So, that’s all very broad. To illustrate what I’ve been thinking about, I’m going to use specific examples and because this is coming from me and my own experiences, I’m going to use examples that I know a thing or two about. I have spent much of my adult life pregnant, having babies and raising said babies. In addition, I worked for over 9 years around women having babies. I would consider myself a certain type of expert on child birth. In all of these years, I have seen and personally experienced just about every type of child birth you can imagine. I have personally had a very culturally relevant medicalized vaginal birth. This means Pitocin induction, spinal medication, episiotomy, and birth. I’ve had a couple of c-sections, one planned, one not. I’ve also had a couple of totally non-medical home births. You name it, I’ve done it. My birthing philosophy has changed dramatically over the 18 years since I started having babies. It’s changed a lot. Ironically, what changed me was nursing school and seeing it from the other side as a labor and delivery nurse. Birth is something that our culture really plays a huge part in when it comes to making decisions. Epidural or no. Midwife or OB. Hospital, birth center, home. In Scandanavian countries, our ideas that 99% of all births happen in hospitals is very strange. Most women there give birth with a midwife. They only see an OB if they are deemed high risk. And many of those midwife attended births are not in a hospital.

So, you’ve had the baby. Now what? An entire onslaught of decisions will now assault you. How are you going to feed that baby? If it’s a boy, are you going to have him circumcised? Where is that baby going to sleep? Are you going to work after your gov’t protected 12 weeks is finished with? Sooner? If you are going to work, who is going to care for your baby? And this is all just in the first 3 months!! And every single answer will be different from the rest of the world, if you are an American.

While lots and lots of women leave the hospital with a breast feeding baby, most never make it beyond 3 months, despite World Health Recommendations of 2 years. Those who do face another issue. What to do when they are out in public with a hungry baby. Again, culture. In Africa, women don’t even wear shirts, so it’s a non-issue. Too third world for you? How about France? Topless beaches, anyone? Breasts are so sexualized here in America, that women are harassed daily for using them in the way they were designed to be used – to feed their babies. Sigh. Culture.

Circumcision. Around 50% of American boys are routinely circumcised. This is down in the last 20 years or so. Partly due to an increase in people who did not grow up here having babies here. They come to America with their own cultural experiences. This may shock many, but America is the ONLY country in the WORLD who routinely circumcises boys for strictly  cosmetic purposes. Jewish and Muslim cultures also do so, but for religious reasons. There are not epidemic levels of penile cancer in the non-circumcisiong world. Europe does not have more of a problem with STDs than we do here in the US. HIV and Africa. Yes, that’s a problem. However, that problem is related to many other cultural norms than it is to whether or not the men are circumcised. Does circumcision help? Yes. But it’s a bandaid type fix. It’s a way for people to continue in unsafe cultural behavior while reducing the consequences of said behavior. Of course, if the behavior changed, then the consequences would also change. But, that’s like asking an American to stop eating junk food. Humans love to do what they love to do. If there is a way to make it safer to do so, then we are all for it. That crosses cultural boundaries.

Finally, the issue that has caused my heart to be dwelling on this topic for weeks, where is the baby sleeping. In 90% of the world, babies sleep with parents. It’s just the more developed, or advanced countries that use cribs or cots. Why is this? Those other countries do not have a higher incidence of SIDS. They certainly grow up to be normal adults. Why do we, as Americans, think that our babies simply MUST learn to self-soothe at the tender age of tiny? It is this, of all American culture phenomena’s that I am most baffled by. Our children are tiny for such a short time. Why are we, then, in such a hurry for them to grow up? Our Creator is consistent in His creation. We are mammals. Every other mammal keeps their young close until they are able to at least feed and toilet themselves. Moms have really strong instincts to protect their children. These are not the result of evolution, but something we were created with. Why do we work so hard to squash our instincts to protect? Why do we rely on “experts” to tell us how to properly raise our children? Are these experts even really experts? Or are they just someone who has experience at raising children and though they’d share what worked for them? There is not an OB in America who would call me an expert on child birth, despite the thousands of hours I’ve spent in and around it. Why are we giving the raising of our children over to people with even less experience and less training at raising children than I’ve had with childbirth?

