Downton Abbey Is Back

Poor Edith, poor, poor Edith!

Downton Abbey is back, and Episode Two was heart-breaking.

I chewed on Episode One and thought about writing something, but I felt like a Monday morning quarterback with nothing but a collection of petty criticisms to share. Julian Fellowes is an Emmy-winning author, and I'm a blogger with fifteen followers. Really, that speaks volumes.

Truth is, I enjoyed Episode Two much better than Episode One, so I'll share my thoughts now.

So back to poor, poor Edith.

Sir Anthony Strallen did the right thing. At the wrong time. But it was the right thing. Not because he's older and slightly infirm, but because, to quote Robert way back in Season 1, "He's dull as paint."
The Edith-Anthony thing reminded me of the Sybil-Tom thing last season -- they're falling in love, we guess, but for no discernible reason whatsoever.

But it was wrenching nevertheless-- the falling veil, the sobbing mother and daughter, the uneaten canapes.

No matter that this will be best in the long run, Robert had a paternal duty to deck that louse, Sir Anthony. Instead Robert had a wistful and solitary stroll along the grounds until Mathew broke in with the news that all would be well once more with the Crawley finances.

As for Mathew's change of heart on his unexpected windfall -- predictable, but believable. You can't have Downton Abbey without the Abbey, can you? They could have renamed it Downton Place, but, come on, . . . no.

I loved how the episode closed -- a very relieved Carson singing as he polished silver. All is right with his part of the world. This is Julian Fellowes at his best -- showing the humanity of all the characters. I felt the same during the brief scene between Cora and Mrs. Hughes. These people lived together for decades; between classes or within classes, genuine love and devotion would grow.

Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Pattmore, and -- my favorite -- Mr. Carson are at the top of their game. Oh, if I could glare like Mr. Carson, think of the bad behavior I could stem in my children.

The best line of this season? When the elegant dinner party descends to the level of a glorified Pot Luck, Carson states, with no sense of hyperbole whatsoever, "If you ask me, we are staring into the chaos of Gomorrah."

The chaos of Gomorrah.

Carson, my friend, I felt the same way when I found out that three-year-old Ainsley had broken into the hidden stash of chocolate milk.

Enjoy It

The post-Christmas re-entry . . . all I can say is Whew!

Last week made the first days of school feel like a trip to the beach. We were flat worn out, one and all. One morning as the sun was peeking through the pecan orchard out back, John and Ainsley stumbled out to the couch where I was enjoying coffee and morning prayer. John snuggled up on my left side and Ainsley sidled up to my right. Totally bushed, they attempted to catch a few more ZZZ'z on my lap.

A sweet, sweet moment rubbing John's caramel haired head and Ainsey's baby fine, blonde one.

I revel in these times perhaps more than I used to. Is this because I have a teenager with a gravelly voice and massive feet who's talking of drivers' permits and cars and college?

As babies grow and develop, we tend to mark all the firsts -- talking, crawling, walking. Lately I've been thinking about the lasts. Do we mark the lasts?

When, a mommy columnist once wrote, did my living room see its last fort? 

When was the last time I carried Kolbe or read aloud to Tim? When did Thomas the Train become passe and Winnie the Pooh worthy of nothing but a groan and an eye roll?

Last week Ainsley appeared in my room in the middle of the night, looking adorable in her striped blanket sleeper, carrying her magic wand. We had gone to Tim's basketball game the evening before. Can I bring my wand? she had asked. Sure, I had said. Then she wanted the pink gloves and the princess shoes and the purse and Oh, why not? I had thought.

During the game my friend -- now a mother of two teenage girls -- leaned over and said, "Enjoy it! I miss this so much!"

We have a bit of a split family -- the big boys and the little people. One of the benefits that comes with a split family is that some of those lasts are coming 'round once again. At the library last week, John came running up to me with a book. Let's read this, he told me excitedly.

The book was Charlotte's Web. One summer, probably ten years back, Tim and I read through nearly all of E.B. White. While I love Charlotte's Web, nothing beats Trumpet of the Swan. If you've watched the movie, but not read the book, go check it out. There's a wit you can't catch watching it. The father is just flat hilarious. And Stuart Little? The movies simply don't do him justice.

