bekahcubed

Categories Book Notes

Dreaming of Springtime

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I’ve always considered February one of my least favorite months. The days are still short, the winter has dragged on long, and generally February’s a pretty dingy month – if there’s snow on the ground (in Lincoln or in Wichita), it’s covered with a layer of grimy salt and road waste.

So as I’ve been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy, I’ve been reveling in Wilder’s description of springtime from chapter 11.

“Bess and Beauty stepped out willingly, not too fast, yet fast enough to harrow well. They liked to work in the springtime, after the long winter of standing in their stalls.”

That’s EXACTLY how I feel when springtime rolls around and I can get out into my garden. I have a hard time remembering to care for my garden regularly in the summer, and hate to tear it all up in the fall – but after a winter of indoor work, I’m more than ready to get out and plant.

“There was no time to lose, no time to waste in rest or play. The life of the earth comes up with a rush in the springtime. All the wild seeds of weed and thistle, the sprouts of vine and bush and tree are trying to take the fields. Farmers must fight them with harrow and plow and hoe; they must plant the good seeds quickly.

Almanzo was a little soldier in this great battle.”

I love the metaphor here, love how true these paragraphs are, love how they remind me of the parable of the sower sowing good seed.

This year, though, this passage reminds me of springtime of our lives and the great trust that parents are given of sowing seed and cultivating little hearts. It’s easy to be complacent, to assume that children will learn what we want them to learn, that they’ll establish good habits, that there’ll be plenty of time to teach them tomorrow. But the best time to plant a seed and kill a weed is springtime. And the best time to communicate the gospel and establish good habits is early in life.

Which is why I am resolving to be a little soldier in this great battle – and to establish my own habits now, while Tirzah Mae is tiny. Now is the perfect time to get into the habit of speaking the gospel to my daughter, the perfect time to steep us both in Scripture songs, the perfect time to live a visibly Christian life around my home.

Because the life of the earth comes up with a rush in the springtime. And I want the life that grows in my daughter to be a good planting.

“Almanzo asked [Alice] if she didn’t want to be a boy. She said yes, she did. Then she said no, she didn’t.

‘Boys aren’t pretty like girls, and they can’t wear ribbons.’

‘I don’t care how pretty I be,’ Almanzo said. ‘And I wouldn’t wear ribbons anyhow.’

‘Well, I like to make butter and I like to patch quilts. And cook, and sew, and spin. Boys can’t do that. But even if I be a girl, I can drop potatoes and sow carrots and drive horses as well as you can.'”

Okay, this one isn’t exactly about springtime – but it’s in the chapter about springtime. I agree with Alice – I’m awfully glad to be a girl!

I’m reading Farmer Boy as part of Barbara’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Post-Pregnancy Handbook by Sylvia Brown and Mary Dowd Struck

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Theoretically, having a book about the after-effects of pregnancy on a woman’s body, mind, emotions, and relationships is a great idea. The authors are right that pregnancy books and childbirth courses spend little time on the topic, and that women might be likely to feel that as soon as they deliver focus shifts to the baby and they get “left behind” to pick up the pieces of themselves without support.

So the idea behind The Post-Pregnancy Handbook is a great one. Unfortunately, the execution was only ho-hum.

When I started reading, I was shocked by the abrupt nature of the first chapter, detailing a variety of complementary and alternative medical approaches without so much as a paragraph of introduction. It was only after I’d started in what looked to be the second chapter that I realized that first section was meant to be a foreword of sorts.

The first non-chapter was a harbinger of what was to come. While there was a fair bit of science in the explanations of what happens to a woman’s body after birth, the proposed solution was often a method with only the most tenuous scientific grounds. When the book addressed emotional or relational topics, it generally couched them in Freudian terms that this reader, at least, found off-putting.

Additionally, with over 300 pages, this book just never ended. And recognize – this is coming from a woman who loves to read and loves to learn about the minute details of the human body. I took human anatomy in college for fun. So my guess is that the average reader would find this book overwhelmingly onerous.

