Lift Up Your Hearts!

The Stories of Emmy:  A Girl Like Heidi by Doris Smith Naundorf (Xulon Press, 2010)

Doris Smith Naundorf is known in upstate New York as The Story Lady.  The Stories of Emmy are taken from her one-woman play, Interweaving the Generations.  Emmy, Doris's mother, grew up partly in her Swiss village of Muttenz, and partly in Paterson, New Jersey, where her family moved when she was ten years old.  Her stories give a delightful glimpse into Swiss, American, and immigrant life in the early 1900's.  (Grandchild warning:  There is one sad incident requiring parental discretion; the stories are meant to be appropriate for chidren, but reality is sometimes harsh.)

Muttenz is near Basel (four minutes by train, a century later), and the stories are sprinkled with Baseldeutsch, the delightful Swiss-German dialect spoken there.  A glossary is provided for each chapter.

Driving the several blocks to the train station, Emmy excitedly chattered to her father.  "Will we get there in time, Vatti? she asked.  "Mutti says we must be there early, so we will not miss the train."

"Jo, jo," replied her father.  "In a country that makes such fine watches and clocks, of course the Zúúg runs on time.  It is up to the passengers to be there early so the conductors can keep their schedule."

"The Zúúg, the train, is never late?"

"Of course not!  We Swiss cannot even imagine such a thing!" her father assured Emmy.

I couldn't resist finding Emmy, age 20, and her family in the 1920 census.  (Click on the image to view a version large enough to read.  Their name, Lüscher, appears without its umlaut.)

30 Reasons Why You Light Up Our Lives
(It was hard to stop!)

1. From early childhood you have loved God “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
2. You were the sunniest, most joyfully enthusiastic preschooler I’ve ever known, full of smiles and laughter.
3. Your positive, happy attitude is, and always has been, quickly turned to wrath in the presence of perceived injustice, to others at least as much as to yourself.
4. You love your family intensely, all generations and collateral branches, and work sacrificially to promote family relationships.
5. All your life you have maintained a close, loving, and respectful relationship with your parents.
6. You were a totally delightful, respectful teenager, growing more and more independent without ever rejecting your parents and their values in any important way.
7. You have always found learning to be the “best game of all,” whether begging for math lessons as a preschooler, crafting your own educational program as a teen, or reading and researching voraciously as an adult.
8. You developed the most important skill needed to fuel a lifetime of learning (also useful for excelling in ordinary academic life):  the ability—and desire—to teach yourself using whatever materials are available, from textbooks to teachers to life experiences.
9. Your favorite mode of education has been what you call “learning to swim by drowning”—throwing yourself into a new situation, a new instrument, a new language, a new country; putting yourself in a situation where the alternative to learning is failure.
10. Your razor-sharp intellect and grasp of logic can be counted on to ferret out faulty or slip-shod reasoning.
11. Likewise, you readily admit when you are wrong, if presented with a clear, rational argument.
12. You are always asking thoughtful, important questions. (And always have, much to the annoyance of certain Sunday school teachers.)
13. Unlike most of us (your parents being chief offenders), you can never settle for plugging numbers into a formula or regurgitating the answer expected by a teacher, but with a dogged determination you wrestle with your studies until you truly understand the material.
14. Equally determined in your relationships, you will not gloss over problems, but wrestle with yourself and others to understand and resolve difficulties.
15. You are a very creative thinker; being self-taught in so many ways has made thinking outside the box second nature.
16. You also live outside the box:  You have become the "granola mom" I never knew I always wanted to be.
17. You never conform for the sake of conforming, following the crowd only if convinced by the evidence that the crowd is right, and  unhesitatingly taking the road less travelled if the evidence points in that direction.
18. And you are happy to blaze a new trail cross-country if there is no road at all!
19. Your sense of adventure and love of new experiences have taken your from an (unauthorized) solo exploration of the docks of Key Largo at age three, to travelling through Italy on your own, to spending a year in Japan teaching English to high school students, to graduate school (and eventually a home) in Switzerland.
20. You are a talented, skilled, and highly-trained musician who demonstrates with your life that music comes alive when it is made with and/or for others.
    
21. You waited patiently until God revealed the right man to be your husband and the father of your children;  you love him intensely, respect him enormously, and delight in being the “helper suitable for him.”
22. You have made your home into a place of hospitality, welcome, grace, beauty, joy, and peace (even though your lovely and lively children ensure that nothing is ever too peaceful for too long).
23. You are a loving, giving, thoughtful, disciplined, and inventive mother.
24. You have proven that you have the nerve and determination to push through physical and emotional pain for the sake of those you love and what you believe is right.
    
