Jodilightful!

As is usually the case when I’m not blogging much, the problem isn’t a lack of things to share.  The problem is that there is *so* much going on all at once that by the time I think about writing a post about one thing, life has whizzed past me and something bigger and more interesting is going on.  So, just by way of keeping you all up to speed, here are some highlights:

• The school year is over!  Which means: Pippa is done kindergarten (what?!), my baby sister Paige graduated from high school (WHAT!?!), and Ellie is now happily enjoying summer with her mommy, who is a teacher.  We are enjoying the lazy pace of summer and the relative ease of scooting around with just four little ones, or at least we were until… well, I’ll come to that.

• 
• Our friend Liz came to visit from Scotland.  The summer before I was pregnant with Pippa, we went on a short term missions trip to Romania (I still know a few useful phrases and even some songs – ask me sometime).  Liz was part of the team we went with, and she has been a dear friend ever since, though we’ve been out of touch for too long.  She showered our girls with some good Scottish children’s literature (I am having to relearn words like glaikit and ken), and was an instant hit with them.  This is Liz, then and now:

• My ‘little’ cousin Holly got married!  A long time ago, I told you all how weird it was that my cousin Michael (Ellie’s dad) was all grown up and living around the corner with his wife, because in my head he’s still about six.  Well, this is his *little* sister.  You can imagine!  I am getting old, old, old.
• Our van’s transmission bit the dust.  We have been stuck in the house for most of the week and are just hoping to have it back in time for some plans this weekend and next week.  Three years ago a similarly enormous and unexpected car repair came up, and prompted our big financial rethink of 2007.  This time, we both took the news much more peacefully, knowing that God has a purpose for even this, and looking forward to seeing what it might be.  For one thing, I know I will never again take for granted having a car big enough to fit everyone so that we can not be stuck in the house all day!  Which brings me to…
• It’s so hot!!!  I have always joked (half-joked?  Not at all joked??) that the only things Trevor and I fight about are baby names and air conditioning.  So, as such, this extended period of non-pregnancy and non-heat has been a lovely time of refreshment and growth in our marriage, but I expected it to come to an end with the hot weather.  You know what?  Two things seem to have happened this year in a huge answer to prayer: 1.  Trevor doesn’t like the heat any more than I do this summer, and has on more than one occasion *gasp* turned the air on before I even thought of it, and 2. I am finding myself less inclined to spend the money and more inclined to hide away in the cooler rooms of the house and wait it out.   I’m not sure our AC usage is much different than usual, but it sure has been less contentious!
• Finally, in case you’ve been missing my posts on much other than cute pictures of my kids, I have a post up on our church’s blog, and a few others back in the archives a bit if you feel like digging for them.  Our assistant pastor’s apologetics series has been awesome and so have my friend Jocelyn‘s posts, so it wouldn’t hurt to read in between my posts as well.

Thanks for sticking with me through this dry spell.  Maybe someday I’ll get back into a groove of posting more often and more substantially… maybe.

I had a look through the archives to see what I’ve said about my mother on Mother’s Days past, and the truth of the matter is that I’ve already said it all.  In fact, the photo above, which embodies everything I loved about my childhood and everything I love about my mom all in one picture, has already appeared on this blog at least twice before.  And you know what?  I’m posting it again anyway!

But today I am feeling especially thankful for having my mom nearby and involved in my life while I am finding my own way as a mother.   You are such a tremendous blessing and an encouragement to me, and I am thankful for you every day of the year.

Happy Mother’s Day to my own sweet Mama, my two wonderful grandmoms (the Alices!), my dear step-mom Debbie, and of course my mother-in-law Elaine, as well as to all the other wonderful mommies reading!

A few of you have noticed my absence lately – thanks!  Life is busy at the best of times as you know.  But in truth, there had been another project sucking what little free time I have had recently.  A project that is now thankfully behind me.

A little over a month ago, I was asked to speak at our church’s annual Ladies’ Spring Tea.  I was mildly freaked out – there were, after all, 65 ladies in attendance last year – but I also had a sense of peace about it.  For while anyway.

My assigned title was “Spring Cleaning for the Heart and Soul”.  You’re laughing, right?  I did, too.  But I was incredibly blessed by the process of preparing my fifteen-minute talk, and actually giving it was… well, not as bad as it could have been.  Guess how many ladies were there this year?  115.  That’s one hundred and fifteen.  Yeah.

