Link to Dressed in Scarlet

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New Blog!

Chase and I have debated the renaming of the blog. I've gotten a number of comments and questions wondering if we'd change the name once we moved away from the Washington, DC area. I decided when we left there that I would change the name, but only when I came up with a name that I loved and that would last.

Chase has been lobbying for the name to be "Francls in CC," a reference to the town we now live in. However, I have two problems with this: 1) I'm not crazy about the world constantly being reminded where we live, and 2) what if we move again? I've lived in 4 different towns in the last 4 years, and I do NOT plan on renaming the blog ever again (if I can help it).

The name I finally settled on, as you can see, is "Dressed in Scarlet." It refers to Proverbs 31:21. "When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are dressed in scarlet." The whole chapter is one of my favorite passages of Scripture. It is advice given to King Lemuel by his mother regarding his selection of a mate. It describes a wife of noble character.

This Proverbs 31 woman is pretty incredible in a million way. She works. Hard. In the home (rising before dawn, her lamp burns late into the night). Out of the home (she considers a field and buys it and from her earnings plants a vineyard). She is respected. Her husband is respected (an elder at the city gates). And her children arise and call her blessed.

I want to be her.

And I want my family to be dressed in scarlet.

Scarlet is a warm fabric, and some translations say instead that her household is dressed in warm clothes. The implication is not the color or kind of fabric, but rather than a wife of noble character takes care of her family's needs. She anticipates those needs and serves her family by being prepared. And that's how I want to be.

So the blog title is a reminder to me, a constant reminder of who I want to be. Of what I want my family to become. Of how I want to be remembered. Of my legacy.

Thanks for sharing with me both the old blog Francls in DC and the new one Dressed in Scarlet. I hope you enjoy.

Princess for a day

Every little girl (at least every one I know of) has dreamed of being a princess. And on Saturday, that's exactly what two little girls (and two big girls) got to do. My sister-in-law and I took Lily and cousin Ella to a Princess Party at Stuhr Museum.

For those not from the area, Stuhr Museum is "the museum of the prairie pioneer." It's as close as we get, here in Nebraska, to a place like Mt. Vernon. When I was in elementary, we took a field trip every year to Stuhr, where we'd learn something about settling the Great Plains. One year we learned how to set up a teepee and played with dolls that little Indian girls would have played with. One year we dipped candles like the pioneers used to have to do, and we played with baby chicks. One year we even got to ride the train that was used in the filming of Sarah Plain and Tall (the movie).

But on Saturday, there was no prairie pioneer-ness to be had. It was all princess at Stuhr. I had no idea Central Nebraska had so many princesses! There were princesses of every shape and size and age. We started out at a princess tea party complete with ice water and pink cookies (because princesses can have tea parties without tea). When we entered the room, the caller announced the presence of each princess: "Please welcome Princess Lily to our tea party!" It was pretty adorable, and just look at the costume the caller had to wear. He was a real champ!

We spent the afternoon doing princess-y things like making wands, making crowns, dancing, fishing for prince charming, getting Ella's face painted, and getting her picture with Miss Teen Nebraska. In all honesty, it made me wish I was 3 1/2 again to enjoy it in the innocent and wonderful way of the miniature princesses. (Pictured below are the wand making experience and showing off the wands. Notice the beautifully made crown Ella is wearing in both pictures.)

What is it about the princess that is so appealing to we females? Certainly the gorgeous dresses are wonderful - especially the full length, poofy kind. (Like Ella's - It went all the way to the floor, had tulle, feathery-fur, velvet, lace and sparkles... and somehow at 3 1/2, she knew to pick up the front of the dress when she ran! How did she know that???) And who wouldn't want to walk around all day with a crown and a wand. And then princesses are rich, what with bejeweled crowns, wands, necklaces, bracelets, and all. So of course that's appealing.

I can't help but marvel at the universality of it - just about every little girl, in her heart of hearts, wants to be a princess. It's why the Disney princesses are everywhere. It's why the story of Beauty and the Beast still makes me cry. I don't know about you, but I still, in many ways, yearn for the protection of a king, the innocence of the young princess, the beauty of the queen growing daily in the princess, and the hope of a handsome prince who will one day sweep the princess off her feet.

I have my own theories about such things, mostly summed up in the idea that each female was designed to desire a version of the princess story. It's why some stories are so classic - they speak to each of us in a unique way that is, at the same time, universal.

Lately, in my spirit, I've felt more like Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory than I have felt like Belle of Beauty and the Beast. Though I love many things about my life, and in so many ways I am living my dream, I still think to myself, "I want [fill in frivolous or serious desire here]." Why can't I just be grateful and content? But then, I guess even Belle wasn't content - at least not until she had her prince charming and lived in a castle. Maybe that's what I'm waiting for...

