Trying Not To Shudder When I Watch Leo Sayer Dance

We watch The Muppet Show around here.
Million loves it.
It's the only "TV" besides Tangled, one song from SchoolHouse Rock,some football games, and the first 15 minutes of Singin' In the Rain he's seen, to my knowledge.

He's vastly contented with Muppet Show.
He says "wokka wokka" and "kissie kissie Kermie" as part of his daily vocabulary.

They've never ruined one of my favorite songs until a few nights ago.
Usually they improve my favorite songs.
Perhaps it wasn't the Muppets who ruined it, but the actual visualization of Leo Sayer singing.
Hmmm. 

In other news: Leo Lioni disappointed me two nights ago.  Have you ever read "Frederick?"
Here's a youtube version of it.  I'm not much of a book review writer; I leave that to my more talented friends.  You can try to surmise why it might have disappointed me.

Race Revisited

I've had a lot on my mind lately.
Right in the wake of the Travyon Martin atrocity, Million experienced his first "attack" from two little boys, age 3 and 5 in a public play area.
They started shoving him and told him he was stinky and that no one wanted to play with him.

You're probably assuming these were little Caucasian boys.
They weren't.
They were little African American boys, who saw my more fair-skinned brown boy walk in with a white mother, and likely assumed (like many strangers do) that I procreated with an African American or African man.

The little boys' father had vacated the play area for a few minutes, and as soon as he returned, they acted like nothing had happened.

Fortunately, Million isn't old enough to understand anything that they said.  He thought they were just rough-housing with him, and he was delighted to interact with some older boys.

Even when I think about it now, about three days later, I can't think of an appropriate response to a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old.  They weren't spouting racial terminology.  However, the way they interacted with other children left no doubt in my mind that it was a racially motivated spurning.   Another Caucasian father saw the event and encouraged his little daughter to play with Million, and the boys were soon forgotten temporarily in Million's mind.

Million has remembered one of the boys and mentioned him several times, and each time he's mentioned the boy I've told him that the boy must have been very sad and that sad people hurt other people or make fun of them.

I've been reading the Sneetches book with him and some books (Who Took The Farmers Hat? and Eric Carle's Little Cloud, and It Looked Like Spilt Milk) about how peoples' perceptions of things can be very different, and I've been telling him about how he has beautiful brown skin and I have creamy white skin.

He hears his "story" many times (although admittedly right now he's only looking forward to the "and little Million got to ride on one, two, THREE airplanes!" part.)

I have no resolution to this.  I'm sad to chronicle it so early in his life, but not altogether surprised.
Michael works in a city where there is a large population of Somalians.  I'm only mentioning it because when we spend time with Ethiopian friends here, there is almost invariably always a reference of hatred towards Somalians.  I had much expected something like THAT to be Million's first non-white racial event.

 I felt it was okay to post this, because I'm not posting out of anger at the little boys---more sadness and heart-sickness than anything.  It's so sad that those little boys likely have experienced the very kind of events they caused for my son.  It's sad that they live in a world where people can't (or choose not to) see the beauty of each individual unique creation of God's.  It's sad that they are not old enough or are not given the tools to express their hurt appropriately.  So I have had a lot on my mind.  When I have a lot on my mind, this blog gets left in the dust, for fear of over-processing or saying something in the "heat of the moment" that perhaps didn't need to be said. 

Dried Beans and Recipe Piles

A little over two years ago, I researched how to prepare raw beans at home, as opposed to buying the canned beans with added salt.

I never got around to it.

But after visiting my brother and sister-in-law's this weekend and seeing it work for them, I finally "bit the bullet."  

According to Michael, our two most commonly eaten foods are beans and spinach.

He's not far off.

 

One other project that is consuming a little of my time these days is gathering all my recipes into a binder.  My sister-in-law makes anything organizational look so easy.  I'm the type that gets distracted after two minutes of getting all my recipes out on the counter.

But I did manage to get rid of some of the recipes I only keep for sentimental reasons.  You know the "jello" recipes that kind-hearted old women hand-wrote for me or the "world's best punch" recipe that is only two ingredients.   I considered the purging of those kinds of recipes a large success.

Weekends Are For Family

We were whisked away to the magical land of Iowa this weekend.
Only if whisking involves 10+ hours in the car.  (Thanks, Mr. Flat Tire When We're One Hour Away From Home at 8:00 at Night On A Freeway.)
And only if "magical" means "it smells like manure right when you cross the state border."

