This is how my mind works.

I've been trying to read Don Quixote since before we even moved into this house when Parker was only nine months old. Now that Isaac is almost two months, I'm nearly finished with it.

Yesterday I decided to take another shot at the introductory essay Harold Bloom wrote for the Edith Grossman translation that came out only a few years ago. I really didn't understand or appreciate a word he had to say about it. I don't mean that I disagreed with any of it; I didn't understand enough to even disagree. However, in his essay Harold Bloom quotes Mark van Doren, and based on that quotation I got the sudden desire to watch the movie Quiz Show, in which a Mark van Doren character appears.

I have a hard time talking about movies on this blog because I never know how much it is safe to say. No one has ever given me the principles of movie reviewing, if there are any. What details "spoil" a movie, and which ones don't. Well this isn't exactly a suspense film, and I don't know whether any of you are ever likely to see it, but Quiz Show makes my list of favorite films. The movie is about television and the Quiz Show scandals of the 50's, starring Ralf Fiennes and John Torturro among others. I realize I may not be spelling their names correctly.

Parker needs my attention now, so I'll have to write more about the movie later.

Defects of Memory

I'm gonna do this. Most of you--make that all of you (I know I have at least four readers still)--know that blogging isn't high on the priority list at the moment. It falls way down the list, actually, after all of those obvious things like breakfast, cleaning the kitchen, Kakuro. Of course I don't mean to imply that any of those things are even near the top of the list. When I complain that I haven't gotten anything done during the day Michael reminds me that keeping Parker and Isaac alive are enough of an accomplishment.

This time around I'm really trying to keep up with the house. We've said many times recently that just keeping a household running at a minimal level takes a huge amount of work, and my minimal level requires that things be put away and the dishes washed. Laundry--laundry is really important too. I'm doing much better with these things following Isaac's birth than I did following Parker's, but it's a higher priority now because I need it to stay positive. Yesterday was an off day. I had to let it go for 24 hours, and that makes for a less energetic day.

I'm packing for Isaac's first overnight trip. My mom suggested that I get started early since this will be my first time providing the necessities for two children. This was very good advice I think. I always hate to delay leaving. It makes me nervous to set a time to leave home, and then overshoot that by an hour because nothing has been packed. The first thing I asked my mom was how many outfits I should pack for Isaac considering all the opportunities there are for infant clothing to become soiled. Yesterday I did no packing. Instead I made a list of everything I thought Parker and Isaac might need.

So today the first logical step seemed to be laundry. Actually the first logical step was making the bed so I would have a place to first fold, then lay out everything I planned to take.

I wanted to do laundry first because I hoped to leave all of my packing options open. Parker needs two pairs of pants. Which pants should I pack? My choices are severely limited if both of his pairs of jeans are dirty. Whenever I do laundry I wander around the house trying to corral any stray items, because if I'm going to do laundry, I want to do ALL of the laundry.

Michael typically gets Parker ready for bed in the evening. He does this on the same diaper changing table we've used Parker's entire life, only now, one shelf with one set of baskets contains Isaac's clothes, while the other shelf with it's own set of baskets holds Parker's. Michael has gotten into the habit of removing Parker's clothes, and whether they are dirty or not, shoving them into Parker's pajama basket, on the bottom shelf, where I never really see it. This morning AFTER the regular washing cycle had concluded I found the pair of jeans I had hoped to pack for Parker stuffed in the basket on the bottom shelf of the changing table.

Why can't Michael remember not to put them there when I've mentioned it to him several times already? Well, the real question is, why can't I remember to look there when I know that is what he always does? It's tempting just to blame Parker's dirty jeans on his bad memory, when in reality we both are at fault. It's hardly fair for me to be frustrated with him when my own habit and memory are just as much a problem when it comes to washing Parker's clothes.

Sorry about that, baby.

One of my favorite movies--it's an odd choice

My brother, Daniel, is always giving me interesting movie recommendations. One of the things he likes is older, obscure, low budget films. The last one of his recommendations I saw was *Westworld* by Michael Chrichton, sort of a predecessor to *Jurassic Park* in that it involved an amusement park where engineered beings get out of control. I really enjoyed it.