I wrestled a lot with whether or not  to post the video.  I sound weird and nervous and emotional (and to be fair, I was all of those things), and it was horrible and cringy to watch it myself.  Still, by way of excusing my bloggy absence and in the hope that it will be a blessing to someone, here it is.

Gulp.

So, what do you do when you get over a foot of snow dumped on you twice in less than a week?  Here are 12 suggestions: 

*  My mom gave me this “recipe”, and yeah, we really ate it.  I thought it was scrummy, but the girls found it a little too cold for enjoying in such conditions.  You basically just stir up a whole bunch of sugar (maybe like a half a cup?) in a cup or so of milk.  Add chocolate syrup, vanilla and whatever other fixins you like (I added some peanut butter to mine – yum!)  Add the whole thing to a big bowl of snow, stir and enjoy!  It should be about the consistency of Rita’s, if you have that in your parts.

**  Pippa called me into the kitchen to play “Guess Which Bible Story This Is?”  When I didn’t immediately get it, she added the hand gesture to help me out a little.  It’s this one.  I love it!

Hope you’re staying warm and dry  and enjoying God’s glorious creation this winter!

• Your two-year-old asks for more to-mah-toes at dinner.
• You have to take more passports than people with you when you travel.
• Your children are taught how to say “I’m half and haaahf” as soon as they can talk.  Just because it’s totally cute.
• The ladies in your small group all stare at your husband when a volunteer is needed to read the Bible passage (especially when it’s a really long one, like the book of Colossians.)
• You call a pack ‘n’ play a “travel cot” and don’t even realize why people are looking at you funny.
• Your children say things like “What a lovely day!” and “Are we going to bed straight away when we get home?”
• You watch old episodes of Silver Spoons, and your husband laughs hysterically, because it’s totally new to him.
• Everyone thinks your kids’ names are really weird, except for your mother-in-law, whose only complaint is that Philippa rhymes with Juniper.
• You put the kettle on at least twice a day for a cup of tea, even though you don’t personally drink tea.
• Your kids have “Big Cook Little Cook” in their regular rotation of DVDs.
• Talking to your husband on the phone makes you just a little bit weak at the knees, because, for some reason, you no longer hear the accent in person, but you do on the phone, and it’s still *so* fun when you notice it!

Yawn!

Well, I’m here.  I have woken up and stayed up (more or less) at 6 AM six times now.

I was hoping that at this stage in my rising-while-it-is-yet-night journey I would have something marvelous to report.  I thought my house would be clean and my demeanor calmer.  I thought I would be completely up-to-date on my Through the Year Bible reading program (what, you didn’t know you could already be behind by January 11th?  Oh, you totally can.)

Well, as you might have guessed, I don’t have any of those things to report.

But I do have all of these things to report, and I look forward to seeing what else God will work in my life through this new habit.

• I have a whole new respect for what my husband does for us every single day.  I have always known that he was a trouper for getting up so early and braving the cold, but now, I really get it (well, the cycling part, I still don’t so much get).  I get why he wanted to be in bed by 10:15 each night when I would have preferred a bit more time for us in the late evening.  Now, each night it’s a race to brush our teeth and be in bed first.  If this were the only good to come out of this whole thing, it would probably be worth it.
• I have been dressed and ready for the day when the girls wake up, which has mostly meant that they get a little more of me during the day.
• I was *on time* for a 10 AM appointment with all four girls in tow.  Wait… 10 minutes early, actually!  This was largely a result of the above.
• I have had more time to spend in the Word, and I’m not as sleepy while I’m reading as I thought I’d be.  Also, reading at the table seems to be better for my retention than reading in bed like I used to.  Can’t think why…

What I still need to work on:

• As always, the main struggle is still using my time well.  Just because I have more of it now doesn’t take away the temptation to fritter it away.
• I haven’t quite worked out how Juniper fits into my morning.  She doesn’t always wake up at the same time, so it’s hard to plan my time.  I have learned that feeding her lying down in bed like I used to isn’t real conducive to me staying awake.  That was Friday’s lesson, but if there’s a day to half-fall off the wagon, I guess it’s Friday.

