A High Calling

What is marriage, anyway?

In part, it's a picture of another relationship:

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

(Ephesians 5:22-33)

A high calling, indeed.

When people look at Ari's and my marriage, do they see Christ's love and the church's submission reflected in us?

HRH's birth story

Little H gets the award for phenomenal timing. His official due date was Feb 12, though I calculated it at Feb 9. Having never made it to my due date, I was thinking the first week of February was most likely. And everything lined up! My mother in law booked her plane tickets to arrive Feb 2 and leave Feb 16, so we were praying that little H would arrive on the 3rd or 4th, leaving lots of recovery time with her help. The US government, which is much less flexible with scheduling, booked my citizenship oath ceremony for Feb 1st, so obviously I was hoping he'd wait until after then. We had ordered a kiddie pool to use as a birthing tub, but the midwife said it was way too big, so we ordered another one, which was due to arrive on Feb 2nd - and we sure didn't want to waste our money by the baby coming before the birth tub.

I spent the afternoon and evening of Sunday Jan 29 with contractions 10 minutes apart, unchanged by walking around or sitting down. I was really starting to wonder if H was going to do to my mother in law what both P and E did to my mom - be born just a few days before she was due to arrive. But when I lay down at bedtime, the contractions completely stopped. For the next several days, this pattern continued: several hours' worth of contractions 10 minutes apart, stopping abruptly as soon as I got into bed. Since I knew people who'd had the opposite - contractions starting when they went to bed, and never getting a decent night's sleep - I was really grateful. I did school with P and E right up until Thursday afternoon, Feb 2nd, when my mother in law arrived. They actually completed every bit of the schoolwork I had planned for them except their art lesson (always the first subject to slip). I had taken my citizenship oath the day before, and the birth tub had arrived, so I felt like now the baby could really come anytime, and the sooner the better.

All day Friday, I had contractions about 15 minutes apart - sometimes slowing down to 2 or 3 an hour, sometimes speeding up to 7 minutes apart. But when I went to bed, I had another couple and then fell solidly asleep. This time, however, I had several in the middle of the night that woke me up, so I felt that Saturday was likely to be baby H's birthday. Ari had some things to finish at work, so after our Saturday morning pancakes he took the car in to work - clearly better than walking, or my mother-in-law having to pick him up if things suddenly sped up. The contractions held steady at 10 minutes apart all day, but slowly increased in intensity. I played piano quite a bit to pass the time, which provided a vivid illustration of how strong the contractions were: at first, I could play slowly through them, then I had to stop during the most intense parts, then as soon as one started I had to stop playing. By about 3:00, when I put B down for his nap, they were more like 5-6 minutes apart, and I had trouble talking through them.

Once B was asleep, I called Julie, the midwife. She was just finishing seeing her last client of the day, so that timing was perfect. Once I knew she was on her way (she's 40 minutes away), I called Ari. He, too, had just finished all the essential tasks he'd hoped to finish before little H was born, so he arrived home shortly after 4pm. I was in the middle of a contraction when he walked in the door, and definitely couldn't greet him - by that time, they were more like 4 minutes apart and starting to be intense. He started filling up the birth tub, which we'd inflated on Thursday night and had ready in the living room. By the time Julie and her assistant, Sandy, arrived, I was having to kneel on the floor and rest on something to make the contractions more comfortable.

I was still feeling great between contractions, all the way until something like 6 or 6:15 when I got into the tub - I was whistling as I took my shoes off. As has always been my experience, getting into the tub makes things a lot more comfortable. This tub had an inflatable floor, which made it a lot easier to kneel - my left knee (the one I broke in our car wreck in 2003) gives a bit of trouble if I kneel on a hard surface, and I'd been using a pillow before, but in the warm water on the inflatable surface it was completely comfortable. The contractions got steadily mote intense. I was really relaxed about the process, though - I must have been in transition, but I didn't really feel the need to make a lot of noise like I had with B. Then came a pushing contraction which I didn't recognize as such - I just felt the need to moan really loudly. Julie told me to push with the next one - I was encouraged to realize that it was almost over. I felt him move down on the next one. The one after that was the last one - his little head rotated while I was pushing him down, which hurt. I felt like the energy of the contraction was going away, and I didn't want to wait for another one with just his head born, so I pushed with all my might, and little H was born! It was about 7pm.

