Kid's Eye View

The other night Ava and Nate took turns taking pictures while we were all hanging out outside. It makes me laugh to see what they took pictures of. And also, to see ourselves from the vantage point that they usually have of us.

It's easy to forget what it's like being a little person.




They love taking pictures of themselves. Especially Ava. She loves having her picture taken. She gets that from me, I admit. My parents have always said, "Amy always knows where the camera is!" That, even as a little girl--in group photos and solitary shots, I would always look straight into the lens and smile. All the other kids in the photo would be doing something else, looking elsewhere but me. So I guess Ava comes by it honestly. And don't tell anyone, but I still take photos of myself from time to time. What?

Ava took this next one of Nate when he wanted her to give him the camera. She was refusing in that infuriating way that only older siblings can do. Jason and I saw this picture afterward and just died laughing.

Bless him--look how frustrated he is! Do you remember that kind of impotent rage you'd feel as a kid sometimes? Like, this is so unfair!! And instead of being sensitive to his needs she does what any big sister would--she takes a picture of him. Mocking his pain! Like, "Who's got the camera now, huh?"

Of course, Nate responded in kind by taking a picture of Ava getting in trouble after said incident. Justice is served, eh, Nate? In your face, Ava!

Dads--if they're not protecting us from spiders, then they're bringin' the smackdown. It's a busy job.

Just another peaceful, harmonious evening on the homefront. We all roasted marshmallows and sang after these were taken.



Or maybe Nate just sneered at Ava a little more. Either way, it was a good evening.

Nature, I take back everything I ever said about you.

Because when a girl is on day 26 of a 30 day blogfest and needs a topic, you step into the breach. You represent. And for that, I salute you.

Last night, we decided to have dinner outside, as it was a lovely evening. Anytime we eat in our courtyard, Jason always checks for spiders underneath our chairs. The little ones love to hide under there, and several times Jason has found Red Back spiders there. It's kind of like that Oprah show where she told everyone to look under their seat, cause there was key to a new car under one of them. Except, remember? Everyone had a key under their seat. And she was all pointing and yelling, "Yougetacar! Yougetacar! You! You!" It's a little bit like that.

Except this time with spiders. And Oprah isn't here. I guess it's here that the analogy really starts to fall apart, huh?

So Jason looks for spiders.

See? There he is back there, doing his job and making sure no one dies. Thanks, babe. You're good like that.

And it was there, under that chair, that he found this:

We think it's a Red Back, cause it's about the same size and has the red marking, but it has all these white markings too. It could be something else I guess. What? I'm not a spiderologist, y'all. But isn't it kind of pretty?

Of course, I can say that because we killed it shortly after checking it out and I don't have to worry about it, like, crawling on me while I sleep.
Now it would've been really awesome if the spider woulda had the key to a new car tied around his little abdomen. Hey, Oprah can do anything.

In other news, there is a seriously huge iceberg afloat off the coast of Australia.

The article said it's the length of 7 football fields! It's actually floating about halfway between here and Antarctica. But dang! That's not something you see everyday. And with the weather we've been having, I wish it would float a little closer. Think of all the snow cones! See? Maybe global warming isn't so bad after all. (Thanks to my friend Amy for sending me the link to this story!)

And that is all I have to say about those things. All this talk of snow cones has made me want a popsicle. To my American peeps, Happy Thanksgiving! Wish I was there! When you eat cornbread and mashed potatoes, think of me, will you? I hope you have a great day surrounded by people you love and who love you, too! (Well, actually I hope that for everyone.)

P.S. Wanna see more creepy spiders? You can read about our latest encounter here.

And now for something completely different

I've been thinking a lot lately about my friends Bill and Cheryl Darnell. Jason and I went to college with them, Cheryl and I were roommates, we were in each other's weddings. We go way back and have lots of silly stories. The kind you acquire in your university days. Like the time Cheryl, me, and our other roomies systematically stole a complete set of silverware from the campus cafeteria. As you do. There was a good reason for that at the time, I'm sure! Or how we tried to begin a new jogging regimen but would collapse in exhaustion after a few blocks and decide to go get Slurpees instead. Those were good days.

