The Life of Savages

And it is still coming down. . . .

Happy Birthday Granny!

About to start work on the snowman

Well, even though I just returned from a very eventful Memphis trip which could take many blog posts and we are rehabbing a house which is loads of headache and potential blog posts (maybe in the future), I am just skipping it all for now and keeping it simple.  I have to stay sane.

Our little Susannah is 5 months!  Every single day with her has been a joy.  She has started to watch me as I eat which is so cute.  And I can’t do anything with paper while she is on my lap or I am wrestling her for it as she grabs. What is interesting to me, though, is that Lily was very verbal at this age.  Lily babbled all the time and had a fabulous giggle.  On the other hand, Susannah is quieter (though she as her moments) and laughs so readily but in a quiet, understated way.

It has been awhile since I did the sister comparison, but just to get my mind off our whirlwind life I dug through old photos to find Lily at 5 months.  It was actually very very hard to find pictures that would be good for comparison.  Partly because their personalities are so incredibly different so they photograph differently.  It was hard to find a serious picture of Susannah and hard to find a clear smiling picture of Lily.  I know Lily smiled a lot but not really on cue and definitely not as much as Susu.

So here they are – definitely sisters but definitely different.

This blog is temporarily on hold until I return to Philadelphia so don’t give up on me!  I am having a great time visiting friends and seeing my family.  I enjoy feeling like a tourist in Memphis.  We had a great time at the zoo, hanging out with Lee and family, seeing Manda and Lucy, catching up with Jan, watching Lily and my mom be the peas in the pod that they are so naturally, pulling into a garage (especially on rainy days), talking and painting with Trevor, and prepping for a Musketeer trip to Alabama to see Erin and the new John William. . . and Corky’s and TCBY and El Porton and McAllisters  etc. etc. etc.

I would post some pictures but I forgot my camera cord that would make that easy. . . more later!

Okay, I will go with the trend – a good one at that.  I need a little blog structure these days.

TEN THINGS THURSDAY:

1.  It was back to work this week with baby in tow.   Lots of rehearsals mean the laundry and the dust bunnies really pile up, we are always missing some key item of food that would complete a meal, staying up late to prepare for the next day, dirty dishes and . . .need I say more?  It is a snowball (pun intended).

2.  On Sunday, out of the blue, Susu rolls over from tummy to back.  This same week is when Lily (having already mastered that roll long before) rolled from back to tummy.  I knew this would be a milestone that they would reach at different times from the beginning.  Lily always seemed to have a higher level of natural core strength.  Susu is just chubby and soft. . .and we like her that way .  Below is a picture right before that first roll.

3.  We do not have our tree up yet.  We usually always have it up right after Thanksgiving.  This shows how busy things are right now.  Our plan is to get a Charlie Brown tree next week and decorate it with popcorn and homemade ornaments.

4.  Lily really likes white roughy fish so we have had it a lot.  A grown-up dinner we can all agree on!

5.  Lily added a second full-length movie to her repertoire.  Now she has seen Mary Poppins and Annie.  We have had a blast singing through the songs together.  Yesterday was such a long, hard day.  When we finally got home I was carrying a thousand heavy things and bordering on loosing my patience with life.  But wow, a rousing rendition of  ”It’s a Hard Knock Life” got all of us in a better mood quickly! Thanks Annie!

6.  Back to my lame holiday actions – I STILL have not addressed my Christmas card/baby announcement.  Maybe I won’t even get to it in time – which makes me sad!!!  Here it is below.  At least someone will have seen it before Christmas.

7.  I need to find my gloves.  Oh that’s right I am notorious for loosing them.  My hands are all cracked and dry, as usual, because of this.

8.  Lily’s big Christmas gift arrived last week in a large, brown box with no markings.  I, of course, don’t call any attention to the box knowing that it would spark a “present” conversation that I wanted to avoid.  Alas, my daughter seems to have inherited her Daddy’s keen sense of ruining I mean guessing presents immediately with NO prior help.

Lily:  ”Mom, what is that?”

Me:  ”A box”

Lily:  ”Does it have a present inside for me?”

Me:  ”I will have to look later.”

Lily:  ”Is that a big house for my Calico Critters?”

Me:  I stare at her in half amazement and half annoyance.  ”I am going upstairs now.”