25. You are a great teacher, with a demonstrated ability—rare in someone for whom understanding often comes quickly and easily—to see a problem from the student’s point of view, whether helping kindergarten students as a third-grader, tutoring high school students, inspiring Japanese students to enjoy the English language, coaxing enthusiasm out of young piano students, showing your mother the virtues of a “tickler” system, or feeding your own children’s “happy hunger” for learning.
26. You have a good eye for seeing work that needs to be done, and a good will for jumping in and doing it.
27. You are honest and trustworthy in word and in deed.
28.  You are careful and wise in financial matters.
29.  At the same time, you are generous and giving:  of your money, your time, and your emotional energy.
30. Your heart’s desire is to become more and more like Christ each day, and to demonstrate his love in all you say and do.

What more could parents desire?

Happy Birthday!

With lots and lots of love,
Mom & Dad

I can't be griping all the time.  Here's some great news for homeschoolers—and others who don't fit in the standard school model—who have suffered, as we did, from age discrimination by community colleges.  Here are some excerpts from the encouraging story in tomorrow's Orlando Sentinel.  (I know.  Don't ask me why a column dated February 19 is available on the 18th, but it is.)

Two years ago, [Lake-Sumter Community College] refused to admit as a dual-enrollment student a then-12-year-old Center Hill girl who was more than academically qualified to study at the two-year community college.  Instead of enthusiastically embracing Anastasia Megan, a brilliant young woman home-schooled by her parents, college administrators took the most backward stance imaginable and fought to keep her out.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights in Atlanta, to whom Annie's family complained, recently closed the matter after LSCC eliminated its age requirement, trained employees to stop discriminating and offered Annie a chance to apply.

However, by the time LSCC offered to consider Annie in July 2011, it was clear that her course of study already had outstripped what the community college could provide.   Starting in August, Annie, now 14, and another of the triplets, her brother Zigmund, will attend Queens University in Ontario, Canada. She was among 300 successful applicants to the college of business and commerce from a field of 5,000. ... Annie's brother is entering the university's engineering school (Annie's second choice), and the third triplet, Elizabeth, is enrolled in a high-school International Baccalaureate program.

[S]uch a ruling by the Office for Civil Rights is likely to have an effect on community colleges statewide. It's all about access in community colleges, and that's the way it ought to be.  The Megan family neither asked for nor received a nickel in damages. The Megans didn't hire a lawyer.  LSCC, however, spent about $12,000 on attorney fees fighting to discriminate against a kid whose achievements were remarkable.  Asked why the college ever would fight to keep any student out, [College President Charles Mojock] said: "That was then, and this is now. We live and learn too."

After six nephews, four grandsons, and 29 years, we once again have two little girls who fit these adorable outfits.  Picture credit for the second goes to Heather and Jon Daley; the first is scanned from an old, washed out Polaroid-style print, but you get the idea.

Janet and Heather, December 1982

Joy and Faith, January 2012

Lately it's looked a lot more like picture-perfect Switzerland, thanks to the snow and cold.  Except that it could be picture-perfect New York, or Pittsburgh, or Minnesota, because even today, when the sun came out, the Alps were obscured by low clouds.

Weather or no, Joseph likes to be outside.  He loves the snow, which he calls "no," except when talking to Bappe (Daddy); then he says "nee" (Swiss German "Schnee").

On our walk the other day I'd intended to get some video footage of him playing in the snow, but he kept getting distracted by airplanes and other vehicles. 

What may not be obvious is why he suddenly stops in the middle:  his hat catches on an overhanging branch.  After breaking loose, he's a bit unhappy—until another airplane comes by.

Joseph has two different words for "spin."  One, pronounced "pin," refers to when he, himself, is spinning.  The other I haven't yet figured out how to transcribe, but it has two syllables and refers to spinning an object, like a top, a ball, a block, a coin.  Whether it's supposed to be one word, or a two-word command, the meaning is clear when he hands you an object:  "Spin it!"  You'd be surprised at how many items that are not tops can be made to spin. 

"Pin," on the other hand, can refer to being spun in someone's arms, or twirling himself around till he staggers with dizziness, or being spun on Mommy's office chair.  When he does the last sitting backwards and holding on to the seat back, it can be very fast, and produces an impressive postrotatory nystagmus.

He also likes this, sitting in his space capsule (backpack) and training for NASA.  The position makes up for the reduced rotational velocity.  At the end he is saying and signing, "more."

This was the first video, taken nearly two weeks ago to let Dad-o know that Joseph is thinking about him even though he isn't here with us.

We love you, Dad-o!

Here's an interesting article from Newsweekon the popularity of homeschooling with "urban, educated" parents.

We think of homeschoolers as evangelicals or off-the-gridders who spend a lot of time at kitchen tables in the countryside. And it’s true that most homeschooling parents do so for moral or religious reasons. But education observers believe that is changing. You only have to go to a downtown Starbucks or art museum in the middle of a weekday to see that a once-unconventional choice “has become newly fashionable,” says Mitchell Stevens, a Stanford professor who wrote Kingdom of Children, a history of homeschooling. There are an estimated 300,000 homeschooled children in America’s cities, many of them children of secular, highly educated professionals who always figured they’d send their kids to school—until they came to think, Hey, maybe we could do better.

