Life in the Slow Lane

For my 30th post in 30 days, I am bringing up an old post just because I have nothing better to say. Besides, isn't it every woman's dream to stay 29? Thanks for my loyal readers for sticking with me for 30 days. Hopefully you will see some new posts again on this blog before my next vacation and/or birthday. Periodically, when I need a paperclip, I reach into my handy box of paperclips and pull out one, only to find an entire chain of clips trailing behind. 
I find this surprisingly irritating as it automatically impedes the normal rhythm of my day, as I must carefully unhook clip after clip. I couldn't understand who had the time or the necessary boredom to link the clips together and then the rudeness to leave them in the supply area where I occasionally went to grab another handful of clips.
 I am too embarrassed to confess how long it was before I realized that it was  I  who linked those clips together.
 Someth...

For today's post, I was going to give you Ten Reasons to be Glad for Small, referring to our little studio condo. Friends frequently ask us whether we are still in our little 473 square feet house with our growing boy, and I was going to offer up an extensive defense for why we liked it that way. But then I realized that numbers one through eight all had to do with having less to clean/keep organized, etc. (Not that this means I am on top of cleaning and organizing... but, you know.) So without further ado, I give you Three Reasons to be Glad for Small: 1) Less to clean 2) When your toddler runs through the house turning all of the lights immediately after you turn them off, you only have to worry about the kilowatt hours of four lights rather than a mansion full. 3) You have the most convincing reason as to why you really can't buy a train table complete with several hundred pieces of train set for your train-loving toddler.

For today's reading, I share with you excerpts from three emails off my desk: 1) Subject line: Please your very reply urgently? Excerpt from body of email:  Why are you so dealt to respond Dear? I would like to kindly have your internations in your reply Dear? 2)  Whenever I get a job in my hands, it just slips away from my hands. 3)  Women in our society are seafaring with poverty...

How do you measure grief?  The answer, of course, is that you don't. But in some misguided attempt to shield myself from pain, I occasionally find myself trying.  How much would I hurt if I lost this love? How could I continue on if this were taken from me? Part of this, I know, comes from a deep-seated hatred of possibly-permanent good-byes. I won't attempt to describe the far too frequent times I've ducked out of sight instead of formulating the final words, the "have a nice life" sort of moments. And I know, too, that some of this stems from a twisted view of the Divine. A fatalistic certainty bids me not care too deeply for anything or anyone, for certainly that will be what God will take. Whatever the root, the outgrowth is a slowness to love; fear is a choking, crippling tyrant. The first few months I put my baby in bed, I'd think about all of the threats that might prevent me from having him with me in the morning, and I would try to convince ...

Yes, I'm cheating on my way to 30 posts. Shh.

I have a bad propensity towards being penny wise and pound foolish. Every once in awhile, as a sort of penance or self-instruction, I play a game with myself where I exaggerate the tendency towards its ridiculous end. Observe: The Penny: A while back, SOS and I found among our plastic bag stash the perfect bag to line our bathroom trash can. It fit so perfectly that while our usual habit is to empty the trash by pulling out the bag, we could not bring ourselves to throw out such a perfectly suited bag. And the worst of it is that we didn't know where we had picked it up! So we just used the dump method rather than the "bag it and toss it" method. But finally, as all things must come to an end, we sadly bagged our last trash with the perfect liner and exited it stage left. The Pound: We discovered where we found the perfect trash bag: the hobby store. Look! We can get free trashcan liners perfect for our needs. We just need to make a small purchase at the hobby...

I'm having a hard time tolerating any sort of politicking this year. I think this is mostly true because of my visits to our neighborhood park. No, there are no political signs there. I've not engaged in any political debates or narrowly avoided heated rants.  No, none of this. It all comes down to park ethics, or the lack thereof. How do we possibly think we can work together for the benevolent governing of the United States and overseeing a robust foreign policy when we can't even use the same park well? This isn't just about kids not sharing the slide. I'm remembering the parent who spent significant time convincing his sons that the toys they found left in the toy box were actually theirs they had forgotten a week ago and didn't know they had. I'm thinking of the ground-shaking party held in the community center next door and the 15-20 kids aged 3-12 who escaped to come play in the park without a single adult. I'm horrified thinking of the mo...