But we did have a marvelous weekend.  The best we've had in countless months, in fact.
The flat tire really did nothing to damage our perception of it at all.

We went to visit my brother and his wife.

We played at parks, flew kites, ate wonderful food, and spied on Hillary's bookshelves.

Ahem.  I did take pictures of the shelves for  reference, and then she found me out.  I generally trust her book recommendations so I took pictures of books I hadn't read.  I didn't expect my sneaky photography to be discovered, until they asked to download my pictures from this weekend on their computer.  :)

We came away from the weekend so refreshed and thought-filled. Our weekend was computer-less and for the most part phone-less.  We enjoyed playing games and long conversations.  We were so impressed with how genuine they are as a couple and how they've forged a very independent and healthy (in many ways, not just how they eat) lifestyle for themselves.  

It's much more fun to write "doing" posts than "being"posts.  
But I haven't really had the time to do "doing" things lately.
With husband sick twice in the last two weeks*, I've been just trying to make it somewhat gracefully through laundry, dishes, weather changes, family events, and toddler attitude training.


However, here is my sage advice for the day.


That gourmet cooking show or movie you watched last night? It just may have lulled you into the belief that you, dear reader, are capable of cooking gourmet meals.  The ones where the sauces require veal bones and take six hours to simmer.  Don't be led astray, unless you have finances and time in abundance.  And the six hours really isn't worth it for a meal when your son is just going to spill most of it on the floor anyway.

*The irony is not lost on me: He never got sick while working in direct patient care, and as soon as he moves to an office job he starts getting sick a lot.

Prayers from a Puritan: Sunday Morning

My two men walking to church on a Sunday morning.

This past Sunday, Michael led worship at our church, as he does every month.

He opened with a prayer written by a puritan, found in the book called "The Valley of Vision."
I've posted prayers from this book here and here.

This Sunday, he opened with "Confession and Petition."

HOLY LORD, I have sinned times without number,
and been guilty of pride and unbelief,
of failure to find thy mind in thy Word,
of neglect to seek thee in my daily life. 
My transgressions and short-comings present me with a list of accusations,
 But I bless thee that they will not stand against me, for all have been laid on Christ;
 Go on to subdue my corruptions,and grant me grace to live above them.
 Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings of the mind bring my spirit into subjection, but do thou rule over me in liberty and power.
 I thank thee that many of my prayers have been refused—
I have asked amiss and do not have,
I have prayed from lusts and been rejected,
I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness.
 Go on with thy patient work, answering 'no' to my wrongful prayers, and fitting me to accept it.
 Purge me from every false desire, every base aspiration, everything contrary to thy rule.
 I thank thee for thy wisdom and thy love, for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject, for sometimes putting me into the furnace to refine my gold and remove my dross.
 No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin.
If thou shouldst give me choice to live in pleasure and keep my sins, or to have them burnt away with trial, give me sanctified affliction.
 Deliver me from every evil habit, every accretion of former sins, everything that dims the brightness of thy grace in me, everything that prevents me taking delight in thee.
Then I shall bless thee, God of Jeshurun, for helping me to be upright.

Satisfaction

O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. 

Psalm 90:14

Are you satisfied?

Are you satisfied with God's lovingkindness?

With God alone?

Not with God plus XYZ?

Or with God when He does such and such?

If you're not satisfied with God alone, what are you running to in order to "fill the void"?

Tough questions that I've been pondering/convicted over this weekend. 

Six-Month Visit

Our six-month post-placement visit last week went well.
Every time we get a "you're doing a great job! heck yeah!" from our agency, it feels like grace.
Every time we get that stamp of approval, I feel like crying (and many times do as soon as our lovely social worker leaves.)
How far I've come from the opinionated girl four years ago who told a social worker what I knew and what I wanted.
How far I've come from the bitter girl, three years ago who parted ways angrily with that social worker and agency.
May I go on many more life-changing journeys.
May my character not be permanently rigidly fixed.
May there be molding and shaping.

Thanking God for His marvelous grace to us today.
Thanking Him that His grace is not contingent on how I parent, what deeds I do or do not do, whether or not I'm grateful for situations and blessings that come my way.
Thanking Him that His love is not conditional.
Grateful that because of Him, I can at least TRY to be the kind of person who deserves a stamp of approval from an adoption agency.
Knowing full well, how absolutely undeserving I am of the gifts He gives.