In the fullness of time...

The time has come to bring to public knowledge a little secret Janelle has been carrying around for about ten weeks now. That is to say, March 26 is the due date of our third child, and we welcome you to share our joy!

I imagine Janelle has, in public, maintained her usual energetic and capable demeanor sufficiently that suspicion has not yet been universally aroused. But if you happen to have noticed her leaving meals half-eaten or nodding off in meetings, now you know why! Of the three pregnancies Janelle has experienced, my judgment is that this one has had her feeling the crummiest. I'm doing my best to support her as we push through the summer harvest season, but I'm afraid she's still needing to keep longer and harder hours than her body would prefer. I'll admit I find it pretty cute when she hits one of her sleepy patches and the allure of the futon is too hard to resist, or when she gets really hungry for, say, cherry tomatoes, only to find that by the time the bowl is set in front of her they seem appallingly disgusting. My job is to help her carve out space for rest, assist her in the negotiation of the nutrition/nausea balance, and work steadily to help keep her task list manageable, not to mention stroking her hair and smiling to myself after she crashes on the couch.

Of course this time brings many thoughts of our precious Nora, and we miss her like always. But to our relief we have not been plagued by anxiety as we wait for the time to come when we'll get some indication of whether Petty Syndrome (a.k.a Petty Laxova Weideman Syndrome) has recurred in this child, though I suppose it is to be considered a good sign that Janelle is feeling so gross, since it is my understanding that there is a tendency for pregnancies involving a genetic disorder to cause less physical symptoms than "normal" pregnancies.

It is unclear whether Petty Syndrome is the result of spontaneous mutation or, rather, a matter of an extremely rare recessive trait carried by both Janelle and I, plus a few other far-flung individuals. If we didn't suspect the former scenario (which would mean that this child has no greater chance of Petty Syndrome than any other), the decision to try for pregnancy would have been far more nerve-wracking, and it's hard for me to think we'd have been ready yet, if ever, to try for pregnancy. As it was, we wrestled substantially with the questions and issues, and have now made this choice. So far, we are enjoying the results thoroughly, and cherishing our dreams for this little one.

As I write this evening, there is a canner doing its thing on each of our two stoves. It seems like nearly every evening of this month there is a minor canning project going on, but this evening I am wrapping up a few loose ends from what I would consider to be a major canning project. Nine adults and one freshly minted seven-year-old worked for a handful of hours this afternoon to put about 85 pints of salsa and a few odd quarts of diced tomatoes and tomato broth (canned effluent from the draining of diced tomatoes in preparation for salsa making) into canning jars.

For the record, a bushel of Roma tomatoes amounts to the main ingredient for roughly 30 or 35 pints of salsa. Also worthy of note is the fact that a wire egg-collecting basket makes a pretty good tomato-scalding insert in a black enamel canner. Simply bring a suitable amount of water in the canner to a boil, load up the basket with the appropriate quantity of cored tomatoes with bad spots removed, set the tomato-laden basket in the canner for an even minute, remove the basket and carefully dump your scalded tomatoes in an appropriate receptacle (a roasting pan worked well today) for cooling before peeling. If the tomatoes are ripe and healthy, the skin often more or less slips right off.

Speaking of freshly minted seven-year-olds, it has come to my attention that we have thus far failed to report the highlights from Kali's "Chreaster" birthday party. This is a kid with a lively and formidable mind, let me tell you! She had decided that we needed a new holiday in the year (she loves holidays), I suppose to spice up the long, holiday-poor summer months. Her notion was to extract the greatest hits from both Christmas and Easter, leaving out the boring stuff like the baby born in the stable and the sunrise service, but including such highlights as candy canes and egg hunts. In other words, she seems to favor the vestiges of the pagan celebrations the Christian holidays were meant by their creators to supplant.

We were not eager for another holiday to plan for, but during the family meeting in which we were discussing this idea Janelle got a hunch and a brainstorm to check on where Kali's birthday might fall in the year, relative to Christmas and Easter. Sure enough, Kali's birthday this year was smack dab in the middle (to the day!). Naturally, we then began to plan for a "Chreaster" birthday party.











I must say, it was a rockin' party. A few kids were able to make it, and they and their adult escorts enjoyed themselves quite well as we cut out snowflakes, decorated cookies and boiled eggs, hid and hunted for candy and other treats in the yard, tried out Kali's new tire swing (a Chreaster gift from her parents), and watched her open her stocking stuffers and other gifts while relaxing around the blazing fire ring. I can only speak for myself, but it sure seemed to me that good-hearted fun carried the day.