Lots of people will say that it doesn’t matter. You make your choice, and I’ll make mine. It’s not hurting anyone. Really? Convince the screaming baby who is only 36 hours old that his mama’s choice to circumcise is not hurting him. Try and tell the mama who is pacing up and down hall ways with tears streaming down her face, while her baby screams alone in a dark room, that she is not hurting. Do you best to make me believe that my relationship with my teenager who was forced to cry it out as a 6 month old baby was not hurt by that choice. While you’re doing that, I’m going to be working every single day, for years, to try and fix that damage.

Cultural choices matter. The question to ask, when a person is making a choice that appears to be unpopular or difficult is, “am I doing this because other people think I should, or because this is how I believe my God created me to live?” That’s what it boils down to. And yes, I understand that using this yard stick is based on my living in a Christian culture. It just so happens that my “Christian culture” tells me that being created by God is Truth. And I’m going to go with that.

And just for the record? After thinking so hard on this for the last few weeks, I have come to have an understanding and even sympathy for the Israelites who ended up living in great sin due to adopting cultural practices around them. It’s insidious and really hard to avoid.

Here’s my baby. She’s one now. We went outside for an impromptu one year mini session. Which just means I chased her around with my camera on her birthday. I am NOT  a children’s photographer. I’ll leave that to the experts. But, I got a lot of really cute looks from this, the owner of my heart. She was not a planned baby. Well, none of them were, except Olivia. But I’ve always been one who loves surprises. I’ll admit, though, that this surprise a year and nine months ago, was not any where near my list of things I’d like to be surprised by. We were really done having babies. But, one nasty kidney stone incident was enough to mess up all my careful planning and date checking. God had different plans for me than I did. But, then, isn’t that nearly always the way it works out? Well, whatever my thoughts and feelings were the day I saw two lines, now, I wouldn’t not change one thing (except maybe her birth, but that’s a whole different ball of wax). I am so glad I have this little munchkin. She can bring a smile to my face, no matter what my mood. She’s even been known to do so, in the dead of night, when I should be sound asleep. She just has a spark that makes me giggle. I just love this little girl.

She likes to hang upside down. I like this smile because you can see all of her teeth. She’s got six. You know. In case you can’t count. She started late on getting them, but then they just all came in at once. And out of order. This was true of the a couple of other kids, too. She got her bottom middles first, like she should. Then, one top middle, then the next over tooth on the other side. It was weird. Then the other top middle and within hours – like 24 – the other second over tooth. And it all happened while we traveling to Kansas and in our first day there for vacation. Thankfully, it didn’t make her any worse a traveller than she already is. Actually, I don’t think that’s possible.

Sigh. What a doll!! Yep. There she stands. She’s been walking for about a month now. She actually took first steps when she was around 10 months. Then spent a month getting better and better. Now, she’s a pro. She stands from the middle of the floor without using her hands. She thinks she’s hot stuff when she walks around carrying something that’s almost as big as she’s is. I think she’s hot stuff no matter what she’s doing. But don’t tell her that.

Ah, the peek. It’s so fun to play peek with her. She’s just so dang cute peeking around something to see you. I could just peek at her all day long. But eventually, she just wants me to pick her up and snuggle her. I’m down with that, too.

One of her most favorite games to play is “Chase” with daddy. He says, “I’m gonna get you!!” and she takes off running. To me for protection if I’m near by. But most times just away, any way she can. She squeals with delight and we get the best smiles. That’s what was going on during these pictures to help me get her amazing smile.

