Mommy Brain

Thank you so much to those of you who were praying for my brother-in-law. Derek is doing much better; he’ll go home from the hospital tomorrow. They’re basically just keeping him tonight to make sure his fever doesn’t come back - all of his blood tests are coming back good. Debra will leave to go visit Andrea in the morning, and Derek’s mom will help out with Derek and the kids this weekend. All is well. God is good.

I finally quit procrastinating and dove into the school cupboard today. All of last year’s work is ready to go into storage, new books are in place, and I just need to pick up a couple of supplies to fill in some gaps. We’ll be starting Monday, the 25th. If you’re interested in what we did last year, and what we’ll be doing this upcoming year, this post will fill in all the details.

We have a busy, busy weekend ahead of us. Play date and ortho appointment tomorrow day, a BBQ at a friend’s house tomorrow evening - friends from our former church that we haven’t seen in a long time. Then a wedding Saturday evening, and celebrating Mom’s birthday Sunday afternoon. Oh, and it’s hot here. 100 degrees today. Blech.

~ Some readers who didn’t like Breaking Dawn are trying to organize a mass protest, in which readers return their books. Am I the only one who finds this ridiculous? I think it’s unethical to return a book you’ve already read. When ever you buy a book, you take a chance - it doesn’t come with a guarantee that you’ll love it. If I returned every book that I had purchased, and then didn’t like, I’d only keep 1/2 or so of the books I buy.

~ Rotten Tomatoes has a featurette about the upcoming film version of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.

~ This guy is talented in a very unusual way. Hat tip to my mom, who e-mailed me that one.

At Books and Movies this week:

~ Review of My Husband’s Sweethearts by Bridget Asher.

~ A reading personality quiz.

~ Review of August Rush.

~ Review of The Dark Knight. And just in case you don’t click over to read it, I’ll leave you with this:

My brother-in-law, Derek, is in the hospital. He punctured his leg on something in a crawl space last week - he’s an electrician - and the wound became infected, turning into sepsis. After several days of IV antibiotics as an out-patient, it seemed to be healing well. Yesterday, though, the fever and chills returned and he was admitted last night. Please keep Derek and my sister, Debra, in your prayers. Deb is supposed to leave on Friday (they live in Silverdale) to fly to Boise to be with my other sister Andrea for her birthday Sunday, so it would be wonderful if God would work quickly.

Update: This is a blog where you can watch a video of Steven with Maria. On the main web site, the family asks that, in lieu of flowers, any gifts be redirected to Shaohannah’s Hope, their organization that cares for orphans and helps families to adopt.

From the Tennessean:

Steven Curtis Chapman’s youngest child died Wednesday afternoon after being struck by a car driven by her teenage brother in the driveway of the family’s Williamson County home.

Maria, one of the Christian singer’s six children, was taken by LifeFlight to Vanderbilt Hospital, which confirmed the death, according to Laura McPherson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

The 5-year-old was hit by an SUV driven by her teenage brother, she said. Police did not give the driver’s name.

The teen was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser down the driveway of the rural home at about 5:30 p.m. and several children were playing in the area, McPherson said. He did not see Maria in the driveway before the vehicle struck her, she said.

“It appears to be a terrible accident,’’ McPherson said.

No charges are expected, she said. The accident was witnessed by two other children; the entire family was home at the time, McPherson said.

I can’t even imagine. Steven Curtis Chapman’s music helped to bring Kevin and I together. His song “Go There With You” was played at our wedding, and we have followed his career eagerly ever since. This is beyond words. Please pray for this family.

I found a white hair on my head yesterday. Now, that’s not news - they’ve been showing up for a while now. The news is that this one had managed to make it to the length of the rest of my hair. Normally, I pluck them as soon as they spring from my scalp, wiry and slightly bent and refusing to blend in with the rest of my hair.

I’m only 35, and so far I haven’t had to deal with any of the worse symptoms of aging - except the normal stretching and falling of body parts that comes with four pregnancies. However, I have friends who are older than me, some of them much older, and watching as they suffer some of the more difficult aspects of aging is heartbreaking.

I lost a dear friend to abdominal cancer three years ago. (I posted about Beve here, here, and here.) She was about the same age my parents are now.

My mom and dad will both turn 60 this summer. Sixty is not old, right? But when my grandfather died at 64, when I was in college, I don’t remember ever thinking that he was so young to die. Now, with my parents entering that decade, I realize how premature his death was.

Today, I learned that a friend from our former church was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Joyce is in her early seventies, though you would never know it. She is vibrant, active, sharp as a tack. In 2002, Joyce and her husband Bill took a trip across the US in an RV. They visited historical sites, watched a space shuttle launch, and Bill went birding to his heart’s content. In 2004, not content with staying home and enjoying their retirement, Joyce and Bill headed to China to teach English. Joyce ended up playing piano at a house church and leading a Bible study in their apartment. I wish you could all meet her, hear her teach Bible study, know how smart and charming she is, so that you could understand how devastating the thought of her losing her memory, her identity is.

Joyce and Bill’s daughter, Jan, is also a dear friend. She’s not much older than I am. When I think of what the years ahead will be like for her, I can’t stop crying.

Joyce loves Jesus. Jan loves Jesus. There is comfort in that, but this situation seems horribly wrong. Our bodies are fallen, our world is fallen, and aging and disease is a result. I can be logical about all of that until it hits someone I love, like today. Then it feels unjust and ugly.

Please pray for Joyce and Bill, Jan and their other three children, and their many, many grands and great-grands.

My wonderful online friend and fellow book-lover, Carol at Magistramater, is leaving on the trip of a lifetime to Scotland in eight days. Her husband, Curt, has pneumonia and a sinus infection. He is on a hard-hitting antibiotic. Please be in prayer that the meds work, that he recovers completely, and that they don’t have to cancel their trip. Thanks!

I have been dealing with a heavy heart this week. Monday, I found out that a family we know has fallen apart. In December, the father confessed that he had been raping and molesting his four daughters for years. In the course of the investigation, it was discovered that the oldest brother, age 14, and the maternal grandfather were also molesting the girls. The mother had been raped by her father when she was a girl, and still chose to leave her children in her father’s care. This family has attended the same homeschool classes as us for three years. I sat across from the mother every Wednesday, except for during the summer and the month of December, for three years. We exchanged books. I talked to those four precious girls, ages 8 through 13, every week - about what books they were reading, about their dance classes. My mind isn’t equipped to process news like this. I keep seeing their beautiful faces in my mind and weeping. Please pray.