what's that, nanny?

My mom works as a nanny. Sometimes the families who hire nannies end up being quite, uhhh, colorful. Difficult. Challenging. Those are the nice words that come to mind.

Today she and the younger of her charges came to visit me. Actually, they came to visit my pool, but it was too cold. While waiting for the air to get warm, mom cracked open a book while almost-4-year old Munchkin played quietly on the floor.

For a few minutes.

Then he sidled over to Nanny, who was focused on reading her book:

"What's that book about, Nanny?"

"Ummm, I'm not exactly sure how to explain this one to you, sweetheart." He's such a sweet child, and just doesn't need to know that other members of his family are driving her to distraction.

He thought about it for a moment, looking intently at the cover.

"So it's a screw driver book, Nanny?"

"Uh, yes, exactly. It's a screw driver book, sweetheart."

"Oh, okay!"

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on sheer exhaustion...

I have to learn to pace myself.

I feel old, decrepit, maybe even a little diseased. The past week has been a hectic blur of meetings, ministry and even an afternoon of substitute teaching at our local church school.

I keep forgetting that just because I feel good today, doesn't mean I can work for 12 hours straight without paying the price tomorrow. And this week I've just pushed straight through several days of frenetic output. (Actually, 4 months ago it would have just been normal - maybe even lightweight. But things change.)

After last week's meetings and an international evangelism conference all weekend, I'm knackered.

Flat on my back in bed.

With acne.

And all my nausea is back in full force.

I really think this time the nausea is directly tied to the stress. And the lack of sleep. And the exhaustion.

Oh wait, those two are the same thing.

Right.

I think I'll take a nap now.

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butterflies...

So this morning I was lying half asleep, in that blissful twilight between dreams and wakefulness, and I felt the baby moving for the first time. Just the faintest flutters.

Pretty cool!

Oh yes, and spent a little bit of lunchtime in the sunshine by the pool. In my new swimsuit. I mean, really, the ones I have just don't accommodate the, ahhhhh, expansion... :)

All in all, a very nice day.

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on Mother's Day...

My first Mother's Day... I really wasn't sure I should participate, but everybody kept urging me to.

At church, the men organized a beautiful program in honor of the women - including children's vocal and bell choirs, and testimonies. Halfway through the service every grown man in the room got up and left. 20 minutes later, they all filed in to surround the entire sanctuary while singing Amazing Grace and He Touched Me.

They said that they wanted to present themselves as a boundary wall symbolizing their protection of the women and children from the outside world. Even the single women were in tears as so many deep, rich voices joined together in this circle of song.

Next, they hosted a communion service in honor of the Mothers. The men and children washed the feet of their mothers, as Jesus had done for the disciples, and then served the symbols of communion to the women. It was beautiful!

The rest of the weekend I was so tired from all the excitement that I just wanted to sleep. But it was all worth it.

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other people's blogs

This week I've browsed a few other mommyblogs. I ran across one or two that sounded just like me - cadence of the words and the rhythm of writing and all. I kept thinking "Did I write this?"

Except that it was really funny. Every single post had me in stitches.

Of course I didn't write that. I'm not nearly that funny.

I wish I were.

*sigh*

Maybe I'm not so hilarious because my child isn't quite big enough for the antics that fuel the funny bone of other mom-writers. My kid isn't toppling out of shopping carts, or making science projects yet.

Nope, the biggest drama my child has created is successfully making mommy nauseated for nearly four months, and watching her tearfully pack up 2/3 of her wardrobe into big white plastic bags for storage until she can fit them again.

[Of course, that particular trauma has been slightly offset by the sudden and pressing emergency need to go find cute new clothes (on SALE of course!) that will fit for a good while longer. We must take our silver linings wherever we can, right?]

But in a few months, you know, this child will actually be born. And who knows what kind of stunts will inspire my pen?

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i love publix...

Those of you who don't live in the south might never have heard of Publix - you know, the grocery store. Kind of smaller than Kroger's, but bigger than the Piggly Wiggly. Yeah, that one.

Publix, (like most grocery chains that have well-presented food, snapping fresh produce, and a selection of organic and health foods) runs a bit more expensive than, oh, say Wal-Mart or the local version of Bent-N-Dent.

And while I see a time in our near future where those places may become our sole source of foodstuffs, it hasn't quite got there yet. Besides, they're just not as nice to their customers! At Publix, they ALWAYS push your cart to your car and load your bags.

Last night I stopped into Publix for a quick shop. All day people had commented on how much the pregnancy belly is popping out this week - I don't know if it's the belly or just the dress I was wearing, but either way...

As I lined up to check out, a manager came over to put my groceries out of the cart and onto the belt. The cashier greeted my tired self with a warm smile and helpfulness. Then, as usual, the bagger offered to take everything to my car.

Yup, for now, it's worth it to pay a few cents more to shop at Publix. It's not every place that makes you feel like walking taller and smiling more after just getting the groceries!

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ready to relinquish your parental rights?

Maybe you've heard about the movement to petition a Parental Rights Amendmendment to the United States Constitution.

Maybe you haven't.

Why should you care?

"The right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is presently a fundamental but implied right guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Yet one of the main reasons that parental rights are in danger today is due to their status as implied rights. That's because the meaning of an implied right is never entirely stable. Since parental rights are implied rights, the Court is free to redefine their meaning whenever it wishes. With international law poised to reposition parental rights into mere responsibilities, essentially robbing parents of their rightful place in a child’s life, the parental role and child-parent relationship is more endangered than ever before." (Read more here.)

