Boyle's Law

Children are like a gas.  They expand to fill the space available to them.

I put the baby on a blanket to play in the middle of the recently recently cleared, wide open floor space of the den/school room.  The girls were happily playing the nursery.  I took a few moments to throw a load of clothes in the washing machine and load the dish washer.  When I returned to the den, it looked as though the whole nursery had been moved out into the den to surround the baby!

Boyle's law states that, with constant temperature, if you decrease the volume of a gas, the pressure it exerts will increase proportionately.

I could feel the pressure inside of me increasing as the size of our apartment felt suddenly constricting with the claustrophobic piles of life strewn about in every room.  Thankfully God reminded me about my camera, so I grabbed it and, like a balloon, the pressure popped as I started to listen to their playful chatter about which of the baby dolls were twins with Beatrice and which one was going to have a birthday party today.

I'm really trying hard to enjoy whatever moments I can this season to fight back the overwhelm.  Dolly birthday parties are way more important than a clear path through the room anyway, right?

(The baby in the middle is the real one, and she seems to love every minute of the mayhem :)

She's found her toes!

  

I don't like this.

This transition has been painful.  My body hurts, my head hurts, my heart hurts, and I keep forgetting to breathe.

Shortly after we arrived the depression subtly wove itself around each overwhelming moment and fatiguing day.  At first I passed it off as grieving intermingled with interrupted sleep from the baby, but throw postpartum hormonal imbalance into the equation and I wanted to be done.

I get it why David's psalms have so much self-talk in them - the knowing part of oneself speaking truth to the wounded heart and the discouraged and fearful soul.  I ask myself and shout at myself "why are you so downcast?' and I know the abundant gifts given to me in this day and abundant richness of God's forgiveness and salvation.  But my shouting sounds muted, as if my heart is plugging its ears, like a stubborn teenager refusing to listen.

There must be some hope left in me because I haven't completely given up yet.  Even though all I can feel is the pain of the now, I know, or at least I believe, that daily life will get better as we continue to settle.  I know I need to give myself time to grieve what I lost in the move and also to slowly re-establish regular living patterns.  My responsibilities with the girls have kept me functioning to take care of the basics of living, and I have been trying to be intentional about taking time to get away for an hour or so every week, as well as puttering around my little garden.

We had a craft day with another family this week (also new to town, he's a first year Beeson student as well, they have three children similar in age to ours, and she and I have become fast and much needed friends for each other her - So thankful for her!).  We put together "Thankful Trees." The kids cut out leaves that we'll write our thanksgivings on and then hang up on the collection of branches that form the "tree" in the canning jar.  The kids lost interest in cutting out leaves sooner than we anticipated, which reminded us both that we were doing all this, the visit, the playdate, the Thankful Trees, just as much for ourselves as for the kids.  

And there is so much to give thanks for:  Birmingham is a great city.  Our apartment is about as perfect as we could have hoped for - a good size, safe neighborhood, beautiful complex, easy location, right price, and with a backyard of our own!  Joel loves his school and is doing well in his classes. The girls are doing very well and are loving our church, homeschool group, and the neighbor kids.  The cats have settled easily after their cross country adventure.   Already the Beeson Divinity school, Christ the King Anglican Church, our Classical Conversation homeschool group, and our neighbors are developing into a wonderful community for us.  

I know all this but it still hurts, so I will start again to physically count and write out the thanksgivings to help correct the spiritual amnesia I experience so often.   

Dirty laundry

As I was sporadically preparing these recent sets of pictures for the blog I wondered what story they were really communicating.  I write about how hard living has been for me lately, then post beautiful, scenic pictures of my cooperating children in (mostly) matching clothes.  I know that photography is a tool for me to find beautiful graces hiding throughout weary days, but, in case there was any doubt, my house has been a constant wreck except just before we have company, the only times my bathrooms have been cleaned are when my mother-in-law and then my visiting friend did them for me, and most days I am exhausted from working so hard to keep my patience with the children and myself and my postage stamp-sized kitchen.  (Those sweet pictures of Beatrice in her baptism dress, for example?  If I backed up two feet you'd have seen the pile of towels and cloth diapers on the other side of the love-seat.  Or the sticky, still piled high from breakfast and lunch, table in the background.  etc. etc.)

