My daughter and I have a running joke that her favorite stuffed bear, Trumpkin, hibernates during the winter. We have made up lots of little stories over the years about how he hibernates, and how he wakes up and comes alert again every year round about March.
So...the bear is waking up here, but the rest of us are sleeping a ton.
I don't know what our family caught this past week, but it's been a doozy. The sweet girl got it first, a little over a week ago, and she had a few rough days of fever, aches, sore throat, just plain exhaustion. She's still sleeping more than usual, though the rest of her symptoms have gone away.
I've had congestion, cough, fever, aches, and have been sleeping a bizarre number of hours each night for the past few nights. Fever is gone now, but the rest of it remains, and despite all the extra sleep, I am energy-less, just dragging through the days.
Today I noticed that my dear husband was dragging, just completely exhausted looking. He has dark circles under his eyes and was having a hard time staying awake at the dinner table. Granted, he's been working a lot lately, but this was not your normal tired looking. He admitted he was starting to feel "wheezy" and he went to bed as soon as we finished eating.
I have a feeling we might all feel better if we could find a cave somewhere and just hibernate for the next couple of weeks....
I keep telling myself that one day I will have energy again!
Showing posts with label sick days. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sick days. Show all posts
Saturday, March 02, 2013
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Little Women at 44...and 5:00 in the Morning
The sweet girl came down with the terrible flu bug in the middle of the night. This is the same one I've been slowly recovering from since Sunday, and I was so sorry she got hit with it too -- knowing that when it hits, it hits like a freight train. Which it did, leaving me to hold her hair, rub her back, speak murmuring words of encouragement, and generally just be present to her in the wee small hours as she got sick again and again.
Somewhere in there, as she battled ongoing waves of nausea (and isn't that the worst feeling?) she asked if I could read to her. I read Light at Tern Rock, one of our favorite Christmas reads, from start to finish, with only a few breaks for sick-tending. If one must be sick in the middle of the night, I have to say it's one of the most soothing, calming reads possible...and I tried to provide via my voice every ounce of quietness the text and the situation both seemed to call for.
Tern Rock isn't a very long story though, and by about 5 in the morning, with the waves still coming, the sweet girl asked me if we could keep going with Little Women. It's our current evening read-aloud, and we were only a few chapters in. I gladly picked up with "Being Neighborly" -- the lovely scene where mischievous Jo tosses a handful of soft snow up at Laurie and he smiles down at her and you just know that they are going to be friends for life.
I've written here and elsewhere quite a bit about my love for Little Women, and about how Alcott's classic tale of four sisters nourished my growing up years in so many ways. As I often say, I didn't just read the book when I was a child, I inhabited it. The shabby brown house with Marmee's smiling face at the window feels almost as much my childhood home as the wonderful home I actually grew up in. But unlike my actual home, where my parents still thankfully live, I don't visit it much. I read the book so many times in my childhood and young adulthood that it became a part of my inner landscape...so much so that I haven't really returned to it very often in the past quarter century, except to occasionally read a favorite scene.
Several things dawned on me as I read it aloud in the wee small hours, watching my ten year old daughter's eyelids drift open and closed. They probably won't sound as significant as they felt to me when I realized them with the dawn's light breaking through our lace curtain and the Christmas tree lights shining softly next to the bright red geranium on the windowsill. But here they are, in no real order...
* I have never read this book aloud. A scene or two over the years, yes. In fact, I have the first few paragraphs of the book memorized and will sometimes say them aloud just for the comfort of hearing the words. But I have never read the book aloud start to finish. It amazes me how much I still know its rhythms and phrasing; it also amazes me how I know the girls' voices. I'm not doing a lot with the voices, but I do hear myself altering certain rhythms and intonations as I move from girl to girl, and it's odd because it's not something I am conscious of doing until I do it.
*I have never read this book through glasses.
*Reading this book with my reading glasses on, and while nursing a sick daughter, suddenly made me realize...
*I am Marmee. Of course I am still Jo. There is a part of me that will always be Jo. But really now, as I read it this time? I am Marmee...the mama cub, the protector, the teacher, the homeschooler (oh yes, she is), the one who tries to lead and guide and light the way, the one who admits her own faults to help her girls mend their's.
*I still have a lot to learn from Marmee. Has it ever occurred to you just how human and faulty the March girls are? There's not a "typical" one in the lot of them. Shy Beth's fears are standing out to me in a big way this time. Not that my sweet girl is shy (far from it) but oh, she battles many fears of a different sort, and in a big way. What came home as I read through Marmee's calm, gentle patience, her ability to let go and let her girls be who they are (quirks and all) while she gently tries to help shape their characters in small but real ways...was my own lack of patience sometimes with my daughter's anxieties, my own stress about wanting her to overcome them, my worry that her quirks and our creative but challenging family and ministry life can lead to things that are sometimes just hard in her little life. But you know what? God can use all that in her. Marmee knew that about her girls too, even when they lived through real hardship and poverty. She was a wise woman.
