Do You Want It All?

What does it mean for a society when children are seen not as gifts, but as a burden, something to avoid? We hear from a DINK, that "Not Having Children Is Letting Us Have It All." If by "all" they mean the material goods of this world, then yes, they have a lot of stuff. Of course, I don't think they'll always be happy with the amount of stuff that they have. There is always a bigger house, a fancier car, new furniture, a pool, a boat, a bigger boat, and then of course there is the curse of more, more places to visit, more clothes to buy, more purses and jewelry and shoes. This woman is very foolish if she thinks that she has it "all." First, because as I just stated, no one can have it all. Secondly, because she really doesn't have it all.

Maybe she and her husband will never appreciate it, but there is nothing like holding your newborn baby, a gift that God enabled you and your spouse to create with love. There is nothing like the special love that a toddler has for her mommy. There is nothing like that brief span of life where Daddy can fix anything. There is nothing like watching your child take her first steps, hug a sibling, learn to read, learn to play an instrument, go en pointe. There is nothing like the joy in the eyes of Mr. BTEG's late grandmother, as she held her newest great-grandchild, the last one she would live to see. That joy is even reflected in the Dancer's eyes.

If you look at the map towards the bottom right of my page, you can see that I have traveled. There are even places I've been that aren't on there, because I haven't figured out how to update the map. I've rafted the New River in West Virginia, been to the French Quarter in New Orleans, hung out on the beach in Costa del Sol, touched the Berlin Wall. I've had *experiences*. But experiences don't last. Since most of the traveling I listed above was done before I was 21, they are becoming dim memories of experiences, at that. I have plenty of photos, but even looking at the same photo can get boring over decades. Sure, I could do more traveling, and I probably will, but again, those are brief moments in the big picture of life. And even traveling can get old after weeks of living out of a suitcase.

For some reason, memories of the people I love never get old in the same way. Not just with my children, but also people like my grandfather or my dear friends. If you are blessed enough to be happily married, do you still like to think fondly of your wedding day? Do you remember sharing an activity with a grandparent, or the road trip you took with your friends in college? We are meant to want to be with people, to have people in our lives that we care about, and who care about us. Not all of us will be blessed with children, and the author above says she is happy she doesn't have any. That may never change; she might be eighty and be glad that she didn't have children. But I think that when I am eighty, I'll have a lot more to show for my life than old W-2s, purchase receipts and travel albums.

Back to the Future

In lieu of something more serious, which I'm still mulling over in my mind, I present another one of my Christmas gifts -- an old-school headset for your cell phone. I absolutely love it, although I haven't gotten a chance to use it yet. I imagine it will be very useful if I am forced to spend a lot of time on hold with some stupid company. Much easier to hold under your head and use both hands for something else than a cell phone. Heck, I ought to just have one of my daughters call me just so I can try it out.

The box proclaimed it to be both retro and trendy. I mean, I guess retro is currently trendy, but then the "style" has been to recycle stuff from both the seventies and the eighties for quite a while now, years actually. Behold this preppy folder from 2006, with adorable little whales all over it. Currently, day-glo is back in style. When will they start recycling stuff that has been recycled from the seventies and eighties, tweaking it just the slightest bit again?

Blessings

Before I get into any other kinds of posts, I feel it's important to put up one of thankfulness for the wonderful Christmas that the BTEG family had. There were wonderful gifts, good food, and enjoying being with family. Now we are enjoying being home together, including Mr. BTEG because of the inclement weather. I pray that there have been no great losses due to the blizzard.

Here's a picture of one of the nice gifts that I received, a new bicycle, in pretty blues and pinks. Come spring, I can be walking or bicycling!

Random Bits

Mom: "Whichever girl's turn it is to scoop the litter box, needs to do it."

Dancer: "I can't remember whose turn it is. It's hard to keep track."

Mom: "That's why I put up the chore chart months ago, with all the days and the chores."

Dancer: "But we never use it."

Mom: face-palm

That look a cat gives you when she is rolling around in some sort of almost-catnip-fueled type abandon and sees you watching her. "Oh. Hai. Didn't see you there."

You know your best friend is your best friend when you give each other the same Christmas gift. And when you can't actually wait until Christmas to exchange gifts.

I'm really tired of having to put paragraph breaks in by hand because Blogger doesn't seem to recognize the return key anymore. Especially when I forget and then go to look at my blog post actually on my blog.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Okay, so I know what the true meaning of Christmas is. But like poor Charlie Brown, I didn't really have much feeling for Christmas this year, either in the spiritual or secular senses. I got a nice gift, the warm winter coat I've been wanting for a couple of years. The girls were happy with their gifts, even though they were by no means extravagant. Mr. BTEG even scored himself some free Christmas gifts: a Google TV keyboard and the latest in smart phones. And of course the most important thing was the remembrance that God became man, became incarnate for us and for our salvation. I was rather numb to the whole thing. Not getting to Christmas services due to various health issues may not have helped this, although I was not tuned in to Advent very well either. I am taking two things from this season. One, I need to stay on top of my mental processes, even though I can't twist them into something perfect. Two, thank God that His incarnation and my salvation do not rest on my feelings being "right."