So I don't know why I've never told him about this movie *Millennium*, starring Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd, which I really love. The thing is, I don't know why I love it. It really isn't very good at all.

The last time I posed the question, "Why do I like this movie?," Michael jokingly answered, "It's got to be the clothes and hair." Most of the costuming and hair is truly awful, and I'm not even talking about the sequences set in 1989, although those are pretty bad. Yes, this is a sci-fi film set in an appocolyptic future.

There are a few things I like that I can identify.

1) I like Kris Kristofferson. He isn't even a good actor, but I like him. Maybe it's his beard. Maybe it's the way he talks, or the expression on his face when his dinner date tosses her cigarette out into the restaurant air, the way he sort of rolls his eyes in amazement. Probably the only other movies I have ever seen him in are *Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,* which I probably didn't get and didn't care for, and *Blade,* which I probably only liked because it was a vampire movie, but for some unidentifiable reason I like him in this movie.

2) I like Cheryl Ladd in the movie too. Her character has to make rapid adjustments in a world she doesn't really understand, and the way she does this is endearing to me.

3) It's sort of unexpectedly funny. There are some cheesey jokes in the film that always make me laugh.

4) I like it because it is a slightly bizarre type of sci-fi.

5) I think my favorite thing about the movie is how they show the same sequence of events from to very different perpectives, allowing the view to read those events first one way and then another. I think they do this very, very well.

When I say I love this move, I really mean it. I have an affection for it; for some reason I became attached. It's a movie that I am just about always ready and willing to watch. I wonder whether Daniel will like it?

Isaac is certainly growing.

He had a decided growth spurt this past weekend. On Thursday the tabs on his newborn diapers could be made to meet in the middle. On Sunday morning the could be stretched to no less than a half to 3/4 of an inch apart. Sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning I looked down at him and noticed that his head seemed to have gotten much bigger, and he was heavier in my arms. So we took him to the pediatrician's office yesterday to have him weighed. He weighed in at 9 lbs. 11 oz.

Parker seemed to have grown a lot just while I was in the hospital with Isaac. He seems to be much heavier than he was when I was still pregnant. It was suggested that perhaps I had not been lifting him as much near the end of my pregnancy, but I know that's not true. How else could I get him into his car seat, or change his diaper, or make him come inside when he was resisting? We'll have to give him a weigh next time we visit my parent's house.

Yesterday morning Isaac fell asleep in his little portable swing. An hour or so later he started making noses as he started to wake up. Parker ran into the dining room, where the swing was situated at the time, and I heard him say, "Just a minute Isaac; I'll pick you up." I told Parker that it was nice, his wanting to take care of Isaac, but that he shouldn't ever try to pick him up. I asked him if he wanted to hold the baby, and he said yes. He went over and sat on the couch when I asked him to, but when the time came, he didn't really want to hold the baby.

I'm glad he starting to take a little more of an interest.

Outside Interests?

A couple of months ago a man at church asked me if I had any interests outside of home and family. At the time I couldn't think of a thing. It was ridiculous, of course. I have plenty of outside interests. It's just that at the time child care and food prep (along with other homemaking issues) were all I could think about. All the same, when my friend Damon asked me to make a list of anything I could imagine myself doing to bring in a little extra income, I couldn't think of very many things to put on that list either.

I am an excellent secretary, so long as I am not expected to make very many phone calls. This was my downfall, and a source of constant stress when I was a legal secretary. I love paperwork; I'm pretty good at record keeping, too. Phone calls petrify me. I'll put off and put off the simplest ones--that is unless I make the call immediately I discover the need. I've had to make lots of phone calls about medical things recently because there was some delay in getting Isaac added to our health insurance policy. I'm getting better--having had to make calls for the attorney all the time helped--but it's still a struggle for me. Email and internet access to accounts has made life that much better for me.

