The Great Divorce and the Lizard

Artwork by Matt at http://www.virb.com/groups/06519715

I am not one for making New Year's resolutions but this year I made one. I committed to myself to read one (non-pediatric or cardiology) book per month. I love to read and have a tendency to start a lot of books only to lose time or interest and not finish them. So I told myself that I would be very selective and only choose excellent books to start, and then persevere to the finish. My first choice was recommended by a friend and turned out to be one of the most interesting and certainly one of the most thoughtful and insightful books I have ever read.

C.S. Lewis is someone who brings to life our relationship with Christ and our struggle to live as He taught and gave us example to live. Although I have read several of Lewis' books and really enjoyed them I had never read The Great Divorce. This book tells of a man who has a dream of a journey he has from Hell to visit (and perhaps stay) in Heaven. He vividly reports the differences between the two places and along the journey describes several of his travel companions and what things are binding them to Hell and making it difficult for them to choose to leave their present place of dwelling behind and relocate to Heaven. It is a fascinating description of the many things that retard our own spiritual progression even while in our mortal state.

While I don't want to list every encounter he had, nor do I want to ruin the experience of reading The Great Divorce for anyone, which I highly recommend, there is one character that was particularly vivid and thought provoking. One man on his journey to Heaven is carrying a red lizard on his shoulder. The lizard is constantly whispering evil thoughts and lies into his ear. The man meets an Angel who tells him that he must allow the Angel to kill the lizard in order for him to continue on his journey. The man is not permitted to kill the lizard himself and the Angel cannot kill the lizard without the man ordering him to do so. In the exchange that follows, the man, with prompts from the lizard, gives every reason imaginable why the Angel should not kill his companion. Some of these include...

• He doesn’t want to bother the spirit with killing it
• It isn’t presently bothering him because it went to sleep
• He’ll be able to get it under control himself through gradual process
• He doesn’t feel well enough to go through with “the operation”
• He thinks killing the lizard would kill him
• He’ll go and get his doctor’s opinion (back in Hell), and come back later
• Then he asks why the spirit hasn’t killed the lizard yet

Finally, in a painful experience, the man orders the Angel to kill the lizard. Within a few moments the lizard transforms into a beautiful and strong stallion that will accompany and assist the man as he continues on his journey.

I was just so impressed with the imagery of the lizard as the sins that "so easily beset us", by the eternal truth that the only way to overcome our own shortcomings is through the power and assistance of our Savior and the Holy Ghost, and that ultimately our sins can be transformed into strengths in our lives. As I said, I highly recommend this book to any of you who might be interested.

Blessing Day

Today was Edie's big day. It started out with a bath in the sink. The bathroom was busy with three other sisters and Nana and Grandpa who came to visit for the weekend. Karen finished Edie's blessing dress yesterday. We took all of the blessing dresses out so the girls could look at them. They are all a bit different but all very beautiful. The girls were very excited to see the dresses that their mom had made them when they were born. We hung them next to each other and took a few pictures. We dressed Edie before church to take some pictures but changed her back to some "regular" clothes to avoid spit-up disasters on her dress before the blessing. We took her to church, fed her and changed her into her dress. Only two small spit-ups later we blessed her. Blessing your child is one of those spiritual signposts that dot life. What a great spirit this little one is and we are so blessed to have her in our home.

Renaissance Girl

Not long ago Emma represented her class in the Ayer Elementary Geography Bee. While she was hung up on this particular question about the Mississippi Delta she did very well overall. Emma is a very well rounded girl and this year has also won the National Fitness award, received the highest reading test score in the 5th grade and won the best visual arts entry from her school in the District Reflections Contest for her black and white pencil drawing entitled "Making the World Better Day by Day, Bit by Bit"... to be displayed later. We are so proud of her.

Traditions

Christmastime is filled with traditions at our house. We each have carried traditions from our homes growing up and over the past 12 years have come up with some traditions of our own. Some of these include cheese bricks (Grammy) and prime rib (Nana and Rocket) on Christmas Eve followed by pajamas (Grammy) and ornaments (Nana) for the girls after reading the Christmas Box story (Pypers) and reading/singing The Little Gray Donkey (Grammy). On Christmas morning we make crepes before opening presents and have the girls take turns wearing a Santa hat and picking out presents for each other from under the tree.

Over the past couple of years I have taken each girl on a Christmas Date in first few weeks of December and we always take the girls to a movie on Christmas Day. Our favorite tradition has become making homemade gifts for each other. For the third year we have each made gifts for each other instead of buying something store-made. This has required us to start thinking about what to make several weeks/months before Christmas. It has become quite an adventure and the girls have become quite creative.

