The Magi's Gifts

Yesterday Sam and I were reading one of his lift-the-flap books about Christmas. As usual we came to the exciting page depicting the visit of the three Wise Men from the East. Sam lifted the flaps on the camel saddles to reveal two golden treasure chests and one jewel-studded urn.
"Gold, frankinsense, and myrrh," I said for the hundredth time. "Presents from the Wise Men to baby Jesus."
Sam twirled his hair thoughtfully for a moment. Then he pointed to the flaps and exclaimed, "Lunch box!"

No Food or Drinks Allowed

I'm a frequent visitor to the chiropractor for a number of reasons which I will not be so presumptuous as to assume that you are interested in. I am not even interested in them. I'm just going to tell you that there is a large sign on the front door which reads:

No Food or Drinks Allowed.

Thank you.

This was discouraging the first time I saw it because I always go in the morning when my sole comfort in life is a deep cup of coffee. But surprise! Just inside the door is a buffet stuffed with beverages and food which cheers even the most pain-wracked of visitors. Coffee, orange juice, hot tea and cocoa are the daily beverage choices. And the food is no receptionist's mints, lemme tell you. There are generous piles of sliced cake, chubby cookies, little Debbie's taffy gobbles, cinnamon doodles, powdery donuts that leave your lips white, and large glazed donut holes in which you might glimpse your reflection. Over the weeks, a collection of signs has grown up around the table. It is with pleasure that I reproduce them for you exactly as they appear printed on white computer paper taped to the wall:

Snacks for

PATIENTS ONLY!

DO NOT

throw your cups with any liquid in our TRASH CANS.
Please pour your drink out in the sink first.
Thanks.

Parents~~

Please help your children
with the snacks and drinks
to prevent unnecessary messes!
Thanks for your help.
The Staff.

This is a SNACK

Not a MEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PLEASE BE COURTEOUS OF OTHER PATIENT

THAT MAY COME AFTER YOUR APPOINTMENT.

THE STAFF THANKS IN ADVANCE

AND HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And finally this, accompanied by the image of two hands in a circle with a red line through it:

!Do Not Use Your Hands To Get Food!

(smirk)

First Car

Sam the Man, 2 years ago! What can I say? He had hair.

Teething means gnawing the yellow cell phone.

This week when I got the car out of the attic for Sahara, Sam was reeeallly miffed.

Sahara at the Window

The Great Roll

Sahara is looking smart and relaxed as she works on holding her head up. It's been a good workout.

Mesmerized by the shenanigans of her big brother, the "lean" inadvertently begins. Her curiosity is peaked. She decides to push the envelope and take said leanage to its wobbly extremes.
Uh-oh!!!

Sahara finds herself upside down, legs and arms pumping like the legs of an overturned turtle.

Having righted herself once again, she realizes with a sense of awe, yet solemnity, that she has crossed a significant kinesthetic/spacial threshold.

Thanksgiving Day

Sahara out of doors

Bath Time

Sunday Night Serenity

Four and a half months after moving in, the last of the boxes is gone! The living room feels spacious; the walls and windows bare but peaceful.

Snapshot of the moment: Danny's reading The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton for the third time. Sahara is practicing her new skills---grasping fabric fish from her work station on the floor. Sammy's in the dinning room doing absolutely nothing... well, staring into the middle distance and twirling his hair. He's contemplating his next move. We are all listening to gospel music that Danny put on. "Victory in Jesus" is over and now this gem wafts through the house:

’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
And to take him at his Word;
Just to rest upon his promise,
And to know, “Thus says the Lord!”

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him.
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus.
O for grace to trust him more!

Yes, ’tis sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just from sin and self to cease;
Just from Jesus simply taking
Life and rest, and joy and peace.

I’m so glad I learned to trust Thee,
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend;
And I know that Thou art with me,
Wilt be with me to the end.

Sahara laughed!

Sahara laughed for the very first time tonight! It was more than a coo or gurgle. It was a bona fide, multi-second giggle. Spontaneous. Joyful. It took my breath away.