And…to pile on complaints: the authors assume the mother who delivered vaginally will have a episiotomy. They are eternally ambiguous about the appropriate length of breastfeeding, sometimes seeming to encourage a year, other times three months. Their breastfeeding advice was only halfway correct and some of it rather inclined to sabotage successful breastfeeding. They encourage women to wait way too long to begin an exercise program following delivery. And, there is no concluding chapter (I rather like books to have a beginning, a middle, and an end – this had only middle.)

So, this book was a good idea poorly executed. I don’t recommend it.

Rating: 1 star
Category: Health
Synopsis: The authors explain what happens to a woman after pregnancy and how to manage common physical, mental, emotional, and relational difficulties.
Recommendation: A good idea poorly executed

Categories Faith

On His Own Terms

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The mountain trembled, the earth shook. Great cracks of thunder rumbled and lightning pierced the fog. Acrid smoke burned in their nostrils as the ever-louder trumpet blast rang within their ears.

They’d been prepared for this – washing their garments, abstaining from marital relations.

They huddled at the foot of the mountain, terrified. The mountain itself was fenced off and they’d been solemnly warned not to approach.

Moses went up and came back down. He took the priests back up and they ate and drank. They came back down and God spoke from the trembling mountain such that all the people trembled too.

It’s easy, when thinking of the main events of Exodus, to think only of the plagues and of the Exodus out of Egypt. We think of God revealed as the deliverer, redeemer, maybe as hardener of Pharaoh’s heart. And then we move on to Numbers in our minds.

That’s why I’m so glad our ladies’ Bible study is studying Exodus – and that I joined mid-year, just as we were reading through the second half of the book, from Exodus 19 onward.

Here we see God as terrible, inspiring fear and awe in His people in scenes like the one described. Lest the Israelites become cavalier, assuming that the God who rescued them and terrified the Egyptians was no one to be feared, God showed His great power to them not in conquering their enemies but in making a mountain quake and thundering down His stipulations for His people’s behavior.

What strikes me, though, about the laws given in Exodus, is that, while some are civil rules about how to live together, the bulk are something else entirely.

First, God tells Moses what to tell the people about approaching the mountain where God was. Then God gives some general rules. Then He describes in minute detail how the tabernacle was to be constructed, emphasizing again and again that it must be “according to the pattern given to Moses on the mountain.”

Moses comes down from the mountain to find the people worshiping in a way not prescribed by God. Moses’ wrath breaks out against the people – but it is nothing compared to God’s wrath. Moses returns to the mountain to intercede and to receive a new set of the law, and then he returns to the camp, where the people build the tabernacle according to the pattern given to Moses on the mountain.

In the second half of Exodus, we see a God who must be approached on His own terms.

His terms are minute and absolute – nothing short of perfection is acceptable.

Yet Moses and Joshua ascend the mountain and return unscathed. Had they met God’s impossibly high standards for how He must be approached?

No.

The second half of Exodus reveals an unapproachable God approached. It looks forward to the One who would perfectly approach the Living God on His own terms, who would pave the way for sinful humans to approach God and live.

We must approach God on His own terms, Exodus tells us.

The rest of Scripture agrees.

And His terms are Christ.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Urban Farming an “At*Issue” book

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The back cover proclaims:

“Greenhaven Press’s At Issue series provides a wide range of opinions on individual social issues. Each volume focuses on a specific issue and offers a variety of perspectives…to illuminate the issue.”

My library in Lincoln had a large selection of “Opposing Viewpoints” books (also by Greenhaven Press), and I loved seeing different perspectives on a variety of social issues. Reading the different essays and excerpts in those books stretched my mind and exposed me to a variety of opinions on any given issue. They forced me to look at things from different perspectives. I loved them.

