From Wit’s End

Each hand is on a ring.
Each ring is at the end of a chain.
Stretched, I will let go of one.
Meanwhile, I must say:
the view up here is spectacular.

February’s overdue Facebook archive is here.

The line I followed has fallen from my side.
          When I find it again, the horizon,
                    still half-hidden, is yet completely new.
                   I want to learn these different stars.
                  Someday I will enter the city, but for now
                 I will continue to follow this wall in hopes of finding
                a door.

The first Facebook archive of 2010 can be found here.

What’s behind is forgotten.
   What’s ahead is eagerly awaiting.
      This is a still point, between
         the here and the now.
      No Sabbath Year, this.
   The Jubilee is come.
It’s a whole new ballgame.

The last Facebook archive of 2009 can be found here.

Here I stand,
Looking for a sign.
Ready, even eager to go
anyside of anywhere.
I will not wait long
where this road divides,
but I will walk forward
when the time is right.
I can do no other.

This month’s Facebook archive can be found here.

Got away for a little while, but now
I feel like I’m in a holding pattern.
Pacing my cage back and forth.
Nothing changes, and that is both good and bad.

Here is this month’s Facebook archive.

No matter how dark it seems,
and no matter how I fearfully try to quench it,
hard as a diamond and bright as a flash of lightning,
my spark of hope lives on.

Here’s the latest Facebook archive.

“…That will turn my life around
Change that will put my feet on the ground
Change that will make everything okay.“

…but meanwhile, here’s the latest Facebook archive.

…in the meantime, here’s the latest archive page.

Check out the latest here. This time it is an actual HTML file, so hopefully there aren’t any dialog boxes to deal with.

Can you see this on Facebook?

…for the last time for a long time. Rachel’s sister Jennifer came to pick up our dog Kat at around 7pm, and my folks left with Jack and his things at around 8pm. It’s just me and Rachel, and we are going to sleep early. Good night, known world. We are leaving you tomorrow for good — for the good of a whole, new person.

After a few years of piggybacking on my impersonal blog, the personal blog is independent again!  I have exported all the personal posts to a new installation of WordPress (Version 2.7!  Pretty Hot!) in preparation for the coming of our daughter Nora.  Like Jack says all the time, “Baby Nora’s birthday is coming soon!”  And yes, it will be live-blogged from the iPhone.

In keeping with the spirit of my last post, here is a summary of Q2 2008 at Wit’s End:

• April was the sleepless month: The bad sleeping habits initiated in March solidly established themselves in April, and Jack continued to have trouble sleeping all the way through the night.
• May was the fast month: Due to both lack of lucidity and a jam packed schedule, I am beginning to have my doubts that the month of May ever really existed.
• June has been the anticipation month: iPhone day is July 11th, Both Rachel and I have the week after Independence day off (though we still don’t know what we are going to do with ourselves, it will be nice to be free of all external agendas), and last and mostly, we found out this month that, Lord willing, Jack will be a big brother around about Groundhog Day next year!

So that’s how we’re doing, to put a quarter of a year into a quarter of an hour. I’m looking into how I will be able to use my new toy tool to blog here a little more often in a personal way during spare minutes come about mid-July. Wait for it!

The other day, I thought of classifying my year so far thus:

• January was The Sad Month: we found out that we lost our second child, Noel.
• February was The Sick Month: I had a chest cold that became Asthmatic Bronchitis. My doctor made me stay home from work for four days and nebulize myself back to health.
• March was The Busy Month: Work decided to go absolutely bonkers. In the evenings, Rachel and I had the choice between going to sleep at the same time as Jack, or watch a little TV and not getting enough sleep. All too often we chose the latter.

So that’s why you haven’t heard from me in a while.

I wonder what April will be like….

More pictures are here.

For more pictures, go here.

I was looking out of my kitchen window as I was washing my hands his afternoon and a little bird caught my eye. He had flown up to the garden fence and perched on the top wire. I hadn’t seen his flight soon enough to know, but he was tiny, so I thought he was a hummingbird. Yep, he was, and he was enjoying my red zinnias, the last thing left in my vegetable garden that hasn’t been decimated by the heat and bugs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hummingbird in my yard. Welcome little guy!

Indulgences were to Roman Catholicism as Carbon Offsets are to Global Warmism. Bugs me somehow… like you can buy your way out.

Sometime last month Jack spoke his first word, but it took us a while to figure out that he was trying to speak an actual english word… After I pray before dinner, I say “Amen”. Jack imitates me and says “Ahh-mmm”, bowing his head on the “mmm”. Pretty good first word, eh?

He’s also acquiring signs a little faster. He still uses a sort of staccato grunt at first when he sees a dog (or any other animal, really) in an attempt to imitate barking, but now at our prompting, he slaps his hip, which is the sign for “dog”. He already knows how to clap when we say , “Yay!” But just last night when I was trying to show him the sign for “more” at dinner, he clapped his hands. That’s close enough for now.

Jack really liked his first fireworks on Independence Day.

Jack finished his last can of formula today! This last one took about a month to finish, because we just put one scoop in with the regular milk every morning and evening. Before then, he used about one can a week. I think that means that he used about 50 cans of formula over the last year! Each one was about $20-$23 each. You do the math. He’s definitely worth it.

Jack is usually a breathlessly-crawling chaos machine, but at least in one instance, he’s learning to be helpful. One of his fascinations is the dishwasher and all the shiny things therein. Yesterday evening, and again tonight, he picked a piece of silverware out of the bin. I took it from him and said “Thank you,” and he smiled and/or laughed and took another piece of silverware out. Realizing what was happening, I took all the sharp items out of the bin, then took the one he had in his hand and said “Thank you,” again. Thrilling him to pieces, he got another one out, waited for me to take it and thank him for it, and so on until the bin is empty. So Jack is only a year old and already he’s helping with chores!

Rachel and I were having a “how was your day” hug this evening, and then I saw Jack look at me and ask for a “HIGH FIVE!” I gave him a few HIGH FIVES, and then I mentioned to Rachel that “the green car is clean!” because I took it to the car wash at lunch time today (Sadly, it’s been a while). “High five, mommy!” I said, and Rachel and I high-fived. Rachel said, “Look!” Jack saw us giving each other his customary greeting, and he was applauding us. Yay!