Traditions are so important to us. They are signposts that mark events in our lives every year as time continues to pass us by. I am so grateful for the traditions that we have continued and the new ones that we have created.

Merry Christmas...just mash play.

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Even more baby pictures

More baby pictures

New Baby!!

Today was the day, finally! Karen went into labor about 2:00 AM. We made it to the hospital by 3:30 AM and had a baby by 11:51 AM. That is the short story. The 10 hours that made up the labor process were much more complicated. Karen had been having false labor for a couple of weeks and was fairly frustrated, so going into "real" labor was exciting. It quickly went from exciting to painful. Karen had decided early in the pregnancy to have natural child birth and had done her research. While I cannot describe the experience of watching her go through this I can say it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I have see a lot of babies born at work but had never watched a natural child birth from start to finish, let alone one where the girl I loved was the one in labor. I have never been more amazed or more in love with the girl I married than today. She was incredible.

We found out after the delivery what made it so difficult. The baby weighed 9lbs 12oz!! She was more than 2 lbs bigger than any of our girls thus far! Crazy! She is a chunkey monkey and is beautiful.

We decided to name her Edie Verity Anderson and after spending a few hours with her we feel very good about the choice...she really is an Edie.

Both mom and baby are very well and very happy!!

Witches and princesses

Miia had her 6th birthday party last week. Our house was filled with 16 extra 6-year-old girls dressed in all sorts of costumes. We painted pumpkins, played duck-duck-goose and doughnuts on a string and had icecream and cake. Way fun and way tiring. I don't know how the kindergarten teachers do it every day.

Sliding Rock

First day of school

Last week we sent the girls off to school again. Miia, after waiting all summer, excitedly got on the school bus for the first time. She is so funny, reminding us every day that she "gets to go to school again tomorrow." Karen is enjoying having 4 hours to herself each day for the first time in 10 years, at least for a few more weeks until #4 arrives.

The big vote

We (and by we I mean me of course) decided to let you all in on the naming of our new baby. We are in the serious countdown to full-term and delivery. We have several names we are tossing around and thought it would be fun to see what you thought. To the right you will see a list of a few of the top names. Feel free to share your opinion via a vote. In full disclosure the most popular vote may not become the actual winner as we as parents have enough votes between us to override you all.

Also, if there is a name you would like to suggest that is not on the list please feel free to leave a separate comment.

Karen Joy and her belly

Vacation

We got back yesterday from a little trip to North Carolina. We were able to spend time with many of our good friends and spend loads of time outdoors, at the lake, at the beach, in the mountains. We also spent many hours in the cramped car our energy kept at bay only by the constant reading of the newest Harry Potter book (we essentially read the entire thing out loud in the car as we travelled.) The movie above is of the girls sliding down the natural waterslide at Looking Glass Falls near Asheville, NC.

Although we had tons of fun visiting North Carolina's beautiful outdoors the main reason we made the drive was to go to the temple with our friends Eric and Peri Borries.

It was wonderful to be in the temple with them and to feel the peace that resides there. The Borries were kind enough to let us stay in their home (again) and from there we went boating on Falls Lake, lounging at Carolina Beach, hiking at Umstead State Park and visiting our many friends in the area.

We left Raleigh and drove to Asheville for the last half of the week. We enjoyed being in the mountains and driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Yesterday, we finally drove home. We finished Harry Potter and the last drop of gas in the car as we drove into our driveway in Cincinnati. I know we used the last drop of gas because when I got up to go to work this morning the gas tank was completely empty-luckily I had the gas can for the lawn mower or I would have had to push the car to the hospital.

Self pride and accomplishment

We have finished another school year; Emma flew threw 4th grade and Mary through 2nd. Miia graduated from Preschool and is anxiously awaiting riding the bus to Kindergarten with her sisters next fall.

On the last day of school the girls brought their report cards home. Both did very well so we decided to take them out to dinner to celebrate. Emma has been working all year to change her Science grade from a B to an A so that she could not only be on the Honor Roll but so she could have all As and get an "Excellence" gold sticker on her Honor Roll certificate. She finally accomplished this during the last term and we are very proud of her for her hard work.

Emma was telling us about a conversation she was having with a few of her friends during the day, before the report cards were handed out. One of her friends was telling her that if she got straight As her parents were getting her a Nintendo DS Lite. Another friend informed her that if he got strait As he could choose any gift he wanted up to $500. Shocked at the gifts her classmates were earning I asked her what she had told them she would be getting if she got straight As. Without hesitation she said, "Self-pride and accomplishment." Amazed, I asked her if she really said that. She said, "Yeah, well it's true".

