FundyNutter

There is a schmaltzy Christian song I hear on the radio a lot. As embarrassed as I am to admit it, I cry every time I hear it.  Kind of the same way the leapfrog commercials with the skinny moms in clean houses with sweet kids playing quietly make me cry.

I hunted for the lyrics, but I don’t know who sings it or what its called. Nonetheless it croons the story of a mom on the bus whose kids are tantruming because they’ve been up all night with their dad at the hospital and now he’s dead. And the old man driving too slow on the highway because his wife is dead and his kids don’t take care of him.  See, I’m choking up just typing it out.  Someone please hit me with the schmaltz stick and end my misery.

Some really not great person didn’t slow down and let me merge on the highway.  Then he shook his head and wagged his finger at me, I assume because I exist.

I wanted to sing him my verse of the song:

Please forgive me.

I haven’t got all day.

The food poisening is acting fast, just get out of my way.

The kids are cranky

their dad’s at work

He won’t be home till next week so don’t be a  jerk.

If only you knew how bad

I needed to get home fast

how one dose of Pepto just won’t last

You’d forgive me

You’d give me right of way

So just move it guy, I haven’t got all day.

I have been babysitting. But I’ve also been doing some things I am really excited about.  This year I get to be one of the Sunday School coordinators. My official role is recruiter/encourager, but I consider myself the cheering section.  I get to find ways to make our teachers feel appreciated throughout the year. The fun of that makes up for the pain of recruiting.

Our friend Jose is pastoring a nuevo servicio en espanol (please pardon the lack of tilde) and we are attending it.  I have to pay really close attention to every detail so that I get what is going on.  it’s been good the last two weeks to have to pay close attention.  And engaging the Spanish part of my brain makes me feel smart.  Daniel just offered to play guitar with Jose during the singin’ time. I love to watch him play and sing, so on the one hand, that is a positive.

On the other hand he will need to pratice on Saturday nights.  (Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody. I’ve got some money cause I just got paid. How I wish I had someone to talk to. I’m in an awful way.) And this season is our busy season. It is for a lot of people, I’m sure. But for us, it is the season that Daniel plays professor. He teaches every Thursday and works every Saturday to compensate for it.  That leaves him Sunday as his day off.  Which, as a good Fundy family we spend at church–we are there until about one every week. And we go back at 6:30 pm for Bible Study.

And our date night is Saturday night. Technically he will be home from practice in time.  We get our tea ready and turn on our shows at 9 pm.  I’m just wondering if I can summon up feelings of comradarie and romance after six straight days apart without even dinner together to warm me up.

But it’s not all bleak.  I finally thought of a way to bring a little Christmas into our fall.  Most people, especially families with kids in basketball and moms with jobs, and already realize the importance of schedule. I was a little slower.

Despite my turtlish brain I did eventually (this week) realize that I could mark off on the calendar one Sunday a month to be spend enjoying the holiday season.  It will mean skipping Bible Study sometimes. But after church, lunch, and Lucy’s nap, three times this fall, we will be doing something as a family that has a seasonal feeling to it.

I tried to plan the perfect family vacation (ha!) so I get that pumpkin patches and tree farms aren’t going to let me bring my family in after they are closed. But I won’t let a little thing like that stop me from making memories.

We will go back to the living Bethleham village that we liked so much last year–and that leaves only two more activities to think of.

Last year all we did as a family of four was the Bethlehem village. So this year, I feel ahead of the game.

There comes a day in the life of every mom that is at home raising her kids when she has to answer for her own self the timeless question.

“Will I watch someone else’s kids?”

Since the day that word first got around that I was going to be the one who did the day to day with my kids other moms have been circling. They want to pounce, to pin me down and have me watch their kids. They want me to give their kids a homelike childcare option that costs a lot less then a center and is also fun, safe, and convenient for their commute.

No less than four families have asked me this. Most of them asking over and over again.

I wouldn’t say my defenses were down this time.  I guarded my time carefully with the infants, that’s true. But now my kids are playdate age. They like getting together with other kids.

And this mom only needed someone to watch her kids in the morning. Three times a week. What could be wrong with that?

Well to start with (I tell myself three weeks late) her kids are here at 7:30 in the morning. And in addition, no matter how handy the money is for me, or how convenient my location is for the other mom, her kids still hate having to go to a sitter. They hate it.

I make the day fun while they are here. But the bigger of the two girls summed things up nicely when she said “Yes,it was fun, but I was sad the whole time.” The smaller of the girls is only two months old. She marks her protest via hunger strike. She will not take her bottle from daddy or sitter. She waits all morning for her mummy to return.

It seemed so convenient for both parties involved. My family could buy our plane tickets for Christmas. The other mom could afford to teach kindergarten.  All the kids could play and be delightful.

My kids cry and hate it. They want their normal life back. Her kids cry and starve themselves.

They say it takes kids in part-time day care three months to adjust to their new care situation.  Three months. That doesn’t sound like an adjustment period. That sounds like kids who have given up.

I don’t think I like being a babysitter.

I am not planning on quitting, the teacher has a need to teach so her kids have to go somewhere. I can use the income.  I don’t know where I am going with this–with the post or the babysitting.  I hope sometimes that the little girl will talk her mom into finding a new sitter.  And then I think about if I make it all year I should get a license so I can set good rates and advertise and be selective about the families I watch.