How hard is it?

It is crazy hard until about 6:30.  Then it’s a little bit hard until about 7.  By then, the sun’s up and it starts to feel like a pretty normal day.  A normal day, except that my dishwasher is already turned over, and I am excited for my girls to wake up instead of closing my eyes tighter and pretending not to hear them stirring in their room.   By about 7:30, I begin to remember why I’m doing this.

I have to say a special thank you to my dear friend Emily, who has had a particular hand in urging and praying (yeah, she prayed for this, can you believe!?)  me toward this change.  You are a true and faithful friend.  (Now, don’t all fight over who’s next to be prayed for in this way.  I’m sure if God can get me up at the crack of dawn, He can do it for anyone!)

I’ve read a number of blog posts this year concerning the apparently controversial topic of Santa.   Some Christians embrace the whole North Pole mythology whole-heartedly, others avoid him at all costs in order to keep Christmas solely focused on Christ.  Honestly, I see both sides.  Here’s how we’ve dealt with the Santa ‘issue’ in our family.

What We Do:

Each year, usually at the insistence and arrangement of our very dear Aunt Junie, the girls make an appearance at some mall and sit on the lap of some Santa.  We dress them up and take their pictures, and it is a special tradition that they enjoy.  (Everyone, that is, but the resident two-year-old, who always seems to find him the most terrifying person she’s ever seen.)

When Pippa was a baby, I grumbled and rolled my eyes at having to do this.  We hadn’t planned on doing the whole Santa thing, and felt a bit painted into a corner by the whole situation.  A few years down the road, we realize now that this small part of our Christmas celebration that brings so much joy to our extended family is not really having any adverse effect on the truth we want to teach our children about Christmas.

What We Don’t Do:

We have never taught, and don’t intend to teach, our children that Santa is a real person who comes down our chimney on Christmas Eve to deliver presents to good little girls.  I realize that that’s what everyone does.  It’s what my parents did, and what Trevor’s parents did, but when it came to teaching it to our own children, it just didn’t feel right.

Up until this year, our position on the matter was really more theory than anything else.  It didn’t seem right to perpetuate the fantasy of Santa, but it was out there, and the girls picked it up, and we didn’t really do a lot to correct it.   But at the ripe old age of five, Pippa has started asking questions, and the rubber has officially met the road.

I forget what the exact question was: something along the lines of “How does Santa get into houses with no chimneys?”   And there I was, caught like a deer in the headlights of these innocent blue-green eyes that were hanging on my words, waiting for me to confirm or deny these rumors of a jolly red-suited present-delivery guy that she’d been hearing all her life.  It was all hanging on this moment, and in that split second before I answered, I weighed my options.  I’m a pretty creative girl, and I knew I could easily have come up with an answer to satisfy her, but I couldn’t do it.  I just couldn’t make myself tell her a story, how ever nice a story, that wasn’t true and let her believe that it was.

“Sweetie,” I said, “you know that Santa’s pretend, right?”  And there it was.  An unspoken cardinal rule of parenting tossed out the window.  I imagined the angry phone calls from Sunday school parents pouring in, and I waited for her face to fall and her heart to break.

But you know what?  It didn’t.  She calmly and thoughtfully answered, “I guess so”, and we went on to discuss pretend other ways that pretend Santa could get into a chimney-less house.  It was completely fine, and I felt a burden had been lifted.  (Of course, I quickly briefed her on proper other-kids-and-Santa etiquette, and so far… no angry phone calls.)

My grandmother was surprised to find out that we are willfully depriving our kids of so much fun and excitement at Christmastime, and I wondered, are we really?  They still have the surprise of presents under the tree on Christmas morning (or at least they would be a surprise if Miss-Nosey-Pants didn’t peak a little  too long into a forbidden Target bag!) .  Does it make them less special to know that they come from the people who know them and love them best?  The people who know just how naughty (read here about the part of the whole Santa thing that bugs me most) they really are sometimes and love them anyway, unconditionally?  It just doesn’t seem so to me.

I suppose our kids will grow up enjoying Santa Claus the same way that they enjoy seeing Elmo at Sesame Place: sure, he might not be real, and they know that, but it’s still pretty fun to see a character from a favorite book or show brought to life to touch and talk to.  If we were raising our children in a vacuum, with no grandparents or great aunts around, I’m quite certain we’d be sidestepping Santa altogether, but in the real world it just isn’t a big enough issue to make it worth disappointing and potentially alienating dear friends and family.  Now Halloween on the other hand… but that’s a topic for another day.