Below is what is inside that box -

9.  Lily’s Holiday Party at school is next week and I am really excited.  They have been reading through Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen.  I will see a puppet show of this work and hear the whole story sung in a song.  I have heard several verses of this from Lily already and I am riveted by it.  Then they have a book exchange. . .which I still have to buy a book for (sigh).

10.  We have all been enjoying the Bifrost Arts Christmas cd.  It is awesome!  We realized the other day that the girl who sings “O Little Town of Bethlehem” on this album sounded familiar.  We dug a little and realized. . . we heard her sing at Matt Hodges’ wedding in New York about a month ago.  It is a small world.

My Aden and Anais swaddling blankets!  These were not around when I had Lily and we made what we had work, but when you give birth to a linebacker (i.e. Susannah Savage) these blankets really come in handy.

Aden & Anais Oh Girl! Swaddle Wrap 4 Pack – Buy at Diapers.com – Fast Free Shipping

I am very pro- swaddle because well. . . it has worked for me and I think babies crave that womb feel (even if they don’t always understand that they do).  I hear lots of people saying that their children did not like swaddles because they kicked out of them.  I am not sure that I necessarily agree with this logic.  I mean Susannah tries to punch her arms out, kick her feet out, but I know what is best for her so I hog tie her down.  These blankets allow me lots of material to do this efficiently   When I saw that a few weeks ago a natural morning nap was developing in conjunction with the fact that she stopped sleeping for more than 20 minutes at a time during the day (with no intervention that is), I took advantage of this and swaddled the baby really tight and laid her down in her bed about an hour after she woke up and BAM!!!  – a two hour nap that is now very consistent.  Now, if I try to lay her down without swaddling her she won’t sleep near as long because her own limbs will wake her up.

Problem solved.  Thanks Aden and Anais.  You would have helped me when I needed to swaddle my nine month old, super screamer named Lily . I also wonder if Lily would have benefited from sleeping on her tummy at night the way that Susannah does.  Susannah has been sleeping all night (I mean like a six hour stretch -  AMAZING!) since one month old and she has never slept a night on her back. . . .but that is another can of worms for later.

Posted using ShareThis

How is that one person – one tiny person – can bring so much joy into our home?  Susannah is three months now and I think all of us are really starting to feel the change that has come to this family.  The Lord knew exactly the personality to round out our little home.  I know you think I must be exaggerating – after all she is still an infant.  I would be skeptical myself except that we are living it.  Even in the midst of some current stressful times, her vivacity lifts us all up.  I feel it.  Brian feels it.  Lily feels it.  I think I notice it even more because of the effect it has on Lily.  Of course parents are enamored with their child, but I watch Lily be genuinely encouraged by her interactions with Susu everyday.  I am not sure if it something I can really capture in my poor command of words.  What we are feeling has gone beyond ooooing and ahhing over  a sweet, easy baby.  She is full of this life that is bubbling over into our lives – changing us.  I am amazed at the real sense of who she is that we already have.  We have a lot to look forward to and I think that being the “spark plug of the show” is a role that has been officially been transferred to her.

Of course all this thinking about the impact of one tiny person directs my mind to another tiny Person that changed everything.  I begin to get a sense of just how exponentially dynamic His life is and how beautiful it is that God chose to inaugurate re-creation through a tiny infant. Susannah reminds us daily that is no small thing.

Lily has to hold on for dear life so bouncing, kicking Susu won't launch herself off the couch

Brian and I RARELY see a movie in the theater.  The last one we saw was the latest Harry Potter at the IMAX – which was a big mistake!  I had to close my eyes for most of the movie to avoid motion sickness which I still had anyway.  We are, though, avid Netflix patrons and I would say we watch about one movie a week.  Our taste is pretty eclectic and we enjoy trying different kinds of things.  There are inherent hazards to this – numerous duds – but we persevere.

I wanted to recommend officially three movies that stood out this year from our queue.  You probably have already seen them.  We are pretty behind the curve most times but if you have not then. . . check them out.  I have deliberately not given much plot summary below because some of the surprise elements make the movies great.

*****Disclaimer*****  All of these movies contain some sort of violence, language, sexuality, or nudity but are so brief you can easily fast forward and you will most likely forget them altogether by the end.  The stories do not linger at these places but engross you in the larger narrative.