So now we get to do this all again -- Play Doh and Matchbox cars, Curious George and Frog and Toad. We have capes and cowboy hats. We make forts. And now we have Angelina Ballerina, Madeline, and Olivia the Pig.

Ainsley ran a fever a few months back. Huddled in a pathetic lump, she called to me and said, "Rock me, Mama."

Believe me, I was thrilled to rock her. For some reason, she's wanted to be rocked off and on ever since then.

In the atrium, we teach our smallest children pouring and spooning works, simple manual tasks that occupy little bodies so that minds are free to think about a scripture we've presented, a single, essential Gospel message.

Rocking is like spooning beans for me -- it's a meditative act. I rub Ainsley's head. I pat her back. I think. I sing. I pray. In the midst of a day that's hectic and loud, fast-paced and full -- and right now they're all like that -- I take a few minutes to be still, to be quiet, to focus on a single, essential person.

One day I'll do this for the last time.

For now I plan to enjoy it.

Seven Quick Takes

1. First and foremost, please offer a prayer for Jen, the host of Quick Takes, who is seven months pregnant and experiencing serious health issues. As I've encountered this or that problem during the week, I've tried to lift up a prayer for healing, grace, and peace to come her way.

2. In the realm of much less serious prayers answered, I have to report that our fifteen hour drive home from Michigan was closer to fourteen and a half hours. If you don't think that's significant, you haven't driven cross country with a van load of kids. More remarkable than the time was the fact that everyone got along nearly the entire time. The roads were bone dry. Except for an exceptionally bad cup of coffee at Burger King, I'd call the trip an amazing success.

2. That mostly makes up for the trip there.

If you're going to pray for this:

Look out because you might end up with this:

And maybe it's been twenty-five years or so since you've had the thrill of trying to keep a van in the two small ruts in the right hand lane of a congested interstate all while enormous salt trucks come barreling past you and raging winds threaten to send your vehicle careening out of control. No exaggeration -- we're talking white out.

Sometimes it's glaringly obvious why God called me South.

3. One of the items that kept us sane: Etch-a-sketch. If you have a road trip with littles on the horizon, I can't say enough for this classic toy -- no mess, no batteries, no noise, just hours of silent entertainment.

4. Although tough to drive in, the snow was so much fun to play in. We walked out of Christmas Eve Mass into a winter wonderland. Joy to the world, indeed! We popped into a grocery store for a gallon of milk, and Dave, unable to contain himself, started pulling donuts in the parking lot. (To the uninitiated: This involves making quick, sharp turns on an icy surface so that the car spins 'round and 'round.) Let me tell you, my kids just love to meet Dave's alter-ego.


Anyways, skiing, sledding, snowmobiling -- we did it all, and it was so very much fun.

5. Top Christmas gifts  of 2012: Ainsley (via Grandma and my friend Amy) now has a Madeline and a Raggedy Ann. Too sweet for words. John's favorite gift? A Spiderman T-shirt. He's still a cheap date. Kolbe loved his Tardis notebook. Also a cheap date. As for Tim, well, Santa smiled on my oldest this year. He is now the owner of his very own laptop. I hope we don't live to regret this, but with the amount of homework the boy does, we needed a second computer.

I received exercise clothes for Christmas. The tags are still one them, but there's always next week, isn't there?

6. I don't exaggerate when I say that Christmas would not have happened if not for the speedy, reliable services of our friends at Amazon. You can't beat Amazon, that is, until you have to return something. I have three somethings to return, so I clicked on their website to locate a helpful 1-800 number in hopes of finding a guy named Joe in Bhopal, India, who could tell me how to fit these three little items into a box and get them back to Amazon.

Apparently it can't be done.

After a l-o-n-g conversation with a guy named Joe in Bhopal, India, I finally said, "Uncle!" and gave up on the outlandish idea that these three small items could be shipped back in one box.

One order = one box. Thus saith a very worried Joe in Bhopal. Try shipping them back in one box and poor Joe, from the sound of it, would have ended with an ulcer and probably irritable bowel syndrome to boot. I ended up just plain irritable and thinking about a comment someone once wrote about returns to L.L. Bean: You could show up in Freeport, Maine, in a canoe on fire, and they'd issue a store credit no sweat.