We've come a long way in the 25+ years of my experience.  (Not that "evangelicals or off-the-gridders who spend a lot of time at kitchen tables in the countryside" comes close to being an accurate description of the home education movement at any time that I remember.  It was always much broader than that.)

One consequence of the increasing popularity of homeschooling is that there is now enough collective knowledge that journalists are less likely to write utter nonsense.  I found the article to be fairly accurate.  An exception would be the section equating homeschooling with attachment parenting, which they define as, "an increasingly popular approach that involves round-the-clock physical contact with children and immediate responses to all their cues."  This bizarre description makes it sound as if mothers continue to carry their eight-year-olds around in slings all the time.  No normal one-year-old would put up with that, let alone someone of school age.

Other than that, it's a pretty fair article, considering it was written by someone on the outside looking in.  And considering the really clueless articles that have been written on homeschooling over the years.

The real question is not, How Smart Is Your Baby? but How can you help your baby avoid losing his extraordiary powers as he grows up?  As the book of that name acknowledges, every normal baby is a born genius.  If you don't think so, take three years and try to become fluent in a foreign language.  Then remember that most babies can do that with ease.  For multiple languages.  Simultaneously.  And while learning the very concept of language itself.

Joseph and I try to take at least one walk each day.  Most of the time I'm the one doing the walking, and comes along passively in the stroller, because I don't get much exercise going at his pace, and that's half the point of the walk.  (The other half is giving his parents a break.)  Until recently, we'd go where I wanted to go.  But two days ago, Joseph started expressing his opinions in the matter.

He's usually pretty complacent and quiet as we trundle along, so I was shocked when he suddenly started fussing as we passed through an intersection on our way home.  I stopped, and he pointed in the cross direction, clearly indicating that he wanted to turn.  "Aha!"  I thought.  "I know where that road leads."

"Do you want to go see the goats?" I asked.  Joseph quickly signed, "Please."  I made the turn toward the dairy farm, and he was his happy self again.

I found that astonishing enough—that he was able to recognize the intersection.  But it was a straight line from that point on to the goats, and he'd been there many times before.

Then yesterday, when I had planned to walk to the nearby mall, Joseph once again fussed and pointed in another direction.  I decided to forgo shopping and give him his head.

At each intersection I stopped the stroller and asked, "Shall we go this way, or that way?" with appropriate gestures.  Even though I deliberately changed up the way I asked the question (so as not to give him any hints), he led me unerringly, without hesitation, and through many turns to one of his favorite places:  the swimming center, where there are also goats (chickens, peacocks, rabbits, etc.) to see.

But that's not where we stopped.  At the final turn, when I knew for certain that he knew where he was—because he could see the animals from the intersection—he chose to go left instead of right.  So left we went, and this time he led me—perfectly, and over a route that had changed recently due to construction, so he'd only been on it a few times—to the library.

I'd been that far before, but after the library I was in new territory.  I explored, following his directions, until we came to a main street, at which point he decided he didn't like that and asked to go turn around.  We explored a bit more, then I decided we'd had enough and headed back towards the library.  At that point Joseph fell asleep, so it's a good thing I knew how to get home.  But if we ever get lost, I'm asking him for directions.

My brother was like that as a child, though at an older age.  He might run off (as he did in Yellowstone National Park when he was six) but we could count on him to find his way back.  Unfortunately, he says, he lost much of that ability as he grew up.

So how can that loss be prevented?  Is such skill like a muscle that must be exercised regularly?  Use it or lose it?  It should be easy to devise "navigation games" and create increasingly difficult puzzles through the years, to keep the skill sharp.  But it would take a conscious effort to make that happen: no one seems to care about leaving no children behind navigationally.

Joseph's language abilities are growing steadily; it's amazing to see how much he has learned in the short time I've been here.  And that's just in English!  It is so strange to hear Swiss German words coming from his mouth, and to see that he obviously understands when Stephan speaks to him.  The latest game is for him to hand Janet one of his number puzzle pieces, whereupon she says (for example): Mommy and Grandma say nine.  The Germans say neun.  Daddy says nüün."  (The last two sentences are said not in English, but in German and Swiss German, respectively.)  Then Joseph gets her another number and asks, "more."  This is as close to formal language teaching as he gets—because he asks for it.  Mostly he just hears people speaking and figures it out, as all babies do.