Prince Charming: check
Beautiful Daughter: check
Castle to call my very own home: still waiting
Contentment in my situation: priceless, and so difficult to actually feel and live.

But I think it must be a daily surrender kind of thing. At least it is for me. And for now when I look forward I see great possibilities, and when I look in my review mirror, I see this little angel:

What could be better?

Snow day!

This last weekend was one of our best weekends in quite a while, Chase and I both agreed. It was special for a number of reasons, the first of which was that it was a snow weekend.

I love it when they accurately predict that a blizzard or blizzard-like conditions are headed my way. It's fantastic, because I have time to prepare, to gather up all those things I've been wanting to do on a snow day, and get to a place where I can share it with friends and/or family. Snow days, to me, are like extra days in life. One ought not spend them doing chore-type things, but rather doing those things that one would never do unless God gifted one a snow day. Life will return to normal all too soon, so I enjoy my snow days with the not-so-normal (for me, anyway).

In addition to being a snow weekend, it was also Lily's very first snow day/weekend, thereby making the experience extra special. We packed up on Friday evening and went to Mom's where we stayed the night, and spent the day Saturday. Here are some of the wonderful things we got to do:

We played Nertz, a card game similar to double solitaire or Dutch blitz:

While playing Nertz, it appeared that Mom stacked her deck. She didn't - we all watched each other shuffle. This was probably the most impressive Nertz deal I've ever seen:

We started building a puzzle and got about 1/3 to 1/2 done with the 1,000 piece monstrosity. (Lily supervised.)

Lily played with her daddy while we all stayed in our sweats/jammies all day long.

And we cooked soup and baked monkey bread in the kitchen with a little help from our counter elf.

You may notice a theme - the little blue chair Lily's sitting in throughout the pictures. It's her Bumbo chair. I don't know who invented it, but that thing is a life saver! Lightweight, easy to move, comfortable for her, and a blessing to her parents, it's a fantastic chair. Special thanks to Aunt Cara for picking it up for us at a garage sale. :)

There were a few things we didn't get to do during our snow day. We didn't get any cookies made. We didn't get in a good nap (at least I didn't - the 20 minute one I did get wasn't all I really needed...). We didn't play any board games. We didn't bundle up and play in the snow. We didn't make a single snow angel.

So you can see that we will need at least one more predicted blizzard before old man winter packs up and heads north for the year. Let's just hope the next blizzard comes on a Sunday night rather than a Friday night...

It finally happened.

It finally happened. I knew it would. I just couldn't foresee when it would overtake me. It happened as I settled into our pew in church this Sunday: I desperately missed the life we had before now.

Life was easier. In my former life, I dressed up during the week to go to work, and I dressed down in jeans for church. As I looked down at my jean skirt this week and realized it is what I now call "dressing up," I missed the way I used to dress.

We've been discussing membership, elder selection, deacons, leadership, and the local church body in our church. We're on the verge of appointing elders, and the responsibility and gravity of the decision is daunting. We had our church's annual meeting this last Sunday, and it was important that we attend... because there aren't all that many people to attend, and every member matters. It made me miss going to our church in DC where Chase and I were two of a few thousand who worshipped together in a service.

Lily's been waking up some at night lately. I think we're at the start of teething, and about every other night she's getting up 2 or 3 times in the night. I wonder, as I lay there listening to her rouse, if I should let her cry herself back to sleep, or if I should sneak in and stick her pacifier in her mouth, or if I should get her up and change her and feed her. It's a question both of what she needs and of what I need. I need sleep to be a good mom, but I need to meet her needs to be a good mom. I don't wake up well - it's dangerous to wake me up when I'm in a dead sleep, so as I stumble into her room still debating, in my partially conscious state, what I'm going to do to get her settled and back to sleep, I secretly yearn for the days when I could sleep when I wanted, get up when my alarm went off, and go about my day without every activity depending on the behavior of my infant. ...And then, as I come to full wakefulness while Lily has her late night snack, I feel guilty that I even entertained that feeling. She is so much more valuable than predictability.

When people ask what I miss about our former life, I often reply that I miss our pay checks. That's the truth. I really do miss those big, fat paychecks that allowed us to go where we wanted, buy what we wanted, eat out when we wanted, and in general, not worry about money. I miss being able to just go to the store on my grocery shopping day and not worry about what I have coupons to buy, what's on sale, or which is brand name and which isn't. I can tell you exactly what I don't miss about our former life: the crazy work hours, the stress of constantly feeling the need to get ahead in an unwinnable rat race, the exhaustion that set in by Wednesday, and the need to do nothing but crash and burn on the weekends. I miss the money, but I have to constantly remind myself that the money came with big, heavy, often overwhelming strings attached to it.

