can you feel my heartbeat

We heard the baby's heartbeat today. So I guess this thing is for real. Parents of two. Big sister. Woo hoo!

We also celebrated Jack's birthday last night. My parents, who had flown to Indy yesterday for the True Woman conference, drove to Upland to have birthday dinner with us. We ate vegetarian Vietnamese spring rolls, red Thai fish curry over steamed rice, and sesame green beans. The candles were lit atop a blueberry pie which we ate a la mode. Jack's birthday present was a record player. It also plays tapes (which I'm so excited about) and CDs, and the radio, and it plugs into your computer and lets you convert any of those formats into mp3. I think he liked it.

I forgot to take any pictures.

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I really loved The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd's first work of fiction) when I read it six years ago. Honestly, I think I might have read some of her other books - The Dance of the Dissident Daughter or The Mermaid's Chair - but I can't remember at all.

This book might also be mostly forgettable. A kind of memoir/travelogue in the vein of Eat, Pray, Love, co-written by Kidd and her daughter, the book deals with life transitions that women face. As Kidd and her daughter (Ann Kidd Taylor) prepare for a trip to Greece, Kidd is facing menopause and the realities of aging and death. Taylor, struggling with depression, is trying to find her calling in life. Heavy on introspection and light on plot, the women travel through Greece, and later France, and meditate on Mary, Joan of Arc, and the women of Greek Mythology - particularly Demeter and Persephone - as a way to come to grips with their own lives.

Although I wasn't in love with this book and I found some of the feminist spirituality (you could hardly call it feminist theology) a little shaky, I did - as a daughter, and as the mother of a daughter - find the women's relationship and interactions compelling, and I did find myself thinking about some of their stories after I finished the book.

motivational poster

Vonnegut. Here. Thanks, Brenden.

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Last week I said to Jack, "Pick a book off the shelf for me to read." This is what I ended up with. A couple of chapters in, I was engrossed and wondered why in the world I hadn't read Vonnegut since highschool (when I read Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, and Player Piano). Then halfway through I tired of it, but I don't know if it was me or the book. Finished it this morning when I woke up at 5 and couldn't fall back to sleep. Now I'm lethargic. The end.

toddler backpack

Last week Rosie came out of her bath and saw my sewing machine set up on the dining room table. She started jumping and squealing, "New dress! New dress!"

It really warmed my heart.

But I wasn't making a new dress.

Here's a few fuzzy pictures of the toddler backpack I made for her out of a rice bag and some corduroy. It turned out pretty well, but I think I'll alter the pattern a little if I make it again. I'd like the opening to be a little bigger. And, yeah, next time I'll make something a little girlier. But I think this is cool.

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I have been reading this book for a long time. I can't remember for sure, but I may have started it in January, because I know that I only have it because I picked it up in my parents' house in Little Rock.

I don't know why it took me so long to read. It wasn't that I didn't like it. Maybe it was because it doesn't give a lot of direct application to parenting babies or toddlers, and so I never felt compelled to continue with it out of my immediate need in the moment.

That said, this was one of the best parenting books I've read. I hardly found a thing in it with which to disagree (and as a contentious person, I can rarely say that!). (On the other hand, I did have a major problem in the concluding chapter, when he wrote, "Grace is an amazing adjective.." --- grace isn't an adjective, sir!) (Grammar and vocabulary dork here.) (Hate myself sometimes.)

To my memory, I've read seven parenting books (not including books about vaccines, sleep, baby diet, etc):

Shepherding a Child's Heart - Tedd Tripp
Parenting with Love and Logic - Cline and Fay
Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood - Fay and Fay
Parenting is Your Highest Calling (and 8 other myths) - Leslie Leyland Fields
Don't Make Me Count to Three - Ginger Plowman
Gospel-Powered Parenting - William Farley
Grace-Based Parenting - Tim Kimmel

Of these books, I absolutely recommend Grace-Based Parenting for principles, and Love and Logic for practice. And while I think I'm done with parenting books for a while, I'd still love to hear any other recommendations if my readers have them :-)

The foundational idea behind Kimmel's book is that every child's three driving inner needs are for security, significance, and strength, and that parents meet these needs by giving their children love, purpose, and hope. In delivering grace to our kids, we need to give them the freedom to be different, to be vulnerable, to be candid, and to make mistakes. Kimmel fleshes these principles out beautifully with personal examples and biblical support.

I think what was most convicting for me in the book was the idea that a graceful relationship with God is contagious. Do I know that I'm loved? Do I recognize my purpose? Do I live in hope and free from fear? It will be harder for my kids to believe in grace if I don't believe in it myself. And my deep drive to be "good enough" makes it hard for me to live in grace!

a little Rosie

She's beginning to want to choose her own clothes each day. Her favorite articles of clothing are skirts and jackets. Here's an outfit she picked out last week - what style!

I hope Child Protective Services doesn't get wind of this.



And, lastly, the $3 slide (missing the support bar that goes under the slide, but she's petite enough).