To Our Lil’ Swimmer

Jun 302008
 

Punkin, your daddy loves you so much! He felt so bad for you when we were driving home from church yesterday in 104 degree weather, without air conditioning that works very well, he made an appointment to have the car checked out. We’ve managed without the dash lights, and we could survive without the main air conditioning vents blowing any air (after all, before you arrived we used to drive Daddy’s car all the time, and it doesn’t have any air conditioning), but when Daddy’s little pumpkin had bright red cheeks and was so warm, he wanted to do something about it for her.

You had fun going to town with Daddy and Mommy today when we dropped the car off. We walked down Main Street to the bank, and then walked up and down nearly every aisle of the new store. You made everyone laugh with the way you chewed on your hat’s elastic string that was meant to go under your chin. You’re definitely working on another tooth! You didn’t really want to have the hat on, and pulled it off several times, but as long as the elastic was in your mouth, you were happy.

When Papa and Nanna picked us up, we borrowed their suburban to go to Walmart so Daddy could buy you something… Mommy kept teasing him he just wanted to get it so he could sit in it, but no, he bought a nice blue Ruthie-sized swimming pool! It’s just about 3 feet in diameter, just your size. He filled it up as soon as we got home, and since it was 101 out, it got warm enough for you quickly. After dinner you got to go skinny dipping! Sitting in the kitchen sink for half an hour yesterday was fun, but having your own swimming pool was really fun.

You and your duck had a great time in your little pool. (But they don’t make rubber duckies like they did when Mommy was a girl. This one is perpetually trying to eat something on the bottom of the pool–they forgot to put any weight in his tail!) You sit up so well by yourself now, Daddy and Mommy could just sit by the pool and watch. You leaned back too far a couple times and got your ears wet, but you took it all in stride, and you kept your face up really well. You’re a natural swimmer! You acted a little cold when you went down one time, so Mom got you out for a few minutes so you could warm up (it was still 100 out!). We could tell you were glad to get a bit drier, but pretty soon you were kicking excitedly, and were thrilled when Mom put you back in. Such a big girl!

When we finally went inside and rinsed off with a real bath in the kitchen sink, you didn’t complain at all, just like our good little girl. After you played a bit more, and ate a good meal, you were asleep before Mom could get your pj’s on you. I had to take your fingers out of your mouth to put them up the sleeve. It wears a girl out to go swimming!

I hope you’ll sleep well again tonight. You slept through the night last night for the first time since Daddy started the haying. Nanna said she was praying you’d do better, and you sure did. (I know God hears Mommy’s tired pleas for you to sleep well, but mine are perhaps a bit more selfish than Nanna’s prayers!) It’s hard in our little house not to wake you up with our comings and goings. But you do so well. You feel much better when you sleep through the night, though, and you always wake up happy!

We love our baby girl. We’re glad you like your swimming pool. And we’re thankful the air conditioning is going to be reasonable to fix, so we can keep our Pumpkin cool in this hot weather! Your daddy takes good care of both of us.

slightly above normal body temp!

Jun 282008
 
It’s supposed to be 100 degrees today.  Why is it that even though that’s just slightly above our internal body temperature, it feels so very warm?  Maybe part of it is because we’ve had such a cool spring around here…  It is fun to have flip flop, tank top weather.  But I’m always moving into the shade if I have Pumpkin outside, because we don’t want to burn that tender baby skin!  And it makes one thankful for good insulation and dark shades.  Merritt always laughs that our house looks like a morgue in the summer, but having the shades closed during the hottest part of the day makes a big difference in how cool it stays.  I love the fact that our “carport” overhang is over my kitchen windows, though, because that means I can leave the shades open in the kitchen and actually see out of my house!  It seems one eye is always on the window, to see how the irrigation is going, to see if the store is busy, to see if my hubby is on his way home for his meal yet…

Merritt still has a nasty cough, and Ruthie is stuffy at night.  This morning I thought she’d all of a sudden gotten way worse.  I’d put her back to bed after she got up at 4 or whenever that was (“Daddy came home this time yesterday, Mom, so I figured I should get up now again today, too.”) and all of a sudden heard what sounded like really ragged breathing.  I quickly got up to check on her and found that no, she was not asleep, she was running her fingernails across her cribsheet, which made the noise that sounded like horrible breathing!  What a silly Pumpkin!  I knew she did it in her play pen, with the netting on the sides (discovered that after wondering what the terrible noise coming through the monitor was!), but the sheets was a new thing…  Fingernails come in handy for a lot of noises, I guess.  Oh yes, she can click them on her teeth, too.  And I just cut them.