So I was excited to see what appeared to be a book with a similar bent about Urban Farming. I’ve read a few articles about urban farming – and I’ve spent a fair amount of time reading Wichita and Sedgwick County’s municipal codes related to animal husbandry within our (mostly urban) county and city. In general, I’m a fan of gardening and of raising animals to eat. My grandparents were rural farmers and my mother a prodigious in-town gardener. I know of research that suggests that children who help raise vegetables eat more vegetables, so I encourage mothers to try a little gardening with their youngsters (even if it’s just growing herbs on a window sill). So I figured it would be interesting to read more about the pros and cons of Urban Farming.

Unfortunately, Urban Farming did not provide pros and cons. With the exception of one article, all of the articles were unequivocally in support of urban farming, giving a variety of potential benefits (while not giving a whole lot of research on whether those benefits are more than just potential.) Most of the articles were case studies that were fascinating but that fail to provide any substantitive information as to whether urban agriculture should or should not be permitted and/or supported by regulation.

So, if you want to know what supporters of urban farming think, go ahead and read this book. If you want to be challenged to think critically about the issue of urban farming, this is going to be unhelpful. Bummer.

Rating: 2 stars
Category: Contemporary Issues
Synopsis: Urban Farming proponents detail the benefits of urban farming.
Recommendation: The articles inside aren’t bad, but they fail at their stated purpose of “[providing] a wide range of opinions”.

Categories Homemaking

Thanks a lot, Red Cross

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The American Red Cross is a wonderful, helpful organization.

And it drives me nuts.

I donated blood with them once in college – and they’ve been calling my cell phone ever since, asking for more donations.

I’ve told them a couple times that, not long after my last donation, I was told by a doctor that I had hypovolemia (low blood volume) and that this makes blood donation unwise. Would they please note this on my file and stop calling? The assure me that they will – and call again next month. Anymore, I just ignore the calls when I see their number on my phone.

But recently they did one more thing to raise my ire.

They gave my husband a gift.

Daniel donates blood regularly through the Red Cross donation center at his workplace, and when he got to a certain number of units, they thanked him with a gift of a red potholder and oven mitt.

So, a couple days ago, I’d just finished reseasoning my cast iron skillet on the stove and I set it on top of a small stack of potholders on the counter.

I peeled the parsnips and cut up the squash and ham for a Farmer Boy-inspired meal, and I set the skillet back on the burner to fry the ham.

A couple minutes later, I turned aside from the sink to see red smoke puffing out around the bottom of my cast-iron skillet.

You see, unbeknownst to me, the synthetic fabric of the Red Cross potholder on the top of the stack had melted to the bottom of my skillet – and when I’d placed the skillet on top of the burner I’d placed the potholder there too.

Thankfully, the batting was flame resistant and I didn’t have a fire on my hands, just a mess of melted plastic and an acrid smoke filling my kitchen.

Thanks a lot Red Cross :-)

Categories Parenting

Learning to sit still

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To look at my blog, you’d think I go from bedrest to vacations and back…

…but I know you understand how life with a newborn can be, even if I don’t blog the nasty little details (We cloth diaper. ‘Nuff said.)

To tell the truth, I didn’t realize having a newborn would be this difficult.

I knew there wouldn’t be much sleep, that the baby would cry, that there’d be nasty messes to clean up. That part I expected – and I think I’ve coped with it relatively well.

The part I didn’t plan on was how hard it’d be to get anything done.

I expected to be able to at least keep up with the house, maybe start blogging regularly again, do a few craft projects here and there. But my time is fractured, breastfeeding takes more time than I anticipated and there are times Tirzah Mae will not be content anywhere except on me (and not in a sling, either.)

There was a week (okay, maybe a month) there where I cried every evening around 6, frustrated at how little I’d gotten done. Then I started keeping a list. Every day I keep a running tally of what I’ve done – diapers changed, breastfeeding sessions completed, laundry washed and put away, meals made, chapters read. It and my husband’s encouragement (I think he thinks I get even more done than I actually do, but don’t tell him – it’s kinda nice that he thinks I’m superwoman) has mostly alleviated the six pm crying jag.

But now there’s the one o’clock blues.

