DanAeRi's Xanga

Remember?

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:59:01 GMT

The other night, World Impact LA had their monthly Gathering - where we all come together, eat dinner, and have a worship service. Tim, our director, led the lesson time and started us off in small groups with the question "Name one small thing you remember about a family member from your childhood." I enjoyed hearing my group's stories of breakfast dates with dad or silly inside jokes. Ryan and I had a good talk afterwards about some of our vibrant childhood memories - those things that, while seemingly insignificant, are cemented in your mind, for better or for worse.

Here are some of my good ones -

Mom and Dad would frequently encourage Adam and I to take a day off of school. We rarely took them up on the offer because make-up work is the worst and we'd usually have after school things we wanted... but it was nice to know we could if we ever wanted to. We did a few times.

In my high school years and Adam's mix of middle school and high school years, while I lived in Kenya, we didn't get any awards from school. Well Adam maybe got one. Every year, we'd sit through this terminally long awards ceremony and not get anything. I don't know if we were feeling bad about it or if Mom and Dad just decided that our school wasn't the only one who could do an awards ceremony but they decided to have their own. It was a total surprise - one day they called us all into the living room and with costumes and corny script, they hosted their own dorky awards ceremony for all five of us kids and I remember thinking they were crazy, but obviously thoughtful. :)

I remember as a little kid picking peaches in an orchard, picking flats of strawberries, and canning peaches forever and stirring gigantic bowls of strawberry jam.

Every year when my dad worked for a local accounting firm, Adam and I would go in and help with a big mailing and felt very grown-up. I don't know what month it was - I don't think it was April... like before people got their taxes ready or something. Anyway, we'd help the secretary (that's what the job was called back then...), Nancy Bridges, and we would get excited when we recognized names on the envelopes. Dad would buy us a treat from the snack box (didn't even have a vending machine) and we would make some big bucks! I bought my first 35mm camera with money from that job. :)

Whenever we went camping, we'd get to drink soda and eat Lucky Charms. That was the life. On some summer nights we'd sleep on the trampoline and all roll towards the middle by 10pm. In December, we'd all sleep "under" the Christmas tree a night or two.

One Christmas, I had this white dress with red polka dots and a red ribbon and I was so gosh darn excited about wearing it that I woke up super early, without an alarm, got that dress on, with tights, probably did my hair and went out into the living room to wait for everyone. It was pitch dark and who knows how early it was... probably like 5am. Dad came out, asked what I was doing, sat there a few minutes with me, and then I think we decided it'd be best to go back to bed for a while. Hahaa.

It's crazy to think that now we're the parents of Dante... and we will be forming these good (and bad) memories, having no idea what random things will get cemented in his mind. Yikes!! It's also crazy to think about the Littles and how my parents are still in the process of all this memory making and that their memories of growing up, my parents, and our family, will be so totally different than Adam and mine are.

Oh, Boy!

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:34:04 GMT

I know I'm going to miss this time of life. I've kind of been having a hard time regaining a sense of equilibrium as a mom but no matter how tired I am or at my wits end I feel, I'm trying to stay aware of the present and how precious it is. The warm giggle and ever-loyal cuddles of Dante just melt my heart, day after day, even when the day is really crappy or just plain ol' melancholy and when my arm seriously feels like it's going to fall off. (Have you ever heard of going to physical therapy because of carrying around a gigantic infant?) He is truly such an amiable, happy kid and makes me laugh so much. Although he doesn't have his Uncle Mike's middle name - Zawadi (gift) - it would be appropriate. Like Mike, Dante was unexpected, and a gift. Seems like the best gifts are unexpected.

During my pregnancy, I didn't especially love or hate it. I thought it was weird, cool, had a pretty easy time of it, but I wasn't one of the "this is the most amazing awesome experience, I want to be terminally preggers" type. But now, just six months on the other side of it, I get a little emotional when I see other people's pregnant pics and remember what that was like, or when I feel my friends' little unborn babies move. I wasn't one that basked in the glory of pregnancy but there is a wonder to it that I don't think anyone who's been pregnant or close to someone pregnant gets over completely.

