Noise Makers

It must be baby season.  It seems like half the people I know are either having a baby or are married to someone having a baby.

This means I've been to my fair share of baby showers recently.  Actually, it feels like more than my fair share.  I like baby showers in small doses.  One or two is fun, three or more provides more cooing and aaawwing and weird games than I can handle.

At a couple of the showers for first-time mothers, they did a "What advice would you give to the future parents?" activity.  My standard answer for these is always the same:  Buy earplugs in bulk and don't take advice from anyone unless they have a medical degree or more than six kids.

My fellow shower-goers sometimes laugh when my answer is read aloud.  I'm not sure why.  I'm quite serious, especially about the earplugs part.  I'm half-joking about whom you should ask for advice; I'll take advice from others, but only after I've inspected their children.

If our UPS man were at any of these showers, he wouldn't laugh.  He would agree with me, and maybe hand out party favors of earplugs in plain brown packages.

Okay, so maybe he wouldn't do the party favor thing, but he would definitely know what I'm talking about with the ear plugs.

I don't know how or why, but he always seems to deliver packages to our house when our children have reached their upper limit in general noise-making and cacophony.  Yesterday was no exception.

The boys and I had gone to pick Adelaide up from the bus stop after school.  She emerged from the bus holding her forearm in the very specific way that screams, "Nursemaid's Elbow!" to me.  She looked like she had been crying.  When she finally reached the wagon, she told me her arm "hurts like it's bleeding all over."  She clumsily climbed into the wagon with Caedmon, and the four of us started for home.

When our house came within view, I told Adelaide I'd fix her arm as soon as we got inside.  This started up a miserable wailing of, "No, Mommy, NO!"  Atticus got distracted by her antics, let his flip flop-shod feet step too close to the wagon, and I ran over his bare toes.  He screamed.  Caedmon decided that if his two siblings were upset, well then, he was, too, and his screeches soon joined the chorus.

We had just reached our front porch steps when I somehow heard the rumble of a truck over the clamor of our three angels.  I turned around, and sure enough, there he was:  The UPS man, coming toward us with a delivery.

He either has a family of his own, is half deaf, or just really likes kids, because I can always read amusement in his face when he finds us like this.

Better than the pity I see in the eyes of the mailman.

Moby Dick

Derek got to go fishing this weekend.

In our house.

Upstairs.

In the bathroom.

In the toilet.  With a plumber's auger.

He caught a few wads of toilet paper and one bar of soap.

We're not sure who stocked this particular body of water.  My money's on Caedmon, but it really could have been either boy.

I've heard from a number of recreational fishermen that fishing is a peaceful, relaxing pastime.  At this point, I'm inclined to disagree with them.

I'm pretty sure Derek is, too.

Books, Glorious Books

At least once a week, Adelaide asks me questions about what our lives were like before she was born.  Most of civilization divides time between "BC" and "AD," but for Adelaide it's "BA"- Before Adelaide, and "AB"- After Birth.

I mean after the birth of Adelaide.  Not actual afterbirth.  Ew.

One of her favorite topics is that of me working.  She seems fascinated by the thought of my having a job and being involved in something that had nothing to do with her.  As a result, I tell her all about what kinds of things I did and what kind of people I came in contact with.

I worked in a bookstore.  I tell her about being surrounded by books every day and working with people who love books.  We both sigh in contentment at the thought.

I tell her that someone once compared the employees of this bookstore to the Island of Misfit Toys.  It was filled with slightly socially awkward people chortling over geek humor and trying not to judge the parents buying "Gossip Girl" books for their young, fragile daughters.

I felt like I fit right in.

I knew I was going to enjoy working with my fellow bibliophiles when loading a bookcase with the then-current best-seller The Da Vinci Code.


I had read the book, and listened in confusion as so many people around me- even those who read a lot of books and have good taste in fiction- lauded the story and gushed about how great it was.

I didn't get it.  Part of the problem is that I prefer character-driven stories.  I don't care how intricately knotted your plot is, if you populate your book with flat, cardboard characters, I'm not going to like it, because I'm not going to care what happens to the people in it.  Hence my distaste for The Da Vinci Code.


I had just finished straightening my display when one of my new co-workers paused as she walked by, tapped the cover of the book, and said, "What a load of crap, huh?"

