Our day (or how I'm totally owning this parenting thing)

Today was one of those days where you say to yourself: "THIS is why I had kids. This totally rocks. I'm awesome." I try to cram sweet activities in all weekend, and usually they are fun and we have a good time together. I think Tim has been getting a little sick of doing kids' stuff, because when I offered to go solo today he did not even hesitate. So, I packed up our trusty Maclaren stroller (that I cannot believe is still functioning after this summer!), my backpack, the mei tai and headed for the bus stop. Though our initial ride was a little rough, Tallulah cried during most of it, not sure why exactly but the bus was super crowded and I didn't want to take her out of the stroller, after that our entire day was smooth sailing. We rushed from the bus stop down to the Overture Center for "Kids at the Rotunda," a weekly artsy kids' show that we went to a handful of times last year. When I saw the performance this week at Dancin' Drum, I knew we had to go since Atticus is obsessed with both of these things. It did not disappoint. Atticus was in heaven. He screamed his responses to the questions and patted his lap and clapped and danced. Tallulah was a little less enthusiastic (his enthusiasm was hard to beat) but she clapped and danced along too. Guy was a little upset after he didn't get picked to go up and play with the first round of kids on the drums, but played a wooden block with pizzazz and was picked for the second round to play the juju drum. He had the widest smile across his face the whole time. Tallulah wanted to go up with him, so we took a stint playing shakers (not maracas?) but I didn't get any pictures of that because I was too busy making sure she didn't hit a kid on the head (ironically, she got whacked and started crying so we left the stage).

She reallllllly wanted this juice box.

After the Rotunda, we walked over the new Central Library's kids' section, where they were doing themed crafts to go along with the Rotunda performances. We made tambourines with paper plates and macaroni and a straw whistle thing, read lots of books, went to the potty three times, and checked out four books (a miracle! Atticus has about 60 and we narrowed it to 4 with little hassle). The newly-renovated library was light, airy, and had some sweet toys and these amazing this straw hutches for reading inside. I didn't get very many pictures there because we were doing a lot of running about, and I figured we'd be back many, many times.

When everyone started getting hungry we walked a block down to the Farmer's Market which was wrapping up for the day and spent $7 on a baguette, an eggplant, a giant sugar cookie and a few apples. We grabbed falafel for lunch which the kids initially chowed down on but then Atticus noticed the inside was green and remembered how he doesn't eat green stuff except broccoli (looking back I should've just said it was broccoli!) He had a blast running up and down the Capitol's lawn chasing birds and screaming at the top of his lungs.

We finished eating and meandered our way through the market over the children's museum a few blocks away. The kids spent their time in Africa Land, playing outside with the chickens, and holding cockroaches and meal worms. The rooftop is amazing, lots of gardens and a small stream even. The weather was glorious, perfect fall weather. Not a cloud in the sky, crisp and sunny.

I have decided all children's clothes should have Peter Pan collars. The end.

We left the children's museum with no fight and went to board the bus to FUS, the bus ride back was much better. I thought Tallulah would fall asleep but she just wanted to read books and charm the undergrad girls sitting next to us. We arrived 45 minutes early to the service (I wasn't sure when the bus was coming, and we happened to catch one right after we got to the stop) but the time went by fast on the gorgeous backyard playground attached to the church. After a relaxing service (the kids both love their classes and Tim and I get to sit together and hold hands) we stayed for the second Saturday potluck and devoured delicious organic/vegan/local casseroles and quiches and salads (thank you, upper-middle-class liberals who attend church with us!) We contributed homemade cookies because we always make a meal and there are never enough desserts (it's true, there were only three things today) but plenty of main courses. The day is coming to a close perfectly, Tallulah passed out on the way home, Atticus is drifting off to the new library books we brought home, and Tim and I have a date with Amelie when he is in bed.

Happy Saturday, everyone!

The Guy's Birthday Days

UPDATE: Cait actually blogged about everything but the actual birthday party. My bad. Go ahead and skip down past Lulah eating ice cream if you are such a loyal follower that you remember every picture we ever posted.

Oh man, I can't believe we've neglected to blog about Atticus's birthday days, but we have. The days were very full, so I guess we've just been putting off pulling it all together. Here we go with mostly pictures.

Grandma Betsey sends presents:

Birthday at School:

Tower collapses

You are my minions!

The first failed "Happy Birthday" singing. He hated when anyone pointed out it was his birthday.

I love the pivoting motion here

Birthday Ice Cream Cones:

Birthday Party:

We won a silent auction at FUS from a woman wanting to throw a children's birthday party. Karen did an awesome job and the kids had so much fun. She's not a professional party thrower yet, but she should be.

Playing before everyone came

Some initial story reading

Maxie is about to get his head kicked off by Chico

The story. Guess whose kid resisted paying attention.

Tallulah wakes from her nap

Don't sing to me!

