Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

In my previous post, I bragged about finishing my Christmas shopping. And wrapping everything. While I am still proud of this feat, I also realize that I have sort of set myself up for an anti-climactic holiday season. The errands and general December frenzy are no longer with me. And, well, now I'm a little disappointed that I have to wait another 3 weeks for Christmas, because I am ready now. Pathetic, aren't I?

Peter had this great Sunday School lesson for our kindergartners on Sunday (not sure how much seeped in, because that day turned out to be a behavioral, shall we say, challenge--I was home with two sick girls, but apparently the term "lock-down" was employed!). The lesson was about the angels God sent to Mary to tell her she was going to be a mother, The Mother. Peter started out by asking what things the kids are seeing that tell them Christmas is coming--Christmas trees, gingerbread men, Santa at the mall, songs on the radio, etc. He asked how all these signs made them feel--happy, excited, ready for Christmas, right? The anticipation (big word for kindergartners) keeps building. God sent the angel as a sign to Mary, and she also began to anticipate what would be happening. He talked about what "angel" means--messenger--and what messages God sends us.

So now that I have finished the shopping, the wrapping, the decorating, I need to step back, take a deep breath, and enjoy the anticipation, the Waiting that Advent offers. I can be more prayerful, more deliberate, more...dare I say it...patient this year. I can open myself up to the messengers God sends for me this season. Here I am, Lord!

8 Going on 18

Molly's birthday was a week ago. She turned 8. I am beyond amazed that she is that old. Some days, I am easily reminded of how innocent she still is. On other days, she asks questions I am not ready to acknowledge she is even thinking about. She is thoughtful, smart, curious, creative and gentle. She knows what she likes, and isn't afraid to tell you what she doesn't. I see manifestations of the growing-up in her mind--she loves to play with barbies and watch Scooby Doo, but she also wants to wear lip gloss and talk on the phone. She wonders why she cannot shave her legs, but also wants to cuddle up with Mommy and Daddy under the blanket to watch cartoons. This year, she accepted Christ as her Savior, made a public profession of faith, and was baptized. I see this commitment in how she treats others and prays out loud with poise and confidence.

Her actual birth was at once perfect--because she was--and imperfect. It has taken some serious processing for me to accept how my labor transpired and to find peace with the eventual c-section. For a midwife, this is no easy task! But the bottom line is that Molly Abigail Marsh was born in perfect health at 4:50 p.m. on November 30, 2001, and my life truly started at that moment.

Channeling My Inner-Monica

When I was in college, every Thursday night, we put all schoolwork on hold for NBC's Must See TV. The living room in our dorm (and, later, around the TV in someone's room) was packed with young women, mostly in PJs, some knitting or snacking. We watched Friends, Seinfeld and ER, in that order. Both Friends and Seinfeld had their series finales during my last year of college--as though there were no reason for the shows to continue without all of us to watch. ER sort of jumped the shark after that, too (you know that term, right?).

One of the main characters on Friends was Monica Geller, who was organized to a fault. She had notebooks with color-tabbed sections, spices arranged in ABC order, perfectly clean bathrooms and bedrooms. She defined Type A.

Sometimes I want to be that way, too, but the reality is that my car hides French fries and cracker crumbs, my bathtub needs more than a little TLC and my closet quickly becomes a bottomless pit of things that have no other home in our home, no matter how often I put "Clean Closet" on my To-Do List. I have some of my family's tendencies toward hoarding--not like on that truly disturbing TV show, but the notion that I might need that again someday and you just never know...! So I fight that tendency with organization. If it's organized well and I can find it easily, I can justify keeping it. If it looks clean, it is clean, right?

We have a big dry erase board with a calendar grid hanging in the hallway to the garage. Each month I happily erase the days gone by and replace them with up-and-coming events. Each family member is a certain color, with one color reserved for the entire family. That way, anyone can look at the calendar and know what's coming up, which days are potentially free for planning other events, and where Mommy and Daddy are on any given day (office, clinic, hospital on-call, out of town). When I am on call, Peter can see that he needs to make sure Molly gets to Girl Scouts. When Peter is out of town, I'll remember that he has poker night on the day he gets back. Molly and Rebecca only buy lunch on certain days, depending on the school's menu, so we all look at the menu at the first of the month so we can mark which days Peter and I can avoid packing lunches. It's a beautiful thing. And it makes me feel like I have a teeny-tiny bit of control in an otherwise beautifully hectic life. Monica would be so proud.