Then ensued more drama than I'd had with any of the other 3. As I was turning around to look at my baby, Julie said, "Cord." I saw her and Sandy unwrap a loop of cord from around H's neck. As I was reaching for him again, Julie said, "Cord, again." It had been wrapped twice around his neck. Finally I was able to hold him, but he didn't start breathing right away. It is not reassuring to be holding a blue-purple baby who is not breathing, even if he is moving a bit. Julie started to suction him, and then to massage his back and head. He still didn't breathe, and I started to feel panicked. Julie told me, "His cord is still pulsing; he's getting oxygen", which helped a lot. Ari and I were both praying aloud; I remember telling little H, "You have to breathe, sweetie!" Finally Julie put her mouth over his little mouth and nose, and breathed into his lungs, and he produced a beautiful cry! It'll be a while before we feel sorry that he's crying... After that first cry, he pinked up beautifully and hasn't quit breathing since. Julie told me this was only the second time she's had to breathe into a baby's mouth to make him start breathing, and the first time was earlier the same week!



After that drama was over, I sat at the end of the birth pool holding my new baby. Because the placenta had taken a while after B was born, I wasn't expecting it to come quickly this time, but I was happy to just sit and watch H breathe. My mother in law had kept the kids in the kitchen while I was giving birth, but once he was born they all crowded into the living room to see him. So they got to see the drama with his starting to breathe, and then to watch me hold him where they could see him. I didn't feel any contractions pushing out the placenta, so once the cord stopped pulsing Ari cut it, just as he had for each of the other 3. I showed the oldest 2 the blood vessels inside the cord - that should cover science for the next few weeks! Julie suggested just tugging to see if the placenta was loose, and it came right out - I never felt a contraction for it. It may even have happened while we were waiting for H to breathe - obviously, I had other things on my mind right then. The kids also got to look at the placenta and what was left of the amniotic sac. Like I said, we've got science covered!



The best thing about a home birth is not having to go anywhere. Once the placenta was born, I got out of the tub and went and sat on the futon. My mother in law had made some delicious soup and rice pudding, which I was completely ready for. I held baby H in one arm and ate with the other. After a while, Julie weighed and measured little H and gave him his vitamin K shot. He was 8 lb, 3 oz and 21 1/2 inches long. (That's about 3715 grams and 54.5 cm, for those of you who use the good system of measurement ;-) ). Not long after, Julie and Sandy left. I kept relaxing on the futon for a while, and then headed upstairs to my own bed to try and get a good night's sleep with my new baby. Apart from waking up every time he moved, and every time he didn’t (to check that he was still breathing!), we slept great. I am so thankful to God for a healthy, wonderful baby boy.

In Port Jefferson

We've arrived! We actually arrived a month ago, and moved into a 2-bedroom house in Port Jefferson, NY (thanks so much, Emily, for the encouragement - it's actually working for us, for now. We're using some of the boxes of books to divide the kids' bedroom into a half for the boys and a half for P). Ari is loving his job at Stony Brook University, and I'm trying to make up for November being a complete loss in terms of schooling. In addition to teaching the children, I'm working on navigating New York's home school reporting requirements (which are much more stringent than those in Texas... they exist, to begin with... more on that later). I'm enjoying having my own kitchen, and have been doing a lot of cooking and baking. We found a farmer's market where you can get local apples for around 40 cents a pound. Pie, anyone?

We returned to Texas for Christmas (a 2-day drive, but worth it to see family and friends again), and only just got back. It's nice not to be in the car any more, though all 3 kids did really well. Apart from the part where B found the box of his disposable diapers, and threw about 35 of them all over the car, and the older 2 then used the empty box as a projectile... aaaaah! And B developed a habit of yelling, over and over, "Please stop reading Hobbit, Mommy! Please stop reading Hobbit, Mommy!" But usually, he gave up after a few paragraphs to pages, and we successfully followed the adventurers all the way over the Misty Mountains, across Mirkwood, and to Smaug's demise. We have yet to see the results of the dwarves' gold lust, but we'll save that for after B's bedtime but before P and E's over the next few weeks.

I promised to blog about the Vibrant Dance conference Ari and I attended at the end of October (see my previous post). Being closely related to one of the organizers, we had the opportunity to attend the dinner for the speakers the night before the conference began. As the dinner was winding down, we joined a conversation with Bruce Waltke. I thought I'd start with something he said both at the dinner and in one of his talks, because it has important implications for Christian unity. He described his response to the question, "Who is my brother [or sister]?" To answer the question, he looked at how Abraham, Moses, or David might have seen it. God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision - an external, physical sign of inclusion in the people of God. For Christians, that sign has been replaced by baptism. So if you have been baptized, you might be my brother or sister. The covenant God made with Moses involved the Law, of which the Ten Commandments are the most important part. So if you acknowledge your responsibility before God to follow the Ten Commandments, you might be my brother or sister. (Aside: no-one except Jesus has actually followed all ten commandments perfectly - I believe Bruce Waltke's point was simply that Christians acknowledge them as a standard to aim for; that we recognize the fact of God's righteousness as represented in the Ten Commandments). The covenant God made with David was that the kingdom would be his family's forever - a physical descendant of his would reign as king. So if you acknowledge Jesus, David's heir, as the king of your life, you might be my brother or sister. Finally, in the New Testament, we see Jesus' incarnation, death, and resurrection. So if you accept those historical realities, you might be my brother or sister.