After Jase and I moved to Sydney, Cheryl and I still kept in touch sporadically, and I kept up via email as she and Bill moved to Colorado and had two beautiful children. They were living where they'd always wanted to live and doing great. Then, in March 2008 I got a voicemail that Cheryl and Bill's 5 month old son, Billy Jr., had gone to sleep one night and not awakened in the morning. Of course, it came as a terrible, terrible shock to them and was classified as a SIDS death. Any parent thinks of this as a remote possibility, but now my close friends were actually living through it. I ached for them.

Over the past year and a half, Cheryl and I have talked on the phone quite a bit. She has shared with such transparency how tough it's been at times. I have listened as she has shared their journey through that initial, crushing grief and I've been amazed to see the resolve, strength, and grace with which they've lived. And I, along with all their friends and family, was overjoyed to hear when they unexpectedly got pregnant again last year. Their son, Nathan Ryan was born within days of the first anniversary of little Billy's death.

As amazing as their story is, why am I telling you about it? Through their own experience with SIDS and the emotional, financial and relational fallout it brings, they have started a new foundation: SIDS America. The mission is actually to provide financial and emotional assistance to families who have lost children to SIDS.


Here's Cheryl, Bill and Avery with Billy Jr.

Before talking with Bill and Cheryl, I'd never thought about the fact that these parents often are still paying for the birth of their child when they tragically have to also be paying funeral expenses. For many families, the financial burden is crushing, and can be a great strain in what is already an incredibly trying time. In less than a year, after starting with almost nothing at all, they have been able to financially assist 15 families and have launched a fundraising initiative to do much more.

I'm telling you, I just admire and love these guys so much. At a time when no one would think less of them for turning inward and just taking care of themselves, they are reaching out to help others. I am trying to make others aware of their efforts because they are currently trying to get 500 online donations during the month of November. If they can do this, some donors have pledged to give $2500 toward their cause. Even a donation of $1 counts.

SIDS is a hard thing to talk about. It may not be something you wanted to read about today. As a mother of a five month old baby, you better believe there are things I'd rather be thinking about! In reality though, I have been so enriched to hear the hope and strength that exudes from my friends, and how it is now spilling over into the lives of others. And I really believe in honoring those who take what is in their hand and use it to bless people.

I know this is a busy, busy time but if you have a chance before the end of November, please check out the SIDS America site, and read more about what Bill and Cheryl are about. You can also read a story about them from the Dallas NBC affiliate here. Bill and Cheryl, y'all are my heroes!

Thanks for reading this! Now, come back tomorrow and I'll tell you about a ginormous iceberg and a tiny, freaky-looking spider.

Exercises in Futility

Here are some of mine from today:

--Explaining to a four year old why he can't go swimming.

Reasons like, "It's raining." and "It's time for dinner" and "It is lightning outside" simply don't cut it. Nate's response to all these? "But I don't mind!" I finally talked him out of it by letting him take a bubble bath with food coloring in the water. (Insert cliche about desperate times here.)


--Trying to finish all the laundry at once. I am certain that this will never actually happen. There is a story in the Bible about a widow who was nearly out of oil and flour to make bread. She decided to make one more loaf of bread, knowing that after it was gone that she would starve. Then, the prophet Elijah comes and stays at her home and miraculously, there is always a little more oil and a little more flour left in the jars. I seem to have the same thing happening in my laundry room. Perhaps Elijah is buried in there somewhere, hidden under the pile of damp towels or Nate's mismatched socks.

--Trying to figure out what someone wants or thinks when they won't just tell you. This is actually an issue in a few areas of my life right now! One in particular is another mom at the school. She is from another country and I have tried to befriend her. Her communication style, though, is so stilted and abrupt that I can't ever really tell what she wants: if she wants her daughter to come play at our house, if she's inviting me for coffee because it's expected or because she wants me to come over, if she's saying no to my offer of something to eat at my house because she's not hungry or if I'm supposed to ask a few more times before she'll say yes. I'm usually pretty good at this whole relational, cross-cultural kind of thing, but man! This woman is wearing me out. She called three times during the chaos of Ava's birthday party to sort of kind of but not really ask if I would bring her daughter home from the party. I didn't mind doing that, which I told her. However, we ended one conversation with her saying she would come get her daughter. Ok, I said, with 15 screaming girls in the background. Then she called back an hour later and asked if I could bring her home. Yes, fine, no problem! Then she called again to make sure it was okay and that she could come if I needed her to. I'm exhausted all over again just recounting it! This surface-level casual relationship is requiring more maintenance than my marriage. I think she and I should agree to see other people.