I’ve learned to not be on too strict a schedule in the mornings, to let it be okay if I’m just emerging from my bath around eleven. I’ve mostly come to a peace about that – sneaking in productivity here and there. But, inevitably, I will sit down with lunch and start thinking through what I’ve still got to accomplish with the day (most notably, dinner) – and then the one o’clock blues will hit.

Tirzah Mae is absolutely unpredictable in most respects – she has no predictable sleep or wake cycles, feeding schedule, or even preferred activities. One moment she’ll love a certain activity and calm down right away, another day she’ll act like it’s torture. We’ll think we’ve figured something out because she slept for three hours in her own bassinet – but the next day we’ll be unable to replicate it. The only consistent pattern I’ve figured out so far is that Tirzah Mae WILL get fussy at one pm.

And NOTHING will satisfy her unless she is laying across my chest with me being absolutely still.

Can mama read a book? Maybe. Once Tirzah Mae is asleep, as long as mom doesn’t move.

Can mama write a blog post? Probably not. That generally implies that mama is sitting up, usually a no-no for Tirzah Mae at one o’clock.

Can mama plan a menu, make a grocery list, fold laundry, or do Bible study?

Take a wild guess.

But here I do her an injustice. I usually can do something – it’s just that I have no idea what it’ll be until I’ve tried and failed at several. Which means that I can’t plan ahead that at one I’ll do [blank].

I can’t plan ahead to be productive during that time. I just have to acknowledge that it’s no-man’s time. I have to set it apart as rest time. And if I get something done? That’s a special unexpected bonus.

I haven’t learned it yet – how to be okay with just sitting still. But I’ve acknowledged that I need to learn it – that’s a step in the right direction, right?

Categories Parenting, Tirzah Mae

Sanity Saving Stuff: Preemie and Newborn

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Don’t you just love those lists of baby “must haves”? My favorite of all is Pop Sugar’s list of 100 (yes, you heard me right, 100) Must Have Baby Products. It was like the car crash you can’t help but watch. Tirzah Mae probably doesn’t have 100 items total, much less 100 separate items.

That said, I have found a few products that have absolutely saved my sanity during these preemie and newborn months (months we’re now leaving behind!)

Hospital Grade Electric Breastpump

Tirzah Mae received expressed breastmilk almost exclusively in the hospital and during the first month at home (we breastfed one to two times a day “straight from the tap.”) This meant that I was pumping a minimum of eight times a day. The Medela symphony the hospital loaned me during Tirzah Mae’s NICU stay saved me. It was fast, quiet, and comfortable.

Once Tirzah Mae was home, I used the Medela Pump-in-Style my insurance provided – and let me tell you, it’s a world of difference. I did everything I could to avoid pumping. I’d pump a couple times a day, hand express a couple more, and empty myself as best I could in the shower. Thankfully, I had plenty of breastmilk in the freezer, so the fact that I let my supply dwindle didn’t hurt Tirzah Mae (I worked intensively over a week to get it back up after I realized what I was doing). But if I’d have had less of a supply initially and was trying to exclusively pump after I returned, I’d have ended up quitting. The Pump-in-Style took longer, was noisy, and gave me blood blisters on my breasts (probably because I was increasing the pressure too much in an attempt to make it as efficient as the Symphony.)

By the grace of God, we were able to switch to exclusively breastfeeding (at the breast) around Christmas-time, meaning an end to my pumping days. I know many mothers of preemies are not so fortunate. I’ve got one word of advice for those mothers – RENT A HOSPITAL GRADE PUMP. It’s totally worth it.

Hands Free Pumping Bra

Despite Tirzah Mae being born early, I had an abundant milk supply – which meant that I only pumped 15 minutes at a time (with the hospital grade pump). But even pumping for a shorter time than many women, I still spent at least 2-3 hours a day pumping (and much more than that cleaning parts and labeling and storing the breastmilk). That’s a fair bit of time to spend doing nothing with your hands. Being able to pump hands-free meant a lot to me. (Initially, it allowed me to massage my breasts while pumping – relieving the clogged ducts I had from the beginning and helping to increase my supply to prodigous amounts. After my supply was established and clogged ducts were less of an issue, it let me email my family updates on Tirzah Mae, read a book, or browse blogs.)