I just had to share this music video by The Franz Family.  I saw it on a blog I read yesterday, and I can’t seem to stop watching it.  Totally mesmerizing and beautiful.  I love how quickly the sister can drop her fiddle and sing perfect harmony, and how much the big brother digs his sisters.  Makes me smile.  And sing.  Loudly.

Enjoy!

(Incidentally, after I showed this to Trevor, he spent the next twenty minutes or so watching more Franz family clips on YouTube.  I was surprised by this, and he said to me, by way of explanation, “Oh, I’ve always loved bluegrass.”  You think you know a person.)

I don’t know about you, but I love me a good math puzzle.  I came across a probability problem a few years ago that had me shouting in my head “But that *can’t* be right!” for days, and maybe sometime I’ll share that one.  The one I am about to let you in on came to me from an old friend in an e-mail a couple of days ago.  Apparently it is an interview question used by Google to stump its brilliant potential employees, but don’t let that scare you off.

I love this problem for its simplicity (both of the problem and its solution) as well as its… um… personal relevance?  It kept me awake for way too long the other night, though, so read on at your own risk!

So, here’s the situation: ”In a country in which people only want boys, every family continues to have children until they have a boy. If they have a girl, they have another child. If they have a boy, they stop. What is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?”

Okay, I’m going to give you a minute or two to think on this before I tell you the answer.  Go ahead.

*  *  *  *  *

Interlude

Here, just to stop you racing ahead and reading the answer, I’m going to insert my friend’s calculations, which he sent in his original e-mail with the question.  Do you know what I realized today?  Almost every single person I was friends with in high school is now either a doctor or an engineer.  No wonder I have low intellectual self esteem.

Here’s what he wrote:

I calculated it part-way using Excel. There’s a 50% chance the first child will be male, so 50% of households have 1 boy and 0 girls. There’s a 50% chance the 2nd child will be male, so 25% of households have 1 boy and 1 girl. There’s a 50% chance the 3rd child will be male, so 12.5% of households have 1 boy and 2 girls. And so on.

So: Boys: 1*0.5 + 1*0.25 + 1*0.125 + 1*0.06125 + …

Girls: (0*0.5) + 1*0.25 + 2*0.125 + 3*0.06125 + …

The boy infinite series is sum(1/2^n). The girl series is sum((n-1)/2^n)…

I’ll leave it at that so you don’t get brains on your keyboard.

*  *  *  *  *

Alright, are you ready for me to totally blow your mind?

You’re thinking there are *way* more girls than boys, aren’t you?  (*See below, but not until you’re done reading this, or it will spoil the answer.) So did I!

Nope!  1:1. One to one.

When I read the correct answer, my gut response was a resounding “Nuh-uh!” and indeed, it took a long restless evening of mental wrestling *and* an afternoon of coin-flipping  26 hypothetical families before I was truly convinced.

But it’s true!    There are enough families of just one boy and *no* girls to balance out the families who (dare I say like us?) seem to keep flipping tails indefinitely with nary a heads in sight (the coin assignment was fairly arbitrary, but it did make sense to Pippa that the picture of Abraham Lincoln should represent “boy”).  In fact, out of all my 26 families, only the M family had more than 3 girls, with 5.  The Y family, disappointingly, only had one girl before having their boy.

I would recommend that you try this experiment for yourself.  I found it to be super fun, but I daresay it might only be fun if you’re me.  My mom and sister were shooting each other lots of is-she-for-real? looks while I was frantically flipping my coin.  In the end, in 26 families, there were 27 girls and 26 boys.  Almost a perfect one-to-one ratio and an average family size of pretty much exactly two.  Just what you’d expect… if you’re smart enough to work for Google.

*  *  *  *  *

*Unless you’re my mom.  I can’t resist sharing her unique take on the problem.  I detailed the scenario to her, and waited for her to say, as everyone else has, that there would be many more girls than boys.  Instead, she said confidently,  ”It’s one-to-one.”  I nearly choked.

“Mom,” I said, “how did you get that?”

