Mama!

I'm working on editing some videos of Caleb, but in the meantime, here's one to tide you over. (At least I know some grandmas need their Caleb fix.)

Neighbor

Last winter he had always finished shoveling his driveway before I had even started.

Last week he happily inspected another neighbor's woodworking project while wearing that cheerful greeter vest from Wal-Mart.

The next day the ambulance came.

Yesterday, there was a family photo on the lawn,

without him.

Pants!

I've been having trouble finding pants that fit Caleb. Either they are too short or they are too wide. Finally I decided to save myself some time, avoid wrestling matches resulting from trying clothes on a squirmy little boy, and escape the headache of returning clothes. (Don't get me started on the Wal-Mart Customer Service Associate who gave me a lecture about how all Wal-Mart employees multi-task.)

I read several online tutorials since I didn't feel like waiting for patterns to go on sale at the fabric store. Since the process and the pattern seemed simple enough, I decided to try it out. I used a pair of pants that fit Caleb really well (except that he's getting to tall for them). I traced the shaped onto newspaper, added an inch or two to the length, added room for seam allowance, purchased some fabric and elastic, and started sewing.

The first pair of shorts I tried would have been great, if Caleb still fit into 3 month clothes.

Being my stubborn self, I tagged that pair of shorts with a "3 month" label and tried again. That pair actually fit Caleb, so I went back to the fabric store, purchased more fabric while it was on sale, and started sewing away.

Here's the result:

And as long as my Fashion and Textiles Major mom or my Family Consumer Science Teacher mom-in-law don't look too closely, we'll be ok and avoid pesky customer service associates. Oh, and Caleb will have summer clothes that stay on.

Due credit
I found the most helpful online tutorial to be the Simple Baby Pants at Make-Baby-Stuff.com. I also perused the following sites and picked up a tip or helpful picture or something: Craftsanity.com; Dishtowel Pants; Rookiemoms.com; Bandana Pants. I also picked my mom's brain when she came to visit one day. We experimented with several stitches on my sewing machine and figured out which was best for sewing on knit. Thanks, Mom!

Oh Joy (choose your own punctuation mark)

I get to laugh a lot throughout the day.

I hope you get a kick of of this too:

Typical Work Week?

I just completed a "personal health assessment" questionnaire that earns us a health insurance discount. It's pretty silly. I answered a battery of questions, and then a score magically appears. Overall I score fairly well since I'm not stressed out, I eat a somewhat balanced diet, and I'm the goody two shoes non-smoking, non-alcoholic, seat-belt-wearing type.

This year I had difficulty answering the questions about my typical work schedule. How many hours do I typically work in a seven day period? How many hours does my employer expect me to work? How many hours did I work in the past four weeks?

Do you really want to know?

Do you really think those hours felt like Work?

House Project

Several summers ago I took down wallpaper in our master bedroom. I remember how tedious it was to get all the glue off the walls. Now I'm hoping I was thorough with that tedious job because I've discovered the effect of not getting all the glue off.

The effect? Peeling paint. Evidently the previous owners of our home took down wallpaper in the kitchen and dining room. For awhile I couldn't figure out what was causing the paint to crack and peel, but then I found the telltale mark of a paper tiger and some lovely striped and floral wallpaper above and behind some cabinets. When we moved in several years ago, this wasn't noticeable. Now it is.

And now that Caleb is capable of eating the peeling paint, I decided it was time to take care of it. For several weeks, I simply chipped away at the loosening paint. Each day I'd go back to it thinking, "Maybe I'll start priming today." Then I'd look at the wall and find some more paint to chip away. After priming with a primer that looked suspiciously like glue, I've started repainting--the same color. It seems wrong to repaint a room the same color it was before, but I don't want to replace the window cornices, and I like how the color coordinates with our living room.

So anyway, if you're stripping wallpaper anytime soon, my advice is to be patient. Otherwise you'll be doing it again in a few years.

What I Get for Being Married to a Genius...

When I play with Caleb, we read stories, sing songs and such. When Luke plays with Caleb, this is what happens:

Gun Show

First Steps!