Amazon is not L.L. Bean, but it is both speedy and reliable. Come Monday, I will pack my three small items in three separate boxes, ship them back, and hope that Joe in Bhopal can once again sleep at night.


7. In addition to Jen, please pray for another friend, one near and dear. The holidays are jammed packed with joy, but for those who suffer from depression, this season can be hard indeed. Grace, grace, grace.

A Few Pics

I have concluded that I have an extremely limited ability to multi-task.

 

I can live our two week vacation up North, or I can photograph it. I can revel in Christmas morning, or I can capture great footage of the whole affair. Blogging from afar? Sorry, I've splinched yet again. Cerebral cortex has gone AWOL.

 

We arrived home in the wee hours on Saturday. Over the next two days, I filed my nails and plucked my eyebrows. Both these jobs require:

 

a) Glasses

b) Tools

c) Time

d) A powerful magnifying mirror (at least for the eyebrows)

 

All this is to say I went through the holidays resembling a Woolley Mammoth with jagged claws.

 

Note to my sisters: If my eyebrows ever again look that bad, you have a familial obligation to bring this fact to my attention.

 

All this is a long-winded way of saying I snapped about ten good pictures the whole time we were gone. And here are three of them:

 

 

 

2012 in Review

Best Captures Age three: I'm a grumpy old troll, and you can't get across my bridge!

Best captures a ten-year-old boy:

Best captures a fourteen-year-old:  Tim, throwing a plastic Little People figure across the room and then saying, "Just my luck, I hit the picture. I was aiming for the lamp."

Best captures a four-year-old boy:

Favorite TV show, according to Ainsley: Reruns of John and Kate Plus Eight. Favorite Episode: Potty training sextuplets.

Favorite TV show, according to Mom: Call the Midwife. Loved it.

Favorite TV show, according to the boys: Doctor Who.

Remembering those we lost: Bob V. and Dennis McBride and Patrick McBride.

My favorite post: Kill the Cow and You Kill the Calf.

Your favorite post: Why Not Take All of Me?

A great milestone: Everyone out of diapers.

A funny one: John, on seeing the pendant on the left: Is that the note that follows sew?

Favorite adolescent fiction: The Giver by Lois Lowry.

Favorite spiritual read: The Fulfillment of All Desire by Ralph Martin.

Low point: Going six for six with the stomach flu while out of town.

High point: John's last report card. Given that I've shared about our struggles, I would be remiss (and ungrateful) if I didn't report that he earned an "E" for "Excellent" in reading. (And an "E" for "Excellent" in "Respects Authority". Will wonders never cease?)

Times Flies: Thinking about the Thomas the Train birthday parties, the Star Wars birthday parties, and looking across the table at five teenage boys enjoying Tim's 15th birthday at a Japanese steakhouse.

Favorite Picture: John after he swam for the first time.

Back By a Different Way

From the archives:

As Epiphany Meets Ordinary Time

In the Atrium we are getting ready to transition from the Christmas season back into Ordinary Time.

We just celebrated Epiphany. We pondered the long
 journey of the wise men; we talked about the fact that they fell prostrate in the presence of their savior; we read about how they returned to their country by a different way.

They returned to their country by a different way.

They had had an epiphany. We said the word. We defined it - "a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something," according to Dictionary.com.

As I looked at the faces of these six sweet children who come week after week, I thought about epiphany. As we move out of Christmas and move into Ordinary Time, I thought it was time we revisited the essential meaning of our faith. I looked over to our sheepfold and thought we would go back to The Good Shepherd and The Found Sheep. I began to pray that as we ponder these foundational parables, the children would experience their own epiphany.

Sofia Cavalletti, the founder of The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd,  took the educational methods of Maria Montessori and applied them to religious formation in children. Through decades of observation, she found that the very youngest children are drawn to the parables of Jesus, most especially to the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd cares for His sheep, knows them, calls them by name. They, in turn, stay close to Him. They won't follow a stranger, but the Good Shepherd alone because they know His voice. The Found Sheep is especially near to a child's heart, as it touches on that universal experience of being lost and then found.