It’s been a crazy year. She’s been really needy. It’s just been very recently that I could leave her for any length of time without having to worry about her missing me. And she does miss me. But the really great part about that is seeing her face light up as she comes running for me when I return. Tom has gotten that for a while now, since he leaves every day. She is pretty insistent that he pick her up and say hi when he gets home. She really, really loves her family and it’s important to her that we are with her all the time. Sometimes that’s really frustrating to me. When I have work to do, or want to get laundry done, I really just want to be able to do these things. But now, in the last few days, she has started to separate a tiny little bit. And what I’m finding is that I miss her when she goes off to play on her own. I guess, even though I complained about it, I got kind of attached to having her right with me all the time. We’ll both adjust. She’ll grow older and more detached. And eventually, she’ll move out like Emily and everyone else between Emily and Elena. And I’ll cry rivers of tears because she’s my baby, leaving home. And hopefully, I won’t suffer an empty nest because I’ll have a bunch of grand children running around, frustrating me because I’m trying to do laundry while I’m babysitting. Hopefully.

Emily loves to bake. We got this recipe from an Amish friend. For those who don’t know, the Amish typically have large families, and their recipes reflect this. This recipe makes something like 8 dozen cookies. That’s a lot of cookies. But it’s perfect for my family size. Especially when we have extended family over for something like Emily’s high school graduation. And that’s what was going on here.

Now, first, let me say, that while I can bake quite well, it’s not something I do a lot of. There are two reasons. One, I just don’t have the time and I don’t enjoy it very much. I enjoy the out come, very much, just not the actual baking. That brings me to reason two. When there are cookies in the house, I eat them. All. The. Time. Yesterday, I think I ate about 43 cookies. Because I baked again. It’s actually the first time I’ve baked cookies since these pictures were taken. For good reason.

Despite my aversion to baking, Emily has developed quite the love for it. It must be one of those “skips a generation” type things because my dad is quite the baker. He bakes cookies and pies like one’s business. In fact, it’s one of the very happy memories I have from growing up. Watching my dad bake cookies. I learned a lot from watching him in the kitchen. I can make killer gravy, and I know to get the best cookies, you have to mix the dough with your hands. My dad says this is where he adds the love in and cookies always taste best when baked with love.

So, here is Dad, giving the recipe a once over, in his mind comparing it to his own. It met with approval. Maia, my niece, got in on the action. She is NOT a baker.  She makes ramen and cold cereal in her kitchen at home. To be fair, my sister is an excellent cook. If I were Maia, I’d happily sit back and let her cook for me, too. And bake. She does that quite well, also. But, at my house, we put her to work. She chopped nuts. My Pampered Chef chopper is a lot of fun to use, so it wasn’t really work at all. Grandpa had to give some direction to Emily as well. He is the master cookie maker, after all.

Finished with the premixing, getting ready to add the love.

Here she is, digging in, mixing the flour, chips and nuts in by hand. Can you feel the love? I’m not sure I could have handled all of that scrutiny, but she did, with grace and aplomb. That’s my girl.

All mixed up and ready to bake. Now for the tedious part. Scooping all that dough into balls of cookies to bake. We put Maia on the job.

Can I just take a moment to say, I feel a bit like I’m shooting a Pampered Chef catalog session here. Note the PC mixing bowl, the PC scooper, the PC baking stones, the PC mix & scraper, and the afore mentioned PC chopper. In addition, in the background, you can see my PC carousel filled with many other PC cooking utensils. It’s next to the coffee maker. You can see the PC pizza cutter and several bamboo tools there. I really do love my Pampered Chef products. If you took them all away, I could not prepare a meal in my kitchen. I use them that much. And in the process of gathering those links for you, I found about 6 more things I HAVE to have. Ok, back to cookies.

Cookies met with approval from our toughest of critics. Ok. Who am I kidding? This “critic” will eat about any cookie you put in front of him. But, dang, he’s cute!! Especially with melted chocolate chips all over his face.

Well, all of that to say, today, I am celebrating sibling harmony. Emily was my really big mama’s helper. I look back and wonder how in the world I would have done even half of what I’ve done without her here to help. But now, she’s gone. Hannah had not shown the least inclination to be half the helper Emily was. Tom and I have resigned ourselves to give up “date night” for a while, unless it involves something that we can take Elena with us. Which, let’s be realistic. That’s not really a date night, is it? But, to my surprise, Hannah has risen to the occasion. Perhaps she showed nothing before because it simply was not expected of her. Emily was always here to do it, so Hannah didn’t have to. It’s been a miraculous change, really. Even the way she does dishes has suddenly improved. Hannah really shines as the oldest sibling in the house. It suits her.