Sputtering to a Start

Wow, I've MISSED YOU! A little bity thing happened while I was away: Sam got a baby sister, Sahara. Oh yes, and another little thing, we moved house. Oh, oh, and Danny closed our mortgage company (panic, panic) and then got a job at a bank (hurray!) the day before I went into labor (what the…?). It was chaos. All that catapulted me out of blog land for 3 whole months. I think I might be back now. Might.

I can’t possibly update you on 3 months worth of unlikely, disgusting, mundane, sweet, exasperating and, on the best of days, miraculous happenings. The thought of all that update-age makes me want to go shoot myself in the head. Instead, I’m going to do one of those lame, clunky transitions used in badly written paperback novels that people who are not me buy at travel stops: “And then a long time later Joe and Delilah were eating clams back at the farm." Just watch me do it. ha! I don’t even care. haha!

And then a long time later it was 11 PM at the Plueddemann Pad…

Sahara is emitting gassy noises from her swing which might mean I have to go pick her up soon. Sam is sitting on our big bed engrossed in a lift-the-flap book about work vehicles. (He enjoys a killer bedtime for a two year old.) He is testing himself: "Tow tuck? Nooooo. Cement tuck!" On the floor is a 60-piece jigsaw puzzle which he’s completed several times. Typically those who chug juicy-juice from sippy cups do not complete jigsaw puzzles. He's a genius.

What I have accomplished this evening--you will be excited to learn--is finish off a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough all by myself. I would have baked the cookies, but then Danny and Sam would have smelled them, followed swiftly by desiring them. One thing leads to another. I did what I had to do.

From my computer desk vantage point, I can see 3 dirty sippy cups under the dining room table. I think they mate under there at night and breed more sippy cups. This happens to binkies under the crib, legos under the rug, and squirty toys in the tub. We have a horny house.

Danny is in the living room watching his fish because I can see the harsh bluey light glowing against the darkness. I know he is sitting in the banana-leaf chair with his face tilted like a satellite dish towards the tank. His expression will be one of deep serenity, his sea-green eyes gliding back and forth with the fish. For whatever reason, the occasional cockroach scuttles across our floors (I mean ‘occasional’ in the sense of ‘always;’ still no shoe molding). Danny stuns them with a wack of his magazine, pinches them in a paper towel, and feeds them live to his Jack Dempseys and Convicts. An orgy blossoms around this horrifying bug as it sinks into its watery grave. Danny and I are now vegetarians (should’ve put that in paragraph 1) because we want to live more peaceful lives. Meanwhile we keep pets that are uber-carnivores. I offer no explanation for this.

Oh, listen. The dishwasher is hum-swooshing. And country music is twanging softly in the kitchen because I forgot to turn off the radio. I could sooo nod off to sleep right now, except for the frostbite. Did I mention the frostbite? Synopsis: the Doberman, whom I requested live under the house when we moved here last summer, tore up our new duct work. Hot air is now wafting pleasantly into the crawl space giving the dog a toasty evening. I AM SO HAPPY FOR THE DOG%*#. The good news (yeah!) is that we can repair it (yeah!) using all the money (yeah!) which we grow on trees.

The cookie dough no longer makes me feel happy.

Yup, here we are, back in blog land. Ta-da!

Monday Morning

So "Bill Grogan's Goat" is blaring through the house (the tragic yet redemptive story of a thieving goat's near death on train tracks). Sam is marching around wearing a huge yellow rubber glove on one hand and with the other, pulling his wagon of tools, most of which he can identify: "wench! scu-dwiva! saw! hamma!"

Oh, oh... new scene. He has abandoned the tool wagon for a rolling file cart. He has laid Mr Frog in it and is pushing him around the coffee table, marching briskly to "...found a peanut, found a peanut." Now, having suddenly cast himself upon the floor, he is kicking his legs and shouting, "mine! wench!"

I'm going to take a shower.

MINE!

MINE!

(referring to the camera. I offered to trade my camera for his popsicle, and steam started coming out of his ears.)

