Country Mouse

Sleeping Pile

17 February 2015

Recently, we watched The Croods, courtesy of Netflix. It was a fun prehistoric adventure story about a family learning how to live as their hunter lifestyle crumbled around them forcing them to become nomads. They were comfortable hunting by day and caving by night. Being a pre-fire family, their cave was only warmed from the sleep pile they formed for the night. Earthquakes destroyed the Crood's cave and with the help of forward thinking Guy, they set off on what could be described as a Farkel Family adventure. Well, that's what my parents would have called it. (Probably influenced by Laugh In, a TV comedy show from before I can remember.) The Croods' adventure was full off unexplored destinations, mishaps and wonder.

I grew up in a small family of four. My parents had two girls, I was the eldest by two years, two months and three days. (Unsure why I have that memorized.) My earliest memories of sleep piles come from about age eight. One of us would sleep between our parents and the other got the foot of the bed. I can only assume it had to do with fire, or the lack there of. The home we lived in at that time was heated by a wood-burning boiler in the basement. The boiler heated water that moved through baseboard pipes. If the fire burned out while we were away for too long, the house would become very cold, especially during those Oswego County, New York winters. The fire would have to be built and cold water heated before the house would become comfortably warm.  It was too long of a wait for little girls so we created a sleep pile with mom in their room, which was located over the boiler in the basement, until dad came to join us.

Twenty years later, in 1998, my husband and I began our own sleep pile with the birth of our first son. (We didn't know that's what it was called until we watched The Croods.) Since we live in Fairfax County, Virginia, it has had nothing to do with the lack of fire or wood-burning boilers that need to be rekindled. Some might say our mistake was sleep sharing with our four babies, or purchasing a king sized bed, because if you buy it, they will come. But I have seldom felt that it was a mistake. I have loved cuddling with my infants, toddlers and pre-teens. And you add the 95-pound black lab to the pile and it is something else! There are times when the bed is too small. But on nights when everyone is in their own bed, I must admit the bed seems empty and a waste of space. The teenagers have abandoned the sleep pile and have ledges of their own. When they do join the pile on the bed it is a dog pile - definitely no sleep going on then! 

It’s not just okay, it is well.

27 Jan 2015

Anne Øglende Spafford (1842-1923) was a Norwegian immigrant married to the successful American lawyer, Horatio Spafford.  Together they had four daughters and lived a comfortable life in the Lake View area of Chicago. They were active in their church and spent time with the great American Evangelist, DL Moody. Life as they enjoyed it began to change in 1871 when Anne’s husband’s recently acquired real estate investment was consumed by the Great Fires of Chicago of that same year. Anne spent much of the next two years doing welfare work to help the masses that were devastated by the fires.  

In 1873, Anne and her family planned to vacation in Europe. When business detained her husband from leaving, Anne and her daughters traveled ahead as planned. However, while at sea their vessel, the French steamship, Ville du Havre, sank rapidly after tragically being rammed by the British iron ship, Loch Earn. Anna was one of 82 survivors. All of her daughters were lost at sea. Horatio crossed the Atlantic to join his wife and bring her home. While passing over the location where his daughters drowned, Horatio pen these words, “whatever my lot…it is well with my soul.” 

Anne and Horatio were blessed with another daughter and then a son. But in 1880, their only son died during an outbreak of Scarlet Fever. They stood firm in their faith through all of these trials and after the birth of their last child, a daughter, they made a bold decision to move to Jerusalem. With like minded friends from Chicago, and later joined by a group from Sweden, The American Colony was formed in old Jerusalem in 1881. The Spaffords and their community continued to help those who had suffered even greater losses than their own. Today the remnants of their ministry continues as the Spafford Center in Old City Jerusalem. 

God has spared me, thus far, from losses and despair such as the Spaffords experienced. However, my lot in life begs me to answer the question, “How are you?” My second son, Missouri, is scheduled for shoulder surgery on February 3. That same day my husband, Goofy, is scheduled to have a second procedure to help ease some of his chronic neck pain. My eldest son, M&M, is currently in physical therapy for his two year old knee injury which will probably need surgery and he is already awaiting a second surgery for his slipping rib syndrome.  I have reached the point where I avoid being asked about these various situations. It requires such a long, complicated and discouraging answer. Who really wants to hear about all these health issues and surgeries and how they impact our family? Of course add on top of this my father-in-laws cancer treatments and it is just too much. 