*And finally...maybe there were reasons I inhabited this particular book as a child, beyond the mysterious reasons of heart-connecting with a beloved story and author from the past as we all do sometimes. Maybe God gave me this book when I was nine because he knew what my life was going to look like when I was 44. And reading it by Christmas tree light at 5:00...or well, finally 6:30...in the morning, a precious ten year old girl finally, peacefully asleep at last.
Somewhere in there, as she battled ongoing waves of nausea (and isn't that the worst feeling?) she asked if I could read to her. I read Light at Tern Rock, one of our favorite Christmas reads, from start to finish, with only a few breaks for sick-tending. If one must be sick in the middle of the night, I have to say it's one of the most soothing, calming reads possible...and I tried to provide via my voice every ounce of quietness the text and the situation both seemed to call for.
Tern Rock isn't a very long story though, and by about 5 in the morning, with the waves still coming, the sweet girl asked me if we could keep going with Little Women. It's our current evening read-aloud, and we were only a few chapters in. I gladly picked up with "Being Neighborly" -- the lovely scene where mischievous Jo tosses a handful of soft snow up at Laurie and he smiles down at her and you just know that they are going to be friends for life.
I've written here and elsewhere quite a bit about my love for Little Women, and about how Alcott's classic tale of four sisters nourished my growing up years in so many ways. As I often say, I didn't just read the book when I was a child, I inhabited it. The shabby brown house with Marmee's smiling face at the window feels almost as much my childhood home as the wonderful home I actually grew up in. But unlike my actual home, where my parents still thankfully live, I don't visit it much. I read the book so many times in my childhood and young adulthood that it became a part of my inner landscape...so much so that I haven't really returned to it very often in the past quarter century, except to occasionally read a favorite scene.
Several things dawned on me as I read it aloud in the wee small hours, watching my ten year old daughter's eyelids drift open and closed. They probably won't sound as significant as they felt to me when I realized them with the dawn's light breaking through our lace curtain and the Christmas tree lights shining softly next to the bright red geranium on the windowsill. But here they are, in no real order...
* I have never read this book aloud. A scene or two over the years, yes. In fact, I have the first few paragraphs of the book memorized and will sometimes say them aloud just for the comfort of hearing the words. But I have never read the book aloud start to finish. It amazes me how much I still know its rhythms and phrasing; it also amazes me how I know the girls' voices. I'm not doing a lot with the voices, but I do hear myself altering certain rhythms and intonations as I move from girl to girl, and it's odd because it's not something I am conscious of doing until I do it.*I have never read this book through glasses.
*Reading this book with my reading glasses on, and while nursing a sick daughter, suddenly made me realize...
*I am Marmee. Of course I am still Jo. There is a part of me that will always be Jo. But really now, as I read it this time? I am Marmee...the mama cub, the protector, the teacher, the homeschooler (oh yes, she is), the one who tries to lead and guide and light the way, the one who admits her own faults to help her girls mend their's.
*I still have a lot to learn from Marmee. Has it ever occurred to you just how human and faulty the March girls are? There's not a "typical" one in the lot of them. Shy Beth's fears are standing out to me in a big way this time. Not that my sweet girl is shy (far from it) but oh, she battles many fears of a different sort, and in a big way. What came home as I read through Marmee's calm, gentle patience, her ability to let go and let her girls be who they are (quirks and all) while she gently tries to help shape their characters in small but real ways...was my own lack of patience sometimes with my daughter's anxieties, my own stress about wanting her to overcome them, my worry that her quirks and our creative but challenging family and ministry life can lead to things that are sometimes just hard in her little life. But you know what? God can use all that in her. Marmee knew that about her girls too, even when they lived through real hardship and poverty. She was a wise woman.
*And finally...maybe there were reasons I inhabited this particular book as a child, beyond the mysterious reasons of heart-connecting with a beloved story and author from the past as we all do sometimes. Maybe God gave me this book when I was nine because he knew what my life was going to look like when I was 44. And reading it by Christmas tree light at 5:00...or well, finally 6:30...in the morning, a precious ten year old girl finally, peacefully asleep at last.
Sunday, April 01, 2012
A Narrowed Focus (Holy Week into Easter)
I've been describing this past week as a lost week. My birthday last Monday was just a super lovely day (annual conservatory pictures coming soon) but things started getting weird on Tuesday. The sweet girl discovered, late in the morning, that she wasn't feeling very well. She seemed to lose all energy and appetite and had started a cough. I discovered she had a temperature that afternoon, and by nighttime it had hit 103. It didn't fully break until this morning, in the sixth day of the illness.
It turned out to be a virus (with such a high temp, we took her to the doc mid-week) but what an awful one. I started battling it on Wednesday and came down with it on Thursday in earnest, and I suddenly understood why she had complained of dizziness and aches and had cried so much. At one point she had told me she needed help to walk to the bathroom; I obliged with a slight inward smile, thinking she was being a bit of a drama princess. Um...turns out that, no, she was being completely accurate. I had a hard time standing up long enough for a shower yesterday. The body aches, fierce headache, high temps, and wracking cough, when you put them all together, just make for misery.
