I'm sitting here in the playroom, boxes and toys around me, with my baby girl laying next to me and the laptop propped, interestingly enough, on my lap. Miriam was so sleepy. It's funny to me that a child who sleeps with her parents needs so much space. If I get up during the night, she wakes up. If I get up in the morning, she wakes up. If I sit up, she opens her eyes to check that I'm not actually getting up. However, she sprawls out in the bed while Chris and I take to the sides. I wouldn't change it for the world.

I was thinking a lot about change tonight. Chris and I have had so many changes since we married. We moved to Cincinnati. We moved back to Indy. We bought a house, sold it, and bought another house. We moved to a new church. We changed jobs. We had a baby. It seems that our life together had been one change after another. But I feel stable. I'm not longing for things to stay the same for a while. I like where we're at and imagine we'll be here for a long time and I'm very content with that (in fact, I would say it makes me happy). But I don't begrudge the times of change.

Miriam is such a wonderful little child. It's amazing to me how much her own little personality is coming out. She loves pickles, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples, chips and ice cream (yes, I've allowed my ten month old to try chips and ice cream--but only little tastes). She doesn't seem to like chicken very much. Or fake crab. She smiles when she wakes up on her own from a long sleep. She plays and plays and plays. She prefers breastmilk to any of the above mentioned foods. The other day, though, I was eating a bagel while feeding her and she stopped eating to reach for the bagel. She's growing up. Her hair is getting longer and thicker. It's still wonderfully red. She has 6 teeth. She loves our friend Denise almost as much as she loves us. She seems to like men with facial hair and/or long hair, which makes many of our male friends happy as they are used to scaring kids away with their facial hair and/or long hair. She helps me to see a new side to people, who have infinite patience with her, even while she's crawling all over them and pulling their braids. She wants to explore everything. She is trusting and loving and amazing.

One of the people on Amity's world has suffered a fantastic and unbelievable loss. Her little boy, not even 3 months old, died of SIDS last week. I can't imagine the feelings she and her family must be experiencing.

When I thought about it, I convinced myself that when a baby's death happens there must be some sign. As if F. never really was awake and aware, as if maybe he wasn't "right" from birth, as if he had one foot here and one on another plane. But then I saw his picture--so healthy, awake, looking right at the camera with a little smile on his face. And I realized there was no warning. This little boy died unexpectedly with no way for his family to prepare.

And I know it's selfish, but I wonder how long I can continue to push the worry I have about Miriam to the back of my mind. How much longer can I last not allowing myself to imagine the worst all the time? How much longer will I make it enjoying my daughter and not allowing myself to focus on the "what ifs"? I feel like I'm barely managing to stay above the worry. But I am.

My dear husband wrote a blog about the difference between recreation and amusement. He had some wise and interesting comments to make. I love the fact that my husband thinks about things like this!

Here are my thoughts:
When is a community getting together to have a good time recreation rather than amusement? We get together all the time with friends and it often is a refreshing, re-creating time for me. I think getting together with friends after a long day in order to share a bottle of wine and discuss potential baby names is a refreshing use of free time.

I think if we draw too fine a line here, we'll end up makeing our recreation too much work. Am I thinking enough about this? Are we discussing this with enough seriousness, etc...

Thanks, Amy and Julie for responding to my last post. (And Julie, let me tell you I'm happy about the no-reporting thing! What are the rules in Ohio? :)

There are numerous reasons that I am wary of the public school system. But should that be enough to cause me to homeschool? I do not want to shelter Miriam to the point that she is unaware of the real world...but I don't want her to learn things way earlier than necessary. Last year, I had 3rd graders talking to me about people "getting it on", etc...and they obviously knew what they were talking about. I don't want Miriam to have a warped view of sex...I don't want her to grow up pledging to the flag...I don't want her to learn to bully (or to be bullied herself). Also, our public school system is just not so good. I'm sort of anti-testing and anti-traditional grades.

Although this may not seem related, it is...what is our purpose? Is it to love God? To draw others near to him? To live closely with others? All those things? Does homschooling Miriam fit with our purpose? Does sending her to public school? Does my staying home help? Can I connect with families in my neighborhood if Miriam is not in school with them? Do i want to use my child as a "lure"?

I think this is my most disjointed post ever. :)

Well, I'm not doing to well on the posting. We had quite a crazy week last week. Our new dishwasher didn't work; our washing machine spurted water all over the basement floor; our (new) cabinet door broke off, etc. Of course this all happened in one day. It's all fixed now (except for the door). I had a minor break down but all is okay now.

Miriam is crawling and standing up, waving good-bye and throwing everything she can reach off of the table. :)

I've been sewing a lot--I've made Miriam an outfit and a cloth book. I'm working on an apron for myself now. It's a 50's style apron and it's kind of funny, but I love it. I will use it and have fun while I'm in it. I't got ruffle and rick-rack--it can't get any cuter than that!

On Sunday, an elder at our church did a communion meditiation that compared Pat Tillman to Christ. That sounds much more goofy written out than it seemed during the service. It is ridiculous, though, on many levels. Yes, they both gave up something "great" in order to serve; but that is where the comparison ends. It was the nature of respective service that makes them so different. Jesus gave his life for others; Pat Tillman took others' lives in a misguided attempt to protect his country. I was so distracted by the absurdness of the comparison that I don't think I really paid much attention to the act of communion.

Another topic that's interesting to me is schooling. What is the purpose of teaching our kids? Should I homeschool? Help with the public schools? There are two families in our church that are preparing to homeschool this year. The two girls went to the church's school for kindergarten. One girl is very ready for 1st grade; she's reading, loves to ask questions and explore things, etc. The other girl is not ready for 1st grade work (although I think that with help she'd be okay). The dilemma here is that the families really want to keep the girls together and homeschool them together. They are really trying hard to make the decisions that will best benefit the community. Do you hold them both back? That makes no sense to me; I just don't see that they will be on the same level any time soon.

I'm losing my train of thought--so I'll write more later.