To sum up, if I find myself asking whether someone is my brother or sister in Christ, I can ask: Are they willing to be publicly identified with him? Do they acknowledge God's perfect law and righteousness? Have they submitted to Jesus' kingship? Do they believe that Jesus was fully God as well as fully man, that he died, and that he returned to life?

Note, of course, that nowhere in this analysis does someone's position on the timespan of God's creation appear - we can be brothers and sisters in Christ no matter how we interpret those particular details. I think that having that perspective is an essential prerequisite for having a gracious dialogue: we start from the understanding that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, and dialogue on the details on which we differ knowing that we're all going to be around the same Thanksgiving table as part of God's family a million years from now.

I should say, I didn't take detailed notes of what Bruce Waltke had to say - the above summary is based on my memory, 2 months later, of what I heard him say. So I may have made some errors in representing him. If you're unhappy with any of the above, the fault is more likely to be mine than his.

Moving!

Ari got a job! He'll be working as a postdoctoral researcher at Stony Brook University, looking at data from the Spitzer Space Telescope to study brown dwarfs (the mysterious objects that are too big to be planets, but too small to be stars). The start date is Dec. 1, so we will be spending the next few weeks immersed in the educational experience of putting everything into a moving truck and driving it across the country. Next week, my inlaws will watch the kids while Ari and I fly out to look for housing. We're hoping for a 3-bedroom place that doesn't cost much more than a third of Ari's income and won't require hours of commuting for him. On Long Island, that's easier said than done, but I know God has a good place for us. We look forward to seeing how it works out.

Last weekend, Ari and I attended a conference (Creation: Biblical Options) organized by my father-in-law. My mother-in-law watched the kids, so I was able to hear almost every talk. I also helped Ari sell a few books at his booth during free time, since Ari was filling the role of conference photographer. I don't often get to go to conferences like this (or like anything), and it was such a blessing to be challenged to think in completely different ways than I usually do. Being close to the conference organizer, I got to interact with several of the speakers more than most of the conference attendees - Ari and I were invited to the speakers' dinner, and we stayed in the same hotel as the speakers. I'm planning on composing a few posts on what different individuals had to say. But, given that we're in the middle of moving across the country, future posts may take a while to appear. For now, I'll just say that although I don't agree with all the speakers' perspectives, I was encouraged and challenged by every one of them, and impressed at the graciousness with which they related to one another despite their disagreements.

Advantages of Older Siblings

Not having any older siblings myself, I can only speak from what I've observed in my own kids. However, I'm amazed at things that B is able to do at 20 months of age that E wasn't yet able to do, and P certainly wasn't anywhere near able to do.

I vividly remember P's verbal skills at 20 months, because that was when E was born. She could say single words, but they were typically hard to recognize ("bee" meant spoon, "na" meant towel, and several other items were "ba"). She never included more than one consonant in any word, using only vowel sounds to distinguish between "baby", "banana", "ball", and "book". I told Ari that we'd better not space subsequent kids that close together - having 2 little people who couldn't verbally communicate was just too difficult.

When E was 20 months old, he was starting to use 2-word sentences, and his pronunciation was leaps and bounds ahead of where P's had been at the same age. Of course, when P finally did learn to talk, she talked nonstop, and E was a convenient audience. He had at least double the live, personalized verbal interaction directed at him as P had had directed at her when she was that small.

Now that B is 20 months old, he has the benefit of 2 older siblings. They are both so much older than him that their pronunciation is practically perfect, as is their grammar. All morning long, they interact with letters and numbers, which B is able to observe but not really participate in. Like any small child, he is eager to catch up. So, at least a month ago, he started noticing words. He points at them and says, "E, O." When I read Goodnight Moon to him at bedtime, he takes my finger, points it to the words, and commands, "E! O!" Usually I satisfy this demand by telling him, slowly, what each word says. Sometimes he points to individual letters and I tell him what sound they make.

B has also become interested in numbers. Now, I remember that E was able to count to 10 by his second Christmas, when he was around 21 months old. Little B, however, has upped the ante by being able to recognize numerals from 1 to 8. He can recognize 9, but usually identifies it as a 6. (Of course, if you look at it upside down, they are the same thing - I'm not going to worry about my one-year-old's problems with reversals!) He'll take any counting book, open it entirely at random, and accurately identify the numeral while pointing at it: "Four! Seven! Eight!" While we were in the car waiting at a red light yesterday, I heard him announce, "One! Eight! Six!" I looked at the car beside us, and its license plate contained some letters and the numbers 98881. So, he thought the 9 was a 6, but other than that was exactly right. This afternoon, he started pointing out numbers on the box of disposable diapers in his room - a picture of a diaper is labeled from 1 to 6 describing all its fantastic features. The numbers are in no order at all, but he identified all of them correctly. The box informed us that it contained 140 diapers, and B pointed to those numerals and said, "One! Four! Round round round!" I told him that the round number was zero, and a minute later he correctly identified it.

