On Education

Lily's classical education has begun!

We are diligently escorting Lily through all of the important topics and subjects she will find most crucial for her life. We got straight to it in Lily's first hour with music education, which included some family influence, as Lily listened to her Uncle Ben's third album with Great Lakes Diamond Times. Later, Lily learned about several important compositions, including the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, the Beatles Revolver, and Gram Parsons GP. We haven't started any testing yet, but she seems to be picking it all at an alarmingly speedy rate.

We've done some work on theology and ethics through music as we sung John Prine's Your Flag Decal Won't Get you into Heaven Anymore, which has proven to be her favorite song so far. Lily also seems to enjoy Christmas must be tonight, but I seemed to lose her when I explained that Christmas follows the Christian season of Advent, and right now, we're in Lent, which leads us up to Easter, and the appropriate liturgical color for both of these seasons is purple. I'm not sure if her quizzical look stemmed from confusion or gas... but we'll keep working at it. I'm bound and determined to have her reading Barth and Wesley by her first birthday!

Grandma "Cookie" Crum will be glad to hear that the math education is progressing well too. Lily is working on shapes with the mobile above her bed, and we can only assume that her plaintive gazes mean she is differentiating clearly between the triangle, square, rectangle, trapezoid, and circle. She really is amazing!!!

We plan to get into some science a little later with the help of They Might be Giants and their album Science is Real. Sylvie wants to be sure Lily begins to learn about the big bang, evolution, and the periodic table. I'm supportive of these studies, though I'll need a bit of tutoring myself as we get into the finer points of molecular biology.

This parenting stuff is really getting my juices flowing! Gotta go now, Lily looks to be waning and I really want to read her the first chapter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics before she fades completely!

bon appetit!

Being a dad is fun, and I've started doing the wackiest things. Like today at breakfast, I thought it would be great to pretend that the coffee press was a syrup bottle, and rationally poored syrup all over my pancakes. It sort of felt like one of those times when you wake up and wonder, where am I? Am I supposed to be doing something today? I looked down at my plate and thought, something isn't quite right here... and then a few long seconds later, my mind decided that the plate might not hold that much liquid, so I stopped pooring.

The good news is... coffee pancakes are a really good idea, and I'm surprised I hadn't ever tried them before. They're an especially good idea for a dad who has had very little sleep. I tried to convince Sylvia to try some of my syrup on her pancakes, but for some reason she just looked at me and almost fell out of her chair laughing. I'm glad I amused her!

Tomorrow I may need to try some hummus in my oatmeal, or maybe some cream in my orange juice. Just think of all the limitless possibilities with Lily as my muse!

Changing

So, Lily Sabine Crum was born yesterday morning at 3 a.m. eastern time in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The labor was intense, but as Sylvia has pointed out since, we got a really great prize to bring home with us at the end!

It's been so fun to have her. And since Sylvie did the birth naturally, and everything went well, the whole family was ready to head home within 10 hours of Lily's arrival.

One thing that was apparent with Lily almost immediately is that she received both of her parents' stubbornness. The girl knows what she wants! She likes to be settled in, and is not a fan of transitions. She doesn't seem to care for getting swaddled, but she really enjoys it once she is swaddled. She doesn't enjoy having her diaper changed, but she certainly enjoys having the old one off and the new one on. She doesn't like being passed around from one person to another, though she is completely comfortable with just about anyone holding her.

I joked with an one older member of the church earlier today that this behavior reminds me a little bit of a number of other older members of the church. They really don't like change when it is happening, but they can become comfortable once changes have been made.

Today, Sylvia and I are so aware of how blessed we are to have made it through the past couple of days with our terrific prize. This change was one we have been looking forward to for a long time, and we're enjoying soaking up what it means to be parents together.