Of course a 19-month-old does not speak clearly in any language.  Joseph has a few words that anyone can understand, but mostly it takes a parent, or a grandparent who has been living with him for a while, to make out what he is saying.  For example, it took me some time to realize that he knows the number "0," because the word he uses doesn't sound at all like "zero" to me.  But it is consistent and always associated with that number.  (And, no, it's not the German or Swiss German word; Joseph says "null" clearly.)

It's especially helpful that Janet has taught him many ASL signs.  It's too cute, really.  Please, thank you, help, water, sleep, milk, down, play, Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, airplane, train, and more, including the very useful toilet.  Joseph will often speak and sign at the same time, which helps me understand his speech, be it English, German, Swiss German, or Josephese.  I know I'm going to be helpless on the phone, though.

Note:  I love American Sign Language, but what sadist designed the sign for "please" to involve rubbing the hand on the chest?  No one who had to do the laundry after a toddler's spaghetti dinner or yoghurt-and-muesli breakfast, that's for sure.

And Vivienne?  Janet's beginning to learn the difference between the cry that means, "I'm hungry" and the cry that means, "I need to go to the bathroom."  But I'll let her write the post about Elimination Communication.  :)

Every day, after the noon meal, we follow the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer "Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families" noontime liturgy.  Joseph loves the time and is an active participant, as they use hand motions for many of the prayers.  (Some, at least, are a legacy of Janet's American Sign Language minor.)  For example, at "Give praise, you servants of the LORD" we raise our hands high in the air; at "in quietness and trust shall be our strength" we flex our biceps.

Then comes time for the reading, and Joseph jumps up to get the Bible for Daddy.  After that we pray. Before Vivienne was born, Joseph would put his hand on Janet's belly to "pray for the baby."  Now he puts his hand out, says "baby" and looks a little confused.  :)  After the Collect, he will often join in with a hearty, "Amen!"

That's it:  short but sweet and powerful.  It's especially delightful to watch Joseph's enthusiasm for "praise the Lord time."

As you might have guessed by the blog silence, we've been a little busy around here.  We have Baby News at last!

Vivienne Linda Stücklin
Born at home in Emmen, Switzerland
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 12:26 p.m.
Length: 53cm (21in)
Weight: 3840g (8lbs 7oz)

I would never say that anyone's labor was easy, and this certainly wasn't, but it was a WHOLE lot better than with Joseph.  Consequently, Janet is recovering quickly and enjoying little Vivienne immensely.  So, you might observe, is Grandma.

(Click photo to enlarge.)

Vivienne was only a few days late, but the wait seemed long because Joseph had been a week early.  Once Janet was sure she was in labor, Stephan's parents joined us to keep Joseph entertained.  He did get to see his sister's birth, though I'm sure he won't remember it in years to come.

Ten years ago, I had no idea why anyone would want a home birth.  Now it's glaringly obvious.  That could be a whole nother post.  For now, suffice it to say that hospitals and doctors are great when it comes to emergencies and high-risk circumstances, but haven't a clue when it comes to normal childbirth. What a difference an experienced midwife makes—and how wonderful to give birth in (and to be born into) one's own, familiar nest.

Joseph had a rough first day (and night—hence so did the parents), bursting into heart-rending tears every time Vivienne cried.  But Janet learned to calm him by enlisting his help in calming his sister, such as patting her gently.  By the next day he seemed to have accepted the idea that her cries were a form of communication.  He loves to give her kisses, and sometimes even suggests to Janet that "Baby" needs mommy milk.

Some of the old anxiety returned today when the doctor came and Vivienne cried more than usual (more accurately, her cry was a bit different from usual).  I think tomorrow she is getting her first heel stick; remembering how his cousin Jonathan curled up in a ball and sobbed, "I didn't want them to cut my baby's heel," I think we may try to distract him in another room when that happens.

Vivienne herself is doing great, working on advanced degrees in eating, sleeping, eliminating, and charming the world.

But for the rest of us, sleep is still a bit on the short side, and I am up 'way too late working on this post.  So, enough for now.

Welcome to our world, Vivienne!  Congratulations to the family, and good night to all!

Breakfast
An international child, Joseph might start his day with leftover pizza, or rice, or bread and peanut butter, or a tortilla with "spices" (more on that later).  But for the most part his breakfast is "no no bissi" a.k.a. yoghurt and muesli.  Unsweetened muesli and plain yoghurt—and he loves it.  His drink for all meals is water.  He feeds himself with a spoon quite competently, although as you can imagine some cleanup is required.

For breakfast I might have yoghurt and muesli, or cooked oatmeal, or good Swiss bread, or yummy, fresh Swiss eggs (with golden yolks).

Dinner
The noontime meal is the primary one here, because Daddy comes home from work to join us.  To the Swiss, the idea of a cold lunch is strange. I must say that cooking makes the morning seem short, but it's very nice to have an easy meal in the evening.