1.  The Lives of Others – A German subtitled film.  I still think of this one.  It is long but be patient and it will hook you.  This film is incredibly redemptive.  There is some mild sexuality.

2.  Gran Torino – Clint Eastwood does not disappoint.  An unlikely Christ figure emerges with a stellar ending that caps some endearing character development.  This movie has violence related to gang/gun situations and language.

3.  The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – This movie is in French with subtitles.  What an amazing story but the way that it is told makes this movie stand out.  There is some brief female nudity (a mental flashback) and brief male nudity (a man in the hospital getting a bath).

And my 2009 movie to AVOID at all cost – Rachel Getting Married. . . . can we say psycho!!!!! (and pointless)

enjoy.

Play track 11

This is the song that Lily has been singing non-stop.  When she first started asking me to put this on for her, she would sing a part and I was supposed to decipher it.  I could clearly hear the tune, but she didn’t quite know all the words and it sounded like she was singing about the sun and the moon.  I was thinking to myself – grrrrreat, she is going to this preschool that is teaching her New Agey , praise-the-creation songs.  I was not happy. . . until Brian recognized it as a praise song that was done (I think for the first time) that Sunday before in church.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

This version sounds a bit “canned” (don’t know the terminology), but it has grown on me after it has played about 20 times in a row.  I prefer the nice piano/violin version from church but I don’t have a sound bite of that one.

I realize as I am writing this that I have been blogging for one year now.  My how time flies.  I cannot believe that I have kept it up.  One of my first posts was about Brian’s dear friend from Amarillo coming to town for the CCEF conference.  It was her first time to meet Lily.  Well, this past week she came for the conference once again and this time there was another little girl to meet.  The crazy part is that Lily only met her once last year, but I when I told her that Robin was coming over she said, “oh yeah we ate at that restaurant with her that had the train.”  Yes, we did – the memory on that girl!

Robin meets Susannah

The family shot Robin took of us - you can tell we are getting tired. What does Susu see?

Well, I never posted after Halloween.  I failed.  I am sure most of my readers saw Lily as Alice on Facebook but here she is again.

This is no disney Alice - this is Lewis Carroll's Alice!

We continued the age old Willetts' tradition of chili dinner and guests on Halloween. One of our guests, Olivia, wants to follow the big girl.

So AFTER I got ahold of Lily’s candy and completely raided it – which she so graciously allowed – she organized her remaining candy.

Well, the blog has been suffering because the life of these savages has been full of sickness.  After hobbling around all day, thinking I had overdone it in ballet and drinking tea to stay warm since I was shivering, I realized. . . I had a fever.  I took ibuprofen and voila!  Unfortunately, I also drank black tea which is while I am still up in the middle of the night.  Tomorrow I will pay.

Two final random tidbits

1.  I had my first parent/teacher conference at Lily’s school.  They said that she excelled in music/singing (of course! this is the girl who sang hymns at 18 months) and visual art.  They showed me her latest collages.  They said when all the other kids where mostly focused on covering their large sheets of paper with scraps until no underneath paper was showing through, Lily was making designs, layering and incorporating leaves.  They also say she is very loving and gentle with the New Moons.  All things that were no surprise.

They did ask her standard questions that PA wants her to know by the end of Kindergarden. She did very well, but I was a little embarrassed at what she did not know.  She did not know what a fireman or a policeman does.  She said a fireman makes fireworks.  It never occurred to me to discuss these simple things with her. Well, now she knows.

2.  My favorite moments with Susu this week happened today.  I was holding, her but talking to Brian and started laughing.  Then she started giggling at me laughing – sooooo sweet.  The other thing was when I was nursing her I looked down at her as I always do and she would smile back as she always does, but whenever I looked up she would pop off, lean back and try to get my eye contact again.  So, I looked down at her again and she settled back in to nursing (while looking up at me).  This happened several times before I realized that she wanted my full attention – happy to oblige!

We have this photo of Lily that is just so random but so special.  People always comment on it.  At the time I didn’t think I would like anything the photographer was doing but he proved me wrong.  I was trying to recreate the scene (sort of) with Susannah but I didn’t do so well.  She was much more intent on eating her hands the whole time.

This is Lily in "the" photo

Below are my attempts with Susannah

Susannah - Take 1

Take 2. . .oh nevermind

Just for fun - Lily at the same age as S. above