Don't Blink

Wow, the days are going by quickly! In a couple of days, the girls will be home for winter break. The Musician will also be celebrating a birthday soon. I have most of the gifts purchased, although I have to exchange some earrings. The Dancer came home today, and her friend had given her the same three-pack that I bought the Dancer for Christmas. Oops. They were, of course, ballerina-themed earrings.

Speaking of dance, the Dancer has started assisting at a tap class for 7-8 year-olds. Great experience for her, but another day to be at the dance studio. We do get the Dancer's tap classes for free now, though.

The Dancer's Winter Concert was tonight. The chorale did sing the J-word in one of the songs. :O The Dancer participated in the String Orchestra, and the band also played. The high school freshmen musicians in attendance, including my Musician, were scoping the band for future members. :) Yes, these current 6th graders will be getting Freshmen Wake-Up from the current crop of freshmen, in only three years. I'm sure it will come all too quickly.

Puzzlement

The Dancer has started taking violin lessons at school this year, and she seems to be enjoying it, so I want to get a violin for her American Girl doll for Christmas. I may not like the direction the company is going, but I must admit the products they make for the dolls are lovely. Other stores for 18" dolls offer a violin, bow and case. American Girl's set also includes a pretend block of rosin, two music books and a music stand. I thought about checking out eBay to see what I could get there. Oddly enough, incomplete sets are going for only a dollar or two less than you can buy the set for from American Girl. What's up with that? Granted, the last auction I watched *said* that the set was no longer available in stores, but a quick check of American Girl's online shop would refute that. Back in the old days when bulletin boards reigned, people would buy things from stores and sell them online for a profit, with the argument that some people didn't have a Wal-Mart or a Target close by. Nowadays when you can get everything online, I don't understand why people are willing to pay so close to retail for sets that don't even have all the pieces. Do people not search online, or do they not want to buy directly from American Girl? Those are my only two thoughts.

How I Spent My Easter

All the cousins on my DH's side of the family together. Technically, the little boy is a cousin once-removed, as he is the son of the woman in the picture.

My niece being reborn in baptism. I love the look of love and joy on my sister-in-law's face.

My niece with her parents and godparents, my sisters-in-law and their husbands.

My niece with our Easter gift to her, a stuffed bunny. Of course we also gifted her with a couple of special things for her baptism.

Achievements for 2009

If you've read this blog long enough, you know that my husband (and our family, to a certain extent) are big fans of LEGO building blocks. We had the pleasure on Thursday of giving our great-nephew his very first LEGO set, DUPLO specifically, since he is not quite two.
I know my sister-in-law reads my blog, so this may sound like sucking up ;), but we had a really great time at her house. Even if I had to drag myself out of bed to kiss Mr. BTEG at midnight on New Year's Eve. She's an excellent hostess, which I think she inherits from her grandmother.

I also finished a project I should have done ages ago. I made a Christmas dishcloth for the Hen as part of a pay-it-forward blog contest from all the way back in April. I started with another project; you may notice I said the things I made would be sewn. I ran into all kinds of roadblocks on the project I was working on, such as losing the floss I was using, twice! Since I have improved my knitting skills, I ended up knitting dishcloths for both people to whom I had to give a project. I hope Charity doesn't mind getting hers so late.

Holiday Wrap-Up

We had a gloriously happy Christmas. The Dancer got a new mp3 player, which her father set up beforehand with songs from the Disney triumvirate, High School Musical (1, 2 and 3), Hannah Montana, and the Cheetah Girls. There's even a video, London Tipton's "Yay Me!" You'd have to have a girl the right age to understand all of this. :) This morning we awoke to the Dancer in the living room warbling along to her favorite tunes.

The Dancer also got her American girl doll, at last. She even has earrings! The Equestrienne has two American Girl dolls, so we felt the Dancer had the right to at least one. This morning she has the doll's hair done up the same as hers.

The Equestrienne got a digital camera, but we gave that to her early, so she could take pictures at her birthday party. She also got the mitten gloves she wanted, with a matching hat.
The lobby of the hotel was all decorated for Christmas. For the little ones, there was story time in the lobby at night, which they do all year 'round, and it "snowed" in the lobby too. That was fun.


Our hotel room was very nice. We ended up with the "Kid Cabin". The girls had a separate sleeping area made to look like a log cabin. It had a bunk bed, a twin bed, their own television and a game controller, if you wanted to pay extra for games. I love the themed rooms; it adds to the whole "resort" feel.


Breakfast is especially good. It's an all-you-can-eat family style meal, with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, pancakes and biscuits. There was also a toast station, an omelet station where a chef makes up your omelet according to your order, and a fruit and yogurt bar. Wish I could breakfast like that every morning!

Oh, and I got some mystery books and two chocolate boxes. The perfect gifts, no?

Bad Man, Good Man

So once again, a man is charged with two counts of murder in the death of the mother of his child (or children) and the death of an unborn child. When will it strike people as incongruent that right now an unborn child's death being called murder or not murder depends only on the desires of the mother? The mother's feelings change nothing about whether or not the unborn child is a living, feeling human creature. Shouldn't that be what matters? As an aside, it's pretty sad that Bobby Cutts Jr. is only believed to be the father of the unborn child he is accused of murdering. Did the mother not know who the father was, or had the father simply not stepped up and taken responsibility for this child?