I am finally turning the corner today, though still running a temp and coughing and having to rest a lot. I've been attempting, in five minute increments, to pick up the living room, which we basically trashed during a week of camping out on the couch and loveseat (where we both napped for much of the week). There are videos and coloring books and a few scattered schoolbooks, there are piles of laundry (which my dear husband valiantly folded last night...he has miraculously not gotten this, but is so busy with multiple jobs and trying to take care of us this week that he hasn't had much time for the house either). The tax papers are stranded on the table -- no, I haven't done them yet. They were supposed to get done last Tuesday.
It's amazing to me, as always, how much illness narrows one's focus. And not even a terribly serious illness, in this case, just one that wiped our little family out for close to a week. I have friends right now who have been sojourning for months with a child who is seriously ill and has been in and out of hospital over and over again. I can only imagine how their focus has narrowed, and how they have discovered, in the midst of it all, what's important and what's not.
When your focus has narrowed for a while, you can feel it begin to open again, almost like a wide lens opening on a camera. Today was seriously the first time in a handful of days that I had enough energy to begin to notice certain little things, like the socks that needed matching, and the fact that the geranium on the windowsill really needed water. A chunk of cheese in the refrigerator had started to get moldy (D. was hardly here for meals all week, and neither the sweet girl nor I have had any appetite, so most of last week's fresh groceries have unfortunately gone south). As deep down tired as I still feel, I'm starting to notice and to care about these things again. I'm starting to take care of these things again.
It strikes me that a narrowed focus is a powerful metaphor for our journey during Holy Week. During these days, our prayers and meditations center on Jesus' final days, the days leading up to his arrest and passion. Our focus becomes intensively narrow. We leave behind the earlier pages of the gospels, not fully (because the context of Jesus' whole and fully lived life stays with us) but for these few days, we narrow our focus to the central event, his passion and death.
How much more so this must have been true the original disciples, who walked with him up through the Last Supper, and in some cases, to the foot of the cross. They must have felt love, sorrow, fear, in intense waves. Jesus was dying. He was leaving them. He was going to his death. That was their lens, their focus, in those hard and bitter days.
It's only with the resurrection three days later that the lens opens wide again, forever widening their view and our's. No longer would they view Jesus, the world, themselves, in the same way ever again. Death and evil had been defeated! No longer were they subject to them! Their King had returned, and returned in such a way that the whole world was made new. For the rest of their lives, as his disciples, they would keep learning to see the world his way.
It turned out to be a virus (with such a high temp, we took her to the doc mid-week) but what an awful one. I started battling it on Wednesday and came down with it on Thursday in earnest, and I suddenly understood why she had complained of dizziness and aches and had cried so much. At one point she had told me she needed help to walk to the bathroom; I obliged with a slight inward smile, thinking she was being a bit of a drama princess. Um...turns out that, no, she was being completely accurate. I had a hard time standing up long enough for a shower yesterday. The body aches, fierce headache, high temps, and wracking cough, when you put them all together, just make for misery.
I am finally turning the corner today, though still running a temp and coughing and having to rest a lot. I've been attempting, in five minute increments, to pick up the living room, which we basically trashed during a week of camping out on the couch and loveseat (where we both napped for much of the week). There are videos and coloring books and a few scattered schoolbooks, there are piles of laundry (which my dear husband valiantly folded last night...he has miraculously not gotten this, but is so busy with multiple jobs and trying to take care of us this week that he hasn't had much time for the house either). The tax papers are stranded on the table -- no, I haven't done them yet. They were supposed to get done last Tuesday.
It's amazing to me, as always, how much illness narrows one's focus. And not even a terribly serious illness, in this case, just one that wiped our little family out for close to a week. I have friends right now who have been sojourning for months with a child who is seriously ill and has been in and out of hospital over and over again. I can only imagine how their focus has narrowed, and how they have discovered, in the midst of it all, what's important and what's not.
When your focus has narrowed for a while, you can feel it begin to open again, almost like a wide lens opening on a camera. Today was seriously the first time in a handful of days that I had enough energy to begin to notice certain little things, like the socks that needed matching, and the fact that the geranium on the windowsill really needed water. A chunk of cheese in the refrigerator had started to get moldy (D. was hardly here for meals all week, and neither the sweet girl nor I have had any appetite, so most of last week's fresh groceries have unfortunately gone south). As deep down tired as I still feel, I'm starting to notice and to care about these things again. I'm starting to take care of these things again.
It strikes me that a narrowed focus is a powerful metaphor for our journey during Holy Week. During these days, our prayers and meditations center on Jesus' final days, the days leading up to his arrest and passion. Our focus becomes intensively narrow. We leave behind the earlier pages of the gospels, not fully (because the context of Jesus' whole and fully lived life stays with us) but for these few days, we narrow our focus to the central event, his passion and death.
How much more so this must have been true the original disciples, who walked with him up through the Last Supper, and in some cases, to the foot of the cross. They must have felt love, sorrow, fear, in intense waves. Jesus was dying. He was leaving them. He was going to his death. That was their lens, their focus, in those hard and bitter days.
It's only with the resurrection three days later that the lens opens wide again, forever widening their view and our's. No longer would they view Jesus, the world, themselves, in the same way ever again. Death and evil had been defeated! No longer were they subject to them! Their King had returned, and returned in such a way that the whole world was made new. For the rest of their lives, as his disciples, they would keep learning to see the world his way.
