Smatterings

Much like going on holiday or other life changing events, having a baby really throws a spanner in my blogging and prayer life. Its not that everything suddenly falls out of control, but any break in routine causes these two parts of my life to fly out the window. In this case, waking up twice at night to feed the baby has meant that I am not leaping up with the dawn to pray and blog. Rather, I am buried under a pile of blankets and children running through the day to come in my head. And somehow, if I don't get to it right off, I never return to it during the day. Except right now.

But lots of other things have been happening. Here are some of them.

Going to the Dentist
I haven't been the dentist in a while.
As a child, whenever we were near a dentist, as far as I could tell, I had to spend a lot of time being shouted at in French while what seemed like All of my teeth were filled.
"Ouvre la bouche!!!" the dentist would shout (that means OPEN YOUR MOUTH)
Actually this only happened for one week in Belgium when I was six. But every dentist after was really just an extension of that first dentist.

And then there's the fact that I have a Huge gag reflex. I remember as yesterday throwing up on a dentist in Oregon--a foolish man who, when informed by me that he was about to be thrown upon, said 'no you won't' only to find that in fact I could and did.

So this time, having been drug by Matt (ON MY Day Off no less) to a bright cheerful sparkling clean Teeth Factory, I apologized loudly and right away for gagging. 'I'm so sorry' I said over and over as the poor hygienist tried to get an X Ray and I gagged again and again. Finally she gave up and took me into a fancy room with a machine that took pictures from the outside. 'I'm so sorry' I said as she led me back to the waiting room.

Needless to say, I'll be going back to the dentist fairly often for the next little while. Each time I will think of Mrs. Miniver lying back in that perfectly comfortable chair, designed to extract the worst kind of torture, so comfortable that nothing will distract you from what's going on in your mouth. Next time I go, I'll have found the book and I'll be able to tell you all about it.
In the meantime, I leave you with this.

Classical Conversations
We finished our first 12 weeks!! I'm really enjoying my class this year. I might not have mentioned it before but I'm the tutor for the 4s and 5s or Abecedarians as they are called in CC. I have a class of five boys and one girl. One of the boys is mine and he's made real progress this year, especially from last year.

You'd probably think, as I initially did, that spending a morning once a week with 6 little kids trying to do a science experiment, play the tin whistle, learn Latin Noun Declensions one by one and hear a presentation from each child on the topic of the day would be a completely ghastly experience. But you'd be So Wrong. Aside from Sunday, Wednesday mornings are my favorite. I particularly enjoyed this week's presentation time. The topic was of their own choosing and after hearing 3 little boys talk about movie characters they love, the one girl got up with a doll dressed as a flower. The boys could not understand the meaning of this doll.
'How did she get to be dressed as a flower?' one of them asked.
'Well, what movie is she in?' asked another.
No answers were forthcoming to these questions. I mean, really, why wouldn't she be dressed as a flower is a better question.

Nursing the Baby
As expected, its going much better. As I said before, this baby is my best eater. She gained a pound in two weeks (AMAZING) and looks, let's be perfectly honest, pudgy. And, now that we're heading into week four, its not Nearly so painful.

Conversations
Alouicious came and shouted to me this morning, as I was trying to brush my teeth, 'Are there any tiny riding men?' or it may have been 'writing men'. Either way the question was incomprehensible to me.
'What?' I said.
'Are there any tiny riding men?'
'I don't know' I said helplessly. 'I have No Idea.'

Visits
We were charmed and delighted to have some family visit last week from far away places like Oregon and New Jersey. It made me quite homesick for an Oregon winter and for all the lovely and sensible people who live out there.

The Christmas Pageant
I'm immersed in it. I've been tweaking and tweaking the script and music and cast list. Its going to be the Best Ever. I hope everyone will come see it.

An ordered and Peaceful Life
It feels to me, in a vague and undefinable way, that we are shedding the stress and crises of the last 8 years. I had feared that having lived for so long, our whole marriage in fact, in a church in turmoil that we wouldn't know how to live without it when it came time.

Such appears not to be the case. A growing and vibrant church, while fraught on many days, and certainly full of the many small dramas that make life interesting, is not necessarily crisis driven. The growth, order and generalized peace of the church is very much present in our home. Even as we head into a stressful time of year we are by no means over stretched and running in too many directions.