Now some of you may wonder about the best hands-free pumping bras. I can’t help you with that one. I just had my husband buy cheapo sports bras, which I cut slits into to allow the flanges through. I wore them alone at night and over my nursing bra during the day. It worked great for me (although if I were to have needed to continue pumping exclusively, I would have done a buttonhole stitch around the slits and possibly used a tube top for the same purpose during the day for increased wardrobe flexibility.

Supportive Nursing Bra

At first, I thought maybe the backache I had almost immediately after delivery was from the c-section weakening my abdominals. And undoubtedly that contributed. But the biggest contributor was swollen milk breasts and insufficient support. Having delivered two months before expected, I didn’t have any nursing bras already ready – and there was no way my mom-breasts would fit into my second trimester bra (I hadn’t yet gone shopping for a third trimester one despite the fact that it was becoming clearly necessary.)

Since no one carries nursing bras my size (actually, very few stores carry bras, period, my size), I had to create my own nursing bras. I went to my local Dillards to get fitted and was delighted when the salesclerk announced that they’d just increased the size range of my favorite bra up to the size I was currently at. I took them home and used this tutorial to make myself some well-fitting nursing bras (I used the hooks and eyes off of several old bras, how’s that for being a frugal genius – or a packrat who can now justify herself?)

My back felt better almost immediately.

Get a good bra. Your back will thank you.

MOBY wrap

I’ve known for years that I wanted to be a baby-wearer. But I was plenty willing to admit that babywearing is just one of many legitimate ways to carry and care for a baby. Now I’m convinced that the MOBY has absolutely saved my sanity.

Tirzah Mae in the MOBY

You see, when we were in the hospital and when I was reading books about preemies, I kept hearing one thing: preemies must NOT be exposed to crowds. No shopping malls. No movies. No church. For a year.

Now I don’t have any problem with leaving movies and shopping malls behind. But church? I can’t just not go to church for a year.

I talked with Tirzah Mae’s neonatal nurse practitioner about it and she agreed with my proposed solution. Tirzah Mae would go to church with us in the MOBY. The MOBY holds her close, covers her up and sticks her face in my chest – meaning that no one else can get very close to touch her or cough on her (they’d have to get pretty close to my chest even to just breathe on her.)

We took her to church the Sunday after she came home and she’s been to church with us every week since then (except the week where none of us attended because I had mastitis).

Yes, the MOBY saved my sanity by letting me worship with the body weekly.

One-piece sleepers

When it comes to clothing, babies aren’t picky – which is a very nice thing. They don’t care how stylish clothing is or whether it’s matched or anything like that. What they do care about is getting in and out quickly without too much pulling and tugging. Moms care a little more about matching and cuteness and all that.

I love these one piece sleepers
One-piece sleepers answer both. Mom doesn’t have to worry about matching clothes bleary-eyed after baby has a blow-out at 1 am (after mom has gotten exactly 7 minutes of sleep, none of them consecutive, in the past 24 hours.) Baby doesn’t have to worry about something going over her head. And, if you choose the sleepers that snap all the way up the legs, you can avoid uncovering that little chest during non-blow-out diaper changes (which is a nice plus.)

I put Tirzah Mae in the adorable little onesie, pant, and sock combos often enough – but when things got crazy and I was at the end of my rope, the one-piece sleepers were sanity savers.

Looking back on your kids’ infancies, what baby products did you find absolutely essential? What were your sanity-savers? Pray tell.

Categories Parenting

The Soundtrack of our Childhood

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I’m not a music person like some people are music people.

I’m not musically skilled – I don’t play an instrument or read music. I can’t harmonize unless I’m trying to sing melody while my sisters are singing harmony beside me (in which case I start singing their harmonies – completely ruining the intended effect.)

I’m not a music connoisseur – I never really spent time just listening to music. While my older sister and just-younger-brother would sit on the living room floor under the stereo system reading through the CD inserts or record covers as they listened, I preferred to be dancing around or reading a book or otherwise doing something while music was playing.