After going through labor, followed by a pretty violent/awful recovery, it seemed crazy to me to think about another such visit to the hospital and the ensuing gore. The other day, though, I was looking at the hospital photos of one of my friends who just gave birth -- the gown, the artificial lights, the brave/good-sport smile -- and I had some sort of nostalgic/longing/crazy feeling about that day in my life... and the potential for another one not too unlike it. With adoption being such a real method of growing a family in my experience, the whole biological process of pregnancy/giving birth lost some awesomeness in a way because, in my life, adoption has been so awesome (and a heck of a lot less, er, messy). I guess I could be extra awed/wooed by the experience for the same reason. Anywho, it was just surprising for me to kind of get excited about the prospect of bearing another child in the conventional, physically painful way.

Some of you are really thinking I'm crazy at this point and some of you are scared that I'm about to announce that I'm pregnant (M.M....) but don't worry, I'm not. I'm just typing, processing, jabbering. Once I get a piano or more space to do creative things (see Mom, I listen...) you might read less about the inner mind of Danielle. Ryan and I are still in a debate about when we'd prefer to expect another baby anyway, although obviously we don't determine our steps and had little say in our #1 pipsqueak Dante. All testimonials about why it's better to have siblings closer in age can be e-mailed to me... actually, just send them straight to Ryan.

But I digress...

Monday, November 02, 2009

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:09:23 GMT

Ryan: I'm thankful for our baby.

Me: [smile] Me too.

[Pause.]

Ryan: Oh, I was talking about our Taurus. I'm thankful for Dante, too, but I was talking about the car.

Is Pee The Answer?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:05:14 GMT

[talking about white supremacist protesters]

Danielle: That is so sad.

Ryan: Yeah. [pause] It seems like you should be able to throw things at them 'cause the police couldn't really regulate that from far away.

Danielle: Like grenades?

Ryan: [getting excited] Like bags of pee! And rocks!

Danielle: Uhh...

Ryan: [laughing out loud] Just take coolers filled with pee! [laughing out loud]

[conversation digresses from there]

Because I said Matt Ryan was a boring name.

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:02:15 GMT

Ryan: [completely serious] If I had the last name Ryan, I would totally name my kid Ryan. I think Ryan Ryan is an awesome name. [Pause. Thinking.] Then, people could legitimately call you "Ry Ry."

Apparently Ryan has always wanted people to be able to legitimately call him "Ry Ry"?

Welcome.

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:38:57 GMT

Ryan: [way inappropriate comment]

Danielle: [shocked pause] Ryan, do you have no filter?

Ryan: [lovingly] Honey, you're my filter.

Danielle: I don't want to be your filter. I want you to have your own filter.

Ryan: [incredulous] What?! Do you know HOW many people would die to be my filter??

Danielle: [stares grimly]

(End of conversation.)

I'm going to start posting some conversations or comments that happen in my home to answer the question, which has been asked many-a-time, "What's it like in your home??"

Any more lazy inventions to look forward to anytime soon??

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:16:54 GMT

Okay, so motherhood has taught me a lot and even though sometimes I feel like I'm still just pretending and I have those "I can't believe he's staying!" moments about Dante, most days I do feel like a mom and not just an overworked underpaid babysitter. :)

That was a long sentence.

Motherhood has helped me be less judgmental. I know, you thought the day would never come. Well don't worry, I still have lots of judgmentalism to work on. One of the main things that has helped this is the fact that things I once deemed "lazy" or "wasteful", in my self-righteous, active, not-mom-of-an-infant-self, I now recognize as Things That Keep Me From Collapsing and/or Crying. Things like drive-thrus, elevators, delivery, remotes and ramps. Good grief. Okay, looking at that list, maybe I was really insensitive to the needs of handicapped folks. Well, I think mostly I was judgmental when non-handicapped people used them. Like, the first time I saw a drive-thru pharmacy window, I probably thought something along the lines of "oh good, we can stay in our cars more, interact less, pollute more, and become fatter." Now I wish there were drive-thru grocery stores! (and by the way, I know that thru is an incorrect and "lazy" way of writing "through" but it's okay... it goes with the theme) Sometimes when I'm downstairs in the hot, hot apartment building parking lot and I've buckled Dante in the car and then I realize I forgot something upstairs, I just want to throw a fit. I've come to terms with the fact that for any given errand I might spend an equal amount of time in the actual store as I do loading, unloading, loading, unloading and loading my self and my son in the car/cart/car.