I remember so well my first day of first grade. I stood by the parking lot of Saint Bede's School watching the big, yellow buses pull up. Out of my left eye, I could see my third grade sister Kathy in her brown striped coat. My right eye was trained on Keith, my fifth grade brother, in his blue jacket standing with the "big" kids. Throngs of girls in plaid jumpers and boys in navy pants milled about. I kept my eyes on my brother and sister. Left, right, Kathy, Keith.

Suddenly they were gone. I panicked, eyes darting through the crowd, searching for a brown striped coat or a blue jacket. Kids began pouring onto the buses. I hadn't a clue which one to board. The crowd thinned. No Kathy, no Keith!

I walked to a bus and got on.

The next few moments are a blur, but I eventually started bawling my little eyes out. I was lost! The next thing I remember is sitting on the lap of a long-suffering and very kind bus driver who drove the streets of Southfield, Michigan, asking, "Is this your street, honey?"

Somehow one of the kids (yes, the bus was completely full) told the bus driver that my mother was in the car behind the bus. How exactly this transpired, I will never know. I hopped off the bus and jumped in our red sedan so happy to be with my family once again.

As a mother now, I can well imagine my mother's reaction when her two oldest arrived home from school minus one brand new first grader. I have lost kids, and there are few more frightening experiences. John has proven particularly adept at disappearing as I found out late in my pregnancy with Ainsley.

I was up in Michigan enjoying a little R and R at my sister's house. It's a treat to have so many helpers late in pregnancy, but it's especially easy to lose a toddler because you think someone else has him.  John was outside playing with everyone. And then he wasn't.

We called. We searched. We panicked. We prayed. The search expanded to the next street. I incoherently begged the help of some construction workers. I told my sister to call 911.

And then my niece's voice yelling, "I found him!"

Oh, the relief! Oh, the agonizing "What if? What if?" Parenting is not for the weak-kneed. Toddlers are not for the distracted.

I have been the found sheep, and I have searched for the lost one. How well I can understand the joy of the Shepherd when the stray sheep is recovered. How I can appreciate the celebration that ensues. His desire is that not one be lost. What parent can fail to understand that? Which one of our children would we deem expendable?

In The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, we use the word "essential" a lot. We try to focus on the essential. The Christian faith is about essential relationships; it's about the deep, abiding love we have for God and He for us. We can know the whats of our faith, but it's so much more essential to know the who.

The Good Shepherd and The Found Sheep focus on the infinite value God sees in us. Our Good Shepherd is a source of sustenance, of security, of love. These can remain stories we've heard over and over in church, about as meaningful as a coloring sheet we remember from Sunday school.

 

Or they can become an essential reality, an abiding love, an epiphany.

We will soon begin taking down Christmas decorations, boxing up the glitter that has brightened our world these past weeks. We will embrace Ordinary Time - the largest chunk of our church year - with its cycle of minor feasts and continuous growth in the Lord. But in my heart, in my home, and in my atrium, I hope to hold onto the spirit of Epiphany. I’ll return to Ordinary Time by a different way.

Leave No Trace Behind

For an inspiring tour across the American West, I recommend Undaunted Courage. Chronicling the explorations of Lewis and Clark, this book left me hankering for a long canoe trip through Minnesota or the Dakota Territories.

My starry-eyed dream of a leisurely paddle though pine forests has somewhat dimmed since my nephew Jacob spent ten days canoeing at a Boy Scout facility called Northern Tier.

The Boy Scout's embrace many a pithy slogan. First and foremost is, of course, Be Prepared. Another is Leave No Trace Behind. National Parks and other scenic areas post a flowery version of this Scout principle: Take nothing but pictures; leave nothing but footprints.

Northern Tier takes this very seriously indeed. Jacob tells me they ate their meals, poured a small amount of water into their mess kits, scraped the kits, and then proceeded to consume what they had scraped.

Hmmmm.

This, friends, captures why it is Sacajawea, not Kelly, engraved on a dollar coin to memorialize her role in the Lewis and Clark expeditions. I love the great outdoors . . . just not that much.

We are now at the tail end of our Christmas sojourn to the great white North. I am happy to report that it has been mostly great and altogether white.