So here is a more realistic picture.  Though I must confess that I kicked a few piles of dirty laundry on the floor out of the way to get a clear shot.  

I asked Nora to empty the dryer for me, only to hear her calling for help.  I called back, "what's wrong!?!" (said with a growl in my throat from the other room)  "You know how to empty the dryer..."

"But, mommy," she says sweetly, "where to I put it?  I can't reach!"

She arches her little feet as high as she can go and I have to put the camera down quickly so the baskets don't topple down on top of her.  We laugh and tumble into a hug on the floor, and I hope I can remember to laugh more at the messes and photograph them too.  

Beatrice Grace's Baptism

For right now we are attending Christ the King Anglican Church in Birmingham.  It happens to meet in the chapel of Joel's school, which is a stunning place of worship, beautifully filled with art and symbols of biblical faith and church history.  

Pastor Dorsett wore gold two Sundays ago for All Saints Day.  All Saints Day is one of the traditional feast days for doing baptisms, and Beatrice was one of seven children baptized that morning.  It was particularly sweet because it also happened to be the church's seventh birthday, and also, being All Saints Day, a day we were remembering those who have died and are already in God's presence including, we believe, our son.  

Dr. Dorsett's sermon was on the unity of believers.  He reminded us of the unity we should seek to live out here and now, and then went on to also emphasize the unity we have with the Great Cloud of Witnesses.  We sing praise to our God together with them; they have the joy of being unhindered before his throne while we anticipate what that will be like.  Years ago my thinking about death shifted when I started thinking about how eternal life begins now, not when we die or after death; death is just a transition.  During the Eucharist that Sunday it was powerful to reflect on all those saints who are in perfect communion with God, and it gave me encouragement as I struggle some days to just get a taste.  

I do not understand the full mystery of baptism (or of any of the sacraments, for that matter), but do I think that it, like the other sacraments, has a purpose not just for the recipient but for the congregation as well.  In particular it greatly blessed me.  It was a tangible reminder of what stake my hope upon - God's covenant of salvation to his people, even when they are helpless as babies to reciprocate.  

Pastor Dorset's wife, Mary, is the deacon.  She spent time praying for each child during the weeks leading up to the service.  She had inquired about the history or meaning behind each of their names and during the service she explained each child's name to the congregation, and read a prayer that she had written uniquely for each one reflecting their names, family history, and what God had put in her heart for each of them.  

Beatrice slept through the whole service.  She didn't even wake up when the water ran over her head!

 The day got busy so I dressed her up a few days ago to take a few picture of her all dressed up.   We didn't have an heirloom dedication gown, but we do have an heirloom love-seat (with brand new upholstery by our dear friend in Medford!)  The dress (basic bodice down to the first row of lace) is actually the one I made for Elsa and that Nora wore too.  I wanted something a little different for Beatrice and I still had some extra fabric from the original dress, so I added the length and all the lace from whatever vintage bits I had in my stash.  I think some of the lace was from my great grandma, so I guess the dress has more heritage than I first thought.

Beatrice didn't care about the lace.  She just liked kicking the long skirt.

 Though she did like pulling at it once she discovered it.  But for her, the whole point of grabbing something in her hand is...

...so she can EAT IT!

Really though, daily life has been so crazy for me that it was good to have a fun project to work on.  My counselor had given me homework to start doing some of my hobbies again even though it didn't feel reasonable to do so.  I am not one to leave homework undone, so I added my sewing machine table to the mayhem and remade the dress.  I had a lot of fun with it, but I won't tell how many days it took or how many times I had to un-bury my supplies from the clutter-and-kid-stuff-attracting sewing table.

Cousins

One of the blessings of moving east is that we are now within driving distance to our immediate family!  Joel's brother his family drove down from Indiana to stand with us at Beatrice's baptism as her godparents.  It was the first time the cousins have been really able to play together and they loved it.  Nora's mothering skills were especially evident as she basically baby-say him the whole time.  She would play with him and watch him by herself in the nursery for a rather long time and then would come out to get us whenever he needed help.