Friday, March 09, 2012
A Book to Fall In Love With
I need a book I can fall in love with.
You know the kind I mean. The kind of book you smile shyly at the first time you meet it. The kind of book you take from the shelf with hope shining in your eyes. The kind of book whose pages you smooth with careful hands as you begin.
And then when you begin to read, you fall...and fall hard. Head over heels. You drink deep, lost in delight as you turn the pages, and you barely want to come up for air. When you finally finish, you feel bereft, but it's the kind of bereft you feel after saying good-bye to a dear friend whose company is a total treasure.
That's the kind of book I need right now.
See, I'm tired. All week I've either been sick or taking care of someone sick (a kind of nasty stomach bug with fevers, aches, and general yukiness hit first me, then the sweet girl). I've been grading a mountain of papers. We're under the worst financial stress we've ever been under (and that's saying a lot). I've not really been out of the post-industrial town that time forgot for...oh, let's see...seven months. D. is working three jobs, bless him, and hardly ever here. And I am beginning to feel like if I fold one more piece of laundry, I might scream.
So you see, I need a really good book. An LOTR, Emma, Harry Potter, Guernsey, Til We Have Faces, Severed Wasp sort of book, or a really awesome biography/riveting non-fiction kind of book. The kind of book I can fall head over heels for and not come up for air for a while.
I've had high hopes about a handful of things I've gotten from the library recently, and while they've been just fine, have in fact been good books I've enjoyed (Lauren Winner's Still, P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley) they've not been books that make me want to burn the dinner while I keep reading.
I know one person's love is not necessarily another person's love, but I'd still love to hear what books you've fallen for!
You know the kind I mean. The kind of book you smile shyly at the first time you meet it. The kind of book you take from the shelf with hope shining in your eyes. The kind of book whose pages you smooth with careful hands as you begin.
And then when you begin to read, you fall...and fall hard. Head over heels. You drink deep, lost in delight as you turn the pages, and you barely want to come up for air. When you finally finish, you feel bereft, but it's the kind of bereft you feel after saying good-bye to a dear friend whose company is a total treasure.
That's the kind of book I need right now.
See, I'm tired. All week I've either been sick or taking care of someone sick (a kind of nasty stomach bug with fevers, aches, and general yukiness hit first me, then the sweet girl). I've been grading a mountain of papers. We're under the worst financial stress we've ever been under (and that's saying a lot). I've not really been out of the post-industrial town that time forgot for...oh, let's see...seven months. D. is working three jobs, bless him, and hardly ever here. And I am beginning to feel like if I fold one more piece of laundry, I might scream.
So you see, I need a really good book. An LOTR, Emma, Harry Potter, Guernsey, Til We Have Faces, Severed Wasp sort of book, or a really awesome biography/riveting non-fiction kind of book. The kind of book I can fall head over heels for and not come up for air for a while.
I've had high hopes about a handful of things I've gotten from the library recently, and while they've been just fine, have in fact been good books I've enjoyed (Lauren Winner's Still, P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley) they've not been books that make me want to burn the dinner while I keep reading.
I know one person's love is not necessarily another person's love, but I'd still love to hear what books you've fallen for!
Monday, March 05, 2012
Flowers and Ribbons (The Practice of Spiritual Reading)
I was up very late last night working. I won't tell you what hour I finally got to bed, but it was only three hours later that I was awakened out of a restless sleep by a rather violent stomach virus/bug. I've still only had a couple of dry crackers and a small amount of fluids. Suffice it to say, I am dragging -- and this isn't quite how I expected to kick off Monday.
So in the place of the post I might have normally written on a Monday (more of the Wrinkle re-read, a gratitude post, a week in review...) you're getting this impromptu one instead.
Fortunately, the sweet girl has been a trooper. She's cheerfully taken care of all she needs to do plus a few extras, doing her school work and checking in on mom when I need to rest (she even read to me for a while and didn't mind when I dozed off in the middle of things). Even more fortunately, I had some work related things I could read and re-visit while resting on the couch. One of them was a brief essay on Reading Medieval Texts, penned by the seminary prof I'm assisting this term. I'm about to go into a huge round of paper grading, and wanted to refresh my mind on some of the initial course documents before I did.
And I stumbled head-first, in my tired haze, into this delightful quote from Francis deSales, on the joys of meditative/prayerful reading:
"Those who have been walking in a beautiful garden do not leave it willingly without taking away with them in their hands four or five flowers, in order to inhale their fragrance and carry them about during the day. Even so, when we have considered some mystery in meditation, we should choose one or two or three points which we have found particularly to our taste, and which are particularly appropriate to our advancement, so that we may remember them during the day, and inhale their fragrance spiritually."
It's lovely, wise counsel. And it makes my heart sing because I came up with a similar metaphor many years ago (during my own seminary years, to be exact) when I was taking a spiritual formation course. I called it "carrying a ribbon." I reflected on the beauty of the image of a ribbon -- how simple it is, and yet how festive. A ribbon can tie up a package or gift, it can adorn someone's hair, it can be woven into a bird's nest, it can be woven in and out among dancers on a pole or flung into the air while one person holds it or another catches it. The idea I came up with lo so many years ago was that, when we spiritually read (or read for formation) we often find a beautiful ribbon or two we can carry with us. We revisit those ribbons later and use them for all sorts of things (including sharing and celebration).
