Point of View

So, yeah.  I haven't been writing much lately.  I've returned to teaching, though I don't think that's the main culprit.  January is, in general, so blah.  The weather, the end of college football, the Christmas decorations that linger . . . blah.  I think perhaps most of the blame for my idle keyboard can be placed on Trey, who gave me an iPad for Christmas.  It's fantastic, & serves many purposes, however, it's no MacBook & thus, I don't sit & type.  Nevertheless, my book club met a few weeks ago, & that discussion has been lingering in my mind, & has now festered to the point that I've set my iPad aside for a moment.

Take a Bow, Mr. Orwell

Pronouns

To begin the year, a brief discussion of pronouns.  That's right, pronouns.

In the text I use in my English classes, there's an entire chapter dedicated to pronouns.  A pronoun, of course, is a word that takes the place of a noun or another pronoun.  Initially, students are usually perplexed that we're going to spend several class periods discussing pronouns.  Pronouns are easy, they say.  As we delve into pronoun case, a lecture that ends with the forever problematic who/whom & whoever/whomever issue, they begin to rethink their original assessment of pronouns.  Who & whoever, by the way, are subjective, while whom & whomever are objective.  Here's a hint: always think of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.  It's not For Who the Bell Tolls, because whom is the object of the preposition for, hence = objective case.  This isn't always helpful to my students since most of them have never heard of For Whom the Bell Tolls.  *Eye roll*

A pronoun must always agree with its antecedent.  If the antecedent is singular, so too is the pronoun that takes its place; if the antecedent is masculine, so too is the pronoun that takes its place.  My text refers to pronouns as feminine, masculine, & neuter, or gender neutral (such as it), & this always gets a laugh from several students.  

If you're still reading, I'm reaching my point, I promise.  Earlier this week, I received a call from my doctor's office.  They were rearranging Dr. Sheppard's always hectic schedule & wanted to know if I could see her this week instead of next, as originally scheduled.  Given that I currently have no schedule as I've not resumed teaching, I gladly said that was fine.  They moved my doctor's appointment up a week & also offered to go ahead with the eighteen week ultrasound that was scheduled for January 10th.  Thus, it is with joy & a bit of surprise that has yet to subside as of the time I write this that I announce that Reagan's younger sibling can now officially be referenced as he.

During the early months of both my pregnancies, it was bothersome to me when people referred to the baby as it, because a baby is definitely not neuter, or gender neutral, & these instances always made me think of my pronoun lecture.  Yeah, you don't want to know what goes on inside my head.  Perhaps a word or two later about the detrimental push for gender neutrality in our culture.

Here he is:

He's sucking his thumb in this one:

I know you can't tell he's a boy in any of these, but out of respect for my unborn child, I'm not going to post those pics online.  He's a he, I promise.  I knew it the moment the technician placed the wand on my belly.    

 We're told all looks well.  I am measuring a little larger than 17 weeks; I always measured a little ahead with Reagan as well.  He appears to have long limbs, like his sister, who is currently seeing eye to eye with a few four-year-olds we know.  I'm happy the appointment was moved up a week, because now I can spend my last week of Winter Break figuring out what to do with the mounds of girl clothing we've accumulated in the last two years.  My first thoughts upon realizing he is a he were these:

-Oh, I have so many girl clothes

-Now I can buy tiny argyle sweater vests

-I have a son

-It's not true that you're sicker when carrying a girl

-Only one wedding to pay for

I've got to go.  Since moving in our house a year ago, we haven't done much with the front bedroom, though the closet is full of tubs of Reagan's clothes.  The plan is to pull out all the gender neutral stuff (which is basically a few white onesies), & I guess haul the rest to the attic.  I need an empty closet to work with considering that my mom left the doctor's office after the ultrasound & headed to Spoiled Rotten to buy boys Christmas clothes on sale, size: 6 months.  Oh boy.  

  

AZ 

Reagan's December

As the year draws to a close, I've nothing profound to say.  I'm exhausted from the recent holidays, the year's many disheartening political turns, a steadily growing belly, & contemplating the best way to brace for the fiscal cliff over which our inept leaders are about to plunge us.