Can you guess who was across table from them to make them smile?  I should have turned around and gotten a photo of Joel and Andrew acting like monkeys or whatever they were doing!

Those eyes...

I just love that round baby forehead those clear, crisp baby eyes.

Homeschool art

We've started homeschooling for real now, and so far we are all loving it.  As crazy as this season has been, I am loving homeschooling.  

We went outside on one of our last real summery days.    

(The curly-cues are not part of the printing practice...)

This was actually from a while ago.  Elsa's greater-than/less-than monsters have gotten much more elaborate since then, but I like these simple originals:

Every week I teach Elsa more about the history we learned in Classical Conversations, and then she does a fill in the blank and draws something about what she learned.  She wanted to copy the image of George Washington from the dollar, but I don't recall ever mentioning fairies in the history lesson...

Happy baby

Beatrice continues to be a very calm, sweet child.  She certainly has her fussy moments, but generally is a very happy, content baby.  She smiles and coos easily at everyone, and loves it when her sisters play with her.  We are so thankful for her!

Fall faries

My dear friend Kris from Pennsylvania blessed us with a visit for a few days

Peek-A-Boo

The three

The big girls adore Beatrice.

And she thinks they are pretty hilarious.

Free fun

Our seminary budget has prompted me to look especially hard for all the free activities in our area.  So far there has been an abundance of opportunities.  The nearby Mt Laurel Fall Festival was great - I painted their faces before we went (the face painting there cost $10 each!), and the bounce house, hay ride, photos with Disney princesses, candy, and live music were all free!  

Caterpillars

When I was going through my photos to update the blog, I was amused to find that the images were about 25% baby photos, 25% photos of everyone and everything else, and 50% caterpillars.  Elsa and Nora were given some Imperial Moth caterpillars when they visited my parents in August.  At first we thought, "What cute little black, spiney caterpillars!  We'll watch them for a few weeks until they turn into little moths!"  But they changed colors and kept being caterpillars for a very long time and soon were not very little at all, so I finally did my research.  Imperial moths can be the size of your hand!  And take all winter before they turn into months in the spring/summer!  

After passing through all 8 instars (when the caterpillars shed their skin so they can grow larger) the caterpillars were 4 inches long and eating a small branch of leaves every day.  They were rather high maintenance pets, but, as you can tell from the amount of photographs I took of them, I was absolutely fascinated with them.  I don't have any photos of their very first instars when they were still black, but you can still see how they change a bit between these last few stages.  

Once they start on a type of host plant for food, they will only eat that particular host plant for their whole life, so there's not much left of the red oak in the brush in back of our building!

We caught this one in action shedding it's skin and beginning the last instar.  It will get darker orange-brown as it fills out it's new skin. 

Ok, so I hope this is not too much information, but as I said, I found these creatures fascinating.  After I took this photo I realized he was pooping!!!

They were green inside!

And they don't even have to stop eating!  Their back "panels" were harder than the rest of their body and closed up tightly when it was all done.

Their patterning was beautiful.  I read that the Imperial Moth caterpillars can be orange, brown, or bright green - ours were all orange.

By the time they were fully grown (in a little less than two months) you could hear them biting and crunching the leaves in the adjoining room.

Imperial Moths are a bit unusual because the caterpillar does not make a cocoon.  Most moths spin a cottony, silky web sack around themselves in which they then make a pupa.  Imperial moths instead burrow in the ground and form a pupa without a cocoon around it.  Sure enough, one day we found that one of the caterpillars had come down from the branches and was working his way into the soil in the bottom our the bucket.

I'm a rather nosy scientific observer, so I kept checking on them under the soil.  In a few days we found one had just wiggled out from his old skin:

The pupa was brand new and rather soft still so we were very careful, and it would twitch and wiggle when touched.

By the end of the day the vibrant yellow-orange hardened into a much safer brown-black:

They still twitch when gently poked, and I'll keep checking on them throughout the winter.

So there's your biology lesson for the day, and I'll post an update next year when they emerge if we manage to keep them alive through the winter.