Grumpy cake.

Playing with presents:

Ordain Women

There are a lot of heart-felt opinions on both sides of the issue of whether or not to allow women to hold the priesthood in the LDS church. I think where the primary disconnect happens for a lot of people on both sides of the issue is around one primary thesis: morality can be discovered outside of a religious context.

I remember at one point in my life arguing that atheists cannot be moral because systems of morality can only be divinely inspired. I was completely comfortable with the idea of words of the prophet being my absolute guide as to what is moral and what is not moral. I no longer hold that position. I've become too aware that morality often transcends religion and can come from many sources. The best proof of this for me is the deeply moral lives that people lead outside of Mormonism or even a religious context.

This understanding forced me to reevaluate my entire moral system. It wasn't enough simply to try to find consensus among the leaders of the church on a given issue to know the moral answer to any question. I had to search it out myself. The teachings of church leaders still served as a primary source of instruction on morality, but it was no longer my sole source. Sifting through so many different voices and opinions to try to carve out personal values and moral standards is incredibly messy and often discouraging, but also rewarding at a very fundamental level.

At first, I found very few contradictions between my personally discovered morality and the moral positions of the church. My first big split was gay marriage. I found the moral arguments for gay marriage to be increasingly compelling. As this was at the time of proposition 8, the church was making very clear their opposition to gay marriage. I experienced a deep disquiet  as my personal morality fell seriously out of line with the morality taught by leaders of the church for the first time.

Although I had a consistent impression that things would work out in the end, I could never quiet shake this disquiet and it continued to grow as I further developed a personal morality. I found that all too often my personal morality contradicted the morality taught by the leaders of the church. This divide ended up being the primary reason I have left the church.

I understand that many faithful members of the church cannot understand why women would continue to insist that they want the priesthood when ordained leaders have emphatically asserted that the priesthood is only for men. Members are free to think independently, they assert, but when the prophets reach a consensus on an issue, as they have on the issue ordination of women, the issue should be closed.

For me, at least, although I assume also for many others in the Ordain Women movement, the equality of the sexes is such a fundamentally self-evident moral imperative that no amount of unity among the leaders of the church will make them comfortable with what, for many, is clearly a discriminatory structure. A discussion about whether excluding women from general leadership (not just being leaders of other women and children) is inherently discriminatory is a debate I am willing to have, but for me and many others, the discriminatory nature of a patriarchal leadership is abundantly clear.

I invite those who do not understand the Ordain Women movement to consider how they would respond if the church began teaching something that was directly opposed to their own moral system. I recognize the inherent difficulty of doing so, because, for so many, the morality taught by the church and their own personal morality is so closely aligned that they might not even recognize a separation between the two. I wont suggest what issue might cause difficulty for you, because everyone has their own moral system, but try to think of something quite fundamental, something that you would consider unequivocally wrong, and then imagine that the church started teaching something deeply contradictory to what you believe to be a moral truth. It might be easy to say, "Oh, I would be fine changing my position" or "The church will never teach anything like that." That might be true, but for many faithful members, living with this contradiction of moralities is a daily reality.

It is really difficult to convey the despair of having the church you love teach something that goes against what you consider to be an objective moral truth, and the ensuing crisis of identity and belief that accompanies such a moment, unless you have experienced it personally. But that is the situation that has confronted thousands of faithful members of the church in the past few years (and I imagine for decades before on any number of issues). You can either stay and be a traitor to your morals or you can leave and be a traitor to your faith. I can readily accept that leaders of the church are men, and imperfect, and make mistakes, as President Uchtdorf so lovingly urged on Saturday. What I cannot readily accept is that when real moral contradictions arise, I should simply put away any personal my moral beliefs and fall in line, but no other viable option is offered to those who wish to stay.

I know it hurts when someone you love says "I believe that, on this issue, the leaders of the Church are wrong" especially when you think they are not. It can feel like an attack on your own faith or morality. It is not. It is simply an attempt by honest seekers looking to live a morally responsible life. It can be simple to dismiss these women, and the men who support them, as desiring power or hoping for a religious endorsement of their political opinion. However, the true issue runs much deeper, and stems from the basic spiritual need of having what is taught in your place of sacred worship align with what is taught by your sacred voice of inner conscience. And, as I've learned from personal experience, for many it is not just a matter of feeling comfortable in church on Sunday, but a matter of survival for the very faith they hold dear.



Disclaimer: I'm not in a great position to comment on the issue of ordaining women, because I am fairly removed from the church, and I am also a man. But I think this distance allows me to perhaps to offer a perspective that others who might share this perspective could be hesitant to express for fear of being deemed apostate or at least unfaithful. I do not in any way claim to speak for the movement or anyone but myself.

Photo credit: Stephanie Lauritzen, or whoever her photographer was. If you happen to read our blog, I hope