Absent words, I end the year with a montage of Reagan, comprised mainly of pictures from her second birthday party & recent Christmas merriment.  Many thanks to Reagan's Aunt Jessica, who took most of these photos.

The Gentle Slope

Winter Break

Well, December is marching on & bringing with it all that this month entails, which for me is a slew of birthdays.  Trey turned thirty-four last week, & Reagan & my dad turn two & XX today, both lucky thirteen babies.  Last year at this time, in addition to birthdays & the general holiday hustle, Jessica's wedding was approaching & Trey & I were preparing to move, so this year seems pretty relaxed in comparison.  All of my fall grades have been submitted, which may mean nothing to you, but brings me considerable joy.  I'm getting a much needed haircut today & preparing for a family gathering to celebrate Reagan's second birthday.  It will, of course, be a nautical themed party featuring all things Ariel.  Jessica & Heath are slated to arrive in the twin cities sometime tonight, which means, among other things, that soon Jessica & I will go see Breaking Dawn, Part II as she's been busy finishing law school & has yet to to see the final Twilight film.  Priorities, you know?

Part of Your World

Perhaps no four words in the Bible carry as much weight as these four, found in John's gospel: ". . . the Word became flesh."  They're words much of the world will hear this month as Christmas approaches.

Defying Gravity

Things are happening fast.  Or, perhaps I am simply moving slowly, but I find myself with a photo logjam I must rectify.

A few Saturdays ago, our church had a Fall Festival at Kiroli Park.  Though it was past Halloween, the kids wore their costumes & enjoyed the merriment while I & many other adults checked our phones for updates on the Alabama/A&M score.  While Alabama's one loss may not keep them out of the title game, it's always fantastic to watch them lose, & it somewhat improved what had been an otherwise dismal week, for me personally & for all Americans who value hard work & personal responsibility.

The Final Countdown

Last year around this time I purged myself of my need to defend Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, laying it all out in a blog post.  To be clear, I find the content of her books praiseworthy, not the overly cheesy movies that omit significant portions of Meyer's original text.  Nonetheless, it is what she wrote that sells the movie tickets (well, her writing + Robert Pattinson).  I still stand by that defense, & I'm too tired & pregnant to say much more. If you doubt my lack of stamina, consider that at midnight tonight, as thousands of women stand in lines, hustle into theaters, & sit down to munch on popcorn as they wait, for the fifth & final time, for Edward Cullen to grace the screen, I will be tucked in bed asleep.  I am not planning to see the final Twilight film until Sunday evening, believe it or not, when I'll join a group of friends, one of whom is driving from Colorado.  Okay, she's coming home for Thanksgiving, but still, I'm delaying watching the movie until she's here.  That is friendship.

To My Fellow Elves

Laboring

I'm warning you, you may want to slice yourself some cheese before reading any further, because this post is heavy on the whine.

I think it's unfortunate that most people assume labor refers to the hours during which a pregnant woman, having carried her child to term, attempts to coax her baby out of her body.  Let me tell you, I am laboring now.  I enjoy good health; I've never broken a bone or had a kidney stone (both experiences I've been told are more painful than childbirth), so I don't have much to look to for comparison, but I can say with certainty that this past week has been one of the most physically challenging weeks of my life.

Pumpkins, Pregnancy, & Political Pandering

Pray for Morning

The Older Sister

Of Late

I need to make a confession.  Lately I've been preoccupied with an assortment of random things - politics, new furniture, the September book club selection, & college football, to be more precise.  I've received some complaints from Reagan's grandparents blog devotees about the dearth of photos of Reagan on the blog, which I admit is an understandable complaint considering the numerous photos of empty chairs & Paul Ryan that have been featured.  So, here's a rundown of how Reagan & I have spent the latter half of September.

Trey had to be in San Francisco last Monday morning for a deposition, so naturally he left town the  Thursday prior to do a little sight seeing.  Reagan & I enjoyed our girls weekend doing very, very little, changing our pajamas once a day to stay fresh as we roamed the house.