--Playing Jenga with previously mentioned four year old.Let's just say that the finesse required to ease out those little blocks from the bottom of the stack isn't one of Nate's many talents. Though I admire Jason for trying. However, Nate is much more interested in "accidentally" bumping the tower. It was fun to watch, though!

--Trying to figure out why your baby is crying. I mean, when there are no obvious reasons. Is she overtired? Is she not tired enough? Is she hot? Is she cold? Is it the Chicken Pad Thai I had for lunch? (I hope not, cause I was kinda wanting to have it again for dinner.) I have been known to construct elaborate theories around these types of baby-related issues. And they usually turn out wrong. Some things are just mysteries, I guess. Like Stonehenge. And crop circles. Grace crying for an hour and a half tonight after I put her to bed is up there with Easter Island.

Any futile efforts in your life lately?

The beginning of a beautiful relationship

Tonight I gave Grace some rice cereal for the first time. She's really been watching us eat lately, and is starting to try and grab at things that we're eating. To be honest, I'm never eager to start doing the whole baby food thing. Mostly cause I'm kind of lazy. And when you're breastfeeding, that means the food is always on hand and ready to go with no preparation! But at five and a half months, I thought, maybe she's ready to try food. Well, I think it was less than what she'd hoped for.


She's looking at me like, "Umm, and we're doing this because...?". Poor thing. I mean, this stuff is blander than bland. Like cotton balls but with less interesting texture. She spit most of it out, but it was fun to watch her face. Yes, we all laughed at her expense.


Hang in there, sweetie. It will get better, I promise. There's always Spam.

It's a very fine mist. More like a sheen.

What I need to tell you about today is that I have started spritzing Grace before every sleeptime. I have a little spray bottle in her room, and before I lay her down, I turn on a fan and mist her with water. She looks at me with surprise, but she doesn't seem to mind. My hope is that it's cooling her down enough so that she can sleep more comfortably. You know how, in the produce section, they spray the fruits and veggies down with little hoses? It's kinda like that. She's my little cantaloupe.

I am so like a pioneer woman. Relying on my wits and God-given resources to survive. Before you know it, I will be, like, shooting bears and stuff. If we had bears here. We don't really. Koalas aren't bears, did you know that? It's a common misconception. They're marsupials. Not that I would shoot one if they were bears. They're kind of small anyway and probably not worth the effort.

I am going to go and spritz myself now. Seems like I need it. Any other baby misters out there? Or baby spritzers? Which sounds better?

Potted Meat and Mysterious Pellets, It's Not You. It's Us.

As I stood in the pantry tonight looking for the last serving of Easy Mac, I realized that we have a lot of stuff in there that will never, no never be eaten. Not by us, anyway. I decided it's time to begin liberating that stuff. Cause, some of it, I honestly have no idea where it came from.

One reason for that may be because we have lots and lots of houseguests. A good amount of people are in and out of here, and some of them leave their food with us! Another reason is that we have a massive pantry. The kids play in there, it's so big. So there's room for alot of stuff we never use to sit there unnoticed for a long time. I am embarrassed to admit this, as it sounds so decadent. I know this is one of those "first world problems". But some of this stuff, I honestly can't see being much use to anyone.

