Rounding out November

Some belated photos from The Game, with RLM





A recent breakfast moment


From mid-month, a video of the girls in the bath. Despite the somewhat aggressive bids for attention by big sister, Alice manages to demonstrate most of her communicative repertoire at 11 months: yeah, happy, hi, bye, clapping to "If You're Happy and You Know It," and making twinkly finger motions to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." The main missing piece is her frequent (and overextended) use of the word baby, often combined to make the phrase happy baby. It seems to be an apt self-description much of the time.




And from Thanksgiving in Delaware, where the best part of the holiday for us was seeing Edith's joy in playing with her cousins. She and her eldest cousin, Abigail, in particular speak the same language, and they dove right into imaginary games and storytelling together. I was delighted when they told us they were holding a meeting of their new club, The BigFeet Club, named for how they decided they both look when they have on their footie pajamas. Edith has been wanting to hold a meeting for a week or two now but didn't know what one does at a meeting; Abigail was more expert, and their collaboration was instantaneous and full of giggles.


Another afternoon I passed the bedroom where they were playing and caught Edith saying, "When the other cyclopses asked who had blinded him, he said, 'Nobody'...," then heard Abigail's peals of appreciative laughter at learning of Odysseus' cleverness in the adventure with the cyclops. Edith was recounting the full story of the Odyssey, her latest favorite, and Abigail, another story devotee, was lapping it up.

The cousins left Mom-mom and Pop-pop's house before we did, and about fifteen minutes after their departure we found Edith hiding behind a large plant crying because she missed them.

We'll see them again soon enough. Now that we've passed Thanksgiving we find ourselves hurtling pell-mell into the chaos of advent, semester's end, Alice's birthday, and Christmas. Last year people assured us we had no need to keep up with the usual seasonal obligations, busy as we were with the arrival of a new baby. Funny that...It seems one has to produce a baby oneself to merit the calm and space apart from the demands of ordinary life that ought to mark the celebration of a baby's birth everywhere at Christmas.

Now we find our free pass has expired. Forget cuddling a newborn while spending time with family and enjoying the holiday. We're wondering just how one juggles papers, exams, senior theses, and research projects; article and sermon deadlines; meetings, pastoral care, and fundraising; pageants, recitals, and concerts; gifts, cards, wrapping, and shipping...along with a first birthday. (And why do expectant mothers get the reserved parking at Babies R Us? Isn't it the mother with the squirming, ex utero kid in tow, racing to get an errand done before the pre-dinner meltdown, who needs the help?)

Having a baby seems to be one of the few events for which most of society agrees that ordinary time stops. Can't we apply the lesson to the celebration of Christmas?