For weeks Caleb has been on the verge of walking. Well, really he's been walking for months...just with help. He will walk along the edge of the sofa and stretch his arms out as far as they go so he can reach the chair, walk along the chair, and then do it again. A couple weeks ago, Grandma Ryon got him to stumble forward toward me for a few steps. Today Caleb took his first "I'm in the middle of the room by myself and I'm stopping not falling" steps. Way to go!

In other news, Caleb also took his first tumble off of the changing table today. Caleb doesn't like to limit his crawling, climbing, squirming, wiggling, and walking to the floor. Thankfully he ricocheted off my leg before hitting the floor and no serious harm was done.

St. Patrick of Ireland

Several months ago I picked up St. Patrick of Ireland by Phillip Freeman from the library. I've never really been interested in St. Patrick or Patrick's Day or green or leprechauns of any sort. For example, this year on St. Patrick's Day I walked into a mom's group and thought to myself, "Why is everyone wearing green?" Thankfully I figured it out before I asked anyone else. Actually I think of the holiday more as my sister-in-law's birthday than anything else. But I picked up the book because one of my other sisters-in-law is doing a Missionary Biography Challenge this year and the library had a copy. I'm always in search of good books, so why not?

The book itself was interesting because somehow the author managed to write 200 pages based on two short historical documents, actually letters written by Patrick. The author basically gave an overview of Patrick's life and then put it in the context of his time and culture.

Several aspects of Patrick's life and ministry had me thinking back to a course I took called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. First of all, by traveling from Britain to Ireland, Patrick felt like he was going to the ends of the earth. It's rather amusing to think like that now, but in his time, understandable.

Another of the topics in Perspectives that this book reminded me of is how faith in God and cultural influences mesh together. Pretty soon it can be difficult to tell the difference between what is simply cultural and what is Biblical principle.

For example, one section of the book focuses on the impact of Patrick's life in Ireland after his death. Freeman writes about another of Ireland's saints: "Brigid's reported miracles often involve her power over animals, cattle, pigs, and even foxes. It's likely that these stories incorporate elements of tales drawn from earlier Irish goddesses, as do the miracles claiming control over rivers and streams. The wonderful tale of Brigid hanging her wet cloak on a sunbeam to dry is another clear borrowing from myth. But such stories shouldn't be dismissed simply as baseless folktales or cynical efforts of the Church to replace paganism with a barely distinguishable Christian alternative. These tales instead show the Irish actively participating in the transition from a non-Christian to a Christian worldview by preserving their native heritage as part of the new religion. They would have been deeply offended by any suggestion that elements drawn from Celtic myth made Brigid or any other saint less Christian. It was simply a Christianity embraced on their own terms."

While I really don't think you can become a Christian "on your own terms" since humbling yourself before God requires the realization that you have no terms with which to begin, this quotation highlights the fact that culture (rightly or wrongly) does influence our perception of God's truth. Discerning between what is cultural and what is truth is the hard part.

Another section highlights the influence the church in Ireland had on developing church theology (which influenced many) and explains how the root of this theology made sense in the Irish culture. "Brendan's attitude toward Judas reflects a remarkable mercy seen in the early Irish Church, which held that every sin could be forgiven, though the price might be heavy. The Irish were well known for their contributions to the idea of penance in Christian theology, which carefully explained how sins might be atoned for with sincere actions of repentance--the greater the sin, the harder the atonement. It's no coincidence that such a system developed in a land in which there was a stipulated honor price for every person and a prescribed method of payment for any crime against one's neighbor or king. To the Irish churchmen, God was the greatest king of all, and his honor price demanded a steep but limited payment for sin--not in cattle or gold, though this was sometimes the case, but through fasting, prayer, and other means of atonement." Pg. 158

I don't know the whole history of penance. I know what I learned in history class, read in church history books, and in this book. But it amazes me that such a cultural idea (I have a feeling it's more than just Irish culture) could take such strong root in Church theology and in human thought.

I'm thankful for the cultural influences in my life that have allowed me to get away from thinking I need to work off every wrong I do--to somehow make up for all my failures--and to believe that Christ is my atonement. He is the one who has made up for the failures I could never make up for. I've found the freedom and peace to do what's right and good in the fact that Christ has paid my "honor price." When I kept trying to pay the price myself out of my feelings of guilt, I never could do enough.

In what ways has your cultural context rightly or wrongly influenced your perception of God, faith, and truth?