Cabin Fever 1 (for moms and kids in a similar predicament)

We love winter. But we're having a hard time with these endless January days of April showers and March mud when we're supposed to be sledding and bundling up. So Briana received her first umbrella and we've gotten pretty creative with indoor fun, thanks to a lot of space and a pretty good Internet connection. This little medley is for any other moms and children out there in the no-one's land of not-winter, not-spring. Hang in there! This CAN'T last.

Lovely song by The Nields, "Who Are You Not to Shine"

Pollywog in a Bog, Barenaked Ladies, album Snacktime!

Feist counting to the number 4, Sesame Street's 39th season

The Globe that Made it Around the Globe

Best viewed from Scene I to Scene IV...sorry it's not in sequence.

Scene IV: So much for hoping she might not notice, eh Jen Hols?

Scene III: Briana gives the globe its first run.

Scene I: Here comes the final Santa.

Scene II: The end of a journey.

On December 7 a box boarded an airplane and embarked on its journey across the Atlantic, carrying in its cargo hold a box full of love for a little girl in Lupeni from aunties, unclies and grandparents in far-off America. But that wasn't the beginning of its journey, and it certainly wasn't its end. I feel like a small documentary could be done on the miles this box covered (actual distance, emotional energies, and latitudes of love) to get from point A to point B, and prizes should be given to all the Santas along the way who helped move it across the globe, starting with Santa Jen Holly in Iowa and ending with Santa Bart here in Lupeni. (With honorable mention to Santa Diana who had to involve Santa Bookeeper in Bucharest in the preperation of 5 official documents before she could retrieve the package and taxi it across town to meet Santa Bart at the bus station.) By the time this globe reached Lupeni, certainly its retail value had triple- quadrupled twice. But hopefully, as the one commercial goes, everyone would breathe in the end (and not least us, Briana's parents, who are so grateful for our family, and many others along the way, going the extra-extra mile to help Briana feel their love close at Christmas): "Priceless!" Thank you to everyone, and Merry Merry Christmas!

Lessons and Carols

Briana with her new friend, princess Adela

Briana's teacher, sweet Doamna Mariana, our answer to prayer

Princesses Alexandra and Gabriela

Caroling to Santa and a room full of camera-carrying parents (Adonis, our collegue Ilie's son, far right)

Today Briana experienced what most Romanians can still recall, even 20 and 30 years on - her kindergarten's Christmas program. My dearest Romanian friend, now 29, advised me over the phone - "provide a gift for Santa Claus to give Briana", "teach her a Christmas poem to recite to Santa", etc., etc.- as it's still being done today as it was a couple of decades ago. So for once we were mostly prepared except that I didn't realize that "dressing up" for the little ladies meant coming in full fairy wear. Briana cried briefly in the beginning that her wand and wings were laying idle at home while she was adorned in black and crimson velvet, but once the program got underway she seemed to forget about her listless duds. It was a sweet hour, meeting the parents of Briana's classmates and watching Briana enjoy herself, one among many excited, fidgety, singing, swaying kindergartners. And she recited the four lines of her Christmas poem (in Romanian) beautifully. We only felt culturally ill-at-ease twice. Once while waiting to take Briana's picture on Santa's lap, a couple of her classmates' mothers kept pushing the children aside to nuzzle on his lap and have their photo taken with him. (That was a little odd.) The other was when we first arrived and were accosted by a drunken-seeming man who demanded that I give him a cupcake. We ran into the school shouting, "They're for the children!" only to turn and find him enter the classroom: one of Briana's classmate's father. He was disruptive most of the program and had to be shushed by everyone including Santa Claus, but was allowed to stay (in many cultures, including our American, he would've been escorted out, at best) and in the end did receive a cupcake (actually two), handshakes and well wishes for the holidays from the other parents. "Peace on earth, goodwill to men, women, kindegartners and drunken parents of kindergartners of all shapes and sizes!" This was the lesson of today's carols.