Before we moved back to the Heartland, life was mostly just Chase and I with an occasional visitor or an occasional visit to family or close friends. Everyone was excited when we'd fly home to visit. They'd change their schedules, drop what they were doing, and make time to see us. We avoided almost all family drama, because we were home so rarely, it wasn't worth spending those precious hours with drama, drama, drama. Not so any longer. Now we live smack in the middle of both of our families, most of our close friends, and all of the drama that goes along with both. It's so much more stressful to be this close rather than being 1,500 miles away. I allow myself to get pulled in and involved in ways I shouldn't.

All this hit me all at once this week as I settled into our pew in church. I yearned for the life I had. It was so good. Did I not appreciate it while I had it? I felt guilty that I wanted a crisp, flawless, inspiring church service with a 30 piece orchestra and 100 voice choir mostly made up of professional musicians. I felt guilty that I wanted to just anonymously fill a pew and not be involved in the politics or responsibility of selecting elders. I felt guilty that I was tired of trying to figure out how to help our little girl sleep. I felt guilty that I wanted money and seemed ungrateful for the things we have and the money we make. I felt guilty that I missed being 1,500 miles away from our family and friends.

I'm over it now. I know that God will provide for our needs, for the needs of our church, and for the needs of our Lily. I know that we're supposed to be here in this small town, becoming connected in ways that simply aren't done in large cities. But I felt like I needed to be honest with myself, and state for the record that it happened. I missed life in Michigan. I missed life in DC. I missed life without kids. I missed life hundreds of miles away from where I grew up.

It will happen again over the years. And it will be hard when it does. But I can rest in the fact that I KNOW we came here for a reason, and I KNOW that we're right where we're supposed to be... even if I don't FEEL that way all the time. And I'm thankful that right now, as I sit at my kitchen table to type and my baby girl naps in her crib, I'm feeling again like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Wrestling with Humanity

I've been wrestling the last couple of days with facing the baseness of humanity. When I type it, that sounds sort of ridiculous, but it's true.

I'm reading a fictional book set in the South before, during, and after the Civil War. Last night, I read about a kind, gentle, married, free negro man who was wrongly accused and jailed. A white friend came to visit him in jail just as the jailer left for the night (the jailer, who knew exactly what was going to happen when he left...). As a crowd of white men rallied themselves outside, the negro man admitted to his white friend that he wasn't afraid of the death he would soon taste - rather he was afraid of what would be done to him before he partook that bitter end. As Jafar said on the Disney movie Aladdin, "There are things so much worse than death." The riled and blood thirsty crowd prepared a massive bonfire and a noose, and just as they were preparing to break into the jail to take captive their victim, they heard a gun shot. The white friend had murdered his black friend, at the black friend's request - a husband, father, businessman, and most importantly, a human.

It didn't matter too much to the crowd that the negro man was dead. They still burned his body and then hanged him. Did I mention this was all because a prostitute (also a human that none of the white men in the crowd would even "lower themselves" to visit) approached the negro man and tried to get him to sleep with her and he politely refused?

I know, I know. It's fiction. It's just part of a story in a silly novel I'm reading. True. But the truth is that such things really did happen, with frequency. I started to say to myself that the men who were preparing to do horrible things to the negro were bad men themselves. But the reality is the KKK were as much church-going, upstanding, community leaders as they were anything else.

It makes me ashamed of my fellow humans, and it makes me ache for the individuals who endured the torture.

But too, I know humans causing other humans pain and anguish is nothing new. We've been doing it since the beginning of time. There were the crusades, there were the gladiators, there were Cain and Able, there was Hitler, there are still genocides, there is abortion. To those of you who disagree with me on that last issue, please don't stop reading just because we might disagree. I've heard your arguments, and I sympathize.

I got pregnant with my daughter a few months before I really wanted to get pregnant with her. She has always been a wanted, loved, cherished child, from the second I knew I was pregnant. But that didn't stop me from thinking at 9 weeks pregnant that life would probably be easier if we hadn't made the decision to "start trying." I had moments of sheer terror where any way out might have seemed preferable to seeing my pregnancy through to the end. I can see why women, my fellow women, choose abortion. I had it easy with a supporting husband, loving family, money to pay for the expenses of having a baby, and still it was overwhelming. I can't empathize with rape victims, women living on the street, drug addicts, or even just women who never want children. I've never been in those positions.

But I can try to face the vileness and horror of what we, as humans, can do to each other, and it's simply not ok. Being human is unique. It's a thing that only humans get to be, and it matters. The ancients acknowledged, as did our Founders, that we are created a little lower than the angels, yet a little higher than animals. It is not size, shape, color, age, convenience, or being wanted that defines us as humans. It is the heartbeat of a being, a little higher than the animals and a little lower than the angels, who has a soul.

