“I believe when they put [you] in the ground I think they buried part of me Because I’ve been searching, I’ve been looking all around But I cannot find the heart of me, the heart of me” –All That I Have Sown by Bebo Norman
My dear John Paul, I think I dreamt about you last night. Today was the day we thought you might come when we learned of your existence in March. We looked forward to this Advent with the hope of having you in our arms. And last night you were born in my dreams. You were born, and you were perfect. And I held you. But it was just a dream, you are not here on earth with us.
I delivered you already alone in basement bathroom on April 29 after you passed away and found your little body to bury in consecrated ground. The day you were buried was the day I planted the seeds in our garden, and oh what a harvest we had.
Your remains are in the ground in the sweet cemetery plot for miscarried and stillborn babies. We visited your grave to pray for you in November, but hope tells me that you are praying for us.
You have blessed our marriage and our family. Your existence, your passing, and your communion with God has been for us more that we could ever have imagined. You are a gift to us, and even though we do not have you in our arms, you are still a gift. Your father and I have grown closer yet because of you, our love and life together has been strengthened. Your sisters still think about you and talk about you. And your new younger sibling is growing well. But these things you all know, and you know that you have part of me with you always.
1. My (philosopher) husband just called, and I asked him if I should write quick takes today. His response?
“There are no Quick Takes; Only the Mind.”
2. Two years ago right now I was in labor with this one (the one that looks 2, not that other one):
A realistic depiction of a child: frizzy hair and food on her face.
Now she eats corn dogs. I have never had all of my out-of-womb children over the age of two. Does that make sense?
3. For her birthday, I decided to replace the long destroyed toy stroller cover. I sewed it in about 90 minutes last night. No, I am not opening an Etsy shop, though I know you all really want hand made, badly machine stitched, toy stroller covers. I am pretty pleased with the result, and so is F. We let her open two presents first thing because she would have just about lost it if she could not find her stroller all day. She is happiest about having a buckle.
NOT for sale. I love this fabric pattern.
4. F and I finished weaning this week. We were down to naps and bedtimes and well, being pregnant makes barely nursing not very nice at all. So, we decided it was time to be done. Two years is the longest I have ever nursed a baby (17 and 19 months for G and L). She seems cool with it, and we make sure to be cuddly before bed during our old nursing time. And for the record, I have now been pregnant and/or nursing for 6 1/3 years straight.
Things I made in this picture (all recycled from previous years): St. Joan’s armor/vest, St. Gemma’s cloak, St. Lucy’s skirt.
5. Here is our All Saints picture. I did not have time to take one before the evening Mass we went to, so we only have a poorly lit, after party, past bedtime, high on sugar photos.
6. When I got home from the grocery store last Saturday, the children spent about 10 minutes pretending to be cows and pushing around gallon milk jugs before I decided that the milk should probably be put away. Who would have thought milk could be so much fun?
F is getting so big.
7. So, did I just prove that there actually are quick takes and not just the mind? I don’t know. But you philosophers out there can debate that amongst yourselves. I am going to go have some snickers bars now… (fun size)
I hid it well from you social media places, so well, that my own mother called me Sunday night asking if M had been gone all weekend because the only thing I posted was a screen shot of M’s flight minutes from landing. I think I did fairly well. But now that he is home, I will tell you all about my “girl’s weekend.”
The last time I stayed alone with my kids (I am pretty wimpy and usually ask a grandmother to come and help) was when M had five on campus interviews in one month. I had an almost 3 year old and a 1 year old at the time, and it got pretty tiring. I am pretty sure that I went over to my closest friends house everyday that he was gone (she had same aged children). But by the fifth interview (which was three nights and four whole days), I asked my generous mother-in-law to come help. I am very aware that many wives have husbands who travel far more than my own, and I am in awe of all of you. I really am. But I made a happy discovery this weekend, and that was that a 5 year old, an almost 4 year old, and an almost 2 year old are actually easier to take care of and more enjoyable to be with than a 3 and 1 year old. We had a lot of fun this weekend. Though I did some simple things to make it easier on myself.
1. I did all my weekly chores before M left town. The only housework left was putting some laundry away, three meals a day, dishes. This made things easy peasy. Plus, with my home school schedule I am in the habit of keeping up with the dishes throughout the day.