Neither of those seem likely though. I think I will make it through these nine months and then say “No more for now.”  I’ll put my shingle away and maybe I won’t have to sit kids again at all.

The warm air and sunshine, the coming end of freedom lured the fundies out of their den on Saturday.  I googled parks and we packed up a picnic.

There’s nothing secret about the park we found, everyone seems to know about it already. But it was new to us and absolutely amazing.

The day was stunning, in the 80’s, warming hte natural, silky river sand for our feet.  I despise beach sand and play sand, but river sand has always been my friend.  It feels like a spa treat instead of a torture.

The water was not cold, or at least not frigid. It was that perfect temperature that gives you a little chill when you step in but acclimates easily.

We found clam shells, made sand castles and had the place mostly to ourselves all morning.

What else can I say about the perfect day? That it was flanked by tantrums? That the small sturgeon that washed up dead on the beach was unnerving?  That a family of loud drinkers that arrived around the time were leaving?  That someone else’s dog ate our sandwhiches while we built sandcastles? Or course! How else would I have been able to tell that the rest of it was so perfect?

This is a sample of what’s going on over at Fredslist.wordpress.com.  Feel free to join the conversation over there when you have a second!

Hi! My Name is Traci and I’m a Name Nerd.

I love stories, mysteries, names, books, words, genealogy, history, and language.

A character, real or imagined, gives evidence of their life through their name. In history a name reveals clues about the person’s heritage, their family, their era, location, something of the place their family occupied in the world.

In literature a characters name conveys something of the author’s perspective on the world. The name the author chooses sets the reader up with an early impression of the character. More interestingly it also reveals something of how the author perceives the name and in a way, how the author perceives language.

My own name is Traci Tyne. At first glance you can tell my parents appreciate alliteration. They like clean, crisp sounds. They like tailored, unisex names. They liked a name that had been fairly popular for a while.

And if you know a little more of the story, you can see how much my mom loves her father. To honor him she called me Tyne, his mother’s name.

I’m like my parents, in naming tastes. I like names that feel right, or are fun for me to say. As much as I like my own name for me, I prefer to say L sounds and sounds that feel warm and round, O’s, U’s, and R’s for example. My own children are also named for family, mostly passed away but who I do not want the generations to forget.

The names Eleanor Berry and Lucy Beatrice reveal more about my husband and I than about the children. But they do connect the children to a line of family.

As they learn about their names and family, they will discover their southern roots, and the story of a harrowing journey in a covered wagon. They will come to know the four amazing women who made an impact on the world, and for whom they were named.

They will also learn, from their names, that mommy loves Jane Austen, daddy loves C. S. Lewis, mommy loves medieval history, and daddy loves the Beatles. They will learn that we loved them enough to call them by names rich in history and suggesting greatness.

Naming two people was one of the greatest honors of my life. It put me on the path to name addiction that led me here, to Fred’s List.

September has come, just like I thought it would. It has come with all of  it’s 7 o’clock morning’s glory, babysitting, and kids first days of school. Or, more tragically for our household, toddler’s not first day of school.  Norah barely noticed when I dropped her off in her new classroom. She’s a socialization veteran.

But Lucy. Poor, poor Lucy. She didn’t get to be a gumdrop.  And it was her naptime. And Norah, her best friend, was leaving for the afternoon. So many horrors all at once.  She had the tantrum of a lifetime.  Poor baby.  I think that next year, when Norah goes to kindergarten, I am going to have to find a way to fund some kind of Lucy class.

In the spirit of fall and the start of new things, I thought I’d kick off fundynutter with some old-school fundy ranting. I don’t rant though, so you will have to settle for  the copy of  something I posted at my favorite discussion group.   Anyone new to the site will get a quick review of fundy perspective.  For the rest, just enjoy!

ON TEACHING EVOLUTION IN SCHOOLS:

“So no, evolution doesn’t preclude the possibility of a god…however the theory of Macro-evolution leading to humans does preclude the belief in a literal Bible. To tell children that a literal Bible can’t be true because evolution might be true is to require kids of faith (I’ve been a firm and understanding-what-I-believe-in believer since I was six) to ignore their religion and treat material that opposes their faith as reality.That’s the public school system excluding a religion to promote a different one.

And on the church part, mainstream churches that overtly support the concept of evolution aren’t fundy, and (of course) I can only represent the fundy view, as it’s mine. : ) The theory of evolution being without religion is not the same as being above religion, or having no need for religion. Instead being a-religious excludes religion from the conversation. In the case of the schools, excluding all religions from the discussion of origins is antipluralist.

I believe that there is no good reason on earth to teach any origin science to kids. There is enough science to learn without bothering about origins. And to avoid the topic entirely seems to only real way to keep the school completely secular (since origin myths are religion.) I don’t think it makes kids ignorant to not have heard of any origin science. In fact, not spending time on it in school gives them a chance to learn something useful. We spent all of ten minutes on it in high school. I was prepared for a huge debate and was so disappointed! Seriously. I love a good debate and I had even taken a creation science class over the summer so I had all sorts of stuff stuffed in my brain to share. ”