love & obedience

We are doing something crazy:

There is this child.

We are strangers to them. 

This child has no family.

This child has issues - some of them you can see, some of them you can't.  Some of them don't even exist yet.

And we are going to say to this stranger-child, "Hey!  There is a lot - an awful lot - that stands between us and you, but we are willing to cross all those bridges.  We'll span the oceans.  We are willing to let your issues be our issues.  Your mess, our mess.  Your story, our story.  We are willing to be your family and love you always."

Wait, you say.  That's not crazy.  That is exciting, noble, wonderful!

Perhaps.

There is a cost you see... the hidden, secret cost. 

Because to take a complete stranger with all their mysterious messiness, and call them family... to open your arms to a child whose unknowns will shake you to your core, whose potential for disaster may outweigh your potential to love, and be willing to chose to love even still...

That means you have to stop looking at what you want.

Stop looking at what you need.

Take all those things that you are so desperate to call you own - your dreams, your fears, your hopes, every deceitful, pacifying half truth you tell yourself, your reputation and your friendships - every good and bad that defines you...

...and give them up.

Then you must choose to be obedient to a vision of love that is outlandish.

wild

misunderstood

presumptive

bold

undeserved

stubborn

hopeful

And you must choose it in your darkest hours, in the blindness of your selfishness, in the midnight of your despair.  Again and again, over and over and with every breath...

You must choose love, and obedience.

Pondering the future.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a dog.

I'm thinking maybe something of the medium height variety, with some poodle or collie in them (those breeds are smart and don't shed the same way as regular dogs).

I always imagined when I was a grown up that I would have a boy dog and name him Quasar.

My husband and oldest daughter would rather have a cat. I guess that might make for an interesting menagerie.

One day.



(edit: I did not know would not post again here for about 3 years. in that time a lot changed.  among other things we had another daughter, and a cat found us.)

Sofa Illuminations

A perplexing revelation came to me as I was sitting here just now, talking to a friend of mine in The Netherlands about Australia's amazing mangoes...

Christmas time is always interesting for me. Instead of it warming up (as I'm used to) it cools down... Instead of the smell of ripe tropical fruit, the smell of scented pinecones greets you when you walk into the grocery store. People are pulling out scarves and woolens, instead of tank tops and flip flops.
Before Christmas, on a cold wintery day, a friend sipped hot chocolate with me as we watched snow laden clouds drift gloomily across the sky, and asked "What do you miss most about Christmas in Australia?"
Without hesitation I said, "Mangoes."

The smell, the sickly sweet bins of them that you drift past at the local corner shop... the way they spice up the air when you cut into them... the slippery seed at the center that holds so much goodness and requires so much flossing afterwards...

But they're not the same here, they're more bitter, and less intoxicating.

Then a dear friend of ours married a man from Uganda, right before Christmas. R and I sang at their wedding. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the reception area to see that the place cards on the table were mangoes! Not ordinary store bought mangoes, but large, fat, red-ripening mangoes that made my heart pound. The kind where, when you sniff the stem, all you can think about is summer as a child and your face sticky with mango juice.

It was like a gift from heaven for me. In the middle of a cold winter, a home country touch of Christmas.

I treasured those mangoes. I took them home, and for fear they would go bad in my refrigerator while I was gone, I wrapped them carefully in a sweater and put them in my hand luggage for the plane ride to Denver the next day. They arrived safe and sound, and into the refrigerator they went.

Periodically, I would pull them out of the refrigerator and put them on the counter, thinking that today would be the day I'd cut into them and share them with the family, but somehow they would sit there just long enough to be overlooked, and then returned to the refrigerator by someone kind enough to try and preserve them for me... And then later I would pull them out again, to get them to room temperature, and smell them for a while, and thing about how wonderful a surprise they were... and then they'd disappear into the refrigerator again.

They were left in Denver, uneaten.

And as I sat here, talking to my friend about mangoes, I remembered them. Those two luscious, ruby coloured mangoes that smelled so sweet, and were such a gift... and a small question dropped into my mind...

"How often do you do that?"

It was a painful question for me.

How often are we blessed... do we receive a beautiful gift, and then never truly enjoy it? How often do we look at it, admire it, caress it... and never partake of it?

Food for thought.

Quotes of 2008

"You don't have to jam your nose in there!" - Ryan Pue

"I have no function left in my body it was so amazing!" - Steph Thompson

"It's crazy that all my earliest childhood memories are bodily function disasters." - Anonymous.