I think I like deSales' organic image as much or even better, but we seem to be getting at the same idea. We don't just walk into a text and leave without taking something with us. (Of course the beauty is, unlike taking a flower from a garden or a ribbon from a gift, we don't actually strip anything from the text in question -- it's all still there for the next visitor/recipient to find.) We take it with us, and we continue to carry it throughout the day. And sometimes throughout a week, month, year, or even a lifetime.
You may have noticed that I have a little sidebar on the left-hand side of my blog. Long ago, I labeled it "A Ribbon to Carry With You" and it was with that idea in mind -- that I would share colorful ribbons, small snippets of things I was reading, in the Scriptures or elsewhere, that other people might also want to carry onward with them. I haven't changed the ribbon in a long, long while. It just may be a practice I want to reinvigorate.
So in the place of the post I might have normally written on a Monday (more of the Wrinkle re-read, a gratitude post, a week in review...) you're getting this impromptu one instead.
Fortunately, the sweet girl has been a trooper. She's cheerfully taken care of all she needs to do plus a few extras, doing her school work and checking in on mom when I need to rest (she even read to me for a while and didn't mind when I dozed off in the middle of things). Even more fortunately, I had some work related things I could read and re-visit while resting on the couch. One of them was a brief essay on Reading Medieval Texts, penned by the seminary prof I'm assisting this term. I'm about to go into a huge round of paper grading, and wanted to refresh my mind on some of the initial course documents before I did.
And I stumbled head-first, in my tired haze, into this delightful quote from Francis deSales, on the joys of meditative/prayerful reading:
"Those who have been walking in a beautiful garden do not leave it willingly without taking away with them in their hands four or five flowers, in order to inhale their fragrance and carry them about during the day. Even so, when we have considered some mystery in meditation, we should choose one or two or three points which we have found particularly to our taste, and which are particularly appropriate to our advancement, so that we may remember them during the day, and inhale their fragrance spiritually."
It's lovely, wise counsel. And it makes my heart sing because I came up with a similar metaphor many years ago (during my own seminary years, to be exact) when I was taking a spiritual formation course. I called it "carrying a ribbon." I reflected on the beauty of the image of a ribbon -- how simple it is, and yet how festive. A ribbon can tie up a package or gift, it can adorn someone's hair, it can be woven into a bird's nest, it can be woven in and out among dancers on a pole or flung into the air while one person holds it or another catches it. The idea I came up with lo so many years ago was that, when we spiritually read (or read for formation) we often find a beautiful ribbon or two we can carry with us. We revisit those ribbons later and use them for all sorts of things (including sharing and celebration).
I think I like deSales' organic image as much or even better, but we seem to be getting at the same idea. We don't just walk into a text and leave without taking something with us. (Of course the beauty is, unlike taking a flower from a garden or a ribbon from a gift, we don't actually strip anything from the text in question -- it's all still there for the next visitor/recipient to find.) We take it with us, and we continue to carry it throughout the day. And sometimes throughout a week, month, year, or even a lifetime.
You may have noticed that I have a little sidebar on the left-hand side of my blog. Long ago, I labeled it "A Ribbon to Carry With You" and it was with that idea in mind -- that I would share colorful ribbons, small snippets of things I was reading, in the Scriptures or elsewhere, that other people might also want to carry onward with them. I haven't changed the ribbon in a long, long while. It just may be a practice I want to reinvigorate.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Gladness and Singleness of Heart, Disney Princesses and Sehnsucht
Tuesday was a strange day. It started when the sweet girl walked into the kitchen, looking decidedly green (and two days before St. Patrick's Day)! "I don't feel very well," she said in a wobbly voice. Five minutes later she'd thrown up, and we found ourselves under the flu bus for the rest of the day.
It's strange how a truly sick day with your child -- not a sniffle day, or a slightly sore throat day, but a truly miserable, nausea-coming-in-waves-can-barely- crawl-off-the-couch-when-I-have-to day -- can narrow your focus dramatically. As I held my little girl's hair while she retched, bathed her face with a warm cloth, scoured the homeopathic remedies, checked our stock of ginger ale (and asked my dear husband to get more), any thought of all the other things I "had to do" that day quickly fled. Apparently I didn't have to do them after all. Apparently what I needed to do was shower my little girl with care and TLC.
There's something freeing, humbling and purifying about that. I don't mean I'm glad she was sick -- far from it! I always feel badly when I see my little one (or anyone else's) sick or in pain. But I do feel like Jesus had something to say to me during this illness, something I needed to hear during this Lenten journey.
I can put things aside. And I can focus more single-heartedly and with greater purity of heart than I usually think I can. The world doesn't stop turning if I don't do my multi-task routine for a day or two. When God puts something in my path that truly screeches me to a halt and calls for my heart's complete attention, He gives me the power and strength to seriously give the task (whether it's loving a child or something else) that full attention.
