Horoscope for December 20

Daily Sagittarius Forecast:

You'll soon get word from someone in a distant land. They want you to come visit!

Parental Toys

Sometime after the Toys"R"us adventure, Arny and I discussed the whole subject of toys and decided we would only buy for our child what we would want to play with. Not what we would have wanted to play with when we were one year old, but what we would play with now. Hence the Fisher Price alphabet blocks listed on our baby registry. Those things are so cool..I digress.

Shortly after that, we received the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, a cornucopia of adult toys, and we both found things we wanted - me, a race track, with little tiny Formula One cars and over 35 feet of track, and him, a flying remote control helicopter. Instant Christmas presents!!! Yes, we decided those would be our Christmas presents to each other. Except, my birthday happens to be December 12th (for all of you who knew and forgot, shame....) and Arny was so excited about the race track, he decided to buy it for my birthday present instead.

It is now set up and taking up our entire living room area - we have to step through and around it to get anywhere, but we are having loads of fun. It is a real test of the stability of one's marriage to jointly put together a track with 5 zillion pieces and not kill each other:

"Honey, pass me an "e" piece?"
"sure sweetie, just tell me which is the "e" piece"
"it's like the "d" piece, but shorter"
"ok, but what does the "d" piece look like"
"it's right there on the instructions"
"they look the same to me"
"here, use this one"
"are you sure this is the right piece"
"close enough"

Ok, so we had to put it together twice, but it works. But alas, it will only stay up until we leave to bring home the baby. Why, you ask? Because, silly us, we forgot about the choking hazard present with something that has 5 zillion pieces - some of which are quite small. Poo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps I'll have to go out and get those alphabet blocks a little early....

My Bible

Le Chapeau - part deux

Anonymous is one smart cookie...

"Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I'm either hanging onto a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments, I'm hurtling across space in between bars. Most of the time I'm hanging on for dear life to my trapeze bar of the moment. It carries me along at a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I'm in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once in a while as I'm merrily swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance and I see another bar swinging towards me. It's empty and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart-of- hearts, I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on the present, well-known bar to move to the new one.

Each time it happens, I hope and pray that I won't have to grab the new trapeze bar. But in my knowing place I realize that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar and for sometime I must hurtle across space before I can grab onto the new bar. Each time I am filled with terror. It doesn't matter that in all my previous hurtles across the void of unknowing, I have always made it. Each time I am afraid I will miss -that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between the bars. But I do it anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow, to keep hanging onto that old bar is no longer an alternative. And so for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of "the past is gone, the future is not yet here." It is called transition. I have come to believe that it is the only place that real change occurs.

I have noticed that in our culture this transition zone is looked upon as a nothing - a no-place between places. Surely the old trapeze bar was real and that new one coming towards me, I hope that's real, too. But the void in between? That's just a scary, confusing, disorienting "nowhere" that must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible. What a waste! I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing, and that the bars are illusions we dream up to avoid the void where the real change, the real growth, occurs for us. Whether or not my hunch is true, it remains that the transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich places. They should be honored - even savored. Even with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out-of-control that can accompany transitions, they are still the most alive, most growth filled, most passionate, most expansive moments in our lives."

And so, transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away, but rather with giving ourselves permission to "hang out" in the transition between trapeze bars. Transforming our need to grab that new bar...any bar...is allowing ourselves to dwell in the only place where change really happens. It can be terrifying. It can also be enlightening, in the true sense of the word. Hurtling through the void --we just may learn how to fly.

--Anonymous

A poem

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.

If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.

by Dorothy Nolte, from her book "Children Learn What They Live: Parenting to Inspire Values".

Clothes, Clothes and more Clothes......

Love this hand-me-down thing!!!!

Thank you Melissa and Molly!

Making Applesauce

I was on the phone with my friend Gayle, who has two daughters Lydia, 4 and Adaline, 1. We were talking about the daycare center she recommended and that Arny and I visited a couple of weeks ago. The kids were home because of election day and and while we were talking, I could hear them in the background. Gayle was making applesauce and the girls were doing some sort of art project. Addie started to cry, partially because she got her hand caught and partially because her big sister was not paying her enough attention. I could hear Gayle picking her up because the crying got louder...much louder. Previously, I would have done the "gotta go" thing, as the sound of a crying baby was not one of my favorites. Instead, I felt a pull at the other end of the phone that made me wish I was the one there to comfort her. We continued talking, or I should say, I listened as Gayle did the comforting........and still I felt that pull........what was it? ..................mmmmmmmm.........I do believe it was "maternal instinct" kicking in........................

She's Out There

Today I realized for the first time....She is out there waiting for us. Actually, it was my friend Julie, who I have known since I was six and is almost as excited about the adoption as we are who mentioned it. We were on the phone and she said "only a few more months and you'll see her". "Yeah, yeah, yeah", I thought to myself rather nonchalantly. You see, now there is only waiting. No filling out forms, no writing checks, no fingerprint appointments. Just waiting. There is nothing to do so there is nothing to say. People keep asking, "what's happening?". "Nothing". "Any news?". "No". "Any word?". "Nothing". Nothing, nothing, nothing, just waiting........and waiting..........................and waiting.

But then, after we hung up, I started thinking. I started calculating. They refer children no younger than 6 months and we are expecting our referral in March, and well, that's 4 months away.

Oh my God, she's out there!! Waiting. Hopefully snuggling in her crib right now, belly full and warm, dreaming of things that will make her wake with a smile. Does she sense we are waiting to come for her? Does she realize how many people here can't wait to meet her? Does she have a clue how crazy we are and how much fun she will have eating ice cream and pretzels (my favorite) for dinner? As I wonder, there's a tug on my heart........

Halloween: A Conspiracy

It is. I truly believe this. A consortium of diet industry executives got together and figured the whole thing out. I imagine, it went something like this....

Bob: You know, we have done a pretty good job of brainwashing the entire world on their need to diet in order to a) be happy, b) be successful, c) get the man/woman of our dreams, d) make lots of money, e) fit into the dress you wore at your high school prom 20 years ago. What we really need now is that failsafe way to insure that in the slight chance all of the crap we advertise actually works and people really do loose weight, people will still gain weight and need to diet.

Jim: I know!! - let's invent a holiday where once a year, little kids dress up and go around asking for candy. Adults will have to buy this candy and they will swear not to touch it. But, ha ha ha, they will not be able to resist!!!!!!!!!!

Carole: Yes, but it will have to be a multi-tiered approach. It isn't good enough just to keep it in the home. We have to expand....

Bob: Right you are Carole, let's encourage people to bring the extra candy into the office.

Jim: Excellent idea, Bob. That way, we get all those people without kids who may think they are safe if they keep their door locked and lights off during the night, so they don't have to deal with the whole "candy buy".

Carole: And, with the holiday season fast approaching, those extra pounds will have to come off fast. This will make all of our "superfast" diet programs that much more desirable.

Jim: We're good.

Carole: Yes, we are.

Bob: Let's celebrate. Outback's having their all you can eat buffet..

Carole: I'm there!!!!!!!!!!!!