2. Our regular schedule. While our regular schedule has daily conveniences, I always appreciate it more when we are outside of the normal. M being gone is not normal, but that does not effect our morning routine, lunch time, afternoon nap/quiet time, dinner prep time, dinner time, dinner clean up, and bedtime routine. Things just fell into place, and the kids are so accustomed to them that F (1) practically gets herself ready for nap (well not really, but she switches from running away from me laughing to laying quietly falling asleep in about three minutes, so yeah, routine). Also, nap time for me was completely unproductive besides internet roaming. But I think that was acceptable given my low key plans for the weekend.
3. Getting out everyday, and knowing my limits. I made sure to see other adults everyday, but to not overdo the outings. While little kids are fairly entertaining if you just take time to be with them, seeing familiar adults helps with sanity. I am pretty sure it not natural for women to be alone all day with kids (and no one around until their husbands are done working), but it is not entirely foreign to the history of womankind either. Just look at the pioneer ladies alone on in the claim shanties for days on end. We had our co-op the first day, a playdate/lunch date with another conference-widow the second day, and went to Mass on Sunday. I am particularly impressed with my ability to get myself and the kids up and ready for our normal 7:30 AM EF Mass on time. It makes me think that I am getting used to this three-kid thing. 4. Easy food. Our dinner’s were so simple, which meant few dishes. I even asked G (5) to help me with the clean up and she happily filled in as she could. I was particularly impressed when she volunteered to finish the broccoli so that we did not have to save it. She looked just like her father finishing off the last few bites off the serving spoon.
I had such a good time with the girls that I found myself a bit lonely after they went to bed at night, though one night I spent on Skype with my sisters monitoring the Cardinal’s loss in game one of the NLCS. I prepared myself to not stress out, and I did it! I don’t really want to do it again any time soon, but I am glad to know that I can. Further, I think a weekend with just the girls was a good relationship building experience for us. I spent meals talking to them, listening to them, telling them stories. We went for walks together. We played games together. I think they had a good time as well, though having M home is much better.
(And just to put a funny image in your head, imagine 15 philosophers, after a four course dinner and multiple glasses of wine a piece, sightseeing around the Mall in D.C. at Midnight…and texting their spouses random shots of the monuments)
1. This week has been a fun week for Feast days. We had the Feast of the Archangels on Monday, St. Thérèse of Liseiux Wednesday in the new calendar and today in the old, the Guardian Angels yesterday, and St. Francis of Assisi tomorrow. We have not really done much to celebrate the specifically besides talking about the saints to the kids. I am making some French Onion soup tomorrow in honor of St. Thérèse. Maybe on Saturday we should go begging for food? Or maybe we should just give some food to the poor, hmmmm…
2. St. Francis will always be extra special for us, because devotion to him was pretty much ingrained after four years at Franciscan University and a school sponsored trip to Assisi when we were studying abroad. I also grew up watching the 70s version of his life, Brother Sun, Sister Moon. Though there are two other movies of his life that are reportedly the best and worst movies about St. Francis which we will be watching in a couple of months. Besides movies though, St. Francis is pretty cool.
Blanched apples +Victorio Strainer = Apple Sauce + Peels
3. I am sure everyone is just dying to know how our apples canning went. Well, we made 19 quarts of sauce, canning 18.5 of them, and 5 half pints of jelly. The sauce canning went well. However, the jelly ended up needing pectin to be added. I suppose blanched and food milled apple peals and cores do not retain much natural pectin? The jelly is pretty delicious, but I am not sure I want to use it for PB&J. We will have to find some sort of delicacy to use it on.
If we get snowed in this winter, we will at least have fruit.
4. We were pretty much homebodies this week. After a whole day of the applesauce canning last Saturday, we were pretty tuckered out on Sunday (we thankfully did not witness any cars hitting bicycles on the way to church this time…) and it just kind of rolled into Monday. M had a bad case of laryngitis and had to whisper all day on Tuesday. Then it rained all day Wednesday and Thursday, but we managed a library run today. Restocking on the library books is always nice to do, especially because the kids have a new stack of books to peruse. In fact, because of these books naptime has been especially quiet!
