Sad News

Early on the Monday after Easter our second child arrived earlier than we had hoped. Lucas Anastasio Severino was born at home into the loving hands of his parents at around 2 am on March 24. The Lord has been very merciful to us. He gave us eleven joyful weeks with our little one and allowed us to see his precious face which we hope to see again one day. Christ's resurrection has made joy possible even in times of deep sadness.

Thank you all for your prayers, and Happy Easter.

Happy 2008... long time no see!

After a long hiatus, here we are again. Rather than give an update on too many details (and further delay this post) I'm just going to quickly summarize. Carrie is now working at the Supreme Court for Justice Thomas and is almost done with the term - it runs from July to July and at least partially explains my lack of posting. :) Roger is still working at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty but soon will be moving to the Civil Rights/Housing division of the Department of Justice. We've had alternating grandparents living with us this year to help take care of Ellie. Right now we're on GaGa Campbell, and TaTa and NaNa Severino will be here at the end of April. Ellie is growing up so fast! She is very articulate (for a two-year old) and although she prefers English she does understand pretty much everything in Spanish and can manage well in Spanish when NaNa and TaTa are here. Now we're up to 35 3/4 inches tall, 32 pounds, brown curly hair, brown eyes. She eats nearly everything but her favorites are still eggs, avocados, hummus, and nuts. Her favorite story is Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and her favorite song is Peter and the Wolf - she loves identifying the various instruments and characters. She's also now enamored of her new little brother or sister - as she calls it her "baby in da womb." I'm due October 13 or thereabouts and so far am having an extraordinarily easy pregnancy.
Here are some pictures - enjoy!


Mama, Ellie, Uncle Scotty and Miss Heidi (Scott's girlfriend) in front of the Library of Congress







Papa, Miss Heidi, Ellie, and GaGa before their White House tour last month






Ellie and Papa flossing teeth













Hiding under the icon stand at church on Christmas









St. Patrick's Day parade with the dog show

Book Reviews in progress: what I'm reading now

When I get a chance to read or listen to audiobooks I've been enjoying a couple different things. My current recommendations that I'm not finished with yet are:

• Moby Dick - I remember it being much more boring, but as an audiobook it's working well, perhaps because I'm busy and not having to commit 100% of my time to it in between the really exciting parts. It would be interesting to go back and look at the significance of all the Biblical names of the characters.
  
• Hold on to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld - he analyzes why many current problems with kids arise from them being attached to peers more than parents and how to keep your kids attached to you.
  
• Witness by Whittaker Chambers - I'm loving historical books lately, and this one really brings home the danger of communism while filling in some major gaps in my education about the cold war and reading like a detective story. Now Roger is getting into this one too so I may have to fight him for it! This one makes me really look forward to nap time when I get a bit of reading in as Ellie falls asleep.

So there are some mini-recommendations for you all while I'm taking a break from kids' books for a bit to wait for the last Harry Potter. I'm 43rd on the wait list at the library, but hopefully the other 42 will read it fast!

Ellie the biker

Here are some adorable photos that Dad just sent from our recent trip to Grand Rapids. We were there the first week of June for my cousin Beth's wedding shower but because of some crazy plane problems our flight was cancelled and we ended up missing the main event! :( We did get to see the family for part of the weekend, though, and gave Ellie her first (stationary) ride on a motorcycle. As far as I'm concerned, that's all the riding she'll ever need. Let's hope "Ta Ta" doesn't get any ideas about taking her on the road...

Where's my helmet?

Ellie with Grapefruit

Here's another video of Ellie playing with a grapefruit - she likes to pretend to nurse her toys by sticking them under her shirt, and that's what she was doing as I was trying to bring the groceries in one day.

Hint on the videos: you have to click on the photo below first to activate the video control, then click on play (the triangle at the lower left). If you want to see it in Google Video, click on the link.

Testing video: Ellie reads at one year old

Here is Ellie reading us a book, a test of Google Video as a method of posting baby videos, hope it works! Next challenge will be embedding video in the page, which I'll try below. So far it looks like a black box, but tends to work when you hit the play button on the lower left. When in doubt, just use the link underlined above.

Ellie helps out in the kitchen

More details soon, but I finally uploaded some photos of Ellie's recent kitchen exploits, and they're too cute to keep to ourselves. She has become a real help - sometimes just helping me keep her occupied while I do some of the work, and occasionally actually moving chores along toward completion. I'm hoping to get a link to some videos up soon, as well, because we have a couple good ones.

This is Ellie's new food obsession: peeling garlic. That kept her busier than many more expensive toys, and was actually helpful, although I didn't really need all the garlic peeled. After Lent we'll have to make that 40-clove chicken dish, and she'll be in heaven!


