Weekend linkage

1)

This week in the Adventures of Ellie: she ate dandelion seeds, found Jared's hunting knife,  figured out how to pull tissues out of the box, hid her Crocs in my rainboots, tried to uproot my pepper seedlings, made it over halfway up the stairs before we discovered her, and dropped as many things as she could into the bathtub.

I've been sorting through a lot of pictures, deleting the blurry ones and so on. While doing that, I decided that for the first seven months of Ellie's life, I looked utterly horrible . . . flat hair, puffy face, lumpy and schlumpy. And then, sometime right before Thanksgiving, I suddenly got my hair-and-clothing mojo back.

At least that's what I think now. At the time, though, I felt beautiful and confident: I had a gorgeous little baby, I was busy, I was healthy, and I wasn't putting any pressure on myself to lose weight or anything. It's only a year later that I feel so critical. Weird, huh?

2)

Frivolity: 20 Curious Victorian Words and Sayings, Charles James' extraordinarily heavy dresses, the quest for the Holy Cookie, and what's in a chef's fridge.

4)

Here's a great obituary: Walter Walsh Dies at 106, Terrorized Gangsters and Targets.

On his 100th birthday, in 2007, his family served three cakes. One bore the F.B.I. seal, another the five rings of the Olympic Games, and the third the seal of the United States Marine Corps. He was also the guest of honor at a re-enactment of the Brady Gang shootout in Bangor and was given the key to the city.

So you can imagine the stories that guy had to tell. Read the whole thing for some real-life heroism.

5)

David McCullough's five history lessons for high school students. McCullough is so wonderful. I learned history without memorizing dates-- as he says, it's more important to know what happened and why-- and I remain convinced that this is why I still love history.

6)

"The Left's Line on School Choice Is a Joke from the 1800s."

For millennia, philosophers have agreed that people should rank their families above other duties, even important ones. To Aristotle, to Aquinas, to the Confucian sage Mencius, this principle was plain as day. Common sense accords with their teachings.

Handicapping your own kids to provide an unproven benefit to a few other children is neither honorable nor brave. Prioritizing your kin is not a sin to atone for. It is a marker of moral humanity.

7)

Provocative piece on the British Empire in Africa, written by a Nigerian: "The Glory That Was Empire." Please note that it contains some graphic descriptions of barbaric execution methods.

Surely the time has come to question openly what went so terribly wrong. And, surely, we owe it to ourselves to make our questions frank, searching and to the point. How and why, under British rule, did matters progress from mediaeval barbarity to emergent modern statehood in one 50-year timespan, only to regress so soon after independence into mediaeval barbarity again during the next?

8)

This is cool: "Humble Hero Saves Teen Fell Onto Subway Tracks."

After he helped Xue, the father of three went home and barely mentioned the incident to his family or to his colleagues the following morning. “I give all the glory to Lord Jesus,” Garcia concluded. “I was glad to help and to show her that there are good people out there.”

9)

If you'd like a thoughtful and irreverent podcast to listen to this afternoon, here you go: the latest episode of The Hinderaker-Ward Experience. All the news that you've been hearing about anyway, but with more realistic (read: conservative) commentary.

10)

What We Et:
Meatballs and pesto pasta + salad
Rosemary lemon chicken kebabs + balsamic broccoli
Thai chicken salad + oranges
Chicken marsala + brown rice + salad

Weekend linkage

1)

Ellie has crossed the threshold from "walking is kind of cool" to "WALKING IS AWESOME!!!!" As a result, she can speed from room to room, and get into all sorts of new trouble.

I often say to myself, now, She won't do this forever. Sometimes that is in relation to something cute: She won't always read her books upside down. She won't always think that a bag of coffee beans is the best toy in the world. And sometimes it is in relation to something unpleasant: She won't always scream when I set her down on the floor. Either way, that phrase--she won't do this forever--helps me to treasure a small joy or carry a challenge more easily.

2)

I am (almost) ashamed of how funny I find most Buzzfeed listicles. This one is quite amusing: Socially Awkward Animals. Especially the plotting hamster.