5. G (5) called me into her quiet time to tell me how delighted she was with the collection of fairy tales I had picked out. “It has lots of princesses in it! It even has Rapunzel, but I don’t like this version because the evil witch cuts off all of her hair!” Now, I am pretty sure she did not read the story, but gathered this from pictures. Part of our early home schooling has been a complete immersion into fairy tales and nursery rhymes, so I usually find a different illustrators set of fairy tales to bring home from the library. One of the books I rejected today, however, had the story of Noah’s Ark as a folk tale…while I may not think we need to interpret the incident literally, I am not going to teach it to my kids outside of Scripture as a folk tale…
6. A friend brought up to me that she found my old post about roasting my first blue hubbard, so I thought I would go ahead and link it again for newer readers or people who just want to make their own pumpkin purée. And by the way, the kitchen featured in the photo is that of T and his wife F. We rented from them our first year in St. Paul.
Someone had been trying to wear all pink everyday…
7. And finally I leave you with pictures of our giant carrot. It was peaking out of the ground, just asking to be harvested. We have some other carrots growing still, but they all did not do this well, mostly because our cucumber plant took over that part of the garden. This next week I am going to make an attempt at sauerkraut with our cabbages and pickles with our cucumbers.
1. I have heard from other moms about having a bad week or day this week, and I confess that it has been particularly rough for me here in the Spencer house, especially trying to figure out how to parent an almost four year old. I hope that part of it is just the end of the threes and transitioning into not needing a daily nap. I also know that part of it is my lax parenting with her, and that my parenting must be balanced with my personality. So, I have made some parenting plans, and I hope that by sticking with them, with all the kids, I will stop losing it entirely with them. You know you need to change something when you are confessing being impatient with your kids regularly…
2. Today has been the best day all week, and not just because it is Friday. I know that my success in not losing it will not be so easy every day, but I plan to persevere even on the hard days. We did our morning hourish of reading, catechism, math (sandpaper number tracing), and then for writing practice the girls made birthday cards for two different “C”‘s who have birthdays a week apart and are also 20 years apart in age. G (5) and L (3) worked on the cards for two hours, and F (22 months) and I worked on the weekly sheet and towel laundry along with the biannual-seasonal-clothing-dresser-swap.
3. The biannual-seasonal-clothing-dresser-swap is biannual, because it seems we only have two seasons in Minnesota: Winter and Summer. (We even have the furnace on today to keep the house from dipping to jacket weather.) For those of you not familiar with this, it means that I changed out all the summer clothes for winter clothes and checked the sizes of clothes to see what fits whom. Anyway, I used to think the whole changing sizes and seasons thing was a chore with just G, and now it takes a whole morning with three! I imagine that one day the older girls will be able to do more of it themselves. We also had a basketful of clothes handed down to us from a friend I had to sift through. As it is we have way to many pants and tops for the girls for the cold weather, and not nearly enough dresses and skirts. I did the skirt thing with leggings for them last winter, but they had holes in the knees by mid-February and that is not going to cut it. So, we are going the more practical pants route. Is it weird to put skirts over colored skinny jeans? Because I might just encourage that. They are so much cuter in skirts!
The hungry hawk is in possession of this squirrel’s sibling on the other side of the Ash.
4. Wednesday I noticed four baby squirrels coming out of a nest in our backyard Ash tree. They were squeaking and climbing up and down the tree, and were pretty cute to watch. M even stopped work for a minute to admire them.
The Circle of Life moves us all.
Then yesterday I glanced out the nursery window, and saw a young hawk with a baby squirrel pinned under its feet. I mentioned it to G and L and they started shrieking and sobbing, “No! No! Chase it away! Don’t let it kill the squirrel!” Knowing that M would want to see the event, I called him up from the study to calm down and explain to the girls about how hawks have to eat as well. All animals have a purpose, and hawks is to eat baby squirrels. The girls stopped screaming, but were not convinced of the goodness of the hawk. At least it was free-range “happy” squirrel veal, right?
5. I was nominated for the 10 book challenge, under the rule that I list 10 that have stayed with me. It is not meant to be a list of the *best* books I have ever read, but ones that have impacted me the most (off the top of my head):
The Complete Works of Jane Austen (I cannot pick one.)
Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales (Still the best spiritual book for lay people that I have ever read.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (duh…)
The Rule of St. Benedict (When M and I read it in college, we knew that we wanted it to influence our family life.)
Kirsten Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (I love they way she presents motherhood and womanhood. And her insight into humanity is incredible!)
After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre (Virtue Ethics are the best kind.)