And he wants me to realize that sometimes it's perfectly all right...perhaps even needful...to do that period, full-stop, wholehearted attention thing when it's not a crisis or emergency. Perhaps even that it could be a good thing to set aside time just to do it. For Him. Because. Of course I know he also knows that he's put me in the midst of a busy life, and called me to serve others -- and that through serving others, I am loving and serving him. But what if I just let everything go for an hour sometime, just because? Just to focus my mind, heart, attention and all on Him?
Something to ponder.
**********
And then there were the Disney princesses.
I told you Tuesday was a weird day. Since the sweet girl was feeling too miserably sick even to hold a book in her hand, and since my voice wouldn't hold out to read aloud all day, I suggested movies. I know sometimes movies can help take your focus off nausea, and she was really struggling with that. So I let her pick what she wanted to watch/doze through. What she picked was, in her later words, "two princesses and a pig." Cinderella, Little Mermaid, and Charlotte's Web.
This isn't the post for me to go into my ambivalence over the world of Disney princesses. Suffice it to say that there are good things about Disney animation that I enjoy and admire, and I don't mind my daughter watching and enjoying many of the Disney films (especially the older ones) as long as we can talk about the movies. Which we always do.
Anyway, the day was overcast, I had the lights down low, and the sweet girl lay huddled on the couch watching her movies. I went about the business of folding big piles of laundry (good day to begin to catch up, though I spent most of the day laundering bedclothes, pajamas and towels) to the soundtrack of Disney princess songs. I wasn't paying a huge amount of attention to the films, but the songs were running in my head as I folded. And for some odd reason I couldn't quite fathom, I found myself tearing up over the Little Mermaid's "Part of Your World."
Laugh if you must, but it wasn't just flu-house-induced tiredness. I had a similar reaction not long ago, when we were perfectly healthy, while listening to Snow White trill "Someday My Prince Will Come."
Has it ever occurred to you that Disney has some downright theological moments? That what's going on in those huge, longing moments is pretty reminiscent of what C.S. Lewis refers to as "sehnsucht" -- a longing for something real and tangible in this world that nevertheless speaks to our recognition that nothing in this world will ever truly fill us up, and our longing to move beyond this world to the real world beyond? (Cornelius Plantinga sums this up beautifully in his book Engaging God's World. I quoted him in this post.)
"I want adventure in the great wide somewhere...I want it more than I can tell. And for once it might be grand to have someone hold my hand. I want so much more than they've got planned."
"What I would give if I could live out of these waters! What I would pay to spend a day warm on the sand?...I'm ready to know what the people know, ask them my questions and get some answers. What's a fire? And why does it -- what's the word? -- burn? When's it my turn? Wouldn't I love - love to explore those shores up above? Out of the sea, wish I could be, part of your world..."
"Someday my Prince will come...someday we'll meet again. And away to his castle we'll go, to be happy forever I know. Someday when spring is here, we'll find our love anew, and the birds will sing, and wedding bells will ring, someday when my dreams come true."
Yep.
It's strange how a truly sick day with your child -- not a sniffle day, or a slightly sore throat day, but a truly miserable, nausea-coming-in-waves-can-barely- crawl-off-the-couch-when-I-have-to day -- can narrow your focus dramatically. As I held my little girl's hair while she retched, bathed her face with a warm cloth, scoured the homeopathic remedies, checked our stock of ginger ale (and asked my dear husband to get more), any thought of all the other things I "had to do" that day quickly fled. Apparently I didn't have to do them after all. Apparently what I needed to do was shower my little girl with care and TLC.
There's something freeing, humbling and purifying about that. I don't mean I'm glad she was sick -- far from it! I always feel badly when I see my little one (or anyone else's) sick or in pain. But I do feel like Jesus had something to say to me during this illness, something I needed to hear during this Lenten journey.
I can put things aside. And I can focus more single-heartedly and with greater purity of heart than I usually think I can. The world doesn't stop turning if I don't do my multi-task routine for a day or two. When God puts something in my path that truly screeches me to a halt and calls for my heart's complete attention, He gives me the power and strength to seriously give the task (whether it's loving a child or something else) that full attention.
And he wants me to realize that sometimes it's perfectly all right...perhaps even needful...to do that period, full-stop, wholehearted attention thing when it's not a crisis or emergency. Perhaps even that it could be a good thing to set aside time just to do it. For Him. Because. Of course I know he also knows that he's put me in the midst of a busy life, and called me to serve others -- and that through serving others, I am loving and serving him. But what if I just let everything go for an hour sometime, just because? Just to focus my mind, heart, attention and all on Him?
Something to ponder.
**********
And then there were the Disney princesses.
I told you Tuesday was a weird day. Since the sweet girl was feeling too miserably sick even to hold a book in her hand, and since my voice wouldn't hold out to read aloud all day, I suggested movies. I know sometimes movies can help take your focus off nausea, and she was really struggling with that. So I let her pick what she wanted to watch/doze through. What she picked was, in her later words, "two princesses and a pig." Cinderella, Little Mermaid, and Charlotte's Web.
