Tess is a month old tomorrow.  How did that happen??  Fortunately the weather and the baby both cooperated for her photo shoot today. I am battling with my digi-cam (I still love my old manual SLR!)  but she is darn cute anyway!<g> Funny I noticed in the last pic she has her thumb between her first two fingers.  That has always been a default position for me. Like mother, like daughter.

If I didn’t have a firm conviction that online friends were ‘real’ then this week would have clinched it for me. I have been a bit groggy this week. Several challenges merged together recently and that whole lack of sleep thing catches up with you. So, I was totally taken by surprise when the children came running in the door with a package.  The return address said simply that it was from my 4Real friends. Truer words were never spoken! Inside was a "baby shower in a  box".  The ladies had sent lovely things for Tess and I including tiny socks that look like Mary Jane shoes  – but never fall off, a book and cards, and a Jan Brett style hat and stocking ala The Mitten and The Hat bks.  I can’t wait to see Tess dressed like Annie from the Wild Animals bk!

Thank you so very much ladies!! You have no idea how much this long distance surprise blessed me!

Our baby girl is 3 wks old and filling out fast. She is a nursing machine and refuses all offers of the pacifier as though it was a torture device. Truly she appears horrified by the suggestion. She is thriving though and everyone is as enthralled with her as the day she was born.

We have begun doing errands again – Tess and I. Things are working out in that dept but we still don’t go out much. Sleep is elusive for the same reasons. I can’t always hop into bed when she does and I hate to have the other little ones be babysat for any longer than necessary. It is a baby year! That means that for us it will be spent close to home.

We missed the last mom’s coffee and the more I thought about it will likely miss the next as well. Allen was travelling and that meant leaving the kids with an older sibling. It was also an hr’s drive one way – on the day we already spend with piano and errands.  The prospect of starting out the night exhausted is not tempting. I need to be prepared for a night that may be spent doing the baby dance – rocking, walking, singing, sighing, dozing.

I admit that every time we are in a baby year and I hear friends exclaim that they can’t possibly babydance through the night or day, that there is too much to do for that, that baby needs to adjust and self soothe, I DO start to second guess myself. Maybe this isn’t practical anymore. We DO have a lot to do. Does it really make that much difference anyway?  We think that while its not terribly practical it is terribly important to us to respond to those baby signals. We put a lot of time into the infant stage but then are rewarded with very independent, content toddlers. Besides, there is a tiny tiny window in life to babydance. Before you know it that warm bundle is off and running and is far too busy for extended rocker time. : /

When I was a newer mom I figured out there was a vicious cycle that ensued when I tried to deny the demands of the baby year and attempted to carry on with the normal activity load. Not only do you miss this blink of time when they have wrinkly ankles and soft spots. But you get TIRED. So, when the baby hits a growth spurt or cuts teeth or whatnot its hard to be responsive. You can’t help but think of the next day’s schedule. By the time the next day’s schedule is finished you are sorely tempted to escape, leaving dad to a houseful of tired cranky kids. That escape brings you home more fatigued to a house that may well be totally offkilter by that time. It was so not worth it.

It has been a far better plan for me to keep our days low key.  To spend them passing baby around, keeping house, reading books, and snatching whatever bits of time present themselves for a nap. We can start the night with a bit of reserve so that those fussy times don’t completely take us by surprise or foster resentment. This seems to benefit not just baby and I but the other kids too. They can keep a fairly calm routine and hopefully don’t have to experience "mom meltdown" too often. ; ) So here we stay. This would be why I email even our local friends! It’s a baby year.

These pics of Tess at 3 wks are less than clear but work by way of an update:

Today’s tip from The Generous Wife suggests choosing a word or phrase to focus on for the new year.  Kind of a theme, a motto if you will, to base the year upon. Off the top of my head I thought of lots of potential words like Nap, Skinny, Redecorate, lol!!! I have a feeling dh has words that are even dearer to his heart.  Words like Budget, Tidy, and Football.  But no, they felt words like Peace, Family, and Patience were more appropriate. ; )

Seriously, this seems like a stellar idea.  A few tips back they suggested mapping out a vision for the year, an idea which dh loved. We have been talking about what we want to accomplish on the ranch, given that there is more to do than we can ever hope to do in a year, such as landscaping or building a new barn, installing gutters, putting up electric fencing, resurfacing the road to the house, etc. Choosing among these ventures helps us to know where to begin.

Choosing a theme for our relationships and personal goals is a wise endeavor as well. If you have seen the Home Depot commercial where the whole family is searching for the resolution list you know what usually happens to those.  Picking a focus word makes it harder to forget. A single word such as Family can help a father choose rightly when debating about bringing home more work from the office or playing a board game with the children. A word like Patience can help a parent respond gently when faced with grumpy toddlers. Words like Fortitude can help children persevere when its March and the school year seems never ending.

So what word would you choose? 