We've been eating very well.  Janet is a good cook, and has been experimenting with new meals that supposedly freeze well, doubling them to have a supply for ATB (after the baby is born).  The salutary habit of American churches of supplying families with post-childbirth meals seems to be unknown here.  We've had meatloaf, orange chicken, curried shrimp and rice, pizza, fondue, raclette, sausage dishes, and other good things I can't list because I can't remember, and only this week's menu is post on the refrigerator door.  :)

Joseph eats pretty much whatever the rest of us are having, feeding himself competently with some combination of fork and fingers.  The exception is sweets, which are mostly excluded from his diet, just as coffee, tea, beer, and wine are.  He is, however, beginning to realize that the adult "crackers" (cookies) taste better than his....

Supper
This is a lighter meal, often leftovers, or bread and cheese.  The Swiss do eat sandwiches, but it doesn't seem very common.  Again, Joseph eats bits and pieces of whatever the adults have.

Snacks
In Switzerland, it seems expected that children will eat more often than at mealtimes.  "znüüni" (at 9 a.m.) and "zvieri" (at 4 p.m.) are planned snacks, although Joseph gets his at varying times depending on our schedule.  He might have banana and peanut butter, or cheese, or bread, or "no no bissi," or almost anything else that is reasonably healthy.  One of his favorite snacks is "ti" with "pie-h'n" (spices)—tortilla sprinkled with something from the spice rack, from garlic powder to cinnamon.  Joseph would put spices on almost everything if allowed.  (Peanut butter toast with cinnamon, anyone?)  The only time he objected was when I gave him some of my pizza, which I had sprinkled with "pie-h'n" of my own—red pepper flakes.

Drinks
Joseph's drink at all meals, and in between, is water.  Occasionally he will have a small cup of milk, and once, when we squeezed some blood oranges, he had a few sips of the juice.  The fresh-squeezed juice was a real treat, especially for Janet and me, because no Floridian can be really happy with less than fresh-squeezed juice.  For breakfast, we usually drink "orange juice-like liquid" (orange juice from concentrate) from the store, as not-from-concentrate juice here isn't even as good as it is in the U.S., and it's expensive.

Unfortunately, I'm here in the wrong season to get the delicious unpasteurized cider from the farm down the road.  (The farmer expressed astonishment that cider must be pasteurized in the U.S.)

Janet's been drinking boring, store-bought milk since getting close to her due date, but the other day we walked to the diary farm and bought a liter of raw milk.  For dinner and supper we mostly drink water, but lately I've been indulging in the milk.  Unpasteurized milk really is a different sort of beast.  Normally I drink only skim milk, and can't abide even 1%, let alone whole milk.  But in its natural state, whole milk is delicious.

That's about it for this edition of Life with Joseph.  It's taken me three days to get this far, and those-who-can't-be-here are anxious for news.  Of course, the news they're most anxious for is a birth announcement, but I give what I can....

It's hard being a long-distance grandmother, whether the distance is 1000 miles or 4800.  Certainly I'd rather our grandchildren live just down the street!  But one compensation for the loss of frequent interaction is the joy of seeing how much the children change between visits.  As we await the time when I'll have baby news to announce, I'll share a few stories of life with Joseph, 18 months old and soon to assume the important role of big brother.

John Ciardi said that a child should be allowed to learn, "at the rate determined by her own happy hunger."  Joseph's current "happy hunger" is for letters and numbers.  He  has a wooden puzzle of the upper case alphabet that is the first toy he takes out in the morning, and again after his nap.  This was supplemented at Christmas by the nicest number puzzle I've seen, which includes the numbers from 0 through 20 and arithmetic operators as well.

First, he toddles over to the shelf for his alphabet, and then—because it is more difficult to reach—points to the number puzzle and commands, "Hum!" ["Numbers!"]  After naming the numbers and letters to himself and/or asking for them to be named, taking them out of the puzzle frame, putting them back in, and yes, throwing them with glee across the room—he is a little boy—he will get paper and a pencil and ask for various numbers and letters to be written, often adding his own scribbles, which, of course, look nothing like the models—yet.

Joseph knows all the letters, most by letter name (e.g. "bee," "ess," "tee"), some by "is for" (e.g. "cow" for C, "ha(wk)" for H.  He knows the numbers 0 - 10, 12, and 20.  Some are clear ("two, "ten") and some, such as seven and twenty, you have to know what he's saying, but it's consistent.

Not only does he know the pieces, and where they go, but he's also cognizent of what's missing, and worries until it is found.  Before dinner, and again at night, we help Joseph pick up the toys.  The other day he and I were working on the number puzzle, and Stephan the alphabet.  Stephan remarked to himself, "where's the Z?", finally found it (did I mention that the pieces get thrown around the room?), and put the puzzle where it belongs without announcing his success.  After Joseph and I finished the number puzzle, he went to Stephan and asked, "Zee?", content only when shown that it was in its proper place in the puzzle.

