(And All My) Work Be Praise

As I type this, my husband and my toddler are playing one of his (Levi's) favorite games: "the die game," as he calls it.  It began as a solo activity one morning while Levi was typing letters on the computer : he spotted two dice on the computer desk and began rolling it repeatedly next to the computer, typing each number he rolled after he rolled it.  (Isaac had played with dice with him before, so he'd already learned to recognize each side as containing a number of dots.) On a whim a few weeks ago (and as a means of pulling him away from the computer when he wasn't particularly inclined to do so), and I grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen and the die, sat down on the floor, and invited him to take turns rolling the die with me.  We made a line for Levi and a line for Mommy on the paper, and I wrote down each number as we rolled the die. It's not so much a "game," as it has no winner (and no definite ending point, I soon realized!), but it has ...

Though you wouldn't know it from my lack of blog posts recently, I've been thinking about a lot of things: One of the bloggers I read hosted a "why I blog" post from a bunch of other bloggers [how many times can I say "blog" in one sentence?!], and I was rather dismayed with most of the answers, which led me to think about my own purpose -- in life and in blogging. I've been wrestling with the purpose and effectiveness of prayer, as I lie in bed night after night and plead with God (without success, it seems) to let Owen stop coughing.  (My husband is quick to remind me that God owes me nothing.) I recently finished a delightful and thought-provoking book called Bed and Board , written in the 1960s by an Episcopalian priest and recommended by Katey  [you should go check out her recipe for baked apples , by the way].  While at times so witty that I literally laughed out loud while reading, it also contains some of the most beautiful descriptions of ...

Wednesday was a particularly dreary day here in Cincinnati.  Levi was just starting to come down with his cold, we were all getting bored and antsy from a long morning inside, and we needed something fun to do!  As we were eating lunch, I spotted a sheet on the couch that hadn't yet made it to the laundry, and inspiration struck: a fort! It turns out that I do not yet possess great fort-building skills.  (I say "yet" because I foresee plenty of practice in my future.)  We got off to a rocky start: my obsessive-compulsive toddler freaked out quite a bit over a dining room chair being in the living room, and then he tried to put a toy on top of the sheet and fell flat on his face when the whole sheet came crashing down. After I finally convinced Levi to crawl under the sheet, I suggested he get some toys to take in the fort.  He took this as a directive to empty the entire toy cupboard plus all of the puzzles, and derived great joy from the pile of toys "in de...

I meant to post a picture of the birthday boy with yesterday's post, but forgot! Owen John, one year old

An edited re-post of a Facebook "note" in honor of Owen's first birthday today.  If you don't love reading birth stories, you might want to skip this post.  :) Monday morning, Nov. 15, a week before due date, I went to my midwife appointment as usual. About half an hour after we got home (10:30am-ish), I started having some infrequent pain in my lower abdomen, well underneath my belly. It didn't feel anything like I remembered, contractions-wise, so I rather ignored it for a while until my lower back started to ache, too. Isaac kept asking if we should call the midwife, but I kept insisting that we weren't to call until I had contractions 5 minutes apart, and that I'd be better off just taking a nap -- which I did, except for the contractions which continued to come every 15-20 minutes. When I got up (2:15pm-ish), we called the midwife, who said exactly what I expected: at 20 minutes apart, they're not doing anything. Drink a glass of water and...

It's been just over five months since I announced  that Levi (22 months old at that point) was saying about half a dozen words.  As was to be expected, his growing vocabulary picked up speed after that, but it really wasn't until about a month ago that we noticed dramatic increases in his verbal skills. The desire to communicate with (or, rather, to ) his little brother was a driving factor, I think: "Sit down, O-wo" was Levi's first full sentence.  After that we got "more milk please" and a number of other small requests.  The biggest breakthrough, though, was when he mastered, "May I have milk, please?"  It's a phrase he uses for everything, substituting verbs and direct objects to the best of his ability: "May I dip [get] down, please?"  "May I do ABCs, please?" (referring to typing on the computer ).  The ability to craft sentences is slowly making its way into his everyday speech; a few days ago, he spent a 10-min...

I assume I'm not alone in having a toddler who is fascinated by all things electronic -- the computer, the digital camera, my cell phone.  For a long time I resisted letting Levi touch any of them, and restricted his activity to sitting on my lap to look at pictures. Levi being Levi, however, it wasn't long before he realized that every time Mommy sat down at the computer, letters appeared on the screen.  From then on, any time I even walked into the den, he would be on my heels, asking, "ABCs?  ABCs?  ABCs?" I've developed several justifications for allowing him to type at the computer, none of them proven by any external sources whatsoever: 1. He'll need to learn to type eventually.  He might as well get familiar with the placement of the letters. 2. It is short and easily restricted screen time.  When he has typed out the alphabet and the numbers 1-9, he's done.  (Occasionally, however, if I have nothing else pressing, I'll let him type out s...