This isn't the post for me to go into my ambivalence over the world of Disney princesses. Suffice it to say that there are good things about Disney animation that I enjoy and admire, and I don't mind my daughter watching and enjoying many of the Disney films (especially the older ones) as long as we can talk about the movies. Which we always do.
Anyway, the day was overcast, I had the lights down low, and the sweet girl lay huddled on the couch watching her movies. I went about the business of folding big piles of laundry (good day to begin to catch up, though I spent most of the day laundering bedclothes, pajamas and towels) to the soundtrack of Disney princess songs. I wasn't paying a huge amount of attention to the films, but the songs were running in my head as I folded. And for some odd reason I couldn't quite fathom, I found myself tearing up over the Little Mermaid's "Part of Your World."
Laugh if you must, but it wasn't just flu-house-induced tiredness. I had a similar reaction not long ago, when we were perfectly healthy, while listening to Snow White trill "Someday My Prince Will Come."
Has it ever occurred to you that Disney has some downright theological moments? That what's going on in those huge, longing moments is pretty reminiscent of what C.S. Lewis refers to as "sehnsucht" -- a longing for something real and tangible in this world that nevertheless speaks to our recognition that nothing in this world will ever truly fill us up, and our longing to move beyond this world to the real world beyond? (Cornelius Plantinga sums this up beautifully in his book Engaging God's World. I quoted him in this post.)
"I want adventure in the great wide somewhere...I want it more than I can tell. And for once it might be grand to have someone hold my hand. I want so much more than they've got planned."
"What I would give if I could live out of these waters! What I would pay to spend a day warm on the sand?...I'm ready to know what the people know, ask them my questions and get some answers. What's a fire? And why does it -- what's the word? -- burn? When's it my turn? Wouldn't I love - love to explore those shores up above? Out of the sea, wish I could be, part of your world..."
"Someday my Prince will come...someday we'll meet again. And away to his castle we'll go, to be happy forever I know. Someday when spring is here, we'll find our love anew, and the birds will sing, and wedding bells will ring, someday when my dreams come true."
Yep.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
TUI
Dear Benadryl, might I humbly suggest that you add "Do not attempt to teach your third grader her math lesson while taking this drug" to your warning label?
Sincerely,
One tired teacher
Sincerely,
One tired teacher
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Happy Spring!
I've not been posting this week because I've been sick. The last days of winter, though they didn't look or feel very wintry outside (where it's turned wonderfully spring-like suddenly) still managed to slam me. On Wednesday night I came down with either a very nasty virus or the flu -- not sure which. And I'm still recovering.
There's nothing like two days of fever/chills, aches and countless bathroom trips, to make one grateful for ordinary days of health. For the better part of two days, I literally slept, in huge crashing washes of sleep, that left me feeling like I'd been underneath the ocean. I've almost never had an illness wipe me so completely of energy. The fact that I've only managed gatorade, dry toast, a couple of saltines and a bit of broth in all that time (most of that since yesterday afternoon) has also left me feeling pretty weak.
But...so much to be thankful for. My husband, though absolutely swamped at the office and not able to be home much, has pitched in to do the absolute essentials that I simply couldn't make myself do in the midst of hours of nausea (like meals). The sweet girl has been on her absolute best behavior, realizing that this wasn't a simple case of Mommy not feeling well, but rather Mommy being truly sick. She's actually kept herself on a routine, doing her chores without complaint, doing extra things to help out, even doing her schoolwork pretty much on her own, only bringing me some things to check over once in a while (I would have just cancelled everything!). She's fetched me things and stroked my head and been so flexible about changes in routine (always her biggest challenge) that I'm just feeling amazed. What a lovely gift, in the midst of being so sick, to have one of those beautiful parental "oh my, she's really growing up...and hey, she's doing it so well!" moments.
Then there's the sunshine -- which I've not had a chance to go out and actually feel, but it's glorious to see it pouring through the windows.
And today is my parents' 56th wedding anniversary, with my mom's 78th birthday tomorrow. I so wish I could be with them to celebrate both milestones, but regardless, I am just filled with gratitude that they're well and healthy and vibrant and so good at loving the Lord, loving each other, and loving all their kids, grand-kids and great-grands.
I hope to get back to more regular posting soon (though trying not to feel overwhelmed by how behind I feel with work after these few days!). In the meantime, if you're reading this, know I'd appreciate prayer for a full recovery of energy.
There's nothing like two days of fever/chills, aches and countless bathroom trips, to make one grateful for ordinary days of health. For the better part of two days, I literally slept, in huge crashing washes of sleep, that left me feeling like I'd been underneath the ocean. I've almost never had an illness wipe me so completely of energy. The fact that I've only managed gatorade, dry toast, a couple of saltines and a bit of broth in all that time (most of that since yesterday afternoon) has also left me feeling pretty weak.