Damage Assessment

Tonight Sammy squirted the better part of a bottle of Ranch dressing onto his plate (which is shaped like a banana leaf and was a gift from Tamara, thank you Tamara). I was away answering the door and Danny was in the shower while the crime took place. Later we discovered the mess.

I was irritated. It was a new bottle of dressing and I don't like waste. Plus, the sole purpose of Ranch dressing is to encourage Sam to eat raw vegetables, not drown them. Danny said, "At least it's all on the plate and not everywhere else." I chewed on my lip for a few moments, reflecting.

Sometimes the most you can hope for is containment.

Haircut

Sammy haircuts have become events, the way an outing to a small European country might be an event. "Christopher Robin, give me back my Sam!" I declare to his moppy head. And then off we go to "PonyTails & Crew Cuts" in Cotswald. To begin with, Sam is treated to a choice of seats. He likes the big red "pleen." His flying suit is floppy green cape. A vast array of distractions encircles him. For example, a DVD of "Happy Feet" blares nearby. Once the comb and scissors appear, so do the Skittles.

Sammy's chipmunk-cheeks bulge with more Skittles.





Done! (sort of)

Bail Bondsman Moves In

Right, so Danny has been looking for a renter for his office building. Lucky for us, he found one who is in business with Christ (!!!). Business is booming for Elliot and his divine cohort; apparently they need more space. They are also bounty hunters.

I thought our sins were not so much "payless" as "paid in full" by Jesus, but whatever the case, Elliot and JC let you make payment plans. I'd be the last to rock Elliot's theological boat. He's got guns.

His website reads: "Sin will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay and charge you more than you want to pay." Followed by: "Try Payless Bail Bonds! We will wipe your tears away!"

I Can Grow People

Abuelita and Sam work on "What does the cow say?" while I knock out my superpower gig.

Sam loves to water

Sam and Papi water the hydrangea. Sam is sporting his nifty Home Depot apron which says, "Hello, my name is SAMMY." :-)

Sam is very frugal in that each plant only gets 3 or 4 drops. However, he is also very generous--the weeds get watered too.

Mud!!

Father's Day 2008

What beautiful blue eyes Sam has.

(I bought Danny that t-shirt. haha. :-))

Sam at Daddy's soccer game.

Viking Pulls Rickshaw for Frog in Diapers?

I'm not even going to try to comment on the workings of Sam's little brain.

Sam and the Doberman

A Fallen Branch

Sam's Helps with the New House

Dragon Tales

Ord, Zak and Wheezie are alarmed about Sam sitting close to their screen.

Figuring Out the Universe

SAM, whose vocabulary has swelled to 6 words, has brilliantly managed to combine two. He was standing in all his adorable nakedness watching the water in the bathtub sink his boats. Suddenly he stretched out his arm to the drain and said, "Bye-bye agua!"

SAM knows about stoplights now, which are semaforo in Spanish. He has a great view through the front windshield from his car seat. "Dis, dis!" he shouts when he spots one coming up, or when we have been stopped at one and it suddenly turns green. I have said the words rojo, amarillo, and verde so many times I'm about to go nuts. But Sam still says, "dis."

OUR hot water heater died recently, creating a 40-gallon puddle of warm agua in very short order. (It was new in 1987, so I'm really irritated that it only lasted 21 years.) But it was very exciting for Sam. I pulled towels from his bathroom cabinets, and he ran them one by one over to Danny who was on his hands and knees in the lake. You could tell Sam was very excited, jabbering, "agua!", pointing, dragging towels around. The cutest thing was that Sam would put his hand on Danny's lower back and pat it gently. It was as if he were saying, "It's okay Daddy."



SO it was Sam's naptime one Saturday while I was running errands. Danny put him in the guest bed with some milk. Of course, Sam popped up and appeared in the living room. Danny got serious and told him he couldn't leave the bed. He fussed for awhile and then it was silent. Later when I came home, I found Sam fast asleep on the bed with the yoga mat folded on top of himself. Danny had no idea how this happened.