So this lazy-turned-genius perspective has made me think, Hey, maybe there are other things I'm wrong about and just don't see the point of yet! A slim possibility, I know, but mayhaps!

PS - In the whole lazy vein, I have become adept at picking things up with my toes. When my quads can't handle one more squat but I've dropped my keys one more time, the toes help me out. If you see my wearing flip flops in winter, that's why. :)

Boys Have Coodies.

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:22:51 GMT

I'm reading this book - For Women Only. Laura gave it to me for my birthday, after starting it herself, and it has been highly recommended to me by lots of people I like. I'm on page 77. And it seriously feels a bit like exercising when you don't want to.

In this book, there are a lot of difficult things to swallow - at least for me. It's all about men and their responses to this big survey. Themes of trust, respect, inadequacy and affirmation have been the light topics of my reading so far. Things to look forward to: sex and men's visual-ness. Whopee!! I know I have a lot to work on as a wife. But part of me is also struggling with the premise, or assumption, of books like these, which is basically - all men [i.e. majority US culture, which is changing by the moment] are like this and therefore their wives should be like this. I believe in fundamental differences between the genders and definitely want to be responsive to my husband's needs. At the same time, I'm wondering if just because a certain emotional reflex is prevalent in men, does that mean it's right or good or permanent? Or for women - if a similar survey was done of women and we all responded in unison about certain things - does that mean it's right or good? What do you think?

This gets me into thoughts about God's design, the problem of sin, nature versus nurture, and other small talk. I'm not looking for excuses to ignore some of the tough things this book is challenging me with. There are definitely changes I need to make that both this book and the Bible support. But I guess I would like to put it out there that a high percentage from a survey or even a general sense by a huge population isn't necessarily compelling to me in and of itself. Does that sound bad? The survey and quotes do tell me that no matter how egalitarian, postmodern, and progressive men think they've become, they're very "traditional" for lack of a better word in marriage when it comes down to it. Are some of the traditional gender roles/expectations/stereotypes God-ordained, appropriate, dictated by nature and basically unchanging? Or are they longstanding products of socialization and culture?

Ryan is reading this book with me and, unlike other books I've invited him to read (let alone one that says For Women Only), he caught up to where I was and went past me. He likes that the book has helped articulate a lot of things that he and his friends can't. I know there's a guy (or girl, depending on how you look at it) version... looking forward to reading that one together too. :)

I hope I haven't come off totally wrong in this post...

Narcissism

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:33:59 GMT

Currently reading: oh so many things - I never thought I would be one to have a bunch of different books in progress at once and never understood how my mom read multiple things... but now I'm in the middle of Sabbatical Journey (STILL), Girlfriend's Guide to the First Year, In the Name of Jesus, and, just started last night, For Women Only

Projects you have been meaning to do: a cute compilation of info for when we have someone watch Dante, put together tips/info from magazines I like and then recycle the magazines, and, oh yeah - get in shape and learn how to play my guitar (STILL)

Recent big purchase: car seat for Dante

Last drink: chocolate milk :)

Most recent medical procedure: lasik (for free! - thanks Dr. Maloney!) or getting a mouth guard (also for free - thanks Dr. Campbell!) - can't remember which happened first

Weekend plans: meeting Adam and JC to say bye before they move to Wyoming, relax, meet with a friend, church...

Favorite time of day: falling asleep?

Worst habit: being too critical, tearing my nails off

Last wrote a letter to: Karli

Bank: in the process of switching to ING from Chase

Favorite dessert: as my friends know, not good at favorites... I like many desserts equally

Dream job: freelance non-fiction writer

Pet peeves: presumptuous borrowing, obnoxious honking, when you buy something new and find something wrong with it and you have to take it back or fix it yourself

Wish you knew: how to speak Spanish, 5 fail-proof ways to help a student focus/learn, what I should make for dinner...

Things you think are funny: Dante, Everybody Loves Raymond, when people feel the urge to answer silly questions about themselves to no one in particular

Place you want to visit: Kenya

Favorite sounds: water, Dante talking or laughing, hiking boots on a trail, hymns played live on a tuned piano, anybody laughing really hard

Rude + rude = a new video

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:47:01 GMT

This video comically parallels the two most recent, rudest and publicized outbursts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxKIcrDsJAs&feature=popular