"Howls. Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce." - Monty Python

"It's dejavu all over again!" - Swimming commentator at the Olympics.

"No sauce? No problem!" - Amelie & Imogen

"You just need that next neuron to fire... Go neuron!" - Ryan

Amelie Quotes:

"Don't be loud to the doggie, you make her ears hurt." - Amelie to Imogen

Ryan: Amelie, why did you take your ponytail out?
Amelie: Because it was all hairy.
Ryan: It was hairy?
Amelie: AND dangerous.

Me: Cute shoes, Amelie!
Amelie: Yeah, they were sixty dollars, but the right colour.
Me: Sixty dollars?!
Amelie: Yeah, remember? I got them at the store.

Amelie, sounding out words to Imogen:
"No, it's p-p-p-chinchilla!"

Amelie, to the fabric counter girl:
"I have a grandma."
"Yeah?"
"I have cousins."
"Yeah?"
"I have a Papa, and he has lots of beer!"

Amelie, doing music study with Mama, and listening to Olsen Olsen, by Sigur Ros:
Mama: What do you think is in his heart that he's trying to get out?
Amelie: He has an ache in his heart.
Mama: A sad ache, or a happy ache?
Amelie: A happy ache. Like a blue crack. In the floor.

Amelie: The sun gives me Bite-amins (Vitamins)
Mama: Oh really? Which vitamins?
Amelie: Pony ones. Because they're better than giraffes.

Amelie getting ready for a bath, yells:"The nakey buns are HERE!!" and points to her butt with two hands.

Cory Gustke: Amelie, what do you like on your pizza?
Amelie: Tickles.

Amelie, commenting on the puppies at the mall:
I love their ears. They're so deli-fish.

Papa: Amelie, who were Peter Rabbit's sisters?
Amelie: Mootsie, Jootsie aaaaand... Tootsie!

Papa brings the girls ketchup at In-N-Out:
Amelie: Woaaaah! Shiver me timbers!!

Amelie: These are going to be the BEST cupcakes EVER!
Mama: Oh, thank you, Amelie! It makes me so happy that you have such confidence in Mama's cooking. You make me feel so good!
Amelie shrugs slightly: It's kinda my job.

Whitney: You have a cute smile.
Amelie: That's why God made me special.

Amelie: Honey. It's cereal ketchup!

Amelie crashes heads with Imogen really hard. Amelie cries, Imogen looks at her.
Me: Wow, that was quite a whop!
Amelie: Yeah (cries some more) Immi has a strong head!
Me: (laughing) Yes. Yes she does.
Amelie: But I doooon't have one (and cries again).

Imogen quotes:

Imogen: Um on. Wick. Urry.
Me: Why?
Imogen: Cwackers.

"Aff oo et mah blip blops."

Imogen hears a song in a clothing store.
Imogen: Singin'?
Me: Yeah. (wryly) She's saying, touch me right now.
Imogen: Gwoss.

Me: There's one dice, two dice. Pick them up, please.
Imogen: No dice!

"'Nother pop'tickle!"

"I love food! I just wanna eat, eat, EAT!"

"Stop it, dude!"

The most valuable thing my mother taught me was to read. You'll always get smarter if you keep reading. Something else my mother taught me was that you should never wear make up to visit the doctor, because they might not realize how sick you really are if you look too pretty.

Equipped with this knowledge I entered the adult world of diagnosis and MD's (I think) a person reasonably well versed about her own body and health and, trying not to be too be too bossy about self diagnosis, a self awareness that has impressed most medical personnel. I think working in medical administration also helped develop this, as I often heard how frustrated doctors were by 'dumb people' who knew nothing about their own bodies, had little self awareness, and apparently, little knowledge about basic anatomy. When they had a patient who was even a little bit educated about what was going on with their own body, they rejoiced.

So you can imagine I was quite delighted to be able to (with what I would call a pretty basic understanding of the reproductive system) inform my doctor of the date of conception of each of my children. In every instance an ultrasound confirmed that date exactly, which he said he found very helpful. In fact, at the first appointment with my second child, he didn't even ask me the date of my LMP, he went entirely off my conception date to determine a due date (which is good because the other calculation would have been off by two weeks).

Imagine my surprise when, after having to go into the office today at 19 wks 4 days pregnant to have a check because of some abnormalities, a new doctor tells me that I am 20 weeks and 1 day pregnant.

I recheck the dates and ask her, I'm pretty sure I'm only 19 weeks 4 days, do you know if my due date was changed?