I'm reading *Don Quixote* and *The Rhetoric of Fiction.* Surely that qualifies as an outside interest. I'm still writing, if sporadically. I think about things, various and sundry things, all the time. Just last week Michael and I had a discussion about the effect of advertising on the public, as we drove past a Quizno's bearing this sign: "Now Lower Prices."

My Boys

It isn't quite true that ALL he does is sleep, but almost.

But look at that hair on Parker. He will get a haircut sometime soon, I promise.

Adjusting to the new baby? How can I tell? He's two--which is a whole other matter. Yesterday morning Parker said to me, "Take that baby off," while I was feeding Isaac. Tonight, though I didn't get a picture, he dozed off while playing a crashing cars game on Michael's computer. We said, "Are you tired?" and Parker barely summoned up the strength to shake his head no.

Weight Panic at the Pediatrician's

Yeah, it's hard to get on here to write anything. A couple of weeks ago I took Isaac in to the Pediatricians Office for his two week check up. A few of you already know what happened there.

Before I get to the part where you find me in tears, I'll tell you this. I thought it was significant, but I always tend to think that these things are significant.

In the well-patient waiting room there is a television showing children's programming. The movie that was showing while we waited was the 1975 version of Charlotte's Web, starring Debbie Reynolds.

When I was a little girl I had a vinyl record of the soundtrack to this movie. I knew all the songs, and I used to act out Charlotte's death scene near the end. At the time I had neither read the book nor seen the movie, but I knew that song was sad and dramatic, and I would crawl up on my chest or table (I don't remember which it was) and pretend that I was Charlotte dying, not knowing the Charlotte was a spider.

Later in high school I would do the same thing with the death scene at the end of Antony and Cleopatra. It sounds crazy, I know, but it always made me feel better when I was low. It helped that all of the lines near the end of the play are given to female characters.

Anyway, Charlotte's web was playing, and I remembered the scene from my childhood, and I thought--this is a little treat from God, reminding me of something I enjoyed as a child. And I remembered the words to "Mother Earth and Father Time."

Back to the point of the post.

They called Isaac back, and of course the first thing you do upon arriving the examining room, is you undress your child down to his or her diaper so that a weight can be taken. I did this, taking extra time to change Isaac's diaper because it was very full, all the while telling him how I wanted to be sure to get an accurate weight. The nurse and I proceeded to the scale. The reading came back at 6 lbs. 0 oz. I told the nurse, "That's not good. He weighed more than that when we left the hospital. He weighed more than that a week ago when we weighed him at the Breast Care Center. This is very, very bad." The nurse, who must have been new, said nothing. She gave me nothing back. Just went about the business of administering Isaac's PKU. I wanted to ask her to weigh him again, but if you know me very well you won't be surprised that I didn't. I spent the next however many minutes waiting for Dr. Brown looking down at my baby, wondering how this could have happened and what I was going to do about it. Should I make an appointment with a lactation specialist immediately? Should I call my mother and tell her she was wrong, that he wasn't growing, that he didn't weigh anywhere close to 7 lbs?

Denise came in, and we talked about Isaac's feeding. I told her what had happened with the scale, and that he weighed 6 lbs 8.5 oz less than a week ago. She reassured me that it didn't sound right, and so we took him out to try the scales again. This time a more experienced nurse told us that sometimes the scales got out of whack when the mother's weight was removed from the scale as babies are being placed on the cradle. She jiggled it up and down with her own weight to make sure the calibration held. Isaac's weight came back at 7 lbs 7 oz.

I should have known immediately that feeding every two to three hours with an abundant milk supply and very little spittage could not possibly result in a weight lost of 8.5 oz. I should have known, but I didn't. Looking at Isaac you can see that he is growing. His little cheeks are filling out, and he now had a distinct bottom. He's already grown out of some of my smallest onsies.

That was a pretty scary and tragic twenty minutes for me though.

Photos--Parker/Isaac

These first two photos are of Parker--the first one taken in the hospital, the second shortly after we brought him home for the first time. I don't have digital copies of any of the pictures taken right after he was born, though I do have prints in a photo box at home. Parker was born before we ever thought about putting a SD card in our digital camera, so for the first little bit we had to rely on pictures taken by others.

