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Thoughts on Conscientious Parenting

Today I learned that Virginia really likes to play with newly clean laundry. Remember her obsession with peek-a-boo? Laundry is great for that. She was entertained for a solid half hour. The only problem, of course, is that it wasn't her laundry, so it was covered with laundry detergent to which our dear baby is allergic. And now her face is all red. Oops!

On an unrelated note, isn't it great that the one place Virginia will play as long as I'm willing to let her without caring at all whether or not I'm playing attention to her is the bathtub? Too bad that's the one place where I must absolutely always be paying attention to her. Otherwise I might actually get something done.

One reason she loves the bath so much is that it's the only place she gets access to a favorite object of hers: cups with no sippy lids that are full of water. If you're wondering, yes, she takes the opportunity to drink from them as often as I'll let her. And you thought I was paying such rapt attention to the bath to be sure she doesn't drown. At least she's learning a new skill....

Three Cheers for the Lamb!

Have I really not posted any pictures of Scout for over a month? Is her development already so passe? Well, here it comes. Lately we've been...

...playing lots of peek-a-boo,...

...playing the piano...

...and just hanging out at home.

But then, last week it got fabulously warmer. Suddenly we could...

...go for walks,...

...wear short sleeves,...

...even sport bare feet sometimes!
Today, we equipped her with a hat whose sole purpose is to keep out the sun (well, that and look cute, of course).

Bring on the sunshine; we're ready for Spring!

A Frugal Soul Gets Carried Away

If you've always figured I was a little strange, this posts should reassure you that you are right.

Ryan: if you actually read my blog(which I seriously doubt), perhaps this will make up for my not posting anything about the little incident with all the slips of paper in the road after church last week.

Several years ago, James and I got married.

We were married in Utah and had wedding receptions in both Utah and Arizona. We know lots of nice people, so we got a lot of presents. My parents loaded up all the Utah stuff in their suburban and drove it to Arizona for us. The only trouble is that we lived in Virginia. So, of course, all the presents had to get from Arizona to Virginia.

You'll notice that it's quite a long ways to go.

At first we planned to rent a car and drive everything across the country. But that didn't sound like much fun. Who drives across the hottest part of the country during the hottest part of the year? Well, actually, we did, two years later in the other direction, but that's another story.... So instead of driving across the country for three days, we spent two days returning everything we possibly could in exchange for very portable gift cards. If this upsets you, don't worry, I'm certain your particular gift was so great that we put it in the eight boxes of stuff we mailed ourselves.

Really, the boxes were full of everything we were unsuccessful at returning (and the amazing knives that remain one of my absolute favorite gifts even though at first I wasn't sure we should keep them along with the two less amazing knife sets we couldn't return--thanks Nancy!). Some of it I'm glad I couldn't take back (the fabulous green tupperware I didn't know I'd absolutely love) and some of it I'm not sure was worth the money we spent shipping it. Do you want to know whether people re-gifted stuff to you? Try returning it. My favorite moment was when I tried to return something to Bed Bath and Beyond and the clerk said, "Well, I'm pretty sure this did come from our store, but we haven't carried this product for at least two years." Hmmm....

Anyway, some of the gift cards were not eventually spent purchasing the items we got credit for. And really, who can blame us? We really did receive about eight cutting boards, five knife sets and forty dishtowels. So, while stocking our new apartment, we used part of one of our gift cards to acquire a bookshelf. Being an inexpensive-type bookshelf, some assembly was required. And so our troubles began.

While James was assembling this lovely bookshelf, the included screw broke off in the socket, making it impossible to put the shelf together. Fortunately, the manufacturer had anticipated just such a problem and included an address where we could send for any missing parts. We sent for a new side piece and one arrived shortly. But what to do with the old side piece? It was made of sturdy wood, a lovely color and perfectly good except for the screw broken off in one side of it.

And here's where the lesson in Melanie's character begins. A normal person would likely have disposed of the side piece with little thought. But I hate wasting. I think people focus way too much on the recycle piece of the reduce-reuse-recycle environmental trifecta. We should all reuse things more, and reduce the amount we consume in the first place, creating less waste. So I determined that this end piece should not go to waste. But what to do with it?

