stories where this was a serious issue. Mostly, the scenario is that kids like each other, ask parents’ permission to court, parents give it, kids fall head over heels in love, and then one set of parents “revokes consent.” In most of the cases I know about, the kids get married anyway. Sometimes the marriage works, sometimes it doesn’t. I have a difficult time exercising Christian charity to parents who would do that to their children.
6. Will the man once again ask the father's permission to marry the daughter as he asked permission to court her?
I’ve heard both. In my case, Miss Mary (Sara’s mom) and I had discussed back at the beginning of our courtship what expectations she had before I could ask Sara to marry me (have a job lined up, pass the Bar exam, and have a place to live). So I went ahead and asked Sara to marry me without asking Miss Mary again.
--DJ
In my case, the disinclination to dating was based on two things. First, I didn’t feel like pursuing any sort of relationship until I was ready to get married. For me, this meant finishing up school, so I didn’t plan to do any dating until I was done with law school. Second, I’d seen too many friends do the “date and break up” thing in high school, where break ups were expected because everyone knew it wouldn’t end in marriage. Being a reasonably logical person, I couldn’t figure out the benefits of developing an intense emotional relationship with a girl that I knew I wasn’t going to marry. Note: this is slightly different from the standard conservative courtship view, which frowns on developing any emotional relationship with any girl except the one you know you’re going to marry. I don’t find that logical either, and anyone from our conservative homeschool background can tell you the horror stories of the disillusionment that occurs when a young person finds out that the person they’re courting is not the one they’re going to marry, even though they “followed the rules.”
I think part of the reason this was successful for me was that I’m simply not a big “people person.” I’m not one who needs many deep friendships to be happy in my life. Even now, I can count the number of deep friends I have on one hand, and still have fingers left over. Having a “courtship” mentality probably helped me to be more friendly with girls than I otherwise would have, because I wasn’t looking for some sort of dating relationship. Thus, several of my best friends when I was single were girls, but I always tried to take care that they knew there was no romantic interest from me.
2. Is there anything wrong with "heartache" in the learning/teaching process about love and potential marriage?
I would distinguish between avoidable and unavoidable heartache. I don’t see anything wrong with the unavoidable heartache that comes, for example, when a crush dissipates. Having had first-hand experience with this (and no, you’re not going to find out who!), there was no sin or wrong-doing involved; it’s just part of life.
But I do think there is something wrong with a mindset that gets involved in emotional relationships just for personal pleasure or gain. Dawn Eden’s book “The Thrill of the Chaste” deals with this pretty effectively. After all, one definition of sin is seeing another person as an object for my gratification or gain, rather than as a person created in God’s image. And sin always leads to heartache that could have been avoided.
This, of course, leaves a pretty big gray area in the middle, and in my opinion, that’s something to be worked out between God and the individual. Part of being a parent is to help the individual hear God on this matter, which will involve setting rules when the child is young (e.g., “No dating until you’re 17”), just as we set rules in any other area of life (e.g., “Pick up your room every night before bed.”) However, these rules become less relevant as the child grows older. If we’ve done our job as parents right, the child will be more likely to listen to God – but it’s still their decision. As David DuPlessis said, “God has no grandchildren.” Their relationship with Him is something we as parents have a big influence on, but in the end, their choices are their own responsibility.
3. Why do most parents take a much more active role as opposed to the way your folks did it, where they let you be adults and decide amongst yourselves? (I do understand the homeschool concept of girls living at home until marriage, but the courtship ritual, I would imagine, would be a perfect chance for the girl to "practice" (for lack of a better word) coming into her own as an adult and future wife in a household.)
Sara’s answer is right on: we have awesome parents. I’ve met and heard of a number of homeschool parents who have serious boundary and control issues. Thankfully, ours aren’t like that.
4. Are there rules (either stated or unstated) about kissing/holding hands before marriage during courtship?
Yes. I’ve heard of parents who set rules as specific as “You may first hold hands when you are engaged. You may kiss once when he proposes. You must not be anywhere alone, just the two of you, until you are engaged. You may not kiss until you are married.” Our parents didn’t set any such rules; they trusted us, because they knew us – and besides, we were older than a lot of courting homeschool couples than I know about. To me, there's a big difference between 18 and 26.
When I was in Bible School, one of the things that was drilled into me was that as men, we were responsible for the physical aspect of romance and courtship. We were responsible to see that we were pure and holy. It was discourteous and indeed sinful for men to push women for too much physical intimacy before marriage.
So, in our courtship, I was usually the one who set rules for myself, and then shared them with Sara so we could discuss and agree on them. I had made a commitment not to kiss until I’d gotten married, and we kept this one. Beyond that, there weren’t a lot of rules. You wouldn’t be interested in them, and even if you are, you’re not getting them :).
5. In very traditional courtship scenarios, how much control do the parents have versus how much their son or daughter has over the various decisions? What I mean is, do the children decide for themselves if they do, indeed, want to court the other? What about marriage? Do the kids once again have the final say as to whether or not they feel that the other will be a suitable spouse?
I’ve heard a number of stories where this was a serious issue. Mostly, the scenario is that kids like each other, ask parents’ permission to court, parents give it, kids fall head over heels in love, and then one set of parents “revokes consent.” In most of the cases I know about, the kids get married anyway. Sometimes the marriage works, sometimes it doesn’t. I have a difficult time exercising Christian charity to parents who would do that to their children.
6. Will the man once again ask the father's permission to marry the daughter as he asked permission to court her?
I’ve heard both. In my case, Miss Mary (Sara’s mom) and I had discussed back at the beginning of our courtship what expectations she had before I could ask Sara to marry me (have a job lined up, pass the Bar exam, and have a place to live). So I went ahead and asked Sara to marry me without asking Miss Mary again.
--DJ
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