I know I am not the only one who experiences this, but sometimes I will be in the midst of living an ordinary day and I will suddenly have an insight that brings clarity to a passage of the Bible that I have read over and over again. Three examples since becoming a mother: 1) If our front door is open, you can see all of our living room and at least half of our bedroom. With the floor to ceiling mirror on the opposite wall, people standing at our door can even see into our kitchen (and if our mirrored closet doors are shut, all of our bedroom is visible, too). Mirrors help make the space look larger, but they also have a few downsides. One of the few things blocking our floor to ceiling mirror is CutieBabyBoy's bed. So when our front door opens and light streams in from the hallway, it is as if a spotlight has been trained on his bed.  This makes it rather difficult to open the front door without disturbing his sleep. So when a neighbor came knocking during nap ...

I found this in my unpublished drafts from about three years ago. I think perhaps a heavy feeling of guilt kept me from posting the story. Fortunately for my efforts to arrive at 30 posts in 30 days, the guilt has moved on. My bathroom is beautiful, thank you (in part) to Auntie Kim. I've never actually met Auntie Kim. Some time ago in the midst of SOS investigating options for making our small little house the castle of my dreams, he came across a store where doors and windows are taken very seriously. They have one person solely in charge of hardware for these items, and she thinks of these things as bling for the home. With good reason. SOS of course fell in love with the place and visited a couple times before he was able to take me during open hours. And we found the perfect knobs for our bathroom cupboards. Unfortunately, the lady in charge of these things was out of the store and no one else could tell us how much they cost. A few more visits later, and fin...

Why don't community centers and hospitals offer parenting classes in the areas I could really use some help? I'd like to see course offerings like the following: Drawing : Learn how to draw trucks, trains, dogs and dinosaurs. Techniques taught will include: drawing upside down, drawing with your non-dominant hand while a small head is blocking your vision, and drawing while stretching over the center console of a moving vehicle. Entertaining Wait : This vital class will give you confidence for providing safe, quiet forms of entertainment while waiting in lines, doctors' offices, and other public places. Class sessions will include: The Danger Rating of Common Purse Contents Compared to Entertainment Value, Hearing and Recognizing Appropriate Decibel Levels for Key Locations, and When to Pack it All Up and Head Home. And last, but not least, Toy Room Readiness : A fundamental class for all parents and child care providers, this course satisfies Physical Educa...

What we saw:  What he saw: No wonder he wouldn't look at us.

The last (for now) in a series on miscellaneous thoughts on the topic of our time in the Cook Islands. (Read Parts 1 and 2 ) 5) While we were visiting, the Cook Islanders celebrated a national holiday. Not too unusual, except the holiday specifically commemorates Christianity coming to the island. This year was celebrated in particular style, as the chiefs of Rarotonga used the day to invite all of the chiefs throughout the nation to visit. This was the first time in the history of the islands that the chiefs gathered in peace. Appropriate, since the name of the royal grounds here in the capital translates "Christianity brings peace". As I see what I perceive to be a compromising of Christian practice in order to cater to secular tourists, I find myself thinking about tourists as I know many secularists think about missionaries. "Stay away, don't spoil the natives!" As if isolating any people group is the key to keeping them happy and innocent.

Here I continue a hodgepodge of thoughts related to our vacation in the South Pacific. ( Read Part 1 ) 3) The capital of the Cook Islands, is Rarotonga. But Rarotonga is not the name of a city. It is the name of the island. I'm not aware of any other place which has that distinction. Anyone care to correct me on this? 4) The island of Rarotonga is the weirdest mix of first, second, and third world characteristics I have ever seen. Chickens roam wild all across the island, and it is not uncommon to have a pig hanging out in the road where you intend to travel, something you would think to see only in developing nations. But contrast that with every grocery story using environmentally friendly bags for purchases: only high-end stores in California manage that. Or consider the somewhat rudimentary system for bringing heated water into the house and then remember that nearly everyone owns a washing machine. Only main roads are paved, but most everyone owns a vehicle. Perhaps this...