She's also a huge fan of water, and loves to take a bath (finally!) and wash her hands. The hardest part is getting her to stop. When I'm feeling like cleaning the floor, I let her "help" washing dishes and she loves to fill up the dishes and dump them. When the floor is inevitably totally soaked, I give her a cloth and she helps dry it up. So far, the Pergo is holding up. Thank goodness we didn't go for regular wood.
Having witnessed Mama on the iPod a lot, Ellie now wants to play herself. Sometimes she tries to talk on it like a phone, but she does know that the headphones make fun noises.
Along with all the help, Ellie has gotten into a few things. This day it was the flour, even after I had put the bag into a ziploc bag as well - her zipper and ziploc-opening skills have some real downsides. But, again, the floor got cleaner as a result. So in the end at least she's an incentive to keep things tidy.

Sometimes she's just happy to be standing on a stool to be at the counter-top level. Here she was having fun with the spices. Funny, because I can't get her to stack the regular blocks!

Book Reviews coming: Beta Test

Ever since Ellie was born - and before even - I have been spending a fair amount of time thinking about and reading children's and young adult literature. The Harry Potter debates really got me thinking, and I determined that I couldn't really decide whether to have my kids read that or other books without checking them out myself. I had so much fun reading, and later was so shocked at the downright evil things I found in other kids' books, that I decided to start this project of reviewing books for parents who want more info on the things going into their kids' brains and who don't have the time to read everything themselves. This will also be good notes for me so I can read up now before Ellie is reading them faster than I can keep up!

So the plan is to start including reviews of books I'm reading and have recently read on this site. If I eventually amass enough and/or find other people who want to contribute, I'm thinking of starting a separate site for them. For now I'm planning on giving a quick summary a la Decent Films, a website I really love for movie reviews. Steven Graydanus gives each film a ranking on age appropriateness, artistic/entertainment value, moral/spiritual value, and an overall rating. This helps separate out the great works of depraved literature from the insipid but well-intentioned stuff and everything in between. I'll try to go into a bit more detail than the executive summary, but I'm going to err on the side of including a book with a limited discussion rather than waiting to write an essay and not having anything posted for months. As my mother would say, the perfect is the enemy of the possible.

Here's a quick list of things I've read recently that I hope to put up - to whet your appetite and give me something to shoot for:

• Harry Potter (liked it, but will need a nuanced discussion because of the controversy)
• Philip Pullman's Dark Materials series (very disturbing and explicitly anti-Christian)
• A Series of Unfortunate Events (fun but not terribly uplifting - surprise)
• Uncle Tom's Cabin (not really for kids, but made a huge impression on me)
• Winnie the Pooh books
• Stuart Little
• The Penderwicks
• The Ender Wiggin books (liked the first ones best, interesting moral and religious issues that require discussion, though)
• Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson (some are surprisingly gruesome!)

Any advice on ways to improve the system or volunteers to review your own favorite kids' literature welcome!

Finally a Book Review: Cheaper by the Dozen

Okay, it took a while, but mostly because I got almost finished with this one ages ago and stalled - typical pattern of mine. So here you go, finally.

Overall: B
Artistic/Entertainment value: B+
Moral/Spiritual value: B (generally positive view of parents and family, negative aside about religion, some swearing and rebelliousness)
Age appropriateness: I'm bad at this only being familiar with toddlers - but with some censoring it's fun for the whole family.

A cute story about a family with twelve children in the early 20th century, this was fun to listen to but definitely deserves some caveats in terms of age-appropriateness. The vast majority of it is fun-loving big family hijinks, but there were several instances of swearing (D-word and even "Jesus Christ" once), and toward the end there are some references to sex as the girls grow up in the 20s and struggle for permission to wear bobbed hair and short skirts. Very tame by modern standards, but it might be a good section to skip with younger kids and discuss with older ones. One other aside asserts the father's disbelief in the Immaculate Conception - although it actually is referring to the virgin birth. Elsewhere it's clear that he's not a religious man, but he's not generally anti-religious (he even researches convents during the aforementioned teenage crisis with the girls). That's something that could be easily discussed or even left out in family reading without losing anything.

Don't let my caveats totally turn you off - I plan to read this one to Ellie eventually, although I'll probably skip certain chapters when she's younger.

Uh-Oh!

That's the word of the month, apparently. And very apt it is - Ellie is getting much bigger and is into everything, but generally hasn't destroyed anything. She does periodically slime my phone with her teething drool, disabling the speaker until I can dry it out sufficiently, but otherwise no major casualties. Below she demonstrates her talent at getting into drawers - ninja skills continue to flourish. She brings the stepstool around and gets into things before you know what hit you - I have to keep knives far, far away from edges!
















Her current stats:

Weight: still 26 pounds

Height: 30 inches - almost half my height!