The bookshelf itself didn't turn out to be all that great. We do still have it, but it has to be set up in a corner because it leans a great deal and would likely collapse without a wall next to it for support.
So, with the bookshelf investment not turning out so well, I felt I had to make good use of the end piece. Well, I thought it could be made into a picture frame. And a craftier, less busy person who owned a saw would have made one straightway. But I am not crafty, I was in law school at that point, and sadly we did not use any of our gift cards to acquire a saw (incidentally, we just bought one this last week, but that was to complete a project that has needed doing for over nine months now, to give some perspective). So, I held onto the end piece, planning a lovely picture frame of sorts, once I came across a saw. No saws were forthcoming, but I did have James go ahead and hang it on the wall one day when he was hanging other things. I had another clever decorating idea in mind, and thought he'd just as well put in the nails, since his hammer was out (there's a certain illogical efficiency in my inability actually to get anything done).

And the end piece remained there on the wall for the next two years. And I never did do anything with it, but there it was until it came time for us to leave Virginia and move to Wisconsin.

Here comes my character once again. In addition to eschewing waste, I am quite stubborn. Let's call it tenacious, to give it a positive spin. Now that I had held onto it so long, I felt that I had to do something with the end piece. Wouldn't I feel stupid to just throw it away after all that time? Besides, we were on the way to visit both our parents on the way to Wisconsin. Surely one of them would loan us a saw for a few minutes. So I packed the end piece in the trunk of the car along with all of the other possessions we couldn't live without for three months, and we headed across the country.

The end piece came with us through Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona (where I forgot to ask about a saw), California, Utah (where I forgot to get it out of the car at all--in my defense, I was studying for, taking and recovering from the Bar Exam during this period), Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota and finally Wisconsin, where it found a new home. Having hauled it all that way, I knew we'd soon make friends with someone who owns a saw and held onto it. Then, I came up with a new and less crafty decorating plan that involved the end piece and may not require a saw at all. In the meantime, I thought it would help make the mantle more asymmetrical and put it there.
(Please excuse the hangers on the mantle. They are not part of the decorating scheme, but I had some laundry drying at the time this photo was taken.)

And there it sat, on the mantle, for another year and a half. Until the other day, when I was dusting (not for the first time in that year and a half, mind you) and decided to rearrange some things. And I decided that the end piece was just a dust collector and a pointless reminder of my tendency toward being a pack rat, my never ending to-do list and my inability to get rid of things, even when they're unlikely ever to be useful again. And so, I removed it from the mantle, replaced it with a nifty bottle that I hope will add a less odd, if also less imposing, sense of asymmetry. The bottle was, incidentally, a wedding gift (which we did not try to return--thanks Jess!), and is doing a satisfactory job.
James says he feels that something is missing, but I think it's an improvement. And if in another week or so he still misses it, I can always put it back because, of course, I can't quite bring myself to throw away the end piece just yet.

Random: Witty, Wistful, Downright Hilarious, and Completely Brilliant

• Talking about the Polygamous Mormons shortly after the Pioneers went west, when Brother Brigham was still at the head of the Church, Mark Twain said, "in Utah, most of the women marry Young."

• I was talking to my friend about budgeting and she said that James and I are able to budget because we are a two-income family. Huh? If only those two incomes came from either of us working more than half-time, her logic might check out. On the contrary, I think having two rather modest incomes, like ours, force us into far more creative budgeting than we might otherwise need.

• Scout is learning to play peek-a-boo. She has enjoyed me covering and then uncovering her face for months now. And she adores lift-the-flap books. This week, however, she has begun to pick up whatever piece of cloth she can find (usually a burp cloth), and after checking to see whether I'm watching, she covers her face and quickly whisks it away with a smile. A few weeks ago the Doctor gave me a checklist of developmental milestones Scout is supposed to reach before twelve months, so I've started trying them out. One of them is that she should play games like patty-cake and peek-a-boo with no visual clues (that is, I just tell her to play peek-a-boo and she does it). As of yesterday, she's pretty good at this one. So, of course, I wanted to show James. When she finished her bottle this afternoon, I handed her the burp cloth and said "peek-a-boo!" She dutifully picked up the cloth and covered her face and head. Perfect, now we waited with baited breath for her to remove the cloth and flash that gummy smile. I said my line, "Where's Scout?" And we waited. And we waited. There she sat, for about forty-five seconds, dutifully holding the burp cloth up to her face, waiting happily. I think she forgot what she was supposed to do next. I finally started saying "peek-a-boo" in an attempt to trigger her memory. And down came the burp cloth. She properly repeated the game about ten more times, but James and I were laughing too hard to be a very good audience.