Isn't the Internet a beautiful thing? Where else could I show you the contents of my pantry and assume that anyone would care? Here's few things I dug out:

Okay, so starting on the left. Marmite, which I told you about before. I opened it and smelled it just now, and wow. Let's just say it must be an acquired taste. But we have to keep this around for our friends that like it. So it stays. Then we have Cornflour. I bought this almost exactly four years ago, while preparing for our first Thanksgiving dinner here. I was searching in vain for corn meal. If you ever try to make cornbread in Australia, let me save you some time and tell you that you can't get corn meal here. The bewildered shelf stocker at the grocery store handed me the cornflour instead, saying maybe it was what I needed. It wasn't. Incidentally, that's where culture shock really gets you: the little moments. The times that you expect something to be there, or think it will just be a certain way and it just isn't. And no one seems to be bothered by that but you. I remember being disproportionately bothered by that little bag of cornflour. And don't even get me started on the time I was looking for plastic Easter eggs. I almost flew home.

Next, a can of Malaysian Laksa soup. No idea where this came from. Malaysia, I have no issue with you, but I will not eat your soup. I will not eat it in a boat. I will not eat it with a goat. I don't know how many laksas were killed to go into that can, but it is wasted on me. Then, we have a jar of Cranberry Sauce. I also bought this at Thanksgiving one year, thinking it would be analogous to, you know, cranberries. It really isn't. Carrying on with our fruit theme is a ginormous jar of Morello cherries. I bought this cause I was making an ill-fated pineapple upside down cake and they don't have maraschino cherries here. Go here to read that tragic tale. They kind of have a sharp taste and I don't really know what to do with them now.

Finally, a bottle of Organic Apple Cider Vinegar. Jason's mom bought this once when she was here, cause it's 'sposed to be really good for you. She even had a little book about it. I'm sure it is good for me, but I don't know what to do with it, and honestly, it will probably continue to sit on the shelf. I will add, though, that on the jar it says: "An important feature is that the 'MOTHER' has not been killed by pasteurization." No clue what this means. But I guess it's good that no mothers were killed. That is a cause I can get behind. Well done, Organic Apple Cider Vinegar. Keep fighting the good fight. But fight it somewhere else.

Okay, I'll come back to that first one. Cause it ain't yogurt, that much I do know. Next, this can of creamed corn will not get eaten. I have a recipe for creamed corn from Jason's mom that is to die for, but I can't abide the canned stuff. The best part of corn is it crunchiness! Why mess with that, I ask you? Also I noticed that we have two boxes of Turkish Delight. I'm not sure why we have this, someone must have given it to us. (If it was you, thanks! You are the sweetest.) I feel the need, though, to burst the bubble of anyone who has read "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe". Edmund betrays Aslan and his siblings for Turkish Delight, right? So when I had the chance to have some I thought, Dang this stuff is gonna be so good. Um, not so much. It's this chewy gel type stuff covered in chocolate. But the taste of the two mixed together is not a happy taste. There was not a party in my mouth.

Now, the Spam. I have a pretty good idea who brought this. I'm looking at you, Mom. I know how you feel about Spam and other potted meat products. But to me, it just looks and smells like cat food. But if you like, I'll save it for when you come visit next year. We all know it will be in the exact condition it is now. This can of Light Coconut Cream is for folks who make curry, I think. I am just not a curry maker and not usually a curry eater, either. Rosemary, say the word and it's yours!

Finally, the mysterious Yoplait container that contains something that is Not Yogurt. Here's a picture of what's inside:

Mmmmm. As I always say, nothing says "Eat me" like little dusty gray pellets. Whoever left this at our house has graciously left the label from its original bag behind as well. I haven't googled it yet, but I think these are those little balls that people put in those tea-type drinks. Y'all know what I'm talking about? I think the balls are made of tapioca or something. I had one a few years ago and all I know is those little balls had the texture and consistency of snot. Sorry, there's just no delicate way to say that. I get the shivers just thinking about it. In Dallas, there were stores that sold all kinds of different flavored drinks with these ball thingys in them. People love 'em--I know that, but we do not. To me, it's like, "Hmmm, would I like my snot ball drink to have a lemony flavour or a hint of passionfruit?" It just ain't happening. So these dried-out phlegm pellets are getting chucked. (Do you think that sentence has ever been written before?)

Thus ends the first installment of Stuff We Have But Won't Eat. I feel so much lighter now. Hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have!