Weekend linkage

"The Coddling of the American Mind: How Trigger Warnings are Harming Mental Health."

The ultimate aim, it seems, is to turn campuses into “safe spaces” where young adults are shielded from words and ideas that make some uncomfortable. And . . . this movement seeks to punish anyone who interferes with that aim, even accidentally. You might call this impulse vindictive protectiveness. It is creating a culture in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, lest they face charges of insensitivity, aggression, or worse.

"A Living Sacrifice: The Beauty of a Body Broken for Others." The ideas expressed here are helping me come to terms with the changes wrought on my own body-- not to wish time backwards-- and to see motherhood's marks as good (because of what they signify), even if they are not objectively beautiful.

We want, it seems, to accumulate life experiences without aging, without damage, without evidence. We want our bodies to operate invisibly, to be emblems of near perfection rather than vessels of service. The fact remains, however, that without tremendous intervention, bodies absorb stress and trauma . . . Our created bodies are meant to serve spiritual purposes, and those purposes often initiate or exacerbate physical deterioration.

Three IG accounts that are objectively beautiful, from Norwegian landscapes to gorgeously fresh food to perfect braided buns: Marte Marie Forsberg, Honestly Nourished, and Twist Me Pretty.

Have you ever heard of the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest? A competition to write the worst ever opening sentence for a novel. It's dreadful. By which I mean, you must read all the entries NOW.

This made me laugh.

This too.

And this one very much.

Ooh, this dress. Come to mama.

and then she said

"I making a zooming car. Zoe DON'T gonna knock it over."
-surrounded by Duplos and keeping a suspicious eye on her sidekick

"Look, I draw a circle for you! Are you very happy?"
-displaying a recent study in crayon

"Daddy am a boy, you a mommy girl, Zoe is a little sissy girl."
-figuring out the basics of life

"Bye-bye! I going to the outer space!"
-from inside her cardboard box rocketship

"I want rice, and hummus, and chicken, and cheese. And green peppers. And red peppers. Oh my goodness . . . dat's a lot of food!"
-planning what we should eat for dinner

Me: Tonight we're going to see friends, and they have a puppy.
Ellie: Oh! Can I touch him?
Me: Sure.
Ellie: Can I chase him?
Me: I guess so.
Ellie: Can I eat him?
Me: . . .

Me: Time for bed.
Ellie: Not today!

Jared: Time for bed.
Ellie: You go to bed! Mommy go to bed! Zoe go to bed!

Jared: Ellie, can you help me clean up these toys?
Ellie: Hmm . . . no thank you.

Family snippets

Zoe decided it was time to crawl. So she did. Merrily we roll along, at not-even-seven-months old, forsooth. Since Ellie still believes that all the toys belong to her, she's greatly offended when Zoe crawls over to the basket and helps herself to matchbox cars without Her Royal Highness's permission. ("No Zoe! It's mine! You no touch it!") But they are often sweet together. Ellie will plop a bowl on Zoe's head, announce "you have a hat!" and they'll both giggle. They play peek-a-boo. Ellie asks for Zoe to ride along on her tricycle, so I put Zoe on the back and hold her there as Ellie speeds around the dining room.
 

Zoe grew a couple of teeth this month, which was an ordeal for everyone. She's still teething, in fact . . . to judge from her utter abandonment of routine, bellows of panic every time I leave her line of sight, and refusal to nap in the crib. (If you try to make her, she'll just pull herself up, drape her arms over the top of the crib side, and wail like a heartbroken little jailbird. And she won't give up, no matter how long you leave her alone.)

Anyway, getting chompers means that we have started to give her pieces of our food, mostly fruit. Baby-led weaning worked very well with Ellie, and Zoe is just as excited as her sister was to find hunks of peach, banana, and broccoli on her tray. It's all incredibly messy but it keeps her entertained, and I will sacrifice much for the sake of Infant Entertainment.

putting on my big girl pants

Today is my twenty-eighth birthday. I don't know if that merits excitement anywhere else in the world. It doesn't around here. But even on pedestrian birthdays I like to take a little bit of time to muse on has what happened in the last year: what life brought to me, what I did and became.

This past year was the first that I didn't teach English, after eight years of doing it. I sorely missed teaching last fall and early winter, before Zoe was born. Once she came, I didn't have time to miss it anymore. :) My mind is still hungry for academics, though, so I'm continuing my education mom-style-- which is to say, in an eclectic and haphazard fashion. I take advantage of lots of podcasts and blogs, and am challenging myself to read more non-fiction, in addition to the fiction I more easily gravitate towards. A couple non-fic volumes I have especially liked are Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, 1492: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, and Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism.

I have a thing for long titles, perhaps?

Young Mother and Two Children, Mary Cassatt

I was stretched in my mothering this year. Ellie has always been my buddy, and still is. But she does her own stuff now. She invents narratives to act out and songs to sing. She is starting to piece together her own interpretation of the world. That all means more brain-work for me. I still have to do plenty of physical tasks for her, like pouring her juice and buttoning her dress, but I also need to explain things. Why we need to buckle up in the car, and why we don't pull basil plants out of the garden, and why thunder isn't scary after all, and why there are consequences for disobeying, and why Jesus loves her so much.

Meanwhile, as one mini-me grew up, I got a new one. Having this baby changed my vision of God. During the ultra-vulnerable weeks after Zoe's birth, when I was tired, lonely, second-guessing myself, and apt to break down in tears at any moment, God baptized me in a new awareness of His unconditional love. I am not just one justified saint in a faceless crowd, but a beloved little child, with an affectionate Father who's interested in me specifically. That sunrise moment (which, talk about breaking down in tears) has firmed the ground beneath my feet. Life currently holds a lot of unknowns, and I suppose it always will. But I keep coming back to the fact that God loves me so decidedly, so generously. And then I sleep in peace.

The other truth I realized this year is that, hey, I'm an adult now. I have my own house, and marriage, and children. Other people are free to express opinions and I often benefit from that, but just as often I shrug and make a different decision. I will potty train my toddler when I feel like it. I will let the baby sleep in our bed. I will prioritize husband time over girl time. I will eat ice cream, and not eat bread. I will be quiet in large groups instead of wearing myself out trying to be "sociable." I will buy the clothes I actually like instead of the ones fawned over by every fashion blogger (who wears Ace & Jig anyway? sad bohemian schoolmarms?).

In other situations, awareness of adulthood provides the kick I need to get moving. Jared says I'm capable of far more than I ever give myself credit for, and when I actually try, instead of assuming "this is impossible" from the start, I find out he's right.