Speaking of cutting things, I chopped off more of my hair.  Marlys had given it a trim when Megs was here (either Meg or me were getting our hair cut all weekend long, it seemed, a “progressive hair cut” or something).  But I wasn’t happy with it long in front.  Especially with the inch-long little hairs I have popping out all over my head (all the hair I lost when Ruth was born).  So it’s short again like it was last summer.  And for the moment, I’m happier with it.  I still want long hair.  The two Natalies in my life make me covet their hair every time I see them!  Natalie Marie’s long curls and Natalie Ann’s long smooth tresses…  Not to mention Marlys’ beautiful curls that are getting longer by the day–and I see them every day!  But somehow, I never have the patience to get it that long.  Or when I’m getting close something happens to change my mind (like being tired and hot and pregnant or half my hair falling out).  There is also the fact that my hair (at its normal thickness) is way thicker than that of the aforementioned beauties (thick hair seems to run in Mom’s side of the family).  Maybe my curls are too plentiful to wear them long.  Or maybe it’s just too dry here.  Regardless, I seem to be good at finding excuses to cut them.  Which makes it seem that I prefer short hair more than I realize.  And to end the Beauty section, let me just note here that I made my own hair gel yesterday with 3/4 tsp. gelatin, 1 cup warm water, and several drops lavender oil.  So far, I like it, and it should be cheaper than Tresemme!  Stay tuned for updates, right here in your weekly fashion column.

Ruth Ann likes canned peaches and pears muchly.  I need to talk her grandparents out of some green vegetables, so we can try things like broccoli and beans (which are selling faster than they are growing right now).  The other night we were eating dinner outside, and whether it was due to the hot wind or the fact that Ruth had her whole hand in her mouth, I discovered she’d split her lip (playing happily in her walker and suddenly screaming was my cue that something was wrong other than a disappearing Cheerio!).  I pulled a half cucumber slice out of the cold salad, figuring it would soothe the lip, and she loved it.  There’s still just two teeth, so it’s hard to deal with chunks, but I think I’ll try cooking up some cucumber for her this weekend (it’s yummy cooked–ever had cool cucumber soup?).  Instead of being introduced to foods in the “suggested” order of my list, Ruthie is being introduced to veggies as they are available in profusion.  Thus far canned goods have been the most available!

Well, it’s about time to feed a baby girl and be off to work, after a stop at Aunt Katie’s to check email and moderate YLCF stuff.  I’m back to being in charge of ylcf.org full-time now, and must remember that things like comments and posts won’t appear without me!  Of course, it dawned on me the other night as I lay in bed, exhausted, thinking about my messy house, that I’m working away from home 20 hours a week, so no wonder I feel like I’m never home and there are always more things waiting to be done.  Having a family business changes “stay-at-home wife and mom” to “really busy mom.”  I’m just thankful that Merritt and I are both able to work here on the farm, and actually sometimes see each other during the day!  And that Ruthie has such great babysitters as her Nanna and Auntie Mouse (and Daddy, when he’s been up all night and tries to take naps while Ruth decides she doesn’t need a nap!).

We’re looking forward to a weekend of rest and lots of naps.  And hopefully Merritt keeping more regular hours will encourage Ruth Ann to get back to her regular hours.  It’s hard to explain to baby girl that just because Daddy is coming in and out of the house at hours like 10 pm, 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., it doesn’t mean she needs to get up to check that he made it back.  The stuffy nose makes it hard, too.  All told, despite the bitter coffee, her Daddy and I hard having a hard time keeping our eyes open this morning, and Ruthie wasn’t up that long at all!  I think we’re just tired.  But very thankful to have made it safely through another week…  And very, very thankful to have the hay in.

the hay’s in…

Jun 272008
 
Merritt got the last of the (first cutting) hay baled last night…er, this morning.  So he’s sleeping at home.  Ruth Ann tried her first cucumber the other day.  Loved it! 

Other less newsworthy items will have to wait until I have more time.  For now, have a great day, enjoy the sunshine, but it would be okay if it rains now…

of rain and wind

Jun 232008
 

Well, it rained on the alfalfa hay.  The weather report I can home with was “numerous showers.”  After several hours of pouring rain, Merritt asked, “How can it be numerous showers if it never stops?”

Before Merritt got home from irrigation, Ruth Ann and I had fallen asleep.  But the wind woke us up, as it whistled through our open windows.  It blew one of my picture frames off my kitchen windowsill and into the sink, breaking the glass.  I rushed outside in my nightshirt to rescue the clothes off the line, several pairs of jeans already in the lawn.  Lots of thunder.  A bit of lightning.  And lots of rain.  So we didn’t sleep too well Saturday night…  And when everyone at church asked how we were doing, “Well, we’re here.”  Their next question was whether we had hay on the ground…

But Merritt’s raking it today, and hopefully it will be dry enough to bale tomorrow night.  The man still wants to buy it, so that’s a blessing.  We can get it off the field and the second cutting can start growing, since it’s already well-watered.

In happier subjects, Ruthie turned seven months old on Saturday!  Hard to believe.  She sat on the potty for the first time Friday.  She loves it, her own little chair!  She had a dry diaper before her bath, which was what precipitated it.  She didn’t go in the potty, but in the bathtub later on.  Oh well, we’re getting used to it.  We still have a few more months to go before I expect much!  (It took her about two sessions to figure out she could make loud noises by banging her hands on the hollow potty chair, and then she discovered it was louder still if she banged Mom’s hands.  We have a smart little pumpkin…)  She weighed just over 14 pounds on Sunday.  So she’d put on a half a pound in 4 or 5 weeks.