Sammy's little sister's mobile home

Sammy's rambunctious baby sister is 11 weeks away from delivery. I tell Sam often about the sibling-tsunami about to rock his world, but he has no clue. When he hugs my legs, I can't see him anymore!

Garbage Truck Morning

Every Wednesday morning Sammy hears the garbage truck beeping and banging along our street. I never hear it until he runs to the front window and tosses back the blinds. Sometimes he ducks his head back under to find me and jabbers excitedly, pointing, then goes back to watching.

Sam also hears traffic helicopters thumping overhead and dogs barking in distant yards. “Woof,” he says, and cocks his head. I do not hear these sounds unless Sam draws my attention to them.

This morning I heard our van honk out on the driveway. This usually only happens when I hit the “lock” button twice on my key chain. After about 5 beeps, it occurred to me that Sam must have found my keys. Sure enough, I discovered him near the window punching the lock button over and over while the van tooted loudly for the enjoyment of the whole neighborhood. Because I threw out my back, I can’t bend over to Sam’s level so I held out my hand and said, “Sam, give me the keys.” Despite the enormous silence of the house, Sam was apparently unable to “hear” me. The van tooted again. “Sam, I happen to know that the hammer, anvil and stirrup bones inside your ears are perfect. So fork over the keys.” But Sam had become mysteriously deaf. Toot, toot went the van. At this moment Danny appeared and took the keys from Sam, who protested at an impressive decibel level.

Danny and I hear differently too. For a very long time, we could never hear each other apologize, though both of us claimed to do it regularly! Now whenever one of us feels we have apologized, we follow it up with, “Did you hear that I just apologized?” This way the other person has to pause and notice what their ears took in. We soon discovered that different words trigger the awareness that an apology has occurred. Danny simply needs to hear, “I’m sorry, it was my fault.” He zooms in on words that communicate personal responsibility. For me, such words are not very “loud.” Anyone can say “I’m sorry” after the fact. I need to hear how the grievance will not happen again. “Next time I will check the lock on the gate so the dog cannot get out” registers in my ears like a true apology.

Despite our age gap, Sam and I agree on hearing certain sounds though—like music. We are both also sensitive to the thump of Danny’s car door slamming in the driveway, and the jingle of his keys in the front door.

Even when Sam and I hear the same thing, we have different opinions about it. For example, one recent spring afternoon, a thunder clap rumbled down our street sending thrills up my spine. A few feet away, Sam’s calm face crumpled up like a wad of paper and he began to howl, his lower lip jutting out a mile.

At his age, Sam can hear an extraordinary 10 octaves. The thin membranes of his toddler eardrums mean he can capture frequencies between sixteen and 20,000 cycles per second. As humans age, their eardrums thicken and high frequency sounds don’t pass as easily between the miniature bones of the inner ear. Yet more significantly, aging can thicken the mind and render its ideas stale and brittle. This has the potential to reduce a person's "hearing" more than anything else. Sam, aged 28 months, hears the telephone ring two houses down, but he cannot hear me ask for the keys. Is this a symptom of aged eardrums or mind!?

Both Sam and I have perfect hearing, yet we can’t—or don’t—hear what the other hears. We tune in to different frequencies. Our dissimilar aural landscapes are mapped out less by the apparatus of our ears than by grids of meaning in our minds. What we hear is determined more by our worldview than the quivering hairs inside our cochleas. Our personalities and priorities act as a kind of zoom lens over the biological anatomy of our ears. It causes certain sounds to blur and others to jump into sharp relief.

There was a time when Sam’s entire world consisted of the soothing, surf-like thump of my heart. Afloat in the womb, my heartbeat was his first cradlesong. But I am less and less the only sound in Sam’s universe. At night I sing to him in Hausa and French so that his ears learn the tones and textures of other languages, but by day he is increasingly limited to the phonetics of English and Spanish. As the universe ladles out enormous helpings of noise into his eager ears, the thumping of my heart will become fainter and harder for him to perceive. This is bittersweet; but it can also be okay. It will be part of growing up (for both him and me).