While digging in a closet, she discovered the chair I bathed her in when she was tiny.  It provided about an hour's worth of entertainment.

Anytime I spend lengthy amounts of time in the house, the blender inevitably makes an appearance.  We stuck to basics like strawberries & bananas.  Much like the vacuum, Reagan has an iffy relationship with the blender, so I made one large shake that we shared & quickly tucked the blender away in the cabinet.

We drank real coke:

Shared a vat of macaroni & cheese for dinner:

Watched TV in the "big bed:"

Once Reagan was snuggled in her own bed, I returned to mine to settle in with Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.  Not what I'd usually pick up when in the house without Trey, but it's the book for September, so I forged ahead, feeling fairly secure with the alarm turned on & my revolver by my side.  Seriously.  

I was also comforted by this purchase I snagged at the Books-A-Million counter while waiting to pay for And Then There Were None.  The salted dark chocolate was gone before the first body hit the floor.

Tuesday afternoon, Trey returned bearing gifts . . . a pillow for Reagan:

Patriotic chocolate for me:

Chocolate Golden Gate Bridge, again, for me:

Stanford T-shirts for Reagan & I, just in time to celebrate their win over the perennially overrated USC Trojans:

I must backtrack for a moment & tell you that prior to his trip out West, Trey finally made the leap & jumped on the Apple bandwagon, one I've been riding high for years now.  He purchased an iPad under the pretense that he needed it for work.  He's been extremely happy with his purchase, & already I am hearing whispers of an iPhone 5 purchase.  While in California, he visited Apple's headquarters, which of course means Reagan & I added yet another awesome T-shirt to our Daddy's Depositions collection:

Hers:

Mine:

Last week wrapped up with the delivery of a piece of furniture I've legitimately needed for a good while now, my desk (where I am currently seated, happily blogging away).  Other pieces of furniture I do not legitimately need will, of course, follow.   

In an HGTV-worthy endeavor, I've transformed an unused, empty corner off the dining area into my home office, or as Trey calls it, tax deduction corner:

Below, my loves - Reagan, my MacBook, & my new desk.  I'll put a picture of Trey on the desk, & the whole thing will be complete . . . & maybe a Paul Ryan screensaver, for good measure.  

So, that's us lately.  The only other thing worth noting is that tree frogs of various sizes have taken to plastering themselves on our patio doors & windows at dark, which is endlessly fascinating to Reagan.

I snapped a pic of this one Friday night so that during the day, when the frogs aren't around, I can show Reagan the picture when she asks to see the frogs, because ask she does:

It's now officially fall.  This is our first fall in our house, & I am excited about it, & not because I got a new desk.  Many of the great writers had a slobbering love affair, to borrow a phrase from Bernie Goldberg, with spring.  I much prefer fall.  I may have to dig up some poetry, or prose, fawning over fall.        

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

~Albert Camus   

AZ

The Rest of the Story

Now you know the rest of the story.

- Paul Harvey

The Week in Pictures

The Gifts of the Greeks

After many years have slipped by, 

the leaders of the Greeks, opposed by the Fates, 

and damaged by the war, build a horse of mountainous size . . . 

Then Lacoon rushes down eagerly 

from the heights of the Citadel 

to confront them all, a large crowd with him, 

and shouts from far off: 

'O unhappy citizens, what madness?  

Do you think the enemy's sailed away?  

Or do you think any Greek gift's free of treachery?  

Is that Ulysses' reputation?  

Either there are Greeks in hiding, 

concealed by the wood, 

or it's been built as a machine 

to use against our walls, 

or spy on our homes, 

or fall on the city from above, 

or it hides some other trick:  

Trojans, don't trust this horse.  

Whatever it is, I'm afraid of Greeks, 

even those bearing gifts.'"

-Virgil's Aeneid, Book II

Paper Trail

A letter always seemed to me like immortality 

because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.

-Emily Dickinson  

Since I last blogged, a great deal has happened.  Well, maybe not, but it felt like it because I was separated from my MacBook, & a hundred times a day I'd want to sit down & type something, & again I'd mourn.