3)

Some links on words: first up, "Bubble Vocabulary." I am ashamed of how large my bubble vocabulary is. And I seriously don't know how to pronounce things. I've said "PHO-to-gra-pher" for photographer, and "REP-tacle" for receptacle. I think this is a drawback of reading so far above my maturity level when I was younger; I got the gist of the story but skipped words I didn't really understand. #humblebrag 

"The Grammar of Clickbait." I hate, hate, hate clickbait. You say I'll never guess what happens next? Yeah? Bet I can.

Rose Wilder giving Laura writing advice. Honestly, I think a lot of what she says is just silly. She thinks too highly of literary tropes, and not far enough outside the box. Just let your mother tell her story, Rose!

"An Eater's Eye View of Literature's Most Iconic Meals." Food and books, all the best things.

4)

Can You Hide From Big Data?

5)

Interesting article on "stay at home mom" versus "homemaker." I have strong and detailed opinions on the whole issue of, um, Women and What to Do With Them . . .  but anyway. I love "homemaker" because it is active (rather than the passive "oh, I just stay at home" image) and it allows room for the great number of activities that may comprise motherhood, wifehood, house-tending, and everything else one might be doing with oneself from day to day . . . much of which takes place outside of the home proper.

I don't agree with most of this author's underlying assumptions, because it's Slate, but the last two paragraphs are quite nice.

6)

Unexpected scenes from the past. The image of modern, Westernized Afghan women of the 50s is haunting, knowing what happened to them later under the Taliban.

7)

Been enjoying Sara Groves.

8)

What We Et:
Baked potato bar (with sausage, broccoli cheddar sauce, and mushrooms) 
Olive oil chicken thighs + creamed spinach + fried potatoes 
Macaroni and cheese from the freezer
Pizza (with chicken, spinach, mushrooms, onions, and peppers) + strawberries 
Lime chicken stirfry + basmati rice

as if this were the last time

Ellie woke up at 6:20 this morning.

I nursed her, then slipped her back into the crib, hoping to have at least half an hour more to myself. No luck. We soon landed on the couch, Ellie jabbering happily as she looked out the window. I was cranky. Not only had she woken me up before my alarm, which usually goes off at 6:30, but her chirpy wiggly presence also made it impossible to have my devotions. (If I tried she'd either shriek so loud I couldn't concentrate, or try to rip the pages out of the Bible.) It was not a good start to the day.

But what if this is the last time I get to do this?

Sometimes I am trying to grade papers or do heavy-duty research, and I'm just getting into a groove when Ellie decides that now would be a good time for me to read her a book. She comes over and pulls on me, wails despairingly, drips tears everywhere. I really don't want to close the computer. This is an important project, Ellie! Why can't you read the book by yourself? I don't think it is necessary for me to get down on the floor. I could ignore her crying and soldier on with my work. She'll get over it.

But what if this is the last time I get to do this?

Psalm 16 says, "The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance." Currently, my boundary lines include a crucial responsibility to my child. Responsibility that trumps all the others. I was challenged, this morning, to believe God's word: that these are pleasant lines, and that His gift to me is beautiful, even when it seems inconvenient.

And Ellie is not an inconvenience! She is part of my inheritance today, a precious body and soul who may be the only baby we ever welcome into our family. It took a long time for me to get pregnant. I have no idea if I'll be able to conceive again, so I usually consider her, and my experiences with her (from early wake-up calls to reading The Very Busy Spider for the millionth time), as one time events. I try to treasure them accordingly. I cannot count on having more babies, and say to myself "Oh well... even if I ignore her now, I'll make it up with her younger siblings." Of course, that would be an awful thing to say even if I knew that we would have ten more kids, but still!

Remembering that I cannot take Ellie for granted helps me to push aside my own desires and happily take her up on my lap once again.

Older moms never tire of telling me that time zooms by, that she'll be graduating from high school before I know it. Well, it's true. I'm not going to spend these short years lamenting Ellie's failure to adhere to my schedule, or her propensity to interrupt my other work. She is my most important work, and I love her more than sleep or tidy research or a quiet cup of coffee.