These other two are all Isaac. I still don't know how to get blogger to post more than four photos at a time.

At first we didn't think that Isaac resembled Parker at all, and still the similarity isn't exactly striking, but as I compare these pictures I can see that there really isn't that huge a difference in looks. Isaac, born only two weeks early, is much smaller than Parker ever was, a difference that will probably minimize all to rapidly. In the meantime, Isaac gets to wear baby clothes that Parker outgrew before I ever had the chance to put them on him.

I'm starting to see mannerisms between the two boys that are similar--the way they raise their chins when they are sleeping and not interested in eating anymore. Maybe these are simply mannerisms that are common to all newborns, but in this respect they remind me of one another.

My mom was right, Parker does seem very big next to Isaac.

I keep trying to get Parker to let me take a picture of him in the hat my mother gave him for Christmas, but he won't do it. He wore it once, but the camara was not in reach and I missed my chance. Someday maybe I'll actually get a photo of the two of them (Parker and Isaac) together, but for now Parker isn't all that interested, and maybe for the next month or so that will be for the best. He does sometimes express concern for Isaac when he cries. "What's wrong, Isaac?" he asks.

Upload Issues using Picasa from Google

I have pictures I want to post through Picasa, but somehow the settings have been changed so that I can only access one of Michael's blogs and can't reach my own using the Blog This! function. Do any of you know how to fix this?

Hours later, Michael has deciphered the problem. I forgot that Internet Explorer was default, not Firefox, which is what I use when I do anything online. Since Michael and I often share a laptop, his profile was logged on in Explorer, thus the difficulty.

The Birth Story, in Gory Detail (though not too gory I hope)

Notice what I say in the title of this post about gory detail. I would hide the rest of the article for those who do not wish to read it, but I don't know how to do that.

Saturday morning Michael and I moved quantities of frozen food from a deep freeze out in Coaling to one at another friend's house less than a mile away. Saturday evening Michael picked up the crib that John and Linda are loaning us to use with Isaac.

Anna Grace went shopping with me earlier on Saturday afternoon. It was the first chance we'd had to do anything together in a while besides cookie making at Cori's house the Tuesday before. At one point I told her I thought I might be having a contraction, but it's always been hard for me to tell throughout this pregnancy because not only have the been painless, but they've been few and far between.

That evening I noticed a hemorrhoid had developed, and I thought, "Damn that Starbucks. Every time I go there with Anna this happens."

Someone from Michael's office had given us a gift certificate to Longhorn Steakhouse on Friday. It was a long shot, but I asked Anna Grace before church Sunday morning whether she and Ben would be willing to sit with Parker for us so that Michael and I could go out. Typically when family lunch at the Bishop's has been canceled, Ben and Anna will try to have lunch with members of the youth group or their shepherding group, but this day they set aside their normal plans to let us go out. It was so nice for the two of us to be out alone together, even if only for a little while. Rarely do we have the opportunity for a date.

Damon came over to watch Hancock Sunday afternoon and he and Michael put the crib together that evening. I had gotten the mattress from Cori just that Tuesday.

Sunday evening Michael asked me if I could read to Parker and put him to bed. He could tell by looking at me, however, that I was tired and didn't feel up to it, so offered to go ahead and do it instead. Parker then requested that mommy read to him, something he never does, so I got to read to my darling in the evening before going into labor that night.

Normally I cannot sleep until Michael comes to bed, which he often doesn't do until 10:30 or 11:00. This evening he came to bed at 11:00 after checking in on Parker, and that's when it started. Literally. Michael got into bed, and I hopped out, thinking that I had just experienced the final indignity of pregnancy, a total loss of bladder control.

Beware gory details: I seriously thought that I had lost bladder control. It didn't matter that there seemed to be much more fluid involved than this could explain. I didn't bother to turn on the light in the bathroom, because at night I rarely do. I grabbed a sanitary napkin and tried to go back to bed. When I returned to the bathroom only moments later I noticed the napkin had turned pink, but I thought that was what it did when it got wet, having never used this particular brand before.