Ok I gave you my take on internet communities.  Here is my take on another perhaps more important aspect of blogging and internet forums.  A lot of women have expressed concerns that blogging (and forum posting) presents a partial view of people’s lives. That it is an incomplete picture of their "real" families etc.  My thought on that is yes, probably.  My next thought is that it’s perfectly all right too.

When did we come to believe we had a right to know everything about everyone? Perhaps it is an inevitable result of living in a paparazzi world where people feel entitled to information about the most intimate parts of other people’s lives. It is not uncommon, for instance, for mom’s of large broods like my own to be assaulted with questions about our reproductive habits in grocery lines these days. Maybe I am hopelessly stuck in an earlier generation but honestly, I don’t think other people’s marriage or finances or whatnot are any of my business.

I read a LOT of blogs <g>  I glean information that I later put to work in my home, my family, and my free time. I get ideas for projects and books to read. I get food for thought to stew on while I go about more mundane chores. To me, the entries that these folks compose are a lovely gift to those of us who read them. It never occurred to me that they owe me any more than what they have offered.

So is this an incomplete picture of our lives?  Probably. I would venture to say few of us have a more "complete" picture of most of our friends and neighbors who are closer either. It takes time and commitment to earn that place in another person’s life. There are varying levels of relationships and only a very few develop into "complete pictures".  And that is ok.  That is what makes those friendships so valuable.

Good manners means respecting boundaries and allowing people their privacy. 

Elizabeth forwarded me the thread on 4Real responding to a professional blogger’s question: Are online communities ‘real’?  I started to write and lost my post. "Real" life hit and I couldn’t get back to the keyboard.  So, what began on the forum ends up as rambly thoughts here.

I admit my first response was that someone ought to ask the professional bloggers if they are making any "real" money by writing for all these apparently imaginary folks to read. ; o  Of course they are real. Internet friends like all friends are human beings with feelings and weaknesses and gifts to share. My own experience with friendships which began as internet acquaintances has been rich and varied.

Though I have joined and left many e-groups over the yrs there are a couple communities I have been blessed to belong to for many years. The first was a small homeschool group I joined over a decade ago.  It was not a yahoo group but an email loop with no more than 20 of us at a given time. The women on this list discussed theology, educational methods, childbirth, and nutrition. Over the years we have also shared heartaches, health trials, teenagers, and now we are seeing pictures not just of new babies but grandchildren.

Moving with the military could have meant repeated bouts of loneliness and isolation but instead this group became a constant source of support for me. Houses changed, cities changed, local resources waxed and waned, but I had this core of friends who were a constant in my life. They have not lingered in virtual reality either. Mary Jean and I lived closeby in TX and cared for each other’s children through pregnancies. Yvonne travelled from Nevada to Utah before we moved to VA and now we get to see her when she comes through CO to see her family. In VA I first met Maureen in person and Maureen came here last summer with her clan. Remarkably, one woman who left the group 6 yrs ago found my name after moving to CO this year and pieced together that I was the same person she knew from the list.  We are planning a visit in person.

Then there was the CCM list which has now grown to over 1000 women. Instead of remaining anonymous email names these women too reached out over cyberspace and provided tangible love and assistance when Allen was deployed two years ago. Elizabeth made the first call to me, a pregnant, worried mom juggling 7 other children and a farm. Shortly afterwards a care package arrived from her and Macbeth. She continued to call and has become dear to me in ways I could not adequately describe. Genevieve also called me – to discuss preschool education initially. Our visits now include home decor, travel, marriage, and more.

Since I began blogging this year I have discovered women with whom I have more in common than I imagined. Those virtual names sent the very ‘real’ Christmas cards which grace my fridge as I speak. Not to mention Rebecca, as devoted to babies as I am, who sent our new bundle tiny mittens and booties and hat that she made with her own very real hands. 

Not only has the internet brought me together with women who later became close friends but the reverse is also true.  Jen and I met in real life 12 yrs ago. We lived in the same city for 3 yrs and were fast friends. We cared for each other’s children while we each had babies. We cooked for each other during difficult pregnancies. We went to homeschool conferences and bought our first homes there. It was grueling moving away from Jen. It still makes me cry to write about pulling out of San Antonio wondering if I would ever have a friend like that again. Those fears were unfounded however. We have been e-pals for 4 times longer than we were irl friends. We have emailed daily for NINE years now excluding short spans when one of us relocated and had to disconnect.

I can tell you that the cpu was always the last thing to pack and the first thing to unpack, not because I am addicted to computer games or ebay auctions but because some of the people I love "live" here. It has allowed me to maintain friendships that distance and the demands of a large family could have frustrated. It allows us to escape the limitations imposed by geography to find likeminded women, something impossible in earlier times.