Not that I needed (or currently need) music playing. Unlike some, I don’t need music on while I’m studying to help me concentrate. I don’t need music on while I’m working out (oh – that might be because I don’t work out :-P). I don’t need music while I’m driving or doing mundane tasks. I’m content to just be in my own mind (or to be making my own noise.)

Nevertheless, I love music.

I am not musically skilled, but all my siblings play the piano and both my sisters have worked to train their voices. While my mom didn’t play apart from picking out melody lines, she reads music and attempted to teach us some of the rudiments of music theory.

I am not a music connoisseur – but, as I mentioned, some of my siblings are.

I don’t need to have music playing to conduct my daily life – but I spent my growing up years surrounded by music. And I’m so grateful I did.

My parents got a CD player when they were still new and we had a complete collection of the Hosanna worship albums and a large collection of classical music. Music was always playing in our house. We sang and danced and washed dishes and did our schoolwork immersed in music.

And I’m so glad we did.

Today, I have a song for every situation. Singing truth to myself (or hearing truth sung in my head) is oodles more effective as a “relaxer” than any of the fancy relaxation exercises we practiced in our Bradley class. I don’t need to have music playing while I walk because I’ve got a soundtrack playing in my head, spurring me to worship and to pray as I walk. And when I do turn on the music? I am suddenly amongst my faith community – my family worshipping together as we stemmed beans, the church I grew up in singing “Ah Lord God”, the church we went to after that, my church in Columbus.

Music is important – and I’m so glad it was a part of my family’s life while I was growing up.

I’ve long known that I wanted music to be a part of my children’s life. But as an adult, I’ve often been content to let the music in my head be my only soundtrack.

When we were expecting Tirzah Mae, I knew it was time to make a change in my habits. I got a Spotify account, made some playlists of those Hosanna albums and of other songs I love, and started playing them while I went about my daily tasks.

I realized though, that something was missing. One of the most wonderful aspects of music, for me, is the connection it gives me with other worshippers – and I want my children to be connected to the church through music as well. I added another playlist to Spotify, one that I add to weekly. Every week, our church bulletin publishes the titles of the songs we’ll be singing as a congregation. And every week, I save my bulletin until I have a chance to search for each song on Spotify and add it to the “First Free” playlist.

Because music is important.

I have the honor of designing the soundtrack of my children’s childhood – and I want that soundtrack to be for them what mine was to me. I want their soundtrack to inspire them to worship the One True God. I want it to encourage them to plant truth within their hearts. I want it to draw them into fellowship with the body of Christ.

Is music important to you? How have you incorporated music into your life?

Categories Family & Friends

Meeting the Greats

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This last weekend, Daniel and I and Tirzah Mae took a trip into Missouri to see Daniel’s grandparents – Tirzah Mae’s great-grandparents.

We had a sweet time visiting with Daniel’s grandparents, who were enchanted by our little Tirzah Mae.

While we were there, I took the opportunity to take some photos (of course!)

Tirzah Mae and her great-grandpa Garcia

Jack was delighted to hold his littlest great-granddaughter.

A closer look

Grandpa’s live-in caregiver and Daniel’s cousin really wanted him to shave his beard. Daniel and I thought it was fun (and I think Jack’s inclined to agree with us!).

Tirzah Mae and Great-Grandma Garcia

Tirzah Mae sits with her great-grandma Garcia – who told me again and again how glad she was that I was “nursing.” “They really discouraged it in my day, dear – It just wasn’t done.”

Daniel fruitlessly tries to get Tirzah Mae to look at the camera

Another three generation shot – Irene and Daniel are looking at the camera, but none of us could convince Tirzah Mae to follow suit.

Family is clamoring for more photos, so I’ve jumped out of order (skipping November and December photos) to give them a more recent photo album. If you already have a password, follow the link to the January album and enter the password to see the album. If you don’t already have a password, e-mail me at b3master@.menterz.com to get it.