We got along swimmingly.

I also appreciated the opportunity to work with customers who loved books.  Of course, not everyone who walks into a bookstore loves to read, but even they appreciated help and were considerate.

Except for that one contingent.  Let's call them a subgenre, given our topic.  They were the ones who would respond to your offer of help by immediately declaring, "Oh, I don't read," in a voice dripping with disdain, which would invariably prompt the thought, Right.  Because why would you want to raise what is obviously a hopelessly low IQ?


Now, I realize that not everyone loves books.  That's okay.  Some people prefer television or Twister or pinochle.  But don't come into a bookstore and make it clear that you think of yourself as above me in some phantasmagorical hierarchy you've created, okay?  It's rude.

I try to leave that kind of stuff out when I'm talking to Adelaide.  She doesn't need her mother's baggage along with her own.

Speaking of baggage, have I told you about her newest fear?  It's a little thing called first grade, and she has convinced herself that it's going to be just horrible.  She was fine until she discovered that her Kindergarten teacher will not, in fact, be accompanying her throughout elementary school with the sole purpose of educating Adelaide Crisler.  I tell ya, the nerve of some people...

Random Thoughts

As we knew it would be, it was an extremely busy weekend.  As a result, my mental processes are all discombobulated and my thoughts are scattered.  I feel like if I could just catch hold of one, I'd be able to pin it down and work it into something coherent.

Since that doesn't seem likely, how about a fun list to help me make some sense of what's going on in my head?  And you lucky dogs can come along for the ride.

• We (and by "we," I mean Derek and his dad) ripped the cabinets out of our kitchen.  We discovered a couple layers of awesome wallpaper, awesome linoleum, plaster, scary holes, and wood paneling.  I'd love to see what this kitchen looked like in the 60's; if the wallpaper and flooring are any indication, I'd say pretty darn amazing.  And by amazing I mean incredibly ugly.

• When Derek's parents generously offered to give us the cabinets out of their rental property that had burned down (well, except for the kitchen, of course), I said, "Yes, please!"  Do you know how much kitchen cabinets cost?  Well, neither do I, but I do hear they're really freaking expensive.  

• Although the cabinets made it through the fire, they are coated in a thin layer of soot, which is not so surprisingly difficult to get off.  After watching my old standby of vinegar and water fail miserably, I was contemplating using an actual manufactured cleaner (gasp!), when I decided to try give my magic eraser a try.  Let me tell you what, the person that named that product was no marketing genius; those things seriously have some kind of magical properties- I wouldn't be surprised to find that J.K. Rowling herself had written them into existence.  

• After Derek's parents stayed way later than they intended, re-hooking up our dishwasher, sink, etc, they finally headed back to Kansas.  Ten minutes after they left, Caedmon found a container of screws and created two large piles of them- one on the floor in front of the back door, the other by the front door.  I can't help but feel that this was no accident, and that the poor child may have inherited some of his mother's paranoia.  His sharp screw-booby trap reminded me rather forcefully of my sister's- only hers involved upside-down shoes, sharp high heels pointing upward to ward off any intruders.  While I won't say precisely which parent we inherited this tendency from, I will say it's not my mom that sleeps with a gun under her pillow.

• I was again reminded of just how useless I am when it comes to home improvement.  I'm terrible with power tools and have a tendency to break things.  My major contributions to the weekend involved sweeping the floor every ten minutes in an effort to appear useful and whimpering every time Derek asked me to go down to the basement for something.

• What does the expression, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" mean?  What's a gift horse?  Is it like the Easter bunny, breaking into your house to leave you unhealthy gifts, or more like the tooth fairy, giving you money in exchange for body parts?  Can anyone enlighten me?

• Shortly after midnight last night, Adelaide woke Derek and me up by knocking on our bedroom door, crying softly.  She said her ear hurt and she couldn't sleep due to the pain.  I gave her some Tylenol, water, and sympathy, and tucked her back into bed.  After eventually falling back asleep, I had a nightmare, in which I took Adelaide to the doctor the next morning, and when he inspected her ear, instead of an infection, he found a cancerous tumor.  After a drawn-out illness, Adelaide died.  I woke to a sopping wet pillowcase; I had been crying in my sleep.  When we actually went to the doc this morning, there was no tumor in her ear.  Nor was there any infection.