I can't empathize with many people because of their situations, but I can empathize with everyone else who is a fellow human in our human condition. And I hurt, I ache for those who suffer at the hands of other humans who don't understand the value of those they torture, maim, injure, harm, and kill.

Sometimes I start to think that abortion in this bitter, cruel world may be a mercy for some babies. Who wants to be born into a family that doesn't want them? Who wants to be born into a family that can't take care of them emotionally or physically? But the reality is, being wanted or being emotionally and physically cared for doesn't make us human. It doesn't make us any more or less valuable than anyone else. Humans are intrinsically valuable.

I've struggled a bit in being Lily's mom. I've struggled because I love her SO much. I can't begin to describe it. I can't begin to explain how much I love those chunky little cheeks, that toothless grin, and each day just being with her. I've struggled because I know that there are so many children, so many adults, so many people who have never known or experienced love like I shower on my little girl - love like has been showered on me since before I can remember. And every one of those people is just as valuable as my Liliana.

So what has my wrestling with the human condition resulted in? Not much. Because in reality, I can't do much. I can't go back and change what's been done in the past. I can't adopt every love-hungry child. I can't stop the cruel actions of others. But there is one thing I can do - I can raise Lily to value each and every human life, be they one day or one hundred years old, be they wanted or not.

On this anniversary of Roe v. Wade, my heart breaks for all of the women out there who are considering having an abortion or the women who have had an abortion. I know that you didn't make that decision because you wanted to - you made it because you felt like you had to for one reason or another. And my heart breaks for all those children, my peers and my daughter's peers, who we will never know. I hope somehow, you know that you are a valuable human being, whether you were a victim of the morning after pill or a late term abortion.

Today in the face of the vileness and baseness and cruelness of humanity, I will lift my head and celebrate life. Because that's the best thing I can think to do - to celebrate life and pray for those who are hurting.

Here are a few pictures that make me smile to help in my celebration:

Lily's feet don't quite reach the ground in her exersaucer. (Look at those adorable little feet!)

Surrounded by toys, she contemplates the frog staring at her from his perch on her exersaucer.

She leans over to say "Ooo" to the bug on her right before turning back to the frog.

The other day it was relatively nice out, so I strapped Lily on my front and we walked down to the grocery store. I zipped her up inside my coat and we stayed toasty warm. People called down the isle of the grocery store to try to get her to flash a chubby-cheeked grin their way.

Liliana sports the hat her Grandma Becky crocheted for her. (We kind of think it makes her look like an old, white-haired lady with rollers in her hair.)

Humanity. Life. What a beautiful thing.

Choosing to Love

Last night Chase and I were watching Liliana playing on the floor and were discussing how strange it is that we have no recollections of being that age. Each day Lily learns new things. It's so fun to watch as she begins to understand that when she touches something, she is touching it. She's realizing a little more each day that her actions cause reactions in the things around her, her toys, the dogs, the mirror, her parents.

I can almost see the the synapses and neurons connecting in her brain, the various parts developing with ever-more maturity. It's crazy how she remembers things from day to day and constantly builds on what she learned yesterday. She obviously has memory, but not the kind of memory that allows things to stand out in a memorable way in the span of time she's lived thus far. That kind of memory will come later - sometime between the ages of 3 and 5.

One thing that has been strange to me as a first-time parent is the insane and inexplicable depth of love I feel for my little girl. It's unquanitfiable. Similar, though in a different way, to the love I feel for my husband. But the biggest difference between the love I feel for my husband and the love I feel for my daughter is that the love I feel for my husband is reciprocated, voluntarily.

Chase chooses, daily, to love me back. A major part of the joy is in the shared love. But Lily doesn't love me back - at least not cognizantly. Sure, she may prefer my smell, my voice, my arms, my milk to any other, but she doesn't yet know what love is. It's my job to teach her love.

Just as she has no framework for memory yet - that comes with time as her brain develops and makes memories, then things will stand out and she'll have memories - so also she has no framework for love. It is Chase and my (and all of our friends and family) choosing to love her that will teach her what love is and will teach her how to love in return.

One day Lily will look into my eyes and say, "Mommy, I love you." And initially she'll say it because she's been taught to say it. But one very special day, she'll look into my eyes and say, "Mommy, I love you." And she'll mean it. She'll choose to say it. And she'll choose to say it because she has learned what love really is and because she is voluntarily giving it back. That will be a glorious day. But until then, I'll enjoy that she can bask in my love as I can bask in my Father's love. What a gift: to choose to love.