What I hope for most is that he would be able to hear the most important sounds. I pray that even as his eardrums loose some of their extraordinary 10-octave range, that his mind and soul would only increase their range of perception. I hope that he will learn to hear whispers of grandeur in a stormy sky and shouts of joy in the common daysong of a North Carolina wren. I hope that he becomes fluent in the emotional dialects of music. I hope he learns to hush the Niagara of noise produced by cell phones and Ipods in order to create quiet cathedrals of inner worship. I hope the silent suffering of the poor becomes louder to him than the babble of advertisements and entitlement propoganda. I hope he develops a keen capacity for listening to nuance in relationships because such fine distinctions give dignity to others. I hope that amidst the broken cacophony of the world, he would learn to amplify justice and still ignorance. I hope that the thrill with which he now greets the garbage truck would grow into the delight of a lifetime of listening to the love of God.

What Happened to Mommy's Back

Okay, so I royally threw out my back. I mean yelping-in-agony, pain-searing-down-my-leg, can’t-move-or-it-kills kind of back pain. It may have happened because of a teeny weeny 16-hour road trip to Michigan, but I’m not admitting that. It may also have something to do with being six months pregnant. Or it could be that I already had a weak lower back and possibly, inadvertently neglected to stretch or exercise like all the articles tell me to. But, as I said, I’m not 'fessing up to anything. What matters is that I was victimized by mind-melting pain that compares only to childbirth---except in labor there are nice people loitering about who will give you an epidural.

It had begun on a Tuesday and in the wee hours of Wednesday morning I made Danny call the office of our chiropractor, Dean O’Hare. The voice mail explained that the office didn’t open until 9. I could see that the universe was committed to my slow death. I made Danny riffle around for Dr. O’Hare’s cell number. We had it!! As Danny left a message, I decided that his voice was not desperate or urgent enough, so I glared at him. Nevertheless, a few minutes later, Dr. O’Hare called back.

“Going to die soon,” I panted into the phone. “Pain stabbing down my leg. Bottom of foot triggers excruciating agony.”

“Sounds like a full blown case of sciatica,” said Dean.

The word “sciatica” meant nothing to me. “Am six months pregnant. Will die soon. Help. Help.”

“The good news is, this isn’t hurting your baby at all.”

“Really?”

“Not at all.”

Birds chirped quietly outside.

“I haven’t used the bathroom in 10 hours." I resumed. "Cannot get up.”

“Now that you might want to take care of. That’s not so good for the baby. Is Danny there?”

“Yes.”

“Have him double bag some ice and put it under your lower back for 10 to 15 minutes every hour.”

“So you’re suggesting that into my volcano of torment I should toss an ice cube?” Actually, I didn’t say that. I thought that. But I was still being friendly because I harbored the hope that Dean might do house calls. "Ice,” I purred. "Good idea.”

“Can you move at all?”

“Not a bit. Can I take pain medication?”

“Not when you’re 6 months pregnant. Just Tylenol.”

Tylenol!!?? Molten anguish surged through my nervous system and he was suggesting Tylenol. “Certainly,” I purred again.

“If you can’t even stand without excruciating pain, there’s not a lot to do but wait it out with ice and rest. It will ease up. However, there’s a lot I could do for you in the office.”

The office, which was four miles away, could just as well have been four galaxies away. I wondered if my insurance covered helicopter transport. I hung up and stared at the ceiling. Then I whispered, “Honey, I have to pee. For the baby.”

Danny helped me out of bed, a sentence which is irritatingly easy to write. The actual act took at least 5 minutes and involved dozens of incremental shifts interspersed by yelps and groans. Then we hobbled together to the bathroom.

Later Danny filled a bag with ice and stuffed it under my back. I may have cussed a bit, the same way sailors cuss a bit, but eventually the ice was where the ice was supposed to be. I had the sensation of laying on a lump of sharp, burning rocks. But I inhaled deeply, willing peace into my body. With saint-like patience, I waited. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. No relief. I whimpered. My friend Tamara showed up. Sam's sitter showed up. Sigh.