“Well,” she said,”I just figured that really the families who got a girl wouldn’t keep going.  They’d be too afraid of the shame of having another girl.”

Yeah.  She’s more of a psychologist than a mathematician.

** One final footnote:  Tonight over dinner we were discussing this problem *again* (what?  Doesn’t everyone with four kids under six talk about advanced mathematics at the dinner table?), and the following exchange occurred:

Trevor: But it isn’t really one-to-one, it just approaches one to one.  In theory, there has to be a family that will keep having girls and never have a boy…

Romilly: And that is us.

I like to think I am a reasonably intelligent person.  Or at least I used to be.  I was a very good student in high school.  In college I majored in physics.  I was a lab assistant and even tutored other students to earn a little extra money.  Before Pippa was born I worked as a physics teacher for three whole years.

I had everyone completely fooled.

Now that I am living my real, grown-up life and facing the way-harder-than-being-a-physics-teacher task of being a competent wife, mother, and human being in general, I find that I need a very complex flow chart just to get out the door.

Put baby in infant carseat (always use these for as long as they fit – it’s one less munchkin to wrangle).  Shut dog in kitchen.  No, wait, lock back door first.  Okay, back door locked, dog in kitchen.  Wait, wet clothes still in washer.  Reopen dog gate, move laundry to dryer, reshut dog gate.  Sorry, Puppy.  Shut down computer if leaving house for rest of day.  Adjust thermostat if leaving house in winter.  Shut blinds, leave appropriate lights on.  Gather season-appropriate and activity-appropriate children’s apparel and accessories.  Gather diapers et al.  Preferably both sizes, though in a pinch,  Bea can still get into a size 1 (Not that I’ve done that.  Twice.)   Gather children. Style four heads of hair.   Go back to kitchen (step over gate this time), and actually start dryer.  Regather children.  Head for van.  Take only youngest two children while other two run back in to go potty.  Set infant carseat into base.  Strap toddler into carseat.   When older children reappear, strap them into carseats.  (And this one is apparently important:) Go back to front door to shut and lock.  Get in van.  Inspect carseats and count children.  Drive.

Is it any wonder that just occasionally my husband might come home to find a wide open front door with a key stuck in it? I always try to remind him to be thankful that he didn’t find one of our *children* sitting on the step in front of the open door with the key stuck in it, but the fact remains: I have misplaced at least a few of the marbles I once had.

Today, my mom and I and the girls were coming out of the hospital where Pippa goes for her check-ups.  We got in the elevator.

My mom: Which floor did you park on?

Me: Uhhh…

(She pushes every button.)

Me: Wait!  Two.  I think two.

(We all get out.  My mom waits with the girls by the elevator while I scope out the scene and look for the van.)

Yes.  That’s my van.  Wait, no.  That looks like my van, but it can’t be.  The sliding door is open.  That’s somebody else’s van.  They must be just getting out.  There are lots of vans just like my van.  This is somebody else’s van. I’ll just head back to the elevator and go to the next… wait…somebody else’s van with an infant carseat base?  In the same seat as Junie’s?  Maybe I’d better just take a closer… with the same dent in the bumper from when I backed into a concrete lamp post at Paige’s soccer game? And with no sign of anyone else coming or going to it???  THAT’S MY VAN!  With the door wide open for the last two hours in a parking garage in the middle of the ghetto! (Oh, but don’t worry – I had remembered to lock it.  I’m not stupid, you know.)

My mom:  So the battery will be dead?

Me: Oh, no, don’t worry.  Trevor turned the interior lights off after the first two times I left a door open and made the battery die.   Should be fine.

* * * * *

I looked to my mom for wisdom and comfort in this situation.  I try so hard to be responsible and conscientious.  Why do these things always seem to happen to me?

She could only remind me of the fate of her last two cell phones (Splash, and splash again into cups of iced tea in the cup holder where she usually keeps her phone in her car), and tell me that *today alone* she: 1. Tried to grab her soda at the Wendy’s drive-through through a half open car window and spilled most of its contents onto the street.  (They gave her a new lid, wasn’t that thoughtful?) and 2. Took someone else’s car keys from the key rack at the gym, and got all the way to her car before noticing that her enormous keychain was missing.

Oh, well.  At least I come by it honestly.