Mary's Magnificat

Icon of the Annunciation

Most mornings this Advent season I have tried to rise early ahead of the family for some time alone. After pushing play on the coffee maker my next impulse is to light this candle that sits below a print of an icon of the Annunciation. Though the Orthodox honor the Annunication on March 25, precisely 9 months before a December 25th delivery (I can hear the age-old chuckle, as if anything about Christ's birth went like clockwork), I felt mysteriously led to ponder this event this Advent season, just 2 months following my second miscarriage. I don't know exactly what it's trying to tell me, but I know that it's a message of hope, of comfort, and of future promise. And I feel like I've relinquished my ultimatum with God, that I must bear our daughter a sibling. This poem has been a blessing to me and a summons to feel myself likewise weighted down and up by all this glory:

I thank thee, Lord, that if I die in this,

it will be too much, not too little living,

that I have sunk beneath too heavy fruit,

not withered in a desert far from thee.

Glory to thee, Lord, that thou dost give

harvest so lavish our arms cannot hold

nor heart contain the treasure of thy power.

And in the end forgive if I am proud

to go down blest by more than I can bear,

inadequate to carry out thy will,

inadequate and weak, but chosen still.

Magnificat by Jane Tyson Clement

A Carpenter's Christmas by Peter K. Rosegger

Before that sad day when suddenly the Bruderhof's "Daily Dig" was off the air, I had the good fortune of downloading several of their wonderful Advent readings, many of them reprinted from Home for Christmas: Stories for Young and Old. I relish in reading them year after year.

This morning I read this story on true prayer and was convicted as I was this time last year.

At last it was over, this vigorous sweeping and scrubbing and chasing of dirt, this week-long turmoil during which nothing, not a piece of furniture, not a single wall decoration, remained in place, until every piece of wood had been cleaned, every stone whitewashed, every bit of metal polished. Now the house shone in purest cleanliness.

I won't post the story in its entirety here, but if you'd like it, please e-mail me and I'll be happy to send it along: brandi.briana@gmail.com .

Winter Harvest

Briana helping harvest 26 pounds of trout

A stinky winter harvest gift

Watching our neighbor Tanti Dorina grind the corn she grew,

the kernels she dried, through the river-powered mill next to our home.

Today was a harvesting sort of day. This morning Briana and I braved the cold to harvest (or hunt as Briana put it, I guess it depends on how you look at it) incandescent berries from a lone tree in a meadow covered in crackling snow. On our way home we stopped by the tiny one room mill next to our home to watch our neighbor Tanti Dorina coaxing the river into grinding cornmeal from the corn she grew all summer. Then we turned our berries into a present for our good friends Janelle and Daniel and were sorry to discover that they smelled like dog crap, which Janelle & Daniel forgave. Our day ended with rinsing, bagging, and freezing 26 pounds of fresh river trout grown next door by our neighbors Claudiu and Mihaela. One doesn't typically think of harvesting on a chilly December day, but I guess that's one thing Advent is about. Working for what yet remains unseen.

Second First Day of School

Off to school, first day...again

I don't know what the phenomenon is called - the one where you search afar for something good only to find you're sitting on it - but I've had the experience. This morning. At 9:00 Briana and I turned up for her second first day of school at a kindergarten right here in Lupeni. When our collegue and good friend Ilie reported that his 4 year old son wrote love notes to his teacher during his off-school hours, I figured this was enough solid evidence to give another kindergarten a try. (I couldn't imagine any of Briana's previous classmates writing love notes to their teacher.) We spent 3 hours in Doamna Mariana G.'s classroom and both of us were in love too. The class is a bit cold and there isn't as much formal instructional time ("That's the kindergarten where they don't really learn much," commented a friend - no workbooks, no homework, no number or letter testing), but under Doamna Mariana's calm and humored care I can see these 25 little ones learning the things hardest to teach. She is comfortable not being in total control of each of her pupils every second (there is a healthy amount of running about and tunneling under desks), she reasons with them reasonably, asks them to speak to each other when there is a conflict, lights a candle when they pray before their snacktime :) , and can spin a yarn so fantastically that I was spellbound for 20 minutes and wasn't at all surprised when the children could answer every listening-comprehension question asked at the end. She doesn't make any child do anything - some choose to play with trucks rather than join the circle of crawling kittens and bouncing balls - but most of them choose to join in because she's so much fun and she's so non-threatening. I may recant after more experiences - cynic! - but it looks like we've found our place. I can already see Briana turning 13 and Doamna Mariana calling me aside, "Don't you think it's time she moved on?"