• Derek's folks also took our children home after the first church service Sunday morning, which allowed me to sit with Derek in the video room during second service while he directed the video broadcast of our church's Easter service.  It was the closest thing we've had to a date since last November.  

• Garage sale season has once again begun.  I've already found some really cool- and really cheap, which only adds to its cool factor- stuff.  I won't bore you with the details.  Not today, anyway.  I'll save that for another post that you can already plan on skipping now.

My Most Brilliant Parenting Move Yet

Because we have an exceedingly busy weekend ahead of us, I spent a portion of last night stuffing our children's Easter baskets.

Aside from the semi-healthy treats like fruit strips and those vacuum-packed foils of pureed fruit that Caedmon can suck dry in thirty seconds flat, their totes are mostly filled with the requisite hollow plastic eggs.  Each child received a couple balloons, a bouncy ball, and some yogurt-covered raisins in a few of those.

The rest of the eggs are filled with prunes.

Now, before you start shaking your head and feeling sorry for our kids, hear me out.  Prunes have a lot going for them.  They're all kinds of healthy, reasonably sweet, and come in these handy individually-wrapped packages, so that the inside of the eggs don't get all sticky.  Plus you know those kids are going to need something to keep them regular after all that junk they'll get everywhere else.

Convinced yet?  Then let me share the rest of my reasoning behind the prune-stuffed Easter eggs.

It all boils down to the fact that I'm kind of regretting introducing our kiddos to the concept of the Easter bunny.  And no, it's not because I hate rabbits (well, not just because of that).  It's because when you're trying to keep your kids' minds on the real reason for Easter- Jesus- it's really hard to compete with candy and a giant rabbit just scary enough to make him exciting.

Obviously, I should have thought all this through when Adelaide was still very young.  But when you have your first kid, you're not thinking straight.  Holidays get an extra dose of excitement because you can't wait to introduce your brand new kid to all those fun traditions you remember enjoying as a child.

I remember Adelaide's first Easter; my head was full of my favorite Easter dresses and Easter goodies, particularly the basket that contained an actual Barbie doll that I received the Easter we were at Grandma's house.  Why is it the Easter bunny is always so much more generous when you're at Grandma's house?  It's a mystery.

Suddenly, it's five years later, you have not one, but three Easter baskets to fill, and you just can't bring yourself to fill it with things that will make your offspring love a huge garden pest.  So you fill it with prunes.

And if your kid looks at their friends' baskets and starts asking, "Why didn't the Easter bunny bring me all that stuff?  Why doesn't the Easter bunny like me?" your ready-made answer can be something along the lines of, "That Easter bunny is a fickle fellow.  And honey, while the Easter bunny may not like you, Jesus always loves you."

Sounds like a plan guaranteed not to blow up in my face.

Even I, however, felt a modicum of guilt over stuffing my little darlings' buckets with dried plums, so I also stuck a big specially-shaped slab of chocolate in the older two's baskets.  Not in the shape of bunnies, though, oh, no.  Our kids' chocolate is in the shape of an ichthys and reads, "Jesus."

Because what says, "Happy Easter!" better than Jesus chocolate?

Full of Hot Air

We first moved to our little town in central Iowa the first of June, almost three years ago.  It wasn't a particularly tumultuous summer, weather-wise, but for some reason, the tornado sirens were going off at least once a week- and I'm talking about outside of the weekly drills, before any smart alecks pounce on that.

It usually occurred during a storm, prompting us to check the radar for twisters, and once even scooping our two sleeping children out of their beds to carry them down to the glorified root cellar we refer to as our basement.

It wasn't always stormy when we heard the familiar wail of the sirens, however, and we were befuddled.  It got to the point where we started ignoring the sirens, a dangerous practice.

One day that summer the kids and I were playing in the front yard when our neighbor drove by.  She slowed and rolled her window down, yelling, "Hey guys!" over the sirens that were once again blaring.

I yelled back, "Is there a tornado headed our way?  I wasn't aware we were in for any severe weather today."

Right about then the sirens wound down, and our kind neighbor was able to explain that those aren't tornado sirens; they're high-wind sirens.  They go off any time we have high winds in our area.