The years of our life are seventy,

or even by reason of strength eighty;

yet their span is but toil and trouble;

they are soon gone, and we fly away . . .
So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom . . .
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,

that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

(Psalm 90)

Weekend linkage

1)

Yesterday morning Ellie hit two important milestones: she figured out how to climb stairs (though not how to come down) and how to walk, i.e. with more than two steps at a time (now she toddles sideways like a baby crab).

Yay?

2)

From The Atlantic: "The Culture of Shut Up."

These cycles of pearl-clutching followed by either abject sorrow or banishment are of course driven by news outlets looking to score a few hits or viewers by drumming up controversy.

But they’re also driven by us, as viewers and readers, all of us part of the culture of shut up. It plays out in the defining down of “hate speech” on liberal college campuses and in the defining down of “anti-American” at conservative conferences . . .

Yes, it’s in some ways a natural response to being more connected to one another; we’re just in each other’s faces. But it’s also dangerous. It narrows the visible spectrum of ideas. It encourages people to be safe and cautious and circumspect when we don’t want people to be safe. We don’t want people to be afraid of saying something interesting on the off chance it’s taken the wrong way.

3)

From The Economist: "The Homeschool Conundrum." This centers on the Romeikes, the German homeschooling family currently taking refuge in Lexington, Kentucky. It's not as much of a conundrum as talking heads like to think. Anyway, an interesting article contrasting Germany's fear of "different" with America's tendency (thus far) to err on the side of individual choice.

Americans assume that most parents try to do what is best for their children. That can be an uncomfortable principle (there are some daft parents, among them Lexington on a bad day). But the alternative—the presumption that the state knows best—is worse.

4)

The quickest way to peel apples. I don't think my husband would be okay with this . . .

5)

This also made me laugh: Kid Snippets does a weight loss infomercial. "Is it gwuten fwee? Ohhhh yes it is!" Honestly, I find everything that Kid Snippets does completely hilarious, from the cooking show ("Today we're going to add some crazy stuff") to the math class ("Do you get it NOW?!") to the sick baby ("So you fed her the flower cookies?") to the presidential debate ("I'm the smartest because I can make my ears talk all by themselves").

Aaaand I just spent way too long on their channel.

6)

Daily dose of squee: baby elephants learning to use their trunks.

here's to listening

Last week I assigned my students a particular type of expository essay; it was meant to be a reflection on some "mundane" aspect of their lives. I wanted them to explore it a bit, and see how significant it actually is. I especially wanted to get them thinking about how everyday objects and actions are connected to deeper realities (you know how G.K. Chesterton was always turning bits of chalk or cracks in the ceiling into miniature philosophical treatises? something along those lines).

Anyway, I typically send them essay examples written by previous students. However, since this was the first year I've tried this assignment, I had to write an example myself. Here it is. :)


---

this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me (in my heart)

-e.e. cummings

Two individuals may eventually have such similar desires and views, even similar memories, that they seem completely unified across astronomical distances. Though this e.e. cummings poem describes the bond of romance, that bond can also spring up in fortunate families. I have had such fortune. There are six of us children, raised by two (remarkably forbearing) parents. Now our thoughts often diverge, especially as most of us have launched into adulthood. Yet the views we still share run deep, and our interlocking memories run deepest. Funnily enough, many of them come from the radio—the magical pipeline of drama, music, and news still weaving itself through our everyday.

I call it funny because the radio doesn't turn heads anymore. It does not strike us as particularly significant, as we have grown used to it in the background and the internet has superseded it in many ways. Among the shiny furnishings of modern life, who would choose the radio over laptops or phones? But consider the revolution incited by radio waves. Suddenly we had orchestras and baseball games in a box. People did not have to play the piano themselves in order to hear Rachmaninov; they could enjoy all sorts of entertainment that formerly required tickets and travel. They did not have to wait for the next day's paper to hear about political goings-on; with speech floating on air, they could immediately hear what was going on at the other side of the country, even the world. Think of FDR's “fireside chats” during World War II, how a worried wartime nation valued that direct communication.