A few hours after posting my previous blog, I handed my MacBook over to the kind people at Computer Solutions in Ruston, the only authorized Apple repair folks in the area.  I was pretty sure something called the inverter cable needed to be replaced (not totally unexpected after nearly four years of trouble-free use), & I was correct.  Computer Solutions overnighted my Mac to Apple & finally, this past Monday, after a week of separation, we were reunited.  One of the first things I saw when I gleefully began surfing the web was this article on the Drudge Report @ Apple's stock setting a record.  This is the first time I've needed anything fixed on my MacBook, & I must say, they went above & beyond.  It is beautiful.

During the long week of separation, I had Internet access on my phone, but I missed having a word processor at my fingertips more than I'd imagined I would.  When I post a blog, it's typically the efforts of a few days worth of dabbling, & I had nowhere to dabble all week & felt a little lost at times.  It did occur to me that I could use paper & pen, but I guess I've become too digitized as I never picked either up.

I rarely write anything longhand; even my grocery list is in my iPhone.  While coping with the frustrations of life without a word processor, I thought about my freshman year of college, during which Trey & I began dating.  Few students in my dorm owned a computer, & no one had a laptop.  I didn't have any email addresses (I now have three that I check on a daily basis), & I used the computers in the library on campus or my parents' large desktop computer at home (on the weekends) to type my papers.  It's unimaginable to me today.

That spring, Trey & I spoke on the phone often.  These were long distance calls since neither of us owned a cell phone that didn't come in a bag, so it wasn't possible for me to live in Arkansas & maintain a 318 area code.  With our parents breathing down our necks over long distance bills, we also - get this - wrote letters.  Real paper, real pens, real envelopes, real stamps, the whole bit.

Occasionally the mood will strike, but after a decade of typing college papers, emails, & texts, it's usually frustrating for me to write longhand.  Once it's in ink, all you can do is scratch through it, or wad up the paper & start again.  There's no delete option, no copying & pasting to shift a paragraph or a sentence here or there.  The anal retentive English teacher in me adores word processors because they allow for perfection; all traces of mistakes can be obliterated with the stroke of a key.  If you think of a better word or phrase, you can slip it in unnoticed, the rest of the document undisturbed.    

Every now & then, I reread some of the letters Trey & I wrote, & I guess one day I'll give them to Reagan.  They have character that cannot be achieved in an email, no matter how many emoticons you insert or how creative you are with font changes & italics.  In the same box that houses the letters Trey & I exchanged, I have a stack of letters my grandfather sent me when I was in college.  These letters were typed on the typewriter that sat atop his desk, the same typewriter he used to compose numerous letters to the editors of Monroe's paper, The News Star, & the Bastrop Daily Enterprise.  He died on a Wednesday, & I returned to my apartment that night & sat down at my laptop to begin composing his obituary.  As I clicked away, I thought of the many hours he spent in front of his typewriter.  Every smooth stroke of the keys was a reminder of the passage of time, the conveniences technology affords, & the immutability of the power of the written word to channel emotion, to shine a light on injustice, & to ignite agents of change.

In a fabulous twist of irony I think he would have appreciated, a few days after my grandfather's memorial service I sat at my laptop & composed a scathing letter to the editor of the Bastrop Daily Enterprise for failing to publish my grandfather's obituary despite my having meticulously followed their instructions for submission.  


Last Saturday, prior to my reunion with my MacBook, Reagan & I joined my mom & my Papaw & traveled to El Dorado, where Reagan was reunited with her cousin Will.

Will also owns a Coupe, & while it is not pink, Reagan made herself at home:

Reagan & Will, who will never know life without a word processor, with their great-grandfather, who has never used one:

Enjoying the sunroom in Will's new home:

Saturday was a napless day for Reagan, so she was not in the mood to cooperate while I attempted to take a picture of her in her new footed PJs:

Reagan, I encourage you to record your thoughts in some way as you age.  Keep a journal, blog, write letters to the people you love, & save the letters they write you.  I promise you won't regret the paper trail.           

AZ

Choice