Then she asked, "Do you get a lot of wind down in Kansas?"

To my credit, I checked the belly laughs about to come rumbling up out of my mouth, and merely smiled and said, "Yes.  Yes, we do."  In her defense, I'm pretty positive she's never been to my home state.  This may come as a shock to you, but Kansas is long on wheat and cows but short on tourism.

Here's the thing:  Kansas is indeed windy.

I remember watching two-year-old Adelaide try to stand up in the driveway at Derek's parents' house, who live out in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas.  She kept getting knocked down by the wind, over and over again, before finally giving up and just crawling over to me.

It's the kind of place that sells little wooden dolls with wild, knotted hair and kitschy sayings on their bellies like, "Just Another Windy Day in Kansas."

It's the third-windiest state in the union, behind North Dakota and Texas.  The windiest city in the nation is not Chicago, but Dodge City, Kansas.


I can't imagine having a high-wind siren in my hometown; I doubt a day would go by that it wasn't blaring.

Now, to be fair, Iowa also gets its share of wind; it rounds out the top ten windiest states in America, a list comprised exclusively of states that make up a strip down the middle of the continental U.S.


Having grown up in a place where you get blown around a lot, I enjoy a good windy day.  I also enjoy wind maps, and I recently stumbled upon a really cool one that shows real-time wind patterns across our country.  You'll notice that Kansas is right in the morass of white lines that make up tornado alley.  This map also allows you to zoom in and see wind speeds in different areas. Click here to check it out.

A quick disclaimer with that map:  I don't know how accurate it is, but it does have a link on there that will take you to a more traditional wind map, which is also pretty neat to check out.  Also, it works best if you view it when using Google Chrome as your browser.  FYI.

Looking at this map also drives home the reasoning for Derek's preference for golfing anywhere other than Kansas; apparently it becomes to difficult to direct a small ball towards a hole when the wind keeps blowing it off course.


Note:  I wrote this post yesterday, before a bunch of tornadoes- some reports state as many as 13-  ripped their way through Texas.  Our prayers are with everyone effected by this newest rash of twisters.

Updated Miscellany/ A Miscellaneous Update

Any number of times over the past few weeks, I have been asked about the status of a few specific topics we've discussed on this blog.

So, as per your request, here is an update on Atticus's nighttime crying, my youngest sister and her husband (you know, the ones who went through that tornado), and, most importantly, my tulips.



Why don't we go ahead and talk about the tulips- that way you're not distracted while reading the rest of this post.

Ta-daaaaa!

They made it!  Even though those rabbits ate them right down to the ground, they persevered and grew tall enough to bloom.  This right here is proof that good can triumph over evil.

Well, that and Jesus triumphing over the Devil.  But I think my tulips vs rabbits is a pretty apt illustration, too.



Moving on to Atticus.  He's still not sleeping through the night.  He went three nights in a row sleeping all night long last week, which would have lulled me into complacency were I not the type of person that keeps their expectations nice and low.  I find that life has fewer nasty surprises that way.

Rest assured (pun intended), he's now waking up at least once a night, leaving me in a fog of fatigue during the day.  I'm going to go ahead and use that as an excuse for any unusual behavior you've ever noticed in me.  I'm sure that's what it is.



As for Steph and Clinton, it's official (at least according to the folks at the insurance company):  It was a tornado that peeled the roof off their house, picked it up and shifted it on its foundation, sucked out a part of a barn, and twisted the tree trunks in their yard.

I went with Steph to look at the house during our trip south a few weeks ago.  It was pretty freaky.  I meant to take pictures, but forgot my camera.  At least I got photos of my flowers, right?  I obviously have my priorities straight. 


Steph is now six weeks from her due date.  Steph and Clinton are staying with members of his generous family- and by generous I mean a willingness to give to others without expecting reciprocation, not generous as in big in numbers- although that's true, too.  Glad we cleared that up.

They're still trying to figure out exactly where to go and, you know, live.  Tornadoes are really good at messing things up, aren't they?

Yet another reason you read this blog:  Painful statements of the obvious.



So, there you go:  Atticus is still crying and depriving his parents of sleep, my sister and her husband are homeless, but my tulips conquered their foe Rabbit and kept me from resorting to tactics that would scare the neighbors.