P.S. "Jump the shark" is a term that refers to a moment or a season when a TV show took a turn for the worse. It originates with Happy Days, when they went to Hawaii and Fonzie performed a stunt when he jumped a shark. The show was not as good after that. Other famous jump the shark moments would be when that new little cousin moved in on The Brady Bunch, when a new baby brother was born on Family Ties or when that teenage girl cousin moved in on The Cosby Show (for the record, the Cosby Show survived the add-a-kid pitfall when they added little Olivia).

The Budget

Money. Ick. Pretty high on my list of things I don't like to talk about--mine, the government's, or anyone else's. For many years, I did the bills in our family. It was stressful. At some point, after one of the girls' births (Rebecca's?), I gladly handed the reigns to the finance-minded one in our house, and felt a tremendous weight lifted. Of course, whatever financial situations we're in, good or bad, I am still part of it, but looking at it on paper over and over again was just overwhelming. And Pete will testify to the fact that I do not like to "go over the budget." Ever. I will, but I don't like it. Perhaps it sounds anti-feminist of me, but I'd rather just have an allowance and not think about the rest. Not reality, I know, but whatever.

I don't love to shop. I enjoy time to myself to browse, but generally, I sort of shop like a guy. I know what I want, I go in, I buy, I leave. This is especially true at Christmas. Parking 6 miles away; worried someone will break into my car and take what's there, even if I "stow it, don't show it" like the police ads suggest; waiting in lines; resisting the extraneous purchases just 'cause "it's a good deal." I try to avoid the mall at all costs. If I have to go there, I try to limit my trip to the department stores that have a door to the outside. And I despise Wal-Mart (another post unto itself). Black Friday baffles me--it is my idea of Hell.

All this just to brag that I have completed my Christmas shopping and I have stayed within the budget we set for the year. Hooray for me! AND I have even wrapped it all and fit each package securely under the tree. Is it possible and even likely that Amelia will tear into some packages in the next 3 weeks? Yes. Have I tried to shove all the gift bags deep under the tree so she doesn't have easy access? Yes. Doesn't matter, because I am finished, and I am happy. And I don't have to think about that Christmas budget anymore in 2009!

It's A Wonderful Polar Vacation on Christmas Story Street

Some of my favorite memories from childhood include movies. Going to the theater to see them, getting our first VCR and renting VHS tapes (not betamax), waiting for them on TV. My dad inhales popcorn (really and truly--this is a sight to behold) and instilled the need for such food early on. We were microwave popcorn nuts when Orville was the only choice. The first movie I remember seeing in the movie theater was Star Wars. The original one, which I realize is the 4th one, but really was the first one--you know what I'm saying. I may have seen some before this one, but it's the first I remember. Another significant movie-going experience was seeing ET. I went with some family friends, Tom and Sharon, the same weekend my grandfather was dying. A distraction of sorts. I have seen both of these movies at least a dozen times since, and they never grow old, reigniting the same excitement, fear, thrills and heart-tugging, even though I know full well what will happen.

We regularly have family movie night, when we don our jammies, pop some corn and watch something together. We also try to see movies in the theater when we can--balancing various ages of children and attention spans, finding babysitters when these cannot be accomodated or when the movie is too mature. Always with popcorn--despite all the recent health warnings about how extraordinarily awful it is for you.

Now that it's Christmastime, some of my very favorites must be seen and seen again. Everyone has a favorite--mine, hands down, is It's A Wonderful Life. You have to see it all the way through, and if you haven't, you have missed out. I hesitate to build it up this way, because one movie was lifted so high for me before I saw it, that I was completely let down when I finally did. That movie was A Christmas Story. Couldn't get into it, thought it was cheesy and silly and not very good. I could be crucified for speaking so ill of such a beloved film, but I just didn't get the hype. So I will refrain from heaping praise on Jimmy Stewart's finest effort so that those who haven't seen it can do so without hype.