What follows are some miscellaneous thoughts on the topic of the Cook Islands and our vacation there. 1) On July 4, in a country colonized by the English and ruled for a time by New Zealand, the United States Declaration of Independence was remembered. The radio station played a handful of patriotic songs, including "I'm Proud to be an American," and we overheard a few other references to the significance of this day for the United States. It seems so weird to me to have a country do anything at all in honor of another's independence. 2) Once a week there is one direct flight from Los Angeles to Rarotonga. All other flights into the capitol of the Cook Islands come from New Zealand or Australia. So travelers like us (from the US of A) are in the minority. This means that once we meet a fellow US traveler, we keep running into them. If we were paranoid, it would be so easy to believe we were being stalked. The couple wearing camouflage caught in the picture we took...

Dogs that oink If CutieBoyBaby were old enough to remember this trip, he would not remember it as the vacation in the South Seas, but rather the place where he got to watch big trucks, ride in buses and the front seat of cars, and greet chickens and the funny dogs that oink. We are sitting on the beach looking at the bluest, clearest, warmest (?) ocean water I have ever enjoyed. A few minutes ago he heard the Clockwise Bus (as opposed to the Anti-Clockwise Bus) lumber past and he started crying because he wanted to be on it. There is a playground near the road that leads up into the hills where our house is. CutieBabyBoy loves going there, but usually, the reason he wants to go there is because then we are so much closer to the dump trucks and earth movers that are engaged in creating a parking lot nearby. He has spent a good number of hours there already, watching the dirt and the big trucks that move it. Better than the playground He also fell in love with the Sma...

It's Tuesday. I've been without my phone for a week and a half and I still check my pocket to see whether I just felt my phone buzz. I was curious how long it would take before I stopped reaching for my phone. It is such a habit. The good news is that CutieBabyBoy hasn't asked for a movie since getting off the airplane. That is the largest time he's gone without asking for a movie since... um... he could say "please". Our house comes with a TV, but there is only one TV station and it is conveniently mounted on a wall so that not even our expert button pusher has realized how to turn it on. Instead, he contents himself with the radio. Oh, and the tape deck. He likes opening the tape deck and putting his fingers inside while he pushes the buttons with his other hand. I'm partially worried that he might break it, but I remember the simple pleasure of watching the inner workings of a cassette player move and I can't quite bring myself to prevent my...

One of the best parts of having a tropical vacation is the fruit. And our house has banana trees, a pomegranate bush, coconut palms, and a number of other things that are out of season. We also have been able to purchase inexpensive local starfruit and crisp apples shipped in from New Zealand.  All this is especially beneficial as vegetables are more expensive than I've seen anywhere else.  Carrots are reasonable, but a pound of broccoli costs about $15.  Other veggies are priced similarly. I figure we can catch up on veggies when we get back to the U.S. Until then, carrots and fruit are the order of the day. Two things I have learned: 1) I now understand those people who think it is insane to chew and swallow pomegranate seeds. The seeds in these pomegranates are the hardest, and largest seeds I have ever seen. They seriously could damage both your teeth and your insides. Like I said , CutieBabyBoy's insides certainly did not appreciate them. Pomegranate Bush ...

Of course, all good vacations are measured in the excellence of naps. CutieBabyBoy showed great versatility in performance, and what follows are the awards he garnered for his outstanding napping ability in the following categories: Best classic beach nap pose. Most creative pillow snag. (Also notice the confiscation of the adult shirt for warmth.) Most awkward nap position. Sleeping with the life jacket could not have been comfortable. Smartest napping location. Best all-around. (He was sooo cute when he woke up. He got up on all fours with the hat perfectly situated and the best sleepy boy face ever.)

Today we participated in our first (and probably only) official tour. Long story short, we were disappointed. The premise: take a glass bottom boat out to the reef for snorkeling, then go to a small island for a meal of fresh fish and information about the local culture and traditions, and then back to shore. Heading out to the reef It could have been so amazing, but no. Maybe the best part of the trip is that it is prompting us to think how we can approximate what we were hoping for in other ways. 1) Glass bottom boat. A glass bottom boat is only cool if you actually go places that are interesting to look at. With the speed we traveled out to the reef, it was impossible to see anything more than bubbles. Then the boat got parked in a place were only a rare fish swam underneath. Nothing to be seen through the glass bottom boat 2) Snorkeling. Today was my turn to snorkel since SOS went snorkeling the other day and CutieBabyBoy is still uncertain about getting into the bi...