The Conservative Mind by Russel Kirk (An understanding of conservatism that I agree with.)
The Complete Works of Laura Ingalls Wilder (They are even better as an adult.)
The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II by Fr. Ralph M. Wiltgen S.V.D. (This transformed my understanding of the modern Church, especially growing up post-V II.)
Tess of the D’urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (I will never forgive Hardy for being so cruel to his characters, and I am scarred for life…)
The pattern is called “Ozborne Slub.” I am so glad the seam looks straight in the photo…
6. I never shared my curtains that I sewed back in July (though they have photobombed a bit). They cover all the kitchen windows including our long ones and the back door. I managed so easily because it was a stiff cotton broadcloth. I had been putting sewing them off for a year, and now that they are finally up, I am pretty happy with them, and they add a lot to the kitchen. 🙂
Here we are on the verge of fall weather, holding onto those last few days of warmer weather with our windows open all day and all night. What a summer we had, in a good way! We planted our garden, had VBS, swim lessons, our three weeks in Georgia, Ohio, and Michigan, home again, breaking my toe, exterior house painting, visit from cousins, one week in St. Louis, and then the last week before we started school time. I felt like we barely had time at home to enjoy it being summertime. I do wonder if we need to do less next summer.
So, on Monday afternoon at the end of quiet time, I pulled the chicken out of the freezer, and realized that I had until the chicken thawed to do something with the kids. I don’t normally spend the four o’clock hour playing, but I had an hour to kill and M was not due home until 5. My toe has been fine with walking and some light jogging and I knew it was long past due for me to take the girls out on their bikes…
G (5) Photo by Paul Hasser.
I have never seen them clean up so fast as when I ask if they want to go for a bike ride. We get all ready, and when I tell F (22 months) that we were going for a walk, she replies with an excited, “Droller! Walk!”
We head out with G (5) in the lead. We had decided to go where they had walked with the neighbors last week: around the block and behind the church that is on the other side of our backyard fence. “Am I showing you all the way? Is that why I am in the lead?” G asks again and again. She pedals confidently to each street corner and then waits for us to catch up. She and M went and picked out the pink bike back in May as a late birthday present. It is still fitted with training wheels, but I think that if we took an afternoon with her to try without, she could bike on her own.
L (3) Photo by Paul Hasser
L (3.5) and I follow behind, stopping for every pine cone along the way and to give the occasional push up the hill. L chatters about everything she sees and when she realizes how far ahead G is says, “Oh! We better catch up!” So we do. F sits contentedly in the stroller, happy to be given something quiet to do beyond her normal active silliness. F has turned into a goofy girl this summer. We had hints of it back in the Spring, but now she is purposefully trying to get laughs from all of us by doing silly things and cackling at herself. But now she is silent and watching as I push her in the stroller.
F (1.5) Photo by Paul Hasser.
We reach our destination after 20 minutes of walking, talking, and on fall by L. Big tears roll down her face when she falls. But all she needs is for me to help her up and to store the pine cone she was holding in her hand in the stroller. It is easier to steer without a pine cone in your hand. Behind the church is a brick path to a big grassy hill. It is steep and long and wide. “Last time we rolled down the hill!” G tells me, “Can we do it now?” I tell her that they may and watch with delight as they roll down again and again.
L manages to get a lot of speed every time, explaining, “I am doing my tricks!” Her rolling technique is building speed on her hands and knees and then stretching out straight once she is going. As the girls dash breathlessly to the top of the hill they ask to roll again. So, I let them. Again and again and again the two girls roll, giggling and dizzy. G comes to the top, surveying the hill, “I want to see how this part feels!” And she gives it a try, only to come back and strategically try another spot. She understands that no part of the hill feels the same as any other part, and she wants to try it all. L always seems to go for the steepest parts of the hill, and I think she gets a thrill out of rolling dangerously. I get a thrill out of watching her go.
F has asked to get out of the stroller and is watching her sisters roll. She waddles over to a flat spot of grass, tries to roll once, but instead is content to lay on her belly, kicking her feet, and laughing. She comes back to the stroller and climbs on the front and around it, and then tries the grass again.
The weather is lovely, with the sun shining and the breeze mild. It is time to go home to make dinner. After 6 “one last rolls”, we put the girls’ helmets back on and go home the short way. I wonder to myself how many more afternoons we have like this before the cold sets in, and resolve to take advantage of more of them while we still can.