Noah and Jonah continue to argue like crazy. Might just be the way of siblings close in age – and we’re talking really close in their case; one minute apart. My sister and I are 19 months apart. Due to birthday timing, that put us 2 years apart in school. But we fought at least as bad as Noah and Jonah do. I think girls are just worse about that. We get so catty. But that’s a whole different post. My point is, we were close in age, and we fought. A lot. Violently, sometimes. So, I’m not sure there is much to be done about my boys. They’ll grow out of it. Sis and I did. We are very good friends, now.

Olivia gets along with everyone. She’s easy. Always has been. Ian runs hot and cold. But one place, he is always kind and loving is to his baby sister. He adores Elena. He loves to play with her, love on her, help her. On the first day of school for the big kids, Ian had that meet the teacher thing. It was at 9:30. I hung around with Olivia to go into her class with her, per her request, until about 8:45. Seemed silly to go home for 10 min., only to pack up and come back for Ian’s meeting. So we ran through a drive-thru and grabbed some breakfast and went back to the school to eat and play on the play ground while we waited out our time. Elena wanted some bites of Ian’s cinnamon roll. He was more than happy to oblige her. Taking great care in cutting bites small enough for her to eat and gently feeding her. It was so dang cute!! So cute, in fact, that I had to snap a few pictures.

I hope to catch the kids in more examples of sibling harmony and I want to proclaim it loudly so they will develop pride in making good choices, like being kind and loving to each other. But, rather than having bumper stickers made, I’ll just post about it here. Then you’ll have a choice in whether or not you want to listen to my bragging.

Here is a before picture.

This was taken on the first day of school. Probably looks familiar if you’ve been following my blog. Anyway, you can see all the frizzes from crown to ends.

Getting the cut. That’s Ashley. We adore her. She works at John George in Savoy. If you want a great cut, go see her. Tell her I sent you. She’s got a totally cute baby belly right now. I can’t wait for her to have her baby. She was planning her wedding when I first went to her. So I’m a little excited.

Anyway, here is Hannah after her cut and style. Isn’t she stinkin’ beautiful? Well, I always thought she was, but now that her hair has a more mature cut to it, she actually looks her age. There was a 10 year old (!!) getting highlights in her hair while we were there. That’s here in the background with the platinum blond stylist. She was totally cute. And she was wearing awesome Chuck Taylor’s. Anyway (again – I’m very distractible today), that, in addition to the style Hannah picked out in the book that showed highlights made Hannah want highlights. So, we’ll probably try and get that done in the next couple of weeks. On to the pictures…. Sorry for the delay. Like I said. Distractable.

Still a little bit of frizzies but oh so much better! Please take a minute to give her some love. Those teenage egos are so fragile. Thanks!

So, before I took that picture, I was waiting for her to change clothes. This is a shot of the train yard where we were. Notice the weeds growing along the fence? I though they had potential to be seen as beautiful. So, I crawled down onto the ground…

and shot this. To me, this light is magic. The way it kisses these stems is just beautiful to me.

Beauty can be found in every single thing around us. In every thing God has created, their is a piece of Him. Even in these weeds. If these weeds can be seen as beautiful, how much more so is there beauty in ever single person we encounter? That driver who cuts you off, the lady in the express lane with at least 40 items…. the bus driver who brings you children home 45 min. late and leaves you to sit and worry and pray that everything is ok. There is beauty in everyone. I see it in every person who I view through my camera lens. My breath catches when I see a person’s beauty show up on the back of my camera. I get giddy. I need to learn to see that in people without using my camera and I need to remember that no matter what a person does to irritate me, that person is a creation of God.

So, we went to the state fair last Sunday. It was the last day of the fair, and the last day of summer vacation. School started the next day. We ended up not being able to do the things we’d planned to for our vacation, so we thought this would be a good way to end the summer with something fun. Plus, who wants to answer the question, “What did you do over your summer vacation?” with, “We went to Kansas.” Lame. It’s not Florida or the Grand Canyon or the Bahamas. It’s Kansas. Don’t people try to leave  Kansas for vacation? Well, it’s where we are from and it’s where our family currently still lives and we like them, so we take our summer vacations to Kansas.