As soon as little Pumpkin wakes up, we’re going to go check the weather so Daddy knows whether to rake all the field or just part of it.  Until then, I’m going to curl up for a few minutes with Grace Richmond’s The Twenty-Fourth of June. I finished The Virginian by Owen Wister in the slow hours of the store.  Definitely the best Western I have ever read.  (Not that I’ve read many, mind you, but I’ve either read or heard several Zane Greys and Louis La’mours, along with a few others of lesser notoriety.)  I would like to read more of Mr. Wister’s books.  And then I devoured The Calling of Dan Matthews in just a matter of hours (translated, a slow afternoon at the store).  You’d think Harold Bell Wright wrote it about the church today, not a hundred-some years ago.  It’s actually the sequel to The Shepherd of the Hills, though I didn’t know it until I began reading about “the trail that is nobody knows how old.”  Every single one of his books is so entirely different, you’d never know they were written by the same person.  Not like some of the authors mentioned in a parenthetical clause a few sentences back!  I like an author with originality.  It’s easy to tell Harold Bell Wright lived and thought his stories before he ever put them to paper. Thus ends the book review section of today’s blog post.  And in reviewing my favorites I’ve lost my chance for the moment of re-reading the book about tomorow’s date.  For I see legs sticking up out of the crib!  Ah well, when the house is all clean, Pumpkin is in bed, and my farmer man is irrigating tonight, I’ll have another chance.  For now, I must feed a hungry baby girl, check weather, do dishes, and make the peach rhubarb pies that suddenly struck me as being the perfect thing to make today (not to mention helpful in cleaning out my freezer to make room for this year’s garden bounty).  Hamburgers for dinner means there won’t be too much preparation until the last minute, so I should be able to get it all done in between the laundry.  Mondays are always full to the brim!

keeping an eye on the clouds…

Jun 212008
 
We’re here at Katie’s for a moment checking the weather.  Summer came this week…according to the calendar, and according to our busy schedule.  Merritt’s finally feeling better, Ruth has had some bad nights, but she tries hard, poor pumpkin, and seems to be feeling better than she was.  I’m still avoiding it like the plague.  I build up immunity by kissing my sick husband.  Works (almost) every time! 

More when I have a few moments…  Until then, pray the rain stays away until we get this field baled!!  Merritt’s hoping to rake tomorrow morning and bale tomorrow night.

the domestic monastery

Jun 192008
 
I have a husband who is sick and a little girl who sounds sniffly.  I was hoping to go to the church ladies salad luncheon today, to help welcome our new pastor’s wife.  Instead I’ll be working at the family business (since my sister-in-law is sick, too) while my hubby rests and babysits our little girl. 

Ironic that I read this article while quietly folding laundry as my baby sleeps?  I don’t think so.  Probably just God’s way of telling me this is my season of life, this is where my heart and work are to be focused: this rarely quiet, but always peaceful domestic monastery of our home. 

 
The lesson was rather that there was something wonderfully right about what his mother had been doing all these years as she lived the interrupted life amidst the noise and incessant demands of small children. He had been in a monastery, but so had she… 

The domestic can be the monastic.

-Ron Rolheiser, at lifeissues.net

Happy Father’s and Grandfather’s Day!

Jun 152008
 

Gretchen with her daddy Mark, September 1983 (1 day old)

Ruth with her grandpa Mark, January 2008 (1 1/2 months old)

Gretchen with her logger daddy, January 1985 (1 year old)

Ruth with her logger grandpa (wearing her “spotted owl” outfit), March 2008 (4 months old)

Thank you, Daddy, for being a great dad and grandpa! Thanks for teaching me the value of work. Thank you for showing us that, “The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” So many of the things I love about Merritt remind me of you…

Ruth checking out the grocery ads with her daddy Merritt, February 2008 (3 months old)

Reading magazines with Daddy, March 2008

Listening to Daddy read a James Herriot story, May 2008 (5 months old)
Ruthie and Daddy, April 2008 (4 months old)

Thank you, Merritt, for being such a wonderful husband and father! It’s easy to see that Ruth loves her daddy. And I love you, too!

Happy Father’s Day to the important men in our lives… Daddy Mark, Daddy Merritt, Dad-in-Law/Papa Dee, Great-Papa Bill, Great-Grandpa Marvin, and Great-Grandpa Harold!

Love,
Gretchen and Ruth Ann

Dates

Jun 132008
 

Merritt and I went on our first official date to a local restaurant in celebration of my 22nd birthday (in 2005). It serves the most delicious gourmet food using local ingredients! Marlys took this picture of us afterward when we got back to his parents’…

We’ve been there several times since with our families, but for our 2nd anniversary Merritt took me again, just the two of us, while our family babysat Ruth. Jessica took this picture of us when we got back, on the same brick fireplace (and it almost looks like Merritt’s wearing the same shirt!).
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