My Life as A Radical Whore/Madonna

This was the first of several such comments I was engaged with - four times between leaving home and arriving at my friend Andrea’s, and once at the Baja Fresh in Niles (we went to Babies R Us). I’m like a walking, interactive billboard that says, “Tell Me Your Thoughts on My Pregnancy!” I guess there’s worse things in life. And it’s almost over. I hope.

It’s early Saturday morning - I’ve been up for about 2.5 hours. I’m really just waiting for my body to figure out how tired it is. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled my printer software (upgrading to Tiger did something wonky to the print setup, but it’s fixed now), created a meeting agenda, finished creating a job description, and done some general catch-up on e-mail reading.

I have to get the preschool curriculum info ready for church - I’m beginning my duties as the Preschool Coordinator. I’m really psyched about it - it’s exactly what I need to be doing to stay sharp for school. Besides that, I think it’s really important to think about what we take from our religious (or otherwise moral or value-based) lives and purposefully pass on to children. Especially at this age - 3 and 4 year olds. This goes so far beyond teaching them rhymes and stories, or doing activites that involve glitter glue and construction paper. This is the first time they really begin to internalize values, to see what others do and save that information for later, to act on and imitate.

It’s funny - as I’ve been developing a developmental primer to go along with the curriculum, I’ve been thinking about the best ways to take advantage of this developmental window. It admittedly feels kind of manipulative, but all in all, I’m pretty comfortable with it. I mean, this is how kids learn to be human, by internalizing interactions with other humans. Parenting is a kind of manipulation (if you can see past the generally negative connotations of the word), and so is teaching. If I wasn’t confident about my church’s capacity to handle that with care, I wouldn’t participate.

I just read Natalie’s blog, and she has a bunch of thoughtful ideas about Unitarian Universalism. I very much relate to the comments about lack of structure, specifically when it comes to Children’s Religious Education. I guess what I’m trying to do with the kids is to encourage an internal structure, something that exists inside of them, that they can reference throughout the changes in their lives and challenges of faith that they’ll eventually encounter. It seems to me to be a good way to adapt to the inherent lack of dogmatic or even liturgical consistency across UUism. I’m really happy to have this opportunity to participate in Religious Education in this way. I also like that Ian has found a way to participate as well, as a youth group advisor to the adolescent youth. Adolescence is really the second time in life where people’s internal identities are so susceptible to influence, so we both have opportunities to make critical connections. I hope that we can rise to the challenge - I feel fairly confident that we both can. And maybe we’ll be better parents for it.

Sometimes I still can’t believe there’s a human inside of me. It’s just so odd. I don’t suppose it’s always necessary to fully comprehend every facet of the work that we do… There’s 2 weeks until my due date, so really, it could happen any time. I’ve become more aware of all of the sensations that travel through my body, wondering if every creak, twinge, pain, whatever is the beginning of something bigger. I know enough to know that there’s no one way to tell, no single way for birth to happen.

Alright - I’m going to bed, to get some sleep before the midwife comes. Have a great weekend everyone!

Atena McAnyminute

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