Thankful for Two

Today, when I think of the many things I am thankful for, one that is at the top of the list is for my two boys. I am thankful for them both individually, of course, but today, when I saw W share his Doc car with H without my prodding, I thought: I'm so glad to have two. I went to the kitchen where we were frantically cutting, cooking and googling how many TBS in 1/3 of a cup, to tell C, "I'm so glad we have two. Two to grow up together and learn from one another." One for each of my arms to wrap around to pull into a mommy-special group hug. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Blessings to you and your loved ones.

Tragedy or Comedy

My fortune cookie last night reads:

Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

All my life, I would have classified myself as a thinker versus a feel-er, but, based on this, I guess I'm a feel-er.

What are you?

When A Blog Disappears

I don't mean when Blogger is having problems. I mean when you go to check out a blog you read and, in this case, WordPress gives you this message: The authors have deleted this blog. The content is no longer available. What is one to think? Is something wrong? Have they moved to a new blog? A new state? No, that wouldn't matter in blogland. Why no forwarding address and most importantly, why no explanation? Of course, paranoid folks like myself wonder if something scary happened. Did someone make rude or frightening comments (this was a family's blog with pictures of their beautiful children). I just want to know if everything is okay. I didn't check this blog daily but fairly regularly, and I don't think I missed a post where they said were going offline. Don't their readers (me) deserve some sort of farewell post? It's funny how I feel like I need closure over a "missing" blog. Oh well, maybe I'll find them out there again someday...

To Find Out or Not Find Out

C and I have some friends who are expecting their first child in early May and have decided not to find out the baby's gender. Well, mostly the mom has decided, but I firmly believe it's the mother's choice on that one. So, of course, I wanted to knit another little hat! Remember this...

Now it's all done!

So, as you may have guessed from the ribbon, the mom is really hoping for a girl! However, if it's a boy, I'll just pull that pink ribbon right out, and the little guy will have a cool light green hat! The hat is a really light green and looks much better in real life, I promise. So, this was my first completed project knitted in the round! Hooray!

Back to my post title, though, I am always interested in how the question of finding out if the baby is a boy or a girl can really raise some hackles. People seem to be either very for or against finding out. We did not find out with our first child (although, C would have liked to do so), and we did find out with our second (because we had "girly" furniture that I thought I might need to replace, but we haven't, poor W). Some people really seemed to be miffed when you tell them you're not finding out. I just wanted it to be a surprise, and I felt it would give me something to focus on during labor (not so sure that worked, but that's a different post). Also, I was very hopeful that we would have at least two children, so I preferred getting "gender neutral" (read: yellow and green) clothes and blankets that could be used again regardless of baby number two's gender. So, if you have any children, did you find out or no, and why?

The Shack Book

I read The Shack by William P. Young way back in October, but I really wanted to share my opinion of it here. So after putting it off for some time, here I go. First, if you haven't heard about The Shack, this is the product description from Amazon.com:

Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant "The Shack" wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!

I thought the book was interesting and could tell that the author put a lot of thought and faith into it. Who wouldn't want to speak with God, to see some of heaven before arriving there for eternity? From the little I've read about it on Amazon.com, the book brings out widely varied reactions, but this is just mine, just my two cents.

To me, the book portrayed God as a very loving being. A being so loving that He wasn't focused on some of the other "things" that I think most people feel God would be "interested" in. I guess I should just out with it: I thought this book's God was too soft, too human. I want my God to be mighty "vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord," (Romans 12:19) a being who is regarded with mingled fear, respect and affection (that's the definition of revere, I didn't think of that myself). "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalms 111:10) I know none of us are perfect, that we all fall short, "judge not that ye be not judged" and all that line of thought, but if the blame keeps being put on the parents or care-givers of wrong-doers (as in this book), where does the blame finally end? I hope that God is loving and forgiving as depicted in The Shack, but I also hope He is the pillar of fire and the omnipotent rock of ages I've read about in The Bible.

I'd love to hear what you thought of The Shack, but please no bashing!

Who're You Bloggin' For?

If you're like me, and sometimes feel pressure to blog about certain topics or not go too deep in the darker areas, you need to read Amy's guest post over at Kate's The Big Piece of Cake. After reading it, I felt the need to say out loud, "Right on, sister!" Or should it have been "write on?" Anyway, do go read it if you have a few minutes. It's inspiring me to go ahead and publish those posts that were ruled "too depressing." The thing is, this should be an outlet for me, correct? Not something I feel pressured about.

Also, I just spoke with another friend tonight who is ALSO pregnant (due in early August)! I think it's making C a little nervous :)

Chattahoochee Mama announces our next online-book-club book tomorrow! You know I can't wait to see what it will be! Check out her blog to join in!

Anything Can Happen

I wanted to regale you with my resolutions and how it would take something of a revolution for me to stick to those I (should) make. I think instead of resolutions mine should be called "challenges to myself." I have the usual ones: exercise more and eat healthier. I have the mommy-specific ones: get the baby books up-to-date and write in the boys' journals on a regular basis. Let us just say, there are lots of things on my to-do/resolution/life's work lists! However, I am enjoying the Curious George movie with all my boys tonight, so I'll just leave you with one challenge I really want to meet this year: make pajamas for all four of us to wear next Christmas! Also, this great Shel Silverstein poem that I want to make my mantra for 2009:

Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be.

Here's hoping for and wishing you a happy and healthy 2009!

The Wife

I just finished reading The Wife by Meg Wolitzer. You may remember that I didn't think much of another book by Wolitzer (The Ten-Year Nap), but I enjoyed The Wife. I do find her writing a bit slow, but still, I would recommend it. It's also a pretty quick read (a little over two hundred pages). The book flap mentions a surprise that I guessed pretty early on, but even being pretty sure of this "surprise," I found the book interesting and thoughtfully written. I even think I saw some literary tools in it (like character names that reveal character traits). The wife in The Wife is Joan who has been married to the famous novelist, Joe, for thirty something years. The couple have many other "novelist couple" friends, and it seems that being the wife of a novelist is a career unto itself. I believe they were newlyweds in the early 1960's, just to give a time frame, and all the novelist husbands are philanderers to say the least. It is an interesting look at the differences between comfort and contentment, love and need. I remember in high school a question that went around, "Do you love me because you need me, or need me because you love me?" A word of warning: it may make you a bit of a man-hater (at least while you are reading). My newly-wed friend was planning to take this book with her on her honeymoon as we have book club the week after she returns. I sincerely hope she only reads it on the plane, maybe only on the way home!

It was serendipitous that I was reading this book right when this post was written by Anastasia discussing raising sons and the division of labor between genders. In The Wife, and, it seems, also in life, boys and the men they become are given a bit of a pass from certain duties or rules just because they are male. Why is that? Do women prop this up with our seemingly unending guilt? You know, mommy-guilt, wife-guilt, professional-guilt, house-keeping-guilt, contributing to society-guilt, I could go on... like a blister in the sun, but I need to go play some indoor basketball with my boys.