Anyway, back to the fair. This was the first time we’ve ever gone to a state fair as a married couple. So, it’s the first time our kids have ever been to a state fair. Yeah, I know. We are lame parents, too (I’m going to use “lame” as many times as I can because Hannah saw me use it yesterday and was in shock and disbelief that I actually use such a cool word). It was fun. The kids had fun. Jonah struggled with finding a ride he was willing to ride. When he was a baby, he hated it when we would throw him into the air or push the swing too high. And by high, I mean at all. Motion bothers him. Too much stimulation bothers him. He’s a very down to earth, “keep my feet on the ground” kind of guy. So, tickets were passed out. I wandered off to the lower key rides with Olivia and Ian in tow and Elena strapped on. Tom headed in the opposite direction with the three big kids to ride the “big kid” rides. Tom likes to take video with his phone rather than snapshots. As a result, I only have one shot of the big kids. I have a few more of the two younger ones and a bunch of Elena sitting on Tom’s lap while we ate some really terrible for you fried fair food. Hey, it’s the whole reason we adults go.

So, first up, Olivia and Ian. The first ride they chose had me concerned. It was this row of seats that raise up a little bit more each time with a big sudden drop in between rises. Does that make sense? It looked scary to me. I thought it would be an issue. On the first drop, Ian had a very concerned look on his face. Then once he realized that he would be caught from the fall, he really got into it. Great! He’s going to do so much better than I thought. Alright! Let’s move on to something else! Next up? The roller coaster! It was just a tiny one. Tame in comparison to the last ride. It was a dragon. They thought it would be great fun. And it was… for the first 10 seconds after it started.

Look at the excited anticipation on their faces. Then they hit the first turn. Then the horror started. Ian had such a look of fear on his face, that the operator stopped the ride as soon as he was back around and kicked him off. Olivia followed. I was disappointed for her that she thought she had to get off because Ian did. Then she confessed that she just a little bit scared, too. Hm. Ok. Moving on to more tame rides. Except how do I know what that is since he loved the first one? Nothing to do for it other than just let them choose and see how it goes. We finished out the tickets with no more incidences.

We met back up with the other half of the family, and I was surprised to see that Jonah had not used a single ticket. He was just too nervous to try any of the rides. Hannah and Noah were on a ride at that time and they came off laughing and out of breath from the joy and speed of said ride. They are very different personalities from Jonah. We went for food and at that time Hannah was noticeably hobbling. She had hurt her foot the day before and it was really bothering her. So we sat, and I went off to find out if we could rent a wheel chair or adult stroller or something. There was no way she could even make it to the van, she was so distraught. Did I just throw this in suddenly? Well, that’s how suddenly the pain over took her. A medic of some sort came and looked her over, gave her an ice pack and sent us inside the air conditioned kids korner building we happened to be sitting in front of.There was face painting, a puppet show, a magician. It was a great distraction for the other kids while Hannah sat and recovered for a bit. After about 45 min., she was all better and we were on our way.

Now, Jonah still had those tickets. He had enough for three rides. He requested that I use one of those with him on the ferris wheel. I figured I could handle that. So, off we went.

So, here we are. I circled the family in red since you can’t real discern what I was taking a picture of. We were up that high. There was a nice breeze. What I’d really like you to take note of is Jonah’s grip on the bar. He’s hanging on pretty tight. Also, does anyone else see the split emotions on his face? His mouth is smiling, but his eyes seem to be showing a hint of concern. I was firmly admonished to NOT rock the cart at. all. Lame. But whatever. They were his tickets.

We finished the ride and got off. I was queasy. My stomach doesn’t handle these things well in my old age, apparently. Jonah, however, enjoyed it so much, that he had to do it again. All by himself. He loved it. What I didn’t love was the young couple who were making out pretty aggressively behind where we were standing in the only shade to be had that wasn’t directly in a walk way. Ug.