• I am probably the last person on the internet to discover this, but in case I'm not, here my most recent discovery of why the internet is great: My friend's husband told me about Pandora, which is free radio on the internet. What's so great about that? You tell it a song or artist you like, and it plays more stuff like it. And you can give it all the songs and artists you want. And you can create your own stations for different musical moods you may be in. And the very best part is, if it plays something you don't like, you just tell it and it will never play that song again. Never. How many times did I NEED this function the summer "Yellow" was on the radio at least three million times and I wondered whether pushing a q-tip into my ear really would pop the ear drum and make me go deaf? I would probably pay money for this, but I don't even have to. It's great.
  

Book Baby

From the (very small) part of me that wishes I had become an artist

When I was a little girl, scientists still believed that every snowflake was unique, no two the same. They've since proven that wrong. But I'm still amazed that it took so long to find two that were identical. I used to be in awe of each flake.

After it snowed I would get in all of my gear (boots, snowpants, coat, hat, gloves, hood) and stay outside as long as my parents would allow. Sometimes I would lay in the field near our house and just watch the snow fall from the sky, enjoying each beautiful flake.

Now, snow is something to be brushed from the car, shoveled from the walk and derided until it crusts over, turns grey and eventually concedes to melt away. How can it be so obstinate as to fall anew at the end of February? Shouldn't we be making our way to Spring by now? Even I, who am always excited for the first snowfall, have had enough by now. I've started planning my garden and am ready to stop worrying about slipping on the ice.

But today, as I walked through the snow, I looked down at my scarf and noticed the delicate, intricate flakes collecting in its fibers. And when my car's heater melted the flakes into mere droplets of water, I was sad to see them go.

Today, once again, I was a little girl watching beautiful, tiny pieces of creation drift from the sky. Today, I remembered the miracle of snow.

The Other Reason I Like Collages

The other day Scout was looking particularly cute. So, I took some photos. Okay, I took 120 photos. I looked through them and picked out the ones that had promise. Then I carefully went through and got rid of everything I thought I could live without. And at the end of all that winnowing down, I had narrowed it down to these few favorites:

Yes, I have a problem. But I made some more cuts, got James involved in the decision making, and we finally arrived at the following manageable group.
Too bad I've got to pick just one for my wallpaper. I'm really liking this one...
...and this one;......this one's cute too, but it's vertical so fortunately it just won't work.

Family Time?

One day I was at Panera and saw a family of four having lunch "together." Dad was on his cell phone, Mom and daughter each had laptops in which they were fully engrossed. The son had earbuds in and was listening to his ipod. Few things can isolate you quite like personal electronics. Maybe they were in the midst of a cross-country road trip and desperately needed some time away from each other. At any rate, they were only spending time together in the most technical sense of the term.

And yet, tonight when Virgina decided to have some very awake time from 10:30 until after midnight, this was our activity of choice:

No, hers doesn't work. It died a few months ago. And James only has a laptop because his employer lets him use it for free. I really think Virginia only enjoys the laptop so much because the keys click and she can see herself reflected in the screen (and my wallpaper is a larger than life picture of her).

I will say that we all played and had a grand time when she pulled the same trick last night. But, tonight when we're all sick and nobody got anywhere near enough sleep last night, this is what our family portrait looks like:

January 10 - Three Pairs of Red Shoes (Part II)

Today I went to church in Madison, wearing my red shoes. Every time I looked at my feet and thought of my mom and my sister, I wondered whether they were wearing their red shoes as well? And whether they are or whether they're not, it made them feel a little less far away.