Just this morning Janet discovered that he also knows how to count, at least to six:  she was fixing dinner (which happens at noon here, because Daddy bikes home from work to join us), and Joseph was helping by handing her potatoes to weigh.  He handed her the first one, and announced, "one."  Then the second, followed by "two."  Then "three, four, five, six."  At the seventh and last potato, he hesitated, having forgotten; seven is one of his newest number words.  Our apologies to Glenn Doman and to the Right Start Math folks, who want children to lean quantities before they learn counting, but it was his idea.  We had no idea he could do it.  Then again, maybe he knows more quantities than we think.  He loves his daddy's Dots book.

Joseph is also very good at putting the pieces in their places on the puzzle board.  I remarked that he went very quickly from the "large knob puzzles" to being able to do this much harder variety, and Janet said, "Oh, he still can't do the large knob puzzles!  He gets frustrated quickly and gives up."  Which only confirms that children will work patiently and persistently to learn what they really love! 

Oh, I suppose I should mention that he's learning the letters and numbers in three languages....  I think he's more fluent with English at this point, though really, how would I know?

Joy for a grandmother's heart, especially a grandmother whose college major was math.  :)

Joseph is SO much fun.  His two favorite toys are his wooden alphabet puzzle, and his new-for-Christmas wooden number puzzle (0 - 20, with +, -, x, {division), < (works flipped for >) and =).  He's passionate about them; first thing in the morning, and again after his nap, he goes immediately for them.  He knows all the letters, most by letter name (e.b. "bee," "ess," "tee"), some by "is for" (e.g. "cow" for C, "ha(wk)" for H.  He knows the numbers 1 - 10, 12, and 20, and sometimes gets 0 but not consistently.  Some of numbers are clear ("two, three") and some, such as seven and twenty, you have to know what he's saying, but it's consistent.  And he's very good at putting the pieces in their places on the puzzle board.  I remarked that he went very quickly from the "large knob puzzles" to being able to do this much harder version, and Janet said, "Oh, he still can't do the large knob puzzles!  He gets frustrated quickly and gives up."  But he's so obsessive about the letters and numbers that he worked persistently enough to get good at them.  One of his favorite activities is to give me a piece of paper and a pencil and ask me to write letters and numbers.

He's also a very good-natured and calm child.  We shall see how that plays out when there is another little one in the house!

A Facebook discussion set me to pondering what I have learned through the years about necessary and unnecessary stress at Christmastime.  Yes, I think there is such a thing as necessary stress.  The discussion was prompted by this quotation from Ann Voskamp:  Whenever Christmas begins to burden, it’s a sign that I’ve taken on something of the world and not of Christ. Any weight in Christmas has to be of this world.

I appreciate the point, but I beg to differ, slightly.

The Christmas season, like all other seasons, has its own burdens and blessings. The work that goes into it, like the work that goes into life, can be delightful and can be stressful. I don't think it's a sign that we're doing something not of Christ just because it's stressful or burdensome.  Good things take work.  Labor, as in the birth of a baby.  The more effortless a work of art looks, and the more joy it brings to others (inspiring musical performance; smoothly-running household; creative, confident, well-behaved children), the more labor you can assume went into it.  Yet there's no denying that we can get so caught up in the effort that we miss the point, be it Christmas, or a wedding, or life itself.

Here are some things we've done, or not done, over the years, that made a difference to our Christmas stress level.  Your mileage may vary.

Media exposure.  One of the best decisions we ever made was to severely limit the presence of television in our home.  This included—for good reason—videos and public television, but it was the lack of commercial TV that made the greatest difference at Christmastime.  Our children didn't beg for toys they didn't know existed and certainly didn't know they "needed."  That wasn't our motivation for banishing children's television programs from our lives, but it was an especially helpful benefit.

Santa Claus.  I grew up with the excitement of the jolly ol' guy, but we decided to tell our children from the beginning that honoring the real St. Nicholas had evolved into a fun, but fictional, Christmas story.  I won't say that Santa never delivered gifts to our house—there were grandparents' wishes to consider—but we never, ever, stood in a long line, or paid ridiculous prices, or fought over the last Tickle Me Elmo just because our children had asked Santa, and Santa was expected to deliver.  (That line never worked in my childhood, but somehow expectations have grown over the years.)

Loss of anticipation.  Despite the absence of a too-generous Santa, our children did not lack for presents and other reasons for looking forward to Christmas.  But they never experienced the long period of anticipation I remember.  In my childhood, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Chistmas  j-u-s-t  d-r-a-g-g-e-d.  Life is busier now, and children feel time flying in a way that was once only an adult curse.  Holiday stress has no age limits.