In effect we have perfected the penpal relationship, which has a lot of benefits for me. I can’t always drop everything midday or evenings to attend mom’s nights or homeschool meetings or chat on the phone daily. I CAN squeeze in moments like this one in the wee hrs with a restless baby or when little people run outside to burn off some energy. I can sit and think about something a friend has written and respond later after I have gelled a thought properly.  I can’t even keep up with the discussions on the forums these days, but I can read the thoughtful reflections of dear friends on their blogs and smile at the pictures of their children and pray for them as I rock my own sweet baby in the dark. When I am struggling here I can rest easier knowing that a mighty group of prayer warriers are holding me up though I can’t see them.

This is as real as it gets. : )  Ladies, thank you for making my world richer than I can say.

Moments like this are worth remembering. We purged our game closet last summer if you recall the Clean Sweep posts. It was painful to toss so many games and puzzles missing bits and pieces over the years.  Santa brought some new ones however and few things are more dear to my heart than seeing my clan hunched over a game board with wild cheers rising up on all sides. I hope your house is also ringing in the new year with evenings like this! 

Jennifer sent me a link to the Girlhood Home Companion Magazine a few weeks back.  I have been checking out the links to their samples and to the editor’s blog. This has been such great fun I thought I would share the links here. In this post she discusses the idea of a ‘note chest’, similar to a hope chest, where you can store all the correspondence between family members. She encourages us to write letters to our children about what makes us tick.  I especially loved the idea of taking a few moments to share about a hobby we love and give tips about how we do it.  Essentially that is what many of us blog about. It would be so nice to cut and paste some of these posts onto paper documents we can save for our children. I envision our binders as serving a similar purpose for the next generation.

Anyway, the blog is delightful. The family lives rurally and she writes about everyday things that happen, often attaching her own symbolic meaning behind the events. The pictures are lovely – in fact the whole blog is. I found myself spellbound reading ‘just one more entry’ about her grandmother, the apple orchard, you name it. Fascinating!

I haven’t finished the samples of the newsletter or the magazine.  I have to read online since my printer, like all things mechanical around here, is on the fritz. : p  However, at first glance I am tremendously inspired by the layout.  For those who are intimidated by the time or skills involved in full blown scrapbooking take a look at the magazine’s pages. They are mostly text with a simple photograph or clip included. Occasionally a text box of a scan of a handwritten recipe or a poem is added.  It is very simple, inexpensive, and the effect is quite lovely! It is a good reminder that in the end this is about the stories, not about burdening ourselves with artistic expectations.

In this article she speaks compellingly about Family Relationships and how interactive journaling enhances them. It was uncanny timing because only yesterday I had emailed friends about the relationship building aspect of homeschooling. It had been on my heart as they were debating about whether or not to home educate. It is hard to articulate without sounding as though the academics are unimportant. They aren’t of course, but what started as an academic endeavor has certainly evolved into a matter of the heart for us. I am excited about how family writing as described by Mrs Novak could enhance this family cohesiveness even further.

Thanks Jennifer for sharing this fantastic resource!!   

Elizabeth tagged me:

1. Favorite devotion or prayer to Jesus?
The Infant of Prague Novena.

2. Favorite Marian devotion or prayer?

The Rosary. I am a regular : )    Also the Miraculous Medal.

3. Do you wear a scapular or medal?
Scapular

4. Do you have holy water in your home?
We have a wee bit of a problem in our arid climate.  It evaporates. I guess that means we have holy air. ; )

5. Do you offer up your sufferings?
Yep!

6. Do you observe First Fridays and First Saturdays?
No. We don’t usually have Fri/Sat mass.

7. Do you go to Eucharistic Adoration? How frequently?

See number 6

8. Are you a Saturday evening Mass person or Sunday morning Mass person?
Sunday

9. Do you say prayers at mealtime?
Yes.

10. Favorite Saint(s)?
St. Therese, St Anthony, St Monica, Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, and all the Francis’ <g>

11. Can you recite the Apostles Creed by heart?
You betcha

12. Do you usually say short prayers (aspirations) during the course of the day?
Yessiree again

13.  Where is your favorite place to pray?

Oddly enough,I get a lot of praying done in the van to and from town. I have taken to not even turning on the radio. Kids crash immediately and I am in the only complete and utter silence I get all week.

14. Bonus Question: When you pass by a automobile accident or other serious mishap, do you say a quick prayer for the folks involved?
Always

tagging – Rebecca and Genevieve

Tess was baptised yesterday on Christmas Day. We very nearly missed the whole event since the van picked yesterday morning to begin its death throes. At least it sure sounds like it. Allen took it to the mechanic today to see what the damage is. At any rate, we made it and it was wonderful. I can’t tell you how much it meant to have all the children there together.  Some friends took a group picture thankfully. It is getting harder and harder to gather us all up in one place! So, here is Tess:

she missed the whole thing <g>

and here is the whole clan just before we left for home again:

The two young men at left, who look far too old to be my children lol, are our oldest two – Colin and Zach. On the right is our friend Cheryle who proxied for Tess’ godmother who had the flu.