Other great Christmas movies include Miracle on 34th Street and Polar Express. I also like two more recent ones, Elf and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Now I won't let my kids see Christmas Vacation yet--a little too mature (no, immature?) for them, I think. But Miracle and Polar have already graced our TV this year, and It's a Wonderful Life in on tap for tomorrow night.

What are your Christmas favorites?

Random Acts of Kindness

Good Deed of the Day
Today was a rare DONKAH (day off, no kids at home). I generally only get to have these when I work the weekend before or after--in this case, I am on call for 24 hrs this Saturday. So after loading the big girls onto the school bus and shuttling Amelia off to daycare, I decided to hit Chick-Fil-A for breakfast. Spying a ridiculously long line, I parked and went in. I figured I could enjoy my fruit and chicken while plotting my Game Plan for the day (which I meticulously planned to the minute, in typical Type A fashion). Good people eat at Chick-Fil-A. Maybe it's because the founder is Christian and keeps his restaurants closed on Sundays, so people who are Christian think it's a better place to eat because of this? Who knows? But today, the good patrons of Chick-Fil-A were shining bright.

Three guys in their early 20s (young whippersnappers) apparently had car trouble--well, in this case, truck trouble. It was a full-size truck, and in the parking lot, where space is already at a premium and the drive-thru line wrapped around the building, this truck was very inconveniently perched. It was also chilly and pouring down rain. One guy was steering, and the other two were pushing, without much luck. A man sitting at a table near me leapt up from his seat and went outside in the rain to help. A guy in the drive-thru line got out from the passenger side of his car and helped. In no time, the struggling trio had successfully moved the big truck into a parking place, with the help of two generous strangers. The inside patron came back in, dripping wet, and sat back down with his dining companion as though this had been no big deal. But I thought it was a big deal--a random act of kindness, well-placed in this season of giving.

You've probably heard this diddy singing the praises of Chick-Fil-A, but just in case, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsJHqstPuNo

The Challenge and Suing The Pants Off 'Em

I am challenging myself to post on the blog every day in December. It is entirely possible that no one will benefit from this except me, but in all reality, isn't blogging pretty self-centered to begin with? Blogging is sort of public journaling and since I've left my beloved journals behind in this electronic age, this seems like a good exercise in discipline.

The topic du jour is frivolous lawsuits. I heard two separate stories on NPR today that disturbed me, one about the Australian song about the kookaboro bird, the other about the artesian wells running under the city of Memphis. Apparently, a gameshow in Australia featured a trivia question asking contestants to name the children's tune heard in the song "Down Under" by Men at Work (a long-defunct Australian band). None of the contestants could name it, and until I heard this NPR story, I couldn't even have picked it from a multiple choice list! But there's a little flute action in "Down Under" that sounds like the kookaboro song (you remember this song--you learned it in elementary school: he sits in an old gum tree and he laughs). After watching this show, the person who owns the rights to the kookaboro song sued Men at Work and their record label. "Down Under" has been around for more than 20 years, but NOW the kookaboro person is suing. How insane is that? The kookaboro song is the Australian equivalent of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star--but apparently it is not in the public domain. As I listened to the story, part of me said, well, at least this is in another country--usually it's the dingbats in this country that pull stupid things like that. A few minutes later, NPR airs another story from right here in our fair city. The state of Mississippi is suing the City of Memphis for "stealing its water." There are artesian wells that run under the Mid-South area (Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas, and part of Kentucky). From these wells, Memphians have been getting their water since the 1880s. Mississippi has decided that the way the water is being funneled is akin to stealing the water from their state. Now I would like to take a poll of people in Mississippi asking how many of them support this multi-year legal effort (I believe it started in 2005), which has now been appealed to the US Supreme Court. So far, two lower courts have ruled in favor of the City (by indicating that this is a state-to-state issue that should be resolved at the US level). Do we or do we not have more important issues that our Justice System needs to address? Really.

And don't even get me started about medical malpractice/tort reform and the defensive practice of medicine.... We'll save that one for another December post!