 Christmas parties.  Every organization or activity we or our children were involved in felt it necessary to have a Christmas party, complete with gift exchange, during the busiest and most expensive season of the year.  I don't know why:  the secular organizations had no need to celebrate Christmas, and the churches should have realized that Advent / Christmas Eve / Christmas / Epiphany worship services are a much better excuse for a celebration than "we have to have parties because everyone else does."  I realize that some people are energized by such events, but I could have drastically reduced my stress level by declining at least half of the Christmas events we were invited to.  I would much, much rather have baked and decorated cookies at home than attended parties, yet more often than not the latter squeezed out the better.

Christmas traditions.  Frankly, I don't have any answers here.  I still grieve over not having established our own family's holiday traditions, and for letting some treasures from my past fall by the wayside.  For years we celebrated Thanksgiving with my in-laws; after that, we joined my family's gathering at my sister's house.  Our children have wonderful memories of time spent with our extended families, which is of infinite value ... but no memories of Thanksgiving at home.  Christmastime was usually spent at our house, but always with company, usually my in-laws.  This was a great treasure, and I wouldn't trade it.  But it was also stressful, as we accommodated their desires (e.g. Santa Claus), and in the time crunch I dropped some of my own cherished Christmas traditions.  Why stress ourselves with making and decorating cookies (precious memories from my childhood) when we knew Grandma would bring piles of wonderful food with her?  This was one of the "if only I were more organized" stresses:  couldn't I have fit it all in, somehow?  Without a doubt, family is far more important (and fun) than a particular cookie tradition.  But there's still a loss, and a stress to deal with.

We've been part of our church's Christmas services for nearly as long as our kids have been alive, in some combination of childen's choir, adult choir, Christmas musicals, Scripture reading, and/or setup and takedown.  Overall this is a great thing, and I find it hard to "do congregation," especially in churches where congregations don't do all that much.  Active involvement is both educational and inspirational.  But it also has its losses and stresses, from missing the neighborhood Santa drive-by (small loss, I think, but the kids loved getting the candy he tosses); to staying up into the wee hours of Christmas morning finishing tasks, having returned from church well after midnight; to burdening our guests with the choice of (1) be at church with us for a long time, sometimes attending multiple services, (2) providing their own transportation (difficult when the church was a complicated 40-minute drive from home), or (3) staying home without us, whom they had come long distances to be with.  On the plus side, what with the exhuastion and staying up late, we rarely had to deal with early-rising children on Christmas morn.

Gift giving.  This deserves a post to itself, but I'll try to keep it short.  A gift, whether inexpensive or costly, can be a precious expression of love, or at least appreciation.  But there's no question gift giving can be a problem, even without Santa in the picture.

• For a long time I was embarrased about the number of gifts under our tree, but I've gotten over that.  Even though we had only two children, we always had visitors for Christmas to swell the present pile, and we have many generous relatives.  We also made a point of wrapping as gifts things most families probably just buy as a matter of course, such as clothing (yes, even underwear), educational materials, and other necessities of life, just because it's so much fun to watch people unwrap presents—and they were never ungrateful, not even for the underwear.  Most of the generous relatives were good about sending useful presents, too.
• The number of presents wasn't the only reason it took us all morning and most of the afternoon to open our gifts.  It was important to us to treasure each gift (even the underwear), so we opened gifts slowly, and two gifts were never opened at the same time, no matter how many people were in the room.  All attention was focused on one person, one gift.  I can't say strongly enough how wonderful this custom was for us.  Every gift was treasured, every giver thanked in person (or the gift carefully noted down if the giver was not present).  The ungrateful do not deserve gifts.  Thankfully, we never had to enforce this.
• Unfortunately, we were pretty bad about thank-you notes.  We almost always got them out, but much later than we should have.  I don't know why it was so difficult.  The children were truly thankful, but getting them (or, to be honest, myself) to put pen to paper was a battle.  But, really,  how hard can it be?  If I were doing it over, I'd include under the tree a special box of notecards for each child, and make a point of sitting down at the beginning of each subsequent day and writing one thank-you note.  Even with our generous family, they'd have been finished before Epiphany.  Let me add that, in these days of multiple means of communication, I wouldn't insist on hand-written, need-a-stamp notes, although those are always lovely to get.  But whether expressed through letter, e-mail, phone, Skype, SMS, IM, or Facebook, what the giver wants to know is:  Did the gift arrive?  Was it broken or defective in any way?  What do you like about it?  What don't you like about it?  Here is a great opportunity for a lesson in basic courtesy:  how to thank someone for his thoughtfulness and generosity while letting him know that at age 12 you really don't want any more pink elephant slippers.  Trust me, the giver has better things to do with his money than to give you presents you don't want.  And please, mention gifts individually.  "Thank you for the presents" meets the bare minimum requirements, but does not satisfy a loving and generous heart.
• If I were doing it again, I'd fret less about some of the gifts our children received that didn't fit well with our priorities and values.  There was never anything truly awful—though in my opinion, a Barbie doll comes close—but I don't think they were scarred for life by being given stick-on plastic earrings and play nail polish.  Relatives are good for expanding one's horizons.
• Charity gift catalogues (e.g. World Vision, Compassion, Heifer Project) are a gimmick, I know, but nonetheless a very effective and educational way to involve children in contributing to those in need.  And I think the donation of a goat, or a bicycle, or an anti-malaria bed net would be just perfect for those otherwise meaningless Christmas party gift exchanges.  I wouldn't go as far as this family (the same Ann Voskamp mentioned above) and have no gifts at all under the tree:  receiving gifts is not only a joy for children but also a lesson in thankfulness.  And anyway, what would we do without underwear?  But the basic concept is worth working into our gift-giving, one way or another.  Buy a few extra items to keep on hand during the year, too.  They won't spoil (you get a card; the gift has already been given) and you'll have an easy present to pull out when needed.
• When I read, years ago, about a woman who had all her Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving, I knew I could never be so efficient.  Deadlines inspire me, but they must be real deadlines:  I'm no good at mentally determining to be done by a certain time if my gut knows I really have another two weeks.  But for the past several years, Thanksgiving has been a real deadline, because that's when our family gets together, and we all like to save on postage.  True, it's a soft deadline—I can and do still shop in December—but it's solid enough to spur me into action a month early.  It's an awesome feeling to go into December (and Advent) with much of the labor completed!
• What I really want to do is gather Christmas gifts slowly, all year 'round.  This is harder to do for children of a certain age, whose interest in a particular item may not be sustained from February to December, or for things that people might buy for themeselves in the interim.  But that still leaves a number of possibilities, from consumables (food, sandpaper, crayons) to items you know someone would love but would not treat himself to.
• We need to get over our embarrassment about homemade gifts.  Few things say love like something that takes time and effort rather than a credit card.  Homemade jam and hand-knit sweaters were always big hits at our house.  Just don't take anything homemade to a Christmas party gift exchange, where for reasons I still don't understand, mockery is frequently mistaken for humor.