One morning in St. Louis last week my sister, my children, and I sat on my parents’ living room floor playing. First, we played the old Marbleworks set. My sister and I reminisced about playing with them as girls while we found a way to use all the pieces and keep the track sturdy and at a height my one year old would not be able to knock over. We were probably having more fun than the kids were. F (21 months) had a blast putting marbles down the tracks, and my sister and I did as well. Then we moved on to the old Lego brick set that we used to spend hours on. I worked on a house built to the specifications of three year old L, and my five year old, G, happily worked on her own. It was nice to have the leisure to not do house work and just play with my old toys with my children. I happily remembered my girlhood and the hours that I spent at play with my siblings. Ever since my oldest two could play together I have watched, listened to, and ignored their games, allowing their creativity to flow.
As I pondered how to home school kindergarten for my five year old, I have heard a variety of things from other mothers. I know a number of mothers jumping into a first grade curriculum for their five year olds, who would normally be in kindergarten this year. At the home school conference I felt really anxious looking through massive math textbooks wondering if I could even do this. But then I heard over and over again from seasoned home school moms that there is no need to rush G into first grade level work, even if she has the ability to handle it. It will be easier to teach her when she is more mature, and she does not need to be a grade ahead. I am seeing for myself her desire to play, to learn things when she is ready, and to keep her own pace.
Since last September we have made it through 85 of the 100 lessons in “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.” The lessons were not always easy for G. Looking back I think that maybe it would have been easier if I would have waited to start the book with her. She is still so young, still below the age of reason, and I want to give her time to play more before the stress of full-on home schooling. This year we are going to do some work, but mostly play.
I especially want the kids to be outside while the weather is nice. I want to see them gleefully swinging and hunting for natures treasures while I tend to the chores in the kitchen. I know if we did first grade they would not lose that, but I also know that G will be just find with another year of simple school preparation. I am also going to plan a weekly craft day so that I actually have to face the set up, mess making, and clean up instead of avoiding it entirely.
My main goals for school this year are for me to keep to a daily schedule. If I do not set daily goals for myself, I am likely to spend the day reading or putzing about the house. I am inclined to stay inside and relax if I am given the choice. So, to know that I can and will home school my children for years to come, I need to discipline myself now. One day I hope to be that seasoned home school mom who can do it without thinking, but for now I need to plan and plot my day carefully, so that when we finish our short, one hour-ish school day, my kids can go and play and play and play.
We are starting next Tuesday, the same day as M starts his semester.
I am so glad that we decided to really have a vegetable garden this year. There is nothing like freshly picked vegetables everyday, and it also has turned out to be very educational for me and for the children. I am learning about things like cabbage worms and finding organic ways to kill them. My children are learning all sorts of things.
We impulse bought a cucumber plant in June. I thought that it would grow upward on the small trellis I put out for it. Instead it took over half of the raised garden. The great thing about the cucumber is that it attracts all the bees. Everyday it has lots of beautiful little yellow flowers (that is another great thing about vegetable gardens), and everyday the kids and I go out and watch the bees pollinate the flowers. We have learned that there are female and male cucumber flowers.
We spotted this little female flower one morning as a bee landed on a neighboring male flower. The bee flew directly to this flower, and the girls and I got swept away in the delight of the moment. I realized that gardening is just preparing a good place for plants to grow, tending to them, pulling up weeds, and then nature takes care of the rest.
And while the eating of the vegetables is good for us, the learning about God’s creation and the way plants grow is even better. I am so thankful for the blessings of a stable home and a stable society in which we can enjoy growing delicious foods.
Planning ahead… So, we are going on one of our family road trips at the end of month, and M has decided that I am going to take a vacation from my blogging as well. I could see myself seizing the extra free time with other adults around and writing more, but he thinks we should just relax and read Michael O’Brien novels. I am totally up for that, but I am a little sad to set my writing aside for a few weeks. (I am also sad that we are not vacationing with college friends Up North again this summer.) Maybe it will help me come up with more good ideas to take a break. I always seem to have a hard time writing when I stop for awhile, but maybe I really just need a good vacation.
The only thing I do not look forward to on vacation is sleeping, because I know that the kids will not sleep as well as they do at home, and therefore I will be tired. We are going to see how F does in a room with her sisters and us since night weaning (and sleeping through the night for the past month). I imagine she will do better than we ever expected.