I am not sure at moments like this where our girls come from but I am proud of them for what they do and what type of people they are developing into.

Road trip

For Memorial Day weekend my friend John invited us to visit his family in Milwuakee. So Friday afternoon we all piled into John's Suburban and hit the road for Wisconsin. We had as much fun travelling as you can with 3 little unmedicated girls in the back of a car (hint: Benadryl). We spent Saturday and Sunday in Milwaukee being hosted by John and his family. We had a tour of the city, enjoyed a Kite Festival, swam in Lake Michigan (well the girls swam anyway) and visited some great restaurants. We even found a new favorite custard shop, Kopp's Frozen Custard.

Monday we drove down to Chicago in the morning and spent the day visiting some of the sites there. We went to the The Art Institute of Chicago, Navy Pier and strolled along Michigan Avenue spending most of our time in the Lego and Hersheys stores.

We left Chicago Monday evening and just about made it back to Cincinnati when we ran out of gas. Luckily John's aunt and uncle came to our rescue. We rolled back into our driveway around midnight just in time to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep before work today. Sometimes vacations can be exhausting.

Surprise!!

Some of you guessed our little secret from my not so subtle post. We are going to have another baby!!! After a six year hiatus our little family is about to grow again. We shall see one more time if any of my y chromosomes are strong enough to beat out the x chromosomes and make us a boy. Considering the strong-willed girls that we have already made I am not counting on it. Luckily we make beautiful and happy girls and will be thrilled to have another if that is what happens. This time around we are going to wait until the birthday (due date November 4th) to find out the gender of the baby.

Karen is doing fairly well. A little bit sick but she tells me it is not so bad. I keep offering to find someone to write her a prescription for Zofran but she is too much of a trooper. I told her there should be some benefit to having a doctor husband, aside from the huge debt and having me work 80 hours a week but still she refused. The girls are so excited they can hardly handle it and the list of possible names for their new sibling grows each day.

Thank you for everyone who has already called with their congratulations. We, I am sure, will be calling for more advice and help as we feel like we are doing this again for the first time.

Do you know what I know??

An new baby

No, not that kind of baby! For a long time we have been talking about getting a dog. For a long time we thought the girls were not old enough to help care for a dog. A little over a year ago Mary got a hamster named Carrie. Despite me thinking that the little one would be dead or lost within a month she is still around. Mary has actually done a great job taking care of her. With the experiment of a small pet out of the way we moved into serious negotiations for a bigger one. We finally decided it was time.

So this weekend we went to The League for Animal Welfare and "interviewed" several dogs. We fell in love with the first one we played with, Carson. He is 4 months old and a beagle mix of some sort. He was very excited to see us. We loved a lot of things about him, his friendliness, his energy, his kisses, and especially his eyes. As you can see from his picture he has heterochromia, one blue eye and one brown eye. We looked at several other puppies but none were as perfect as Carson...so we took him home. Did I mention he is a boy...I am so happy to have another male in the Anderson home.

Mad Scientists

We went to our first science fair as a family this past weekend. Mary and her friend Abby decided to enter a project this year. Their question (which they came up with on their own) was "Which liquid in our house weighs the most and which weighs the least?" They hypothesized after looking at all of the liquids they could find that the corn syrup would be the heaviest and that water would be the lightest. So they measured an equal amount of each liquid and weighed them on a little scale. Sure enough the corn syrup was the heaviest. To their surprise however their milk weighed just a bit less than the water. It is unclear to me whether there was indeed a statistical significance between the weight of the corn syrup and the rest of the liquids (I think they were still working on their z-scores and p-values).

Regardless of their shakey statistical methods, they explained their project well to the three judges and were awarded a 1st-place blue ribbon for their efforts.

The remainder of the science fair (made up of first through sixth graders) was terribly interesting. There were at least 5 groups who studied the effects of mentos exploding when dropped in various bottles of carbonated sodas (something Borries kids likely did as youngsters), there were multiple "which carpet cleaner works the best?" projects, and several looking at the effect of different music styles on heart rate (punk rock seems to be the type that raises HR the most.) By far the most interesting project to me, however, was the one measuring the most likely first move in rock-paper-scissors based on sex and age. You will be interested to know that both younger and older males tend to lead (60% of the time) with a rock whereas the majority of females lead with either paper or scissors. Hopefully this helps the next time you are challenged to a game.