We headed home, kids all fell asleep on the way home and even I had a little snooze. Home and to bed in anticipation of the first day of school in the morning.

It was a fine day.

Waiting for the bus. No where in sight.

Ah! Here is comes! So exciting!

Up he goes. He just looks so tiny, climbing up those big stairs. The big three follow him on. I called a reminder to them to be sure and sit with Ian.

The doors closed.

Take a big breath. He will be ok.

I walked down a ways to try and see him through the window and be sure someone was sitting with him. The windows were tinted. I couldn’t really see through them well. But then I heard a little knock. I went back up toward the front. There he was, sitting with Olivia. Both of them were waving. He could barely see out the window. He’s just so tiny. I felt the sting of the tears in my eyes, that I did not shed yesterday, on his first day. Seeing him in a room filled with a bunch of kids his same size was just not a problem for me. Seeing him dwarfed by the size of that bus was something else entirely.

But I know he will be fine. He has Noah, Jonah, and Olivia to take care of him. And I’ll meet them down at the bus stop this afternoon to greet him coming off the bus. With my camera.

Ian has been looking forward to kindergarten for 2 years. I’ve been telling him for two years that he gets to go to school when he’s 5. Thankfully, school starts shortly after his birthday. I could have spent the last 8 months trying to explain to him why he wasn’t going yet, even though he met the requirement of turning 5. But as it works out, we bought school supplies even before his birthday, so he was assured that he would be going when every one else started.

When we met his teacher on Monday, she gave him two home work assignments. One included a project to show he could count. He was to glue items of the appropriate amount into each of 10 squares, containing the numbers 1-10. Olivia helped him with it. They have fun. I would have helped. But I was pushed aside by those far more capable. We had a tiny crisis this morning involving a couple of items coming off and being reglued, and then another item falling off on the way to school. We tucked that bead safely into his homework folder. I’m sure it was fine.

Because Ian was so eager to go (6:15? Really??), we were the very first to arrive on the kindergarten side. There were already several 1st graders lined up. Well, the early bird and all that… he got to have the honor of being the “Line Leader” to go inside. Taking the lead on the first day. That’s my boy! We stood in line about 10 min. I was instructed to start the timer on my phone. He likes things like that. I set it for 5 min. It went off and they didn’t open the doors yet, so I set it for another 5 as instructed by the “Line Leader.” Thankfully, we were led in before it went off again.

After a “dome cinco” at the door, we headed in and put his folder away as instructed on Monday. The kids then all piled up their back packs on one table so supplies could be taken care of. No further instructions were received, so I had Ian hunt down his name on a desk. Success was found! In fact, he’s sitting in almost the exact same spot in his room that Olivia occupies in her own room. Finally, instructions came and naturally, we did the wrong thing. The correct thing was to go to the reading rug and select a book to look through. I thought Ian picked an apropos title, don’t you? But before he did that, he had to check out the class pet – an albino corn snake. Cool. I like snakes.

After taking a few pictures of him looking at his book, he simply said, “Bye, Mom.” Wow. Dismissed. Um, can I at least have a hug? He complied and gave me a big hug. I told him I love him and to have a good day. Whatever, Mom. He had books to look at and new friends to make. I just say, I was quite surprised. When I drop him off on Sundays for Sunday School, he often doesn’t want to go into the class and I have to come in with him, get him started playing with something and then leave, but he never tells me I can leave. I always tell him I’m leaving and he often looks unsure. The class room teachers are awesome so I know it’s not that. He was just so excited to go to kindergarten that I think his desire to be there over whelmed any uncertainty he may have had.

To my credit, I did not cry. I was not emotional. Well, not overly so. I’m very proud of him and was very happy to see him acclimating so well. I begin to think that all my stress and worry over the summer about whether or not he should go was a big, giant waste of time. I can’t wait to see him in an hour and hear all about his first day.

A parting shot of all the moms who got to hang around longer after I was sent away. I’m so happy my guy is so confident and sure of himself that I could leave so easily.