Then I became aware of the contractions. They were close, and they hurt, but I wanted to time them to be sure. I didn't want to be one of those women who goes into the hospital on a false alarm. We waited probably 45 minutes before even calling the hospital.

When Dr. Emig asked me if I'd had any unusual discharge I said I didn't think so. I didn't realize that what I was experiencing had anything to do with amniotic fluid.

Dr. Edwards had checked me the Wednesday before, and there had been no activity. He had told me Isaac probably wasn't going to be a Christmas baby, and to try to wait to have him until he was back in the office the following week. So far Dr. Edwards hasn't gotten to deliver either of my babies, but I think he's a great doctor anyway.

Dr. Emig told me she didn't usually have mother's come in unless they were in pain, and I assured her that I was. She told me to come on.

We arrived at the hospital at 1:3o Monday morning. I wanted an epidural. I didn't get one. Isaac was born at 2:58 a.m. Labor took a total of four hours.

When the nurse checked me I was three or four centimeters dilated. When the doctor admitted me I was five. They had trouble getting my blood sample, because veins that are usually easy to tap wouldn't bleed. The IV was difficult to establish. There was some other problem with one of the machines. The anesthesiologist didn't have time to get there.

I didn't call Jill because at first I didn't want to wake her up if this were nothing, and later because I didn't want to insult the nurses in attendance. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, because labor was so fast she probably wouldn't have been able to get there in time. I got to spend some time with her in the hospital anyway.

Delivery was hard, and it was painful, but it was fast, and the recovery was wonderful. I was able to walk around within hours, and the pain has been entirely manageable, apart from the headaches that recur from lack of sleep. I have stitches, but they have caused me fairly little discomfort.

Isaac is perfect, although his feet and hands remind me of a little bird's, long and often flexed at odd angles. He has very little body fat, and his knees stay bent much of the time. They tell me this is because he had very little room to move around prior to birth, although he was always a kicker from early on. The most uncomfortable aspect of pregnancy was how often he would catch me in the ribs.

We're still getting used to each other, but he seems to get a little cuter everyday. Even though he doesn't look a lot like Parker to me, there are things about him that remind me of Parker when he was that small. At some point I'd like to post pictures of both of them.

Timing-Provision/God has been Very Good

Isaac, gentleman that he is, waited to arrive until after Michael's immediate obligations as special events deacon at Grace had been fulfilled. He chose to come before my Dad had to commit to whether or not he would travel to New Orleans to lecture for the Marine Corp. He waited until after Michael and I had the opportunity to go to lunch alone together just that afternoon.

I have often been disappointed in thinking about the neat ways God hasn't provided for us and for our needs. He's never given me an automobile out of the blue (something I have always dreamed would happen). He's never given us a specific amount of money immediately before or after we have needed.

But here's what He has done.

We needed a baby bed and mattress for Isaac to sleep on. John and Linda are loaning us a bed. Cori has provided a mattress. We needed a place for Isaac to sleep until he's old enough to make it through the night without nursing, when he'll join Parker. Shelly bought us a bassinet for a dollar at a yard sale. We needed a cover for the bassinet. Elizabeth had that would fit.

The automatic breast pump I need to establish nursing has been provided without cost beyond it's use of electricity. Heather and Anna Grace were available without question to spend parts of the night with Parker the night Isaac arrived.

Isaac has diapers because Michael's office gave us a diaper shower the Friday before Isaac was born. Linda watched Parker while I got my driver's license renewed only the weekend before.

Anna gave me clothes to wear the last couple of months of my pregnancy. Isaac has clothes to wear because Laura and Tina and Elizabeth and others gave us their old ones. Isaac has his own new blankets thanks to Pam and others. My parents live close by so there was never any question of where Parker would stay while Michael and I were at the hospital with Isaac.

Our kitchen range was dying, and so Michael's parents helped us to purchase a new one over Thanksgiving. My parents have bought us groceries since Isaac has been here, as well as various household needs. My mom often buys me clothes when I need them and she's available to help me with the boys until I adjust to nursing with a two year-0ld in the house. Daniel and Shannon were able to be here the day Isaac arrived.

