7 Quick Takes

___1___

On November 30, we went to St. Louis for the day. We know Julianna had her glasses because we have pictures from that night when she rode a horse. We also know that as of the time she got up from nap on December 1st, she did not have them. The time in between is a blank for everyone in the family. Did we have them Sunday morning when we went to church or not? What we do know is that they have not been seen since. This may seem like a trivial thing to put in a blog post, but imagine the vexation. Between September and November, Michael broke the earpieces–twice. (The glasses are bendy, but earpieces must be firm.) And now they vanish altogether? Keeping this girl in glasses getting to be a very expensive proposition.

___2___

The other day my older sister mentioned she had made 5 dozen gingerbread men. This reminded me of something that struck me when we were making gingerbread ourselves (our gingerbread is all gone, btw). When we were kids, we made 6-inch-tall cutout gingerbread men (exactly like that picture, only bigger). We made them for each of our classmates, and for our teachers, and we kept a bunch at home to eat, along with other cutout shapes. Now there were four girls in our family, and although I graduated with sixteen in my 8th grade glass, we started with 32. And my sisters’ classes were larger than mine. Can you imagine the volume of gingerbread my mother made? How did she do that?

___3___

As long as we’re talking Christmas, here’s a 4 1/2-minute video of Christian and me playing two pieces from my new collection Come to the Manger.

___4___

Pray for me. Or just wish me luck. Today is the day I have set for starting to transition Michael from toilet trained-while-naked-on-the-bottom to toilet-trained-while-clothed. Not looking forward to the process. But very much looking forward to being done.

___5___

I dedicated a couple of posts this week to child sexual abuse and more specifically, my own attempts to protect my children by arming them. Here’s part 1, and here’s part 2, where I outline our approach to sex ed with our kids.

___6___

I had some good news on the medical front this week. My mother’s family carries a genetic condition called BHD, which is supposed to impact 1 out of 2 people in the family. But until this summer every single person who had been tested, in two generations, had been positive. One of my cousins was the first to test negative, and this week I was the second. One less thing to worry about!

___7___

Uh…blank? Oh, I know what I’ll share: this reflection on the coming weekend’s readings.