I know, of course, that being able to say the name of a numeral has nothing to do with understanding that numbers have value. I'm working on helping him make the connection by holding up the right number of fingers each time he exclaims about a number, and I know it will come in time. But for now, I can at least brag that my 1-year-old is pre-reading: he understands that symbols stand for sounds or ideas. I'm pretty sure P and E are largely responsible for this early understanding. I'm already finding it easier to teach E to read than P - are the kids going to work me out of a job?

Fun with Moebius Noodles

About 2 weeks ago, I stumbled across the Moebius Noodles group referenced on the Let's Play Math blog. Inspired by the idea of sharing cool math with my kids, we spent last Wednesday playing with Moebius noodles. For those of you who don't know, a Moebius noodle (also known as a Moebius band or strip) is a loop of a flat material (usually paper) that is twisted once before the ends are joined. Here, B demonstrates one.



Both P and E's fine motor skills are at a level where they can make their own, so they pasted together both regular loops and Moebius noodles. I had them each draw a line down the middle of "only one side" of each loop. One fascinating thing about Moebius noodles is that they only have one side. We then experimented with cutting our loops in half lengthwise. With a regular loop, of course, you get 2 loops. With a Moebius noodle, well... try it yourself if you've never done it. It's really fun, and surprising the first time.



Since we were still enjoying ourselves and it wasn't lunch time, I thought I'd try out another idea I stumbled upon. The gist is that you take two loops, glue them together, and then cut them both in half lengthwise. First, I took two regular loops and glued them at right angles. It looked like the beginnings of a chain you might put on a Christmas tree, only the connection was on the outside. I cut it in half down the middle of each loop, through the intersection point, and ended up with this:



P thought this was interesting, and tried it herself (by this time, E was busy attaching yellow loops to a piece of paper to make a "rocket", which seemed valuable in its own way). Meanwhile, I tried what happened when one of the loops is a Moebius noodle and one is a regular loop, which turns out to be the same as when both are regular loops. Finally, I tried both of the possible ways of joining two Moebius noodles: one when the loops are twisted the same direction, and one when they're twisted in opposite directions. I found it completely mind-bending! When the loops are twisted in the same direction, you get this:



But when they're twisted in opposite directions, this is what you get. (P tried this one as well, though I had to help her make the Moebius noodles so that they'd be even enough to cut in half neatly).



An instant "I LOVE MATH" logo!

Breakfast Math

Sometimes, marketing opens the door to a great educational experience.

Our box of Raisin Bran proclaimed, in large letters, "$100 CASH CARD INSIDE". In smaller letters, one realizes that in truth, "you could find up to a..." If you read the fine print, you find that your odds of finding that $100 cash card are 1 in 24,800. There are other prizes, though: a $50 cash card (1 in 20,667), a $25 cash card (1 in 17,714), a $10 cash card (1 in 15,500), and a $5 cash card (1 in 12,400). So I read these statistics to the kids and solicited guesses on just how many boxes of Raisin Bran one would have to buy to be likely to get any cash card at all. Then I hauled out my calculator and did the math: the total odds, obtained by adding the odds of each value of cash card, are 1 in 3444. If you bought 3444 boxes, though, you still wouldn't be guaranteed to get a cash card (though you'd have better than even odds). We discussed how long it might take to eat 3444 boxes of cereal (about a decade, if the whole family only ate Raisin Bran for breakfast every single day - we could probably polish off a box a day between us). And if you bought 3444 boxes of cereal, you'd most likely only get one cash card, which would most likely be a $5 cash card.

P and E - mostly E - have invented a useful number, the gi (hard g, rhymes with pea). One gi is generally defined as "a number larger than the one you were just talking about by a considerable margin". So we find it helpful to suggest, "even if you tried gi times, you wouldn't be able to throw an apple all the way up to the moon," or "do I have to ask you gi times to clean your room?" E announced, "If you bought a gi of cereal boxes, you'd probably only find 1000 cash cards. That's how big a gi is."

Okay, I'm curious. How large does gi have to be in order for 1000 to be the most likely number of cash cards when the odds of finding one is 1 in 3444? I think all the probability and statistics I was taught at Caltech has fallen out of my head. Anyone care to remind me?