Food for the Winter… I am praying that the strawberries at our favorite picking place are ready by my birthday next week. I want to pick 30 lbs this year and can about 50% more jam than we made last year. We just ran out mid-May from last summer and I am hoping to make it through the year with some to spare and more to giveaway. I love the taste of my homemade jam in my homemade yogurt for breakfast or a snack.
Living today… M had a conference on campus to go to this evening, and he was hoping to meet one of our old professors from Franciscan University for lunch. This plan fell through because of flight delays, but M has been gone since this morning. I managed lunch, nap, dinner, and bedtime alone, which I really loath doing, but I did it! And L only came out twice!
This morning L (3.5) had her first ever “class” with an adult instructor who was not me. She had been on the waiting list for swim lessons and got in after the first two of eight classes. She was so excited to be like her sister and even listened to the instructor. It was so sweet to see her big smile and excitement as she followed instructions. It is less frightening to have a second child do these things than a first. Growing children… G had her second vacation Bible school last week, and she is so much more mature than she was last year! It is really neat to see how much more mature she is than she was a year ago. Even with her reading lessons which we started last September, she is doing so much better with. It is like she reached a level of intellectual maturity that she had not been at before. Wrapping it up…
Since M is still out at his conference dinner and talk, I am making myself a lime daiquiri. The only catch is that I had to make the simple syrup as well, and it has to chill. So, while it is chilling I am chillin’ at the blog. I last made a daiquiri when M was off interviewing for jobs when L was 15 months old. It may have even been an evening when he was on the very same campus that he is on tonight. It is he same bottle of rum, since M does not drink rum. He prefers scotch or gin. When the few ounces that are left in the bottle are gone, I will have to ask: why is the rum gone?
My new food processor is totally photo-bombing here. It is upset that I have not yet featured it photographically on the blog.
1. Friday is not my day for writing quick takes. We had a play date in the morning, which involved 14 children of philosophers. It was pretty intense, and for awhile there was a mob of three 3 year old and three five year old girls doing whatever little girls do in mobs. At one point they were comparing mosquito bites.
2. Congratulations to my husband for getting another article accepted into a peer reviewed journal! This will go towards the four he is supposed to have before going up for tenure, and is his tenth in his professional career. For those of you not familiar with the field, journal articles are hard to get published and take months of research and writing. This is a Big Deal!
Not a black bear, but young brown bears that once lived in the Buffalo Zoo.
3. So, a black bear was fatally shot about a mile from our house early this morning. It is kind of crazy. I guess I should be watching out for bears when the kids play in the backyard? When we were closing on our house the seller’s realtor told us a bunch of stories about people who live in our “city”, and he claimed to have grown up with a bunch of the police force. If they are anything like him when it comes to fishing and hunting, then I can say that I am confidant that the West St. Paul police can hunt down any bear that comes into our neighborhood. These police are real Minnesotans!
4. Speaking of Minnesotans, when I was at the optometrist’s yesterday, I heard a saleslady and a customer discussing the weather:
Saleslady: “How is it out there?” Customer: “Oh, it’s toasty.” Saleslady: “Oh, that is great! Don’t you just love it!” Customer: “Sure do!”
When you live in Minnesota, it is best to embrace all weather to the fullest.
5. And since we are on the topic of weather, I have been trying to decided which things are worse:
Bundling children in snowsuits or in swimsuits and sunscreen? Grocery shopping in a blizzard or grocery shopping in pouring rain? Staying inside with hot tea or bug bites?
6. I went to a lovely concert on Thursday night called Harmony in the Park with two lady friends. We left our children at home and had a lovely evening on a blanket drinking wine and eating cheese, strawberries, and chocolate. It was great, and M is so awesome that he was okay with me leaving at 6pm and taking care of dishes, the childrens’ baths, and bedtime for all three alone.
7. If you were wondering how my dad is doing these days, I can tell you that he is well enough to visit us for a week with my mom. They are driving up tomorrow from St. Louis (and hopefullly with some Ted Drewes Frozen Custard in a cooler). I am excited to see them. Please keep my father in your prayers, since he is still slowly recovering and has nerve damage in his left hand. Some good news is that he is now allowed to drive, which was an issue with the narcotics he had been on since his surgery.
