in praise of winter

This year we got lots of snow in Prague. Except for a year in Slovakia, I don't think I've had a winter where snow stuck around for so long. It was on the ground almost two months, and then it came a get for a bit. I'm excited for spring now, and am looking for the buds that are starting to show on a few branches.

We live near a hilly park, and this winter got to sled with the niece and nephews a bit.

Seven-month-pregnant Elizabeth stayed safely at the top of the hill.
Mark trudges up slowly. Daniel poses in front of the view.
There are a few more photos here.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

baby shower

Yesterday I hosted a baby shower for my sister, Elizabeth. She's 9 months pregnant + counting. It was a fun time. We had a group of ladies talking around pink & blue cupcakes, fruit and cookies. We discussed baby names, and how you guess if it's a boy or girl, and had all those shower conversations. And I asked Elizabeth to share some funny quotes from her pregnancy. I was going to say "funny things your children have said about this baby," but it's more accurately a list of "funny things Mark has said." (Mark, her youngest, is four.)

• When Mark first learned that Elizabeth was going to have a baby, he sat and thought hard, and then asked, "Will the baby be human?"
• Elizabeth took Mark with her to the hospital when she went to register. They were filling out paperwork, and Mark asked for another copy. He asked, "Mommy, if we give them two papers will they give us two babies?"
• After explaining to Mark the different ways people deliver babies, Mark said, "If I ever have a baby, I will have it in the normal way. I will sit on the toilet, and then pick the baby out of the toilet."
• Apparently Mark has reminded Elizabeth multiple times throughout her pregnancy that she will need to take her pants off when the baby comes so that they baby won't get stuck....
  

Man, I want to be there to hear what he says when the baby comes.

It's pretty special getting to be here for all of this. I've got (will have) 8 nieces & nephews, but this is first time I've been living near a pregnant sister and will be near when the baby comes.

Anna, my 7 year-old-niece came to the shower too.

I played for Elizabeth my favorite "baby" song. I think it's so sweet. It's called "Welcome" by Lori Chaffer on her album 1beginning. With a little bit of research I learned that she wrote it for her friend's baby boy, but there after she had a baby boy herself.

Welcome to this dusty land
Where you will cry lots but we'll all understand
Things may not turn out sometimes like you plan
That's all right our little man

Welcome outside of your mother's womb
I know that it's frightening
But now there's more room
Just think of all the great things you'll do
Just by you being you

I don't care what the world
Says about all this struggling
All I know is that now you're here
It's all lovely lovely

I don't care about
All the things that have troubled me
Now that you're here I remember life
Can be so lovely

Welcome to us, oh our little song
You're one part your daddy
One part your mom
They're gonna help you grow up to be strong
But for now little guy
Sleep on

We're very excited to great this new little one into the world.

East of Eden

I finished reading East of Eden. It's a powerful book, so beautifully written. Its story would leave a deep mark inbetween readings. I made it through, and went back to the folded corners of pages to blog about.

Steinbeck writes,

[in case I ever feel overwhelmed at my job]

"Olive Hamilton became a teacher. That meant that she left home at fifteen and went to live in Salinas, where she could go to secondary school. At seventeen she took county board examinations, which covered all the arts and sciences, and at eighteen she was teaching school at Peach Tree.

"In her school there were pupils older and bigger than she was. It required great tact to be a schoolteacher. To keep order among the big undisciplined boys without a pistol and bull whip was a difficult and dangerous business...

"Olive Hamilton had not only to teach everything, but to all ages. Very few youths went past the eighth grade in those days, and what with farm duties some of them took fourteen or fifteen years to do it. Olive also had to practice a rudimentary medicine, for there were constant accidents. She sewed up knife cuts after a fight in the school yard. When a barefooted boy was bitten by a rattlesnake, it was her duty to suck his toe to draw the poison out.

"She taught reading to the first grade and algebra to the eighth. She led the singing, acted as a critic of literature, wrote the social notes that went weekly to the Salinas Journal. In addition, the whole social life of the area was in her hands, not only graduation exercises, but dances, meetings, debates, chorals, Christmas and May Day festivals, patriotic exudations on Decoration Day and the Fourth of Judy. She was on the election board and headed and held together all charities. It was far from an easy job.... The work was so hard and the proposals so constant that they married within a very short time."


I also like this quote: "A family could indeed walk proudly if the son married a schoolteacher."



"The Hamiltons were strange, high-strung people, and some of them were tuned too high and they snapped. This happens often in the world."