She checks the baby first. "Growth is right on track for 20 weeks 1 day, she's measuring 19 weeks, 4 days!"

I am puzzled by this information. By what she has just said, the baby is behind. By my caculations and the measurement she gave, the baby is right on track with her age being 19 weeks 4 days!

As I'm given 20 minutes of peace during a non-stress test, I review my first meeting with the midwife. As per my other visits, the assistant wants to figure out my due date using the date of my LMP. I reluctantly give it to her, and ask her to please calculate using my other date, as my cycle was not a typical 28-day cycle. She won't. Based on that (incorrect) date, she gives me a due date of April 12th. According to my dates I should be due April 17th. (But wait, you say, that's only 5 days different! So what? Bear with me friend...)
Enter the midwife, a jolly, down-to-earth woman who is bright and cheerful. "What was your LMP?"
I give her the date, but say, "My cycle was long that time, and I didn't ovulate until xdate. I know conception was on ydate."
"Oh good!" she says, apparently delighted by this information, "You know the date of conception! Well that would give you a due date of April 17th!"
She makes a note in my chart. She does the ultrasound. The baby is measuring correctly to the date. Turning to me, she smiles. "You were right, Mama!"

Back in the waiting room today, as I make inane observations about the room (the fluff that has gathered on one corner of the ceiling tile maybe be an over exuberance of ceiling insulation... the net at the top of the curtain was attached to the fabric using a serger - interesting choice) I jump as the new doctor sticks her head in the door.
"Yeah, your LMP was zdate, so your due date is April 12th. That makes you 20 weeks, 1 day."
Dumbly, I say, "But my cycle was long that month, we didn't conceive the baby until after I ovulated, and by the conception date they told me I was due April 17th."
She smiles with no emotion. "We don't use those dates. We always go by LMP. Your due date is April 12th." And then she is gone.

I want my regular doctor back. I want the midwife. I want anyone who will realize that come April 12th, and I'm warned about the dangers of being overdue, big babies, inhalation of meconium, and the general disasters that await you if you pass the magical date, that this baby is awaiting her own time to enter the world, and I don't have to be the slightest bit worried until sometime after the 17th. I wonder if, because it's relatively easy to frighten a heavily pregnant woman about the safety of her unborn child, I will feel pressure to have an induction, which may then (according to well documented research) lead to all kinds of other interventions if indeed she is not ready to be in the world. I wonder if my fate has changed at all because a doctor who doesn't believe in using conception dates (that have been verified multiple times by early ultrasound), has given me an incorrect due date.

I lie there, wondering, wishing there was an alternative we could afford, and anyone who even cares. I think about my daughter, flexing and twisting in my belly, so wanted and loved already and blissfully unaware of all that lies ahead of her.

It seems she is staying put for now. It was infection that caused me to fear her early arrival, something easily treatable because I paid attention to my body, was reasonably well informed and sought help from someone more educated than myself. There is a lot of relief in that.

But I should have worn make-up. At least then I could feel dumb AND pretty.

Vanity to History

I found two other Catherine Pues' that have gone before me.

The first married Charles Diaper of Romsey, a labourer in Winchester, Hampshire on 5th March, 1724.

The second (Catherine Mary Pue) was born in Ireland about 1851. In 1876 (at the age of about 25) she married James Bushen, who was approximately 5 years her junior. James was a Grocers Assistant and he and Catherine settled in Barnstaple. Catherine's older sister, Elizabeth, lived with them, and they also rented out rooms to lodgers. They had one son, Thomas, born about 3 years later. James died in 1888 aged only 32. After he died, Catherine continued to rent out rooms to lodgers. Her son Thomas became a silversmith. Catherine did not marry again and died after 1901.

No excuses.

It seems blogging has gone the way of so many other things in my life. I have lost a taste for it, and it saddens me.

But still there is a nagging feeling that it's just a phase. I forget what it's like to not be myself, which, given my history, is a great thing. So why don't I feel happier?

I have cut much fabric lately and sewn nothing. Finished no pages. Taken no pictures. My children will look back on the last three months and wonder what happened to their life. I will tell them we were abducted by aliens and sent off to live on a planet where everyone wears polka dots and talks like mice, and where everyone goes to the pool every day and eats popsicles for breakfast. They will think it was the best three months ever.

I, however, will chalk it up to one of those unhappy but necessary processes on the way to happiness.

More later. The obscurity is getting to me.