My close friends thoughtfully ask, “How are you?” They know the details one at a time, not as one monologue. They know the characters. They know me. They ask, “No really, how are you?” My answer thus far has been, “I’m okay, really.” And I am. I live one day at a time. I spend a lot of time reading to escape. I try to get enough sleep to fend off feelings of being overwhelmed by each day. But I think a better answer is, “It is well with my soul.”  I don’t feel abandoned by God and his grace. I don’t feel alone in these trials, they are just different from others’. God places the right people at just the right time in my path to encourage me. After Anne was rescued from the waters of the Atlantic, she shared with a fellow rescued passenger, “God gave me four daughters. Now they have been taken from me. Someday I will know why.”   She felt there was a reason she had been saved. Similarly, a doctor visit-free life has been taken from me. Someday I will know why. But until then, whatever my lot, may I always be able to say the same words that poured out of Horatio’s grief, it is well with my soul.

http://www.spaffordcenter.org/history

http://janegeniesse.com/pages/priestess.html

Preparing a Daughter

13 January 2015

Sweat Pea is learning everything from me and I am terrified. My boys want to be just like their dad: watch sports, talk sports, play sports. They want my love and affirmation, good food and clean clothes, but they identify with the man of the house. I am just now beginning to grasp the responsibility that comes with mothering a daughter.

Recently, I enjoyed spending time with Tamar, the Canaanite woman of the first book of the Bible, Genesis. She was the young woman that the Israelite, Judah, chose to marry his first born son, Er. While chapter 38 in Genesis does not include much information about her, the author of Unveiled, Francine Rivers, painted a stirring and fictional image of what Tamar’s life may have included.  A father who viewed his daughters as assets to be married off for a bride price or as part of a contract. Sisters given to work in pagan temples. A mother committed to running her household and raising her daughter to be equipped to do the same. Perhaps these weren't realities for Tamar. Maybe she was an orphan, or perhaps the daughter of a priest or ruler. Most likely these were realities for other young Canaanite girls like Tamar.

What captured me in this fictional fill-in-the-blank of Tamar's life was what her unnamed mother told her as she prepared Tamar to leave home and join the household of Judah. She said, "It is the way of things, Tamar. Haven't I prepared you for this day from the time you were a little girl? I have told you what you were born to do." Tamar was more than just married and leaving home, she was about to put into practice everything she had been taught. She was no longer a student of home economics, domestic engineering, agriculture and management. She was an intern in her mother-in-law's home, an apprentice who would be prepared to take over all responsibilities when the time came. Divinely, through painful and unusual circumstances, Tamar, a Canaanite, would bare twin sons, Zerah and Perez. From Perez would come the Lion of Judah, the redeemer of the Israelites, Jesus the Messiah. Tamar's mother was confident she was prepared for all of this.

Wow! How am I preparing Sweet Pea? Have I told her what she was born to do?  Is she learning from my example? Am I purposeful in what I do and say so she is prepared for the days to come? In our culture she can grow up and become a highly educated professional or a domestic engineer. She can travel the world on her own. She is not limited to one path. Regardless, I play a role in who she becomes. Through affirmation, correction, instruction, application, demonstration, etc. I become a model for my little miss me. I don't want her to become me, I want her to become like Christ in me. Consequently, she has to see Christ in me every day as I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend. Another WOW!

1/7/15

Today Pooch had carpool patrol duty at 3:15. There was a wind chill advisory issued for the entire day and it wasn't expected to get much above 20 degrees anyway. I sent Pooch to school with a hat, gloves, and a gator for his neck as well as a winter jacket to wear over his hoodie. He was all set according to the National Weather Service.

The problem is he and 3 other boys have been in competition for wearing shorts through the winter. The NWS did not include a recommendation for pants. Pooch humored me and put a pair of pants in his backpack on the way out the door. You can guess what he was NOT wearing at 3:30 when I drove through the carpool line! Nor was he wearing a gator.

Snowy days and chocolate chip cookies

6 January 2015

Today the Washington, DC area became grid locked with more red roads on Google Maps than anyone thought possible. Fairfax County Public Schools earned the honor of being one of the top 10 Tweets in the WORLD today, #closeFCPS. Unlike in the past, Superintendent Dr. Karen Garza decided that the forecast didn’t warrent closing or even delaying school across this diverse and heavily populated county. Her decision contributed to quite a headache for parents, teachers, VDOT and the students. Her office offered a statement mid-day without accepting responsibility for the problems caused and finally by late afternoon she admitted she had made a bad decision. I don’t think her time in Houston or Lubbock truly prepared her for life in NOVA. It takes more than a southern accent to melt snow on the roads here.