An hour and a half later, Tamara and my husband had become my fan club and support group. Cajoling and cheering, they helped me once again to become vertical. Together we staggered towards the minivan the way soldiers do in war movies where the one in the middle is practically dead and the other two lug him forward while his boots drag a rut in the mud. I know how the guy in the middle feels.

At the door of the minivan, I released some adorable, ladylike bellows as they maneuvered my pain-wracked body into a kneeling position. To the casual observer, it may have looked like I had acquired a premature case of rigor mortis, but I felt like a circus contortionist folding into a matchbox.

After a 4-mile ride over what I can only believe were unpaved, speed-bump-overdosed, pot-holed roads, we arrived at Dr. O’Hare’s office.

“Hi Tina,” I mumbled. Tina was sitting in a chair. Effortlessly. Bitter feelings puddled in my heart. “Hi Amy,” I added. Through a blur of pain I noted that Amy was actually standing. Others were walking about the office. Clearly the world was mocking my newfound condition as an invalid.

But an hour later, after lots of assuring words, a few adjustments, massage, and grasping a jar of chirogesic cream, I felt comforted. Also, the baby was kicking vigorously. Relief.

I kneeled all the way home again, the roads having become miraculously paved during the past hour. My OB prescribed some sturdy pain meds, and I slept all day. I awoke only to grumble, get more ice, grumble, take a pill and grumble, in that order, except there was actually more grumbling.

That night was filled with dreams of pain drenched in aromas of icy-hot cream, followed in the morning by another epic journey over treacherous roads to the chiropractor’s office. This time Dean tried to show Danny how to gently massage my lower back and hip. Danny looked on dutifully, nodding. “Do this for her at home,” Dean instructed.

“Got it,” said Danny.

But Danny didn’t get it. At home, he wrenched and poked, asking tentatively if I felt better. I would have felt better if he’d driven over me with a riding mower. He was quickly re-assigned to his former duties of ice-fetcher and bathroom-assistant.

For the next days, the women at Dr. O’Hare’s office were fabulous. They greeted me enthusiastically every morning and gave me ultrasound massages. They exclaimed at how much better I looked than the first day and told stories about flushing their husband’s expensive salt-water fish down the toilet. I tried not to laugh because even if laughter is the best medicine, it was astonishingly painful. But I had to admit, I was feeling better. My in-laws sent a basket of flowers. My husband waited on my hand and foot. Yet as the weekend neared, another dilemma surfaced…

A childhood friend was getting married, and the wedding was to be held an hour and a half away in South Carolina. I was still kneeling on my trips to the chiropractor. Sitting in a chair was an Olympic feat for which I was still in training. The 16-hour road trip to Michigan had just about killed me. How could I drive an hour and a half away? At the same time, how could I let a stupid little nerve in the base of my spine sabotage me!!!

After much careful thought, I realized that things were not as grim as they seemed. I just had to improvise. All I would need was a driver (Danny seemed available), my son’s crib mattress, a neck support pillow, a pillow to put between my knees, an ice pack, extra ice in a cooler, one little pain pill, and a two year old for a peanut gallery. Honestly, it was a piece of cake.

Okay, so I winced at stoplights and clung to Sam's arm rest at sharp turns. BUT… I did clean out the trash from under his seat since I had unprecedented access to it. And I chatted lots with Sam, retrieving his dropped trucks and cheerios. I also made Danny park in discreet places so no one would see me lumber backwards out of the van.

The wedding was fabulous. Childhood friends flew in from everywhere. My sciatic nerve protested a couple of times, but mostly behaved itself. I felt elated.

Today marks exactly one week since my frantic pre-dawn calls to Dr. O’Hare. At ten o’clock this morning I drove myself to my appointment over smooth roads lined with blooming dogwoods.

“Hi Tina,” I said cheerfully. “Isn’t the weather great?”

“Oh, I love it,” she said. “Some people get depressed on these overcast days. But I love the deep purple clouds.”

“Sometimes a brilliant ray of sun will stab through the banks of rain clouds. It’s spectacular,” I exclaimed.

“Hm, hmm." She passed me my paperwork. "Room One.”

“Thanks,” I said, and limped to Room One.