Our mortgage is low, which as been a tremendous help in coping with the rising costs of living. We get the dependant tax exemption for 2008 even though we had no expectation. God didn't exactly GIVE us a car, but in reality He did, because we were able to buy a mini-van this year from someone we know and trust, who provided a complete maintenance history and even had the oil changed and the tires rotated after the sales agreement had been made. Best of all, two car seats fit in it easily, which they never could have in our other car.

We have our own washer and dryer this time around to cope with the tremendous amounts of laundry a new baby generates.

Michael has been able to take time off work to be with me and Parker and Isaac with very little difficulty, and he's off again tomorrow for New Years.

How has God not provided for us?

He is good anyway, by the way, apart from anything He may or may not do for us. I have to tempt disaster and thank Him because this is His due.

I'm supposed to sleep while the baby is sleeping, right?

God is Good, but maybe it doesn't mean what you think it means.

A dear woman I know pointed out, immediately following the presidential election, that we put our trust in God, not in rulers and politicians. She quoted a very succinct passage of scripture bearing this out, but I haven't been able to find it.

Would anyone like to share some references?

I've been thinking a lot lately about what trusting God means. For me it doesn't mean that I expect my life will always be enjoyable, that tragic things will never happen in my family, that I'll get everything I want out of life and more. I don't trust that God will make me happy, or that we'll always have what we consider enough money and resources, or that things won't get really bad sometimes. As a matter of fact, if you look very long at the Old Testament you see that things can get really bad for God's children. Trusting God means knowing that He is good, that His love is perfect even when it doesn't feel very good, and that we won't always be disappointed. We know from scripture that God enjoys giving us good gifts, we just can't get too hung up on what those good gifts are supposed to be.

I decided a few months ago that God is the only example of a good and perfect parent that the scriptures show.

This is so complicated, but it's very good for my prayer life, as are the economic struggles of rising prices and frozen salaries.

Is there a Leisure Class Extant Anywhere in the World Anymore?

Please don't think I think I know what I'm talking about. Huh?

Is there a leisure class in this country? I ask because I recently reread Jane Austen's Emma and started thinking about the fact that there was quite a large leisure class in the early 18th century in England. I started to wonder whether such a thing existed in America around the time of the Revolutionary War, having seen HBO's *John Adams* recently. Is there a leisure class in America today. The press and politicians would have you believe so.

I admit I don't stay up to date with Hollywood Gossip, but the only person I can think of who lives a life of leisure is Paris Hilton, and I don't care the tiniest little bit about what's going on in her life short of the most basic moral interest afforded another human being. Other people out there who seem to have boatloads of money, excepting politicians perhaps, work for what they have, or else provide living for countless others who work for or in association with them.

Actors and Actresses, at least those for whom I have any respect, work hard long hours. Some of them even take the time to think about what they do and why they do it.

I'm thinking about this because of economic factors. I'm curious about what will actually happen with our taxes under this new president. I can't afford to actually worry about it, but I am curious, all the while reminding myself that God will provide--somehow. Perhaps not in the way I would prefer.

Economic Concerns; on an individual level

It's been a few days since my last post, and I promise that I'm trying to do better. These days I sort of have to hide my laptop because whenever Parker sees it he begs to play games on PBSKids.org. Seriously, he asks for it by name, and he asks to use "Mommy's computer."

It's kind of annoying actually.

My electric range seems to be slowly dying, which means we may soon have to buy a new one. It seems to me that as long as we are buying a range we should look into converting to natural gas. I'm used to cooking with gas, like the amount of control that can be exerted over the flame, and find that we already have a gas water heater and gas heat, as well as the gas logs we are using more this year than last year. I know that at one time natural gas was cheaper than electricity. Does anyone know whether than continues to be true? I know that the cost of electricity is set to increase sometime in the near future, so I'm wondering which will turn out to be the better value.

The cost of groceries has been getting me down. I wonder if those prices will eventually decrease again considering the price of gasoline has almost halved itself over the past month.

Will I ever be quite comfortable purchasing cheese again?