However, our house got abt 2.5 - 3 inches of snow…our first measurable snow. Sweat Pea trudged out several times and helped M&M shovel the driveway and patio. When I brought Missouri and Pooch home from school at 3:30, on mostly cleared roads with sunny skies, it seemed appropriate to indulge in a McIntyre tradition started by my mother-in-law years ago.

Mimi has been a teacher all her life. It is who she is by nature and vocation. She was a working mom. She made sure her family ate well even after a long day at school. But I suspect the energy for baking treats was gone by the time dinner was prepared, enjoyed and cleared. Snowdays were special to her boys not just because putting ice in the toilet and wearing their pj’s inside out had made their wish come true, but Mom had time to make cookies! No other cookie was acceptable except chocolate chip. Pooch and Sweat Pea were eager to help, well Pooch really justed wanted the cookie dough and blender paddle. Sweat Pea helped unwrap butter sticks, pour or dump the ingredients and sift the flour. I texted M&M to tell him the cookies were done. He was in his room home schooling. Missouri apparently missed the discussion and wondered into the kitchen asking what smelled good. Unfortunately, the one I made the cookies for, my DH Goofy, got a phone call on his way out of the office and missed the hot, break in your fingers, burn your tongue on the chocolate cookies.

7 week old great pyrenees pups on their way to become working sheep dogs in Pennsylvania.

While I was home with my family during the holidays my husband got me out of bed one morning by saying, "you want to come down stairs...and bring your phone." I went downstairs unprepared for the cuteness snuggled in a cardboard box padded with fragrant hay. My dad is a driver for some of his Amish neighbors. He had been entrusted to drive these huge young pups from the Adirondack region of New York down to an Amish community east of Pittsburg. Knowing he had 2 granddaughters at his house this particular morning he decided to stop by the house with them. What a treat.

The pups eventually arrived at their new home and were placed in a pen with lambs to begin their training. Having eachother they won't go looking for other dog companions but will also grow to care and watchout for their wooly friends.

Today we took son number 2, aka Missouri, to the orthopedist knowing we would walk out with the number for Rocky, the surgery scheduler. Missouri has complained about shoulder pain since working on the Butterfly Stroke in winter swim last April. He has had MRIs, PT and steroid injections and nothing has brought relief. We knew the next step was arthroscopic subacromial decompression to relieve shoulder impingement syndrome. (No, we haven’t memorized the phrase yet.) Our son is going to have shoulder surgery in 5 weeks and we aren’t freaking out! How can that be?

Well that is what happens when you've already ventured down a similar path, in our case with son number 1, M&M. Three months ago we reached the same point with M&M with slipping rib syndrome which lead to a bilateral rib resection. I questioned the decision even as I sat in the lobby while he was in the O.R. It was terrifying and that was before we knew how long and hard the recovery would be and that it would lead to withdrawing him from his school and enrolling him in an on-line academy. After 3 months of experiencing surgery and recovery for a rib resection, a phrase I can remember, scheduling arthroscopic subacromial decompression to relieve shoulder impingement syndrome seems like a walk on the beach, even if I don’t have it memorized.

1 January 2015

M&M: It must be boring to be a cow.

Dad: You wouldn’t know the difference if you were a cow.

Missouri: Would you rather be a cow or a dog?

M&M: Oh, definitely a dog.

You might be a farm kid if…

My kids are NOT farm kids. They have never been to the barn in the dead of winter, dark of night to check on pregnant ewes, lambs or piglets. Never carried a 5 gallon bucket of hot water from the house on a sled to melt frozen water buckets in the barn. Instead they sit in the farm house with their cousins with devices in their hands unless someone says fire crackers and then out they run like a herd of sheep until they run out of matches or something to burn. Sometimes they might be helpful and burn the trash bag in the burn barrel.

What are they learning? I don’t know. But I do know they are missing out on the silence of the night air except for the crunch of snow in -30 degree weather. They are missing the warmth from the animals that is protected by the barn door that scrapes as it slides open. They haven’t been welcomed by the nicker of a pony, the grunt of the pig, or the tiny bleat of a new born lamb and the mumble of its momma. They haven’t seen the tiny tail wag as the lamb seeks warm milk. The satisfaction that another lamb has successfully been birthed in the cold of winter without assistance from the shepherds escapes them.