On a happier note, my husband brought home a little gift for each of us from his business trip. He looked through an antique prints store for me, not only knowing what era of fashion I am most interested in, but also whether or not the prints he found would be interesting to me (they wouldn't have been.) Isn't he a great guy? I got a pair of earrings instead, made of green crystallized volcanic ash from Mt. St. Helen's. My first pair of earrings since I got my ears pierced!

Weekend Doings

This was the busiest weekend I've had in a while. Saturday we hung out at our church garage sale/get-together. Yesterday after church we went to the high school graduation party for my husband's nephew. Here's a picture of him opening our gift, a refrigerator for his college dorm room. That should work out well, since he apparently eats enough for several normal people. :)

I am hoping that my sister-in-law will email me some of the pictures that her husband took (hint, hint!) :) We finally got to meet our great-nephew, and I held another one of the babies who were there, a cousin's daughter.

I wasn't entirely happy about being out all weekend, but I think it was good for me all the same. I feel better about tackling things here at home now since I've had a couple of days break.

How I Spent My Day

Or at least part of it. The Scientist has a bit of a bug, so only Wildchild and I were able to attend the birthday party for the Princess today after church. And here I can accomplish two things in one post, as the Princess received, among other things, two pairs of shorts recently made by me. I'm hoping she will appreciate them more when it is summer and it's 100 degrees in the shade. The Princess, by the way, is Wildchild's friend, and she turned 5.


Other than that, I have to get cracking on the Scientist's dress that she will wear when she makes her first communion on Thursday evening!

News From the Front

It's snowing. Like we need more snow. Oh, it's nice for my daughters and all that, it's just such a struggle to keep our driveway clear, and driving is difficult enough already with all the big piles of snow lying 'round. I want, I need to get out of the house, but I'm having problems finding ways to do it. And with all this white stuff, I'm become less and less motivated to get out, despite the fact that it would do me a lot of good! I guess I'm just blue.

My husband got me a few nice pressies for Valentine's Day, including an insulated cup, so I can take hot chocolate with me anywhere I go. I'm just not a coffee or a tea person. I have way too much of a taste for sweets. Things that my husband declares are way too sweet, I suck down without a problem. And Barb, I'm putting you on notice. I will be watching this cup when you are around. Susan, I'd worry about you if you were closer. Or I was closer to you! (shuts eyes and dreams of Florida)

Where was I? Anyway, there's some interpersonal stuff I'm struggling with right now, but I can't really talk about that, since it doesn't concern just me. Let's just say I feel like a fish out of water right now. Not sure where I fit in, where I belong. That tends to happen to me. I think I have good relationships, and then things seem to unravel, and I'm not sure why. My doctor also put me on some new medication that knocked me out all night and most of today, and caused me to have a long string of really strange dreams. (grumbles at doctor)

Grumble, grumble. Even something like ice skating is difficult right now, considering how far away the nice rinks are and how crowded the rink(s) are likely to be when I can take the girls along. And I love ice skating. For me, it's the closest thing to flying. Maybe I should dig a spot out in the back yard and run the hose for a while... (shuts eyes and dreams of ice skating.) And no, that's not me ice skating!

For right now, I'm hanging in there the best I can, surfing the net on my laptop and cranking music out of WinAmp that my husband just installed for me. And soon, I will be sampling hot chocolate-y chip goodness out of the oven. Yum. Hot chocolate chip cookies. What could be better on a cold day?

Birthdays and Such

Today was One of Those Days. For the adults, anyway. But I think Wildchild had a good day, and that is the important thing, in the end. What would a birthday be without pizza,

cake (ice cream cake, difficult to cut)

and prezzies (winking at Kate.)

The Wildchild brought excitement to our lives right away, when it was discovered that she was sideways and needed to be delivered by C-section. This is why I am wearing the cap in the picture; I was still in the recovery room.

The Scientist loved her new little sister.

She was baptized so she could become a daughter in God's family as well.

Since then our family has made a lot of great memories together, and we are thankful for the happiness we have had.

Christmas in January

We were finally able to get together with my in-laws today for Christmas. The best part was watching the girls get the gifts that we, the parents, have known for ages they were getting, and have had to keep biting our tongues not to spoil the surprises. Here is Wildchild holding up one of her gifts. Unfortunately you can't really see in this picture the new pearl earrings she received from her grandmother. She also got some Cinderella earrings from her aunt. She likes Cinderella. Yes, she really does.

The best thing of all was watching the Scientist as she opened the envelope containing a gift certificate for four horseback riding lessons, from the stables where the girls rode horses during an open house last year. The Scientist was beside herself with joy, and couldn't stop giggling. That is, when she could breathe. And now her father and I don't have to worry about making ourselves bleed anymore. It's been so hard hearing "Whenever I get to take horseback riding lessons..." for the past couple of months.

Some great memories made today.