Didn't know that your American parental rights are merely implied? Me either, until recently. Now, that's something that our grandparents' generation would have assumed was good, basic common sense.

But we aren't living in Gramma's world anymore.

Some Supreme Court Justices (like Scalia) do believe that parents have the inalienable right to raise their children and make decisions for their own families. Other justices don't agree.

Right now, international law is posing a threat to the continued ability of American families to parent their children without being under groundless suspicion of incompetence from the state. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), while perhaps seeking to do very good things for children in general, effectively places all parents on the legal level of abusers.

"This means that the burden of proof falls on the parent to prove to the State that they are good parents—when it should fall upon the State to prove that their investigation is not without cause." (Read more here.)

I'm not kidding.

To my understanding, there are only two countries in the UN who have not signed the UNCRC petition already: the United States, and Somalia. Somalia - because they don't have the infrastructure to make it happen. And the USA? Because there are a lot of people here who don't want the government freely dictating how they raise their kids.

This isn't just about preventing heinous abuse. One 13-year old boy sued his parents because they took him to church when he didn't want to go. The parents only got him back from the state after agreeing to not take him to church.

Another mother was forced by the court to split custody of her 4-year old daughter with the girl's babysitters, because they just loved being with the child so much. So much for being the "mommy"!

I went and signed the petition. What are YOU gonna do?

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SIGN PETITION

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peepaw's wisdom

My maternal grandfather was an Arkansas rice and cotton farmer who raised 12 kids. Ten girls and two boys.

He may not have been a flashy man of the world, but he had old-fashioned common sense in spades.

PeePaw used to say:
"One boy is a boy,
Two boys is half a boy, and
Three boys is no boy at all!"

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the globe and the ant

The other day I received an unexpected phone call from an old friend. We hadn't spoken in several years. During the conversation, she asked me how things are going with my job and its future - considering the fact that I'm pregnant.

First of all, you have to understand what I do. And that although it's never paid a living wage, I've put my heart and soul into it passionately. My work has revolved around training pastors and church members in ways to reach people around them in today's society, and creating relevant resources for that outreach focus. It takes me on international and domestic trips about 3 months out of the year, and keeps me constantly interacting with people around the globe. When I announced that I was pregnant, a few things changed. Now that I'm on project-basis, and even that is ending when the summer's over, I've been feeling rather strangled.

So the question of, "How's it feeling?" left me scrambling for an answer that didn't sound too self-pitying, and yet accurately reflected the situation.

"You know those National Geographic videos, where they start by showing you planet Earth hanging in space like a fluorescent blue and green ball, and then they slowly start zooming in until you're looking at a tiny garden ant crawling on a single blade of grass? Yeah, that's me right now. That's how I feel."

It's like my sphere of influence is being squeezed from the whole globe down to a blade of grass. And fast. Like the air-being-sucked-out-of-your-lungs fast.

I'm not whining. Just putting a word picture to how I feel. I'm sure I'll get over it.

But I think it may take some time.

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on luxury gifts (like cars)...

I almost wrote this in with yesterday's post. But it kinda conflicted with my goal of one subject per post. So here goes...

In addition to the parenting value of expecting our kids to work for their own college education, we don't believe in giving kids luxury items either.

Like, say, cars.

"Happy birthday sweetheart. Your mom and I are celebrating the fact that you suck air on this planet by giving you a very big, expensive and potentially deadly luxury item all for yourself. Here's the keys, why don't you take your equally mature teenage friends out for a spin!"

Yeah, right!

When I was about 15, my friends in academy starting talking about the cars their parents would buy for their 16th birthdays. So the next time I was home, I asked my dad very nicely if I could please have a car for my next birthday too. He just looked up at me, and chuckled to himself as if to say, "You're such a cute little moron."

Which I didn't think was very nice.

"Honey," dad said, "as soon as you have enough money to buy a car, keep the tank full, pay car insurance, and keep a little fund stashed away for the inevitable maintenance - YOU CAN HAVE A CAR! I don't even care if you're not 16 yet. If you can afford it, you can have it. And not a minute sooner."

To be honest, I'd kind of expected that answer anyway. I have such a wise daddy.

I didn't get a car until I was 18, and starting my sophomore year of college. I worked all summer, saved like a fiend and went car shopping with dad - to the garage of an elderly church widow.

My first "car" was a tan 1986 Mazda B2000 pick-up truck, 5-speed, no power steering, and 2/75 air conditioning. (That equals 2 windows down at 75 miles an hour.) Dad taught me how to change my own oil and tires, check the radiator, and top up the fluids, "cause I'm not going to be there to fix it for you, and you'd better not have a boyfriend yet!"

He also built a plywood camper shell (yup, it was exactly as pretty as it sounds), to fit the truckbed. I may have looked like the Clampett's coming to town, but everything I owned could go inside and stay relatively dry on my rather frequent cross-country road trips.

That little truck lasted me 4 years and 85,000 miles. I sold it just before we got married, 'cause we needed the money. And I cried.

I'd learned that nothing in life comes free, and the things you work hardest for are what you value the most. We really want our kids to learn that same precious lesson - because it shapes character - and because nothing in life is free except salvation, no matter how old you are.

So in a decade and a half, when our little one hints slyly about mummy and daddy's plans for a 16th birthday present, our answer is probably going to sound something like:

"Sweetheart, a car is a luxury. And you are definitely going to get one, just as soon as you can afford it yourself."

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