But...so much to be thankful for. My husband, though absolutely swamped at the office and not able to be home much, has pitched in to do the absolute essentials that I simply couldn't make myself do in the midst of hours of nausea (like meals). The sweet girl has been on her absolute best behavior, realizing that this wasn't a simple case of Mommy not feeling well, but rather Mommy being truly sick. She's actually kept herself on a routine, doing her chores without complaint, doing extra things to help out, even doing her schoolwork pretty much on her own, only bringing me some things to check over once in a while (I would have just cancelled everything!). She's fetched me things and stroked my head and been so flexible about changes in routine (always her biggest challenge) that I'm just feeling amazed. What a lovely gift, in the midst of being so sick, to have one of those beautiful parental "oh my, she's really growing up...and hey, she's doing it so well!" moments.
Then there's the sunshine -- which I've not had a chance to go out and actually feel, but it's glorious to see it pouring through the windows.
And today is my parents' 56th wedding anniversary, with my mom's 78th birthday tomorrow. I so wish I could be with them to celebrate both milestones, but regardless, I am just filled with gratitude that they're well and healthy and vibrant and so good at loving the Lord, loving each other, and loving all their kids, grand-kids and great-grands.
I hope to get back to more regular posting soon (though trying not to feel overwhelmed by how behind I feel with work after these few days!). In the meantime, if you're reading this, know I'd appreciate prayer for a full recovery of energy.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Take Two of These and Call Me in the Morning
"Betsy-Tacy and ginger-ale. That sounds like a really good idea."
I think those were the sweet girl's exact words to me earlier today, and I heartily concurred. She sipped bubbly gingery soda and I read the first three chapters of the first Betsy-Tacy book. We decided to go back to the beginning, since she doesn't remember the first couple of books very well. Oh, how I love those opening chapters of B-T! "You needn't call names!" The little glass pitcher with the gold rim. The gift of a friend. Tacy's mother's unfrosted cake. The supper bench. Betsy's first story. Floating away on pink feather clouds.
We had a bit of a "lost day" today. I was up incredibly late working on an editing project so was exhausted from the moment the alarm went off. Then the sweet girl felt sick at breakfast and seems to have been battling a stomach bug or some sort of virus all day (no fever, but not appetite or energy either). I spent an hour plus in a dental chair this afternoon, having a tooth rebuilt by my amazing dentist (but nevertheless returning home with a splitting headache). D. had to work all day (still there) except for the hour or so he was home while I was at the dentist.
Did I mention it's in the 30s outside and pouring rain? In mid-October? So we gave in and turned on the heat. The apartment has been sooooo cold, but we were trying to hold out turning on the heat till November because we know how awful our heating bills will be this winter. I wasn't expecting snow showers in the forecast this early in October though. (I laughed and told D. that you know you're tired when you almost fall asleep while the dentist is drilling and rebuilding your tooth...but hey, it was cozy and warm in that office!)
S. and I cuddled late this afternoon and read each other books. Well, I tried to read, through a still-numb mouth, and she actually did read. She read aloud to me, some of her old picture book favorites (Old Bear, We're Going on a Leaf Hunt, Everywhere Babies) and I dozed, curled up in my bathrobe, and tried to pretend I hadn't been sleeping when she would stop to ask "Mommy, are you asleep?" Fortunately I know Old Bear by heart, so I could instantly cotton on to wherever we were in the plot.
So...just a weird, bleary day in many ways...but a good one in many ways too. And hopefully we'll all get to bed early tonight and wake up refreshed in the morning.
I think those were the sweet girl's exact words to me earlier today, and I heartily concurred. She sipped bubbly gingery soda and I read the first three chapters of the first Betsy-Tacy book. We decided to go back to the beginning, since she doesn't remember the first couple of books very well. Oh, how I love those opening chapters of B-T! "You needn't call names!" The little glass pitcher with the gold rim. The gift of a friend. Tacy's mother's unfrosted cake. The supper bench. Betsy's first story. Floating away on pink feather clouds.
We had a bit of a "lost day" today. I was up incredibly late working on an editing project so was exhausted from the moment the alarm went off. Then the sweet girl felt sick at breakfast and seems to have been battling a stomach bug or some sort of virus all day (no fever, but not appetite or energy either). I spent an hour plus in a dental chair this afternoon, having a tooth rebuilt by my amazing dentist (but nevertheless returning home with a splitting headache). D. had to work all day (still there) except for the hour or so he was home while I was at the dentist.
Did I mention it's in the 30s outside and pouring rain? In mid-October? So we gave in and turned on the heat. The apartment has been sooooo cold, but we were trying to hold out turning on the heat till November because we know how awful our heating bills will be this winter. I wasn't expecting snow showers in the forecast this early in October though. (I laughed and told D. that you know you're tired when you almost fall asleep while the dentist is drilling and rebuilding your tooth...but hey, it was cozy and warm in that office!)
S. and I cuddled late this afternoon and read each other books. Well, I tried to read, through a still-numb mouth, and she actually did read. She read aloud to me, some of her old picture book favorites (Old Bear, We're Going on a Leaf Hunt, Everywhere Babies) and I dozed, curled up in my bathrobe, and tried to pretend I hadn't been sleeping when she would stop to ask "Mommy, are you asleep?" Fortunately I know Old Bear by heart, so I could instantly cotton on to wherever we were in the plot.
So...just a weird, bleary day in many ways...but a good one in many ways too. And hopefully we'll all get to bed early tonight and wake up refreshed in the morning.
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