What about today? What did the radio offer me and my siblings as children, and why do I still love it? Back in the nineties, the internet was nothing, and though we had television, there was something special about the radio: the imagination it demanded. Like television, it provided an immediate connection to the world at large, but it did not spoon-feed us the images. We had to think.

 

I remember hurriedly finishing our post-dinner chores so that we could listen to Adventures in Odyssey, a weeknight radio drama for children. The memorable characters with their hilarious mistakes and heartwarming apologies, not to mention their crazy voyages in the science-fiction “Imagination Station,” made for endless entertainment. Then on Saturday mornings we turned up the radio again for Ranger Bill: forest rangers facing off against everything from rattlesnakes to radioactive deer. We had fertile imaginations ourselves, and these long-running storylines only stoked our creativity. Ours is the type of family that speaks in references and quotations—unless you have shared our history you probably won't understand half of our conversation—and oh, how those tales stocked our supply.

Of course we had music. This was my mother's preferred background noise: not the admittedly silly radio dramas, but music. (Her actual preferred background noise was silence. Since her six hooligans mysteriously refused to comply, quality music sufficed, even when it involved electric guitars.) This too shaped us. Not only did we speak in story references, we also started to sing constantly. I was never much for memorizing lyrics, but my brothers were whizzes at it, and if I couldn't memorize I could hum. We harmonized as we built Lego castles and mowed the lawn and drove to church—when we are together, we still do.

The music I want to hear over my own radio now that I am a mom is almost 100 percent classical, for a variety of reasons. In the first place, I have one small child. After growing up with a passel of siblings, something has to fill the quiet. In the second place, well, I have one small child! She can cause enough chaos on her own (even if she doesn't generate much noise as she does it). The order and beauty of classical music grounds me when I am contemplating a floor covered with baby toys. In addition, as my baby grows up, I would like her to absorb that order and beauty on a regular basis. So much creativity, such fascinating history, awaits in the concertos and symphonies aired on the radio. I want her mind to be wrapped in it too. So we tune in to Tchaikovsky almost every day.

In the car I crank pop hits. Nothing like a little Top 40 to balance the heavy-hitting orchestral suites.

 

NPR is actually our usual fare on road, and often in the house too. I grew up with NPR. I remember my dad listening to Car Talk as he did projects around the house. He was listening to All Things Considered when he picked me up from ballet class in the afternoon. On weekends he did impressions of Garrison Keillor, the host of Prairie Home Companion, or we danced along to Celtic music, or we scratched our head over opera on weekend afternoons. When we heard programs together, we had something to talk about; even if we disagreed with what the program said it fueled thought and conversation.

So this last bit, the news and talk radio, I listen to partially for sentiment's sake. Apart from that, I listen because it exercises my noggin. Those radio personalities introduce me to new things every day. Though they deal in facts, not the fiction of the dramas we soaked up years ago, facts can inspire my imagination too. Especially since I cannot see the people, places, or events under discussion, I have to employ my brain to fill in the images. In that way I become a participant in the program, which I prefer to sitting passively in front of a television screen. As this noggin of mine is frequently occupied with grocery lists and diapers, I relish the chance to expand its scope. I have always believed in the importance of education. Politics, history, philosophy—four years after graduating from college, the radio lets me keep learning, even in the middle of everyday life.

In fact, that's one of the best things about the radio: it happens “in the middle” of things. I can have music in the background without taking time to play it myself. I can turn a dish-washing session into a history lecture with the push of a button. Because these things happen so easily, not only for me but for the other members of my family, we still have that fuel for discussion when we see one another. Even when we live hours apart, we can hear the same programs. The radio that drew us together after dinner almost twenty years ago continues to foster our connection.

What a person hears certainly shapes what he thinks. It shapes what he remembers, too. As that one person carries his memories and thoughts forward, consider how he might also carry the memories and thoughts of others, simply because they have heard the same things. Surprisingly often, in our family we heard those “same things” on the radio. Mundane as it is, I still see it as a bit of a magic-worker, depositing the larger world in our kitchens and living rooms and cars. Here's to listening.