Teeth: holding steady at eight, but teething like crazy.

Hair: Bangs starting to get out of control. I have to either find a mechanism for securing them out of her eyes or cut them. :(

Skin: Very dry. I can't wait until we don't need the heat anymore. It'll also be good when the constant teething drool slows and lets her chin dry out.

Eyes: Dark brown

Mobility: Trying to climb stairs upright now, and she really can do it if she has a banister her own level. Most of the time she just holds our hand. She carries really heavy object and "helps" me carry things back from the car. Or she did, until the cold snap hit and I take her in the fast way.

New Words: uh-oh; kaka (kitty cat - used also for horses and other animals); hola (talking on the phone); very into GaGa after my parents visited last weekend. Still trying to get her to call Dad something consistently. Sound effects are very popular now, including pretend nose-blowing (she just learned to wipe her nose) and weird whooping-cough sounds.

New Signs: half of the sign of the cross (the upward part, ends with kissing her fingers); hat; want a tissue (to wipe nose); drawing/crayons. "No" is still the all-time favorite. "Potty" is a favorite one lately, but she often just uses it to inform us when she's gone, and not that she wants to go.

Chores: Ellie loves to help out. She regularly throws her used diapers away, tries to flush the toilet, turns lights on and off for me (with a boost), throws trash away when asked (unless it's really interesting and she wants to sneak off and play with it), carries things back from the car, wipes her high chair tray, puts toys away, helps take her clothes off, helps take the dishes out of the dishwasher, helps load the washer and empty the drier, delivers Maltas to Roger, and puts her hat on.

New Likes: Backyardigans. She loves dancing to the songs, and Roger and I get a kick out of it as well. Current front-runners for best episode (between us, since Ellie doesn't vote) are the Quest for the Flying Rock and Surf's Up. She now has pots and pans she enjoys "cooking" with on her kitchen, and like randomly rolling on the floor, especially the new kitchen floor. She finally enjoys baths again - whew! And she no longer hates the vacuum, although I guess it's a stretch to call it a "like". She is really becoming a clothes-horse, and likes picking things out of her drawers and attempting to put them on. It usually ends up being pants on the head or some such, but is very cute. She also is taking after Mommy and getting excited about hats. Finally I can keep something on her head and not get nasty looks for taking a toddler out in the cold with no hat! We also just got a new Kozy sling, which she enjoys and I love because it keeps her centered and not off to one side. No more leaning sideways from 26 pounds all on one hip! I have to say, I appreciate the "poppability" of the Maya Wrap that lets me get her in and out quickly and cover her head for public nursing, but for longer-term carrying or "wearing her down" to sleep the Kozy wins. She is a big fan of kid-sized chairs and loves to sit in her chair in the kitchen and sit to draw at her table upstairs.

New Dislikes: Hmm... nothing really. Except perhaps being stuck inside all day without time to run of steam because it's so cold out.

New Food Tricks: Elie is getting quite good with a spoon, but she often gives up part way through her morning yogurt and just takes finger-fulls. Can't blame her. :) She drinks from her sippy cup mostly, but is great with a straw or out of a water bottle with minimal spillage. She can do a cup as well, but eventually ends up dumping it and I'm never totally sure whether it's on purpose or by mistake because she likes to play in the puddle afterwards.

Ninja Skills: Ellie is now totally into zippers, which means that my change purse is fair game. She's not really that excited about eating the change, but it's still not a great toy. Grandma and Grandpa Campbell taught her to put it in her Snow White piggy bank (a gift from the Severino grandparents). So I guess that generation will be responsible for whatever financial acumen she develops. Ellie almost can reach the doorknob, and I'm sure she'll lock me in/out of somewhere soon. Her most dangerous feature lately is her speed and stealth. I often turn around to find that she's gotten into the cupboard and brought me some package of food she wants me to open for her - all so quietly that I didn't notice. Worse yet is when she manages to get food or interesting objects off the counter without my noticing. Must hide all knives! This is also the stage when using the back burners is crucial.

Now off to bed to snuggle with my little ninja - Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Goodbye Linoleum, Hello Pergo!

On Monday we finally got our kitchen floor redone, after months and months of talking about it. It looks like a new kitchen! We also have a new desk/bookshelf and table thanks to a trip to Ikea with Mom and Dad over the weekend. Now we just need new chairs and a new counter/sink area. Oh, and curtains to keep the bedroom dark for naps. Which reminds me, I need to get to bed, since it's way past naptime! More photos soon of more interesting subjects, but for now here's a before and after of the kitchen.

Before - note ever-present scuff marks on floor with a million pock-marks to catch dirt and necessitate cleaning on hands-and-knees to make any progress:














After - smooth, clean, hides dirt and yet doesn't horde dirt. So far. :)