What has helped—or hindered—your celebration of Christmas?

A phrase from George McDonald sums up how I'd like to approach this season of blessing and stressing.  Labor without perturbation, readiness without hurry, no haste and no hesitation.  For the visual thinkers and chart-minded among us, I've created a graph that I find helpful in determining whether or not a particular Christmas activity is worthwhile for me.

The y-axis, Duty, represents the importance of a project or activity, whether in my own mind or imposed by others; the x-axis, Delight, is a measure of the joy received as a result of my participation.  There is nothing mathematical about the placement of the adjectives within a quadrant; they are merely suggestive.

A given type of event may fit into any of the four quadrants.  For example, the Christmas party.

The first quadrant is all positive; this is where you want to be.  For me, it would be a small gathering of good friends, where we take our voices and various instruments on a carolling tour of the neighborhood, preferably on a still, quiet night with a few snowflakes falling.  Then we'd repatriate and warm up by a cheerful fire with cups of steaming cocoa and an assortment of snacks and cookies.  (Yes, I'm aware that I live in Florida.)  

Quadrant Two might be your office Christmas party, which you dread, but you know that if you don't show up—with a smile and a gag gift—your boss will consign you to the "not a team player" abyss.  Grit your teeth, take a good attitude with you, and please try to stay out of trouble.

The third quadrant is bad all around:  no fun and no good reason to be there.  Perhaps it's your church's production of The Young Messiah, served with Crystal Light lemonade and peanut butter cookies, which you know will distress your ears, your brain, your stomach, and your musical sensibilities.  You like to support church activities, but they're expecting an enthusiastic crowd of three hundred and you will not be missed.  Cross this one off your list with gratitude and a sigh of relief.

Quadrant Four is where you'll find the chocolate cake of life:  Not good for you, but not harmful in limited quantities.  Perhaps your neighbors are staging a back-to-back showing of your favorite Christmas television specials.  No one will be offended if you stay home, and you don't anticipate any benefit, not even a chance for conversation—no one but you appreciates pausing a show to discuss the philosophical implications of the Ghost of Christmas Present, or the symbolic significance of the Island of Misfit Toys—but you would love to see A Charlie Brown Christmas again.  The greatest danger with activities from this quadrant is that it is too easy to let them accumulate until they've multiplied stress by crowding out Quadrants One and Two.

I see the Ann Voskamp quotation as unrealistically one-dimensional:  Anything that is not in Quadrant One must be in Quadrant Three.  I suggest that the Christmas season, like life, cannot be reduced so neatly—not even to my two-dimensional analysis.  But in any case, a reasoned consideration of what contributes to a joyful celebration and what detracts should lead us in the direction of a

Merry Christmas!

Which is an appropriate activity for Advent.