For many years I was the maiden aunt of the family. I required little space, little food, and was actually quite a big help. I hunted down missing socks, styled hair, wiped faces, generally corralled and assisted with the little people. Like a good Scout, I left no trace behind. Then along came Dave and then Tim and eventually Kolbe. We were still a small family, easily squished into a single room, leaving little trace behind.

Now we are a family of six. We don't travel light, not even close to light. I'm all about everyone fitting their belongings into one small, carry-on style suitcase. Then Tim hands me his shoes. Sneakers and a pair of dress shoes and the bag is pretty much full. This year, for the first time, we used a car top carrier. The van was packed to the gills even with additional square feet of storage on the roof.

We make quite an entrance, whether we want to or not.

On leaving, I always hold on to the Boy Scout adage Leave No Trace Behind. It's a challenge, really it is, to bring twelve suitcases, assorted back packs, cold weather gear, and acquired Christmas gifts, stay in three different homes, and leave the state with all your belongings intact. Around February 1st or so, we usually receive a package with a tiny sock or two, a few books, a single glove, a collection of all we've left behind.

Two summers back, we endured that ill-fated and lengthy visit to Canada  when Leave No Trace Behind failed us miserably. Ainsey and John were then one and three, Trouble and More Trouble, Mess and Bigger Mess. We left lipstick on the walls and permanent marker on a table. A nameless someone wet a bed that, sadly, had no mattress pad.

We added Febreeze to the packing list.

Since that trip, I have been hyper-aware of the noise, the complications, and the mess that, despite our best intentions, are inevitable when you add six people to any household.

This year it wasn't an an ill-behaved two-year-old or a newly potty-trained three-year-old that was our undoing. No, on Christmas night Santa Claus wasn't all that came to town. So did the stomach bug. Around 1:00 a.m. Ainsley climbed into our bed, gave a little cough which morphed into an enormous earp and sent cousin Megan's Chocolate Yule log spraying all over Auntie Karen's bed spread that, I am unhappy to report, was labelled Dry Clean Only. Thirty-six hours and seventeen loads of wash later we departed Auntie Karen's house leaving, I'm sure, a few traces behind. Hopefully, norovirus was not among them.

And that was just the warm-up.

We moved into Dave's parents' house Saturday night, and woke up to the sound of John sick in the bathroom. And then Tim. And then Kolbe. And Kolbe was nearly comatose and sleeping  -- drum roll, please -- on a sofa bed. Yes, a sofa bed. Most parents are only too well acquainted with the challenge of de-toxing a car seat after a G.I. upset. Trust me, a car seat is mere child's play compared to a sofa bed. Another seventeen loads of laundry, two scrub brushes, and one steam cleaner later, I think we're close to finished.

As I've written before, the great trek North costs us something. On trips like this one, I'm all too aware that it costs our hosts something as well.

So I focus on the positives:

- Asking Ainsley to sled down the hill with me and hearing, "No! I ride with Megan!", her sweet cousin who was always careful to keep Ainsley from face-planting in a pile of snow.

- Hearing Papa read, "I think the most likely reason of all was that his heart was two sizes too small" to the sole granddaughter of the clan who appears at Papa's side with a stack of books in hand.

- Hanging out with the oldest grandson of the Dolin clan who was once one of the gang of blond-haired boys riding Big Wheels and is now a witty and intelligent twenty-one-year-old interested in science and politics and language.

- Witnessing Ainsley's delight as cousin Lissi, fashion maven, painted her fingers and toes bright pink.

- Watching all the boy cousins whipping around Auntie Karen's farm on snowmobiles.

Not all the traces we leave behind require Lysol and an anti-emetic.

I would end on that uplifting, saccharine sweet note, but the plague has now hit Dave. So instead I'll leave you with a quote from Simcha Fisher on dealing with sick husbands:

The worst part was that he only had me to take care of him. I can be nurturing for as long as ten or eleven minutes at a time, but beyond that, I find sick people irritating. As you can imagine, I then feel horribly guilty about that, and take it out on the sick people. So, the moral of this story is, get the hell away from me, with your pain and suffering. I mean, would you like some orange juice? Or tea? No? Well, then I guess I’ll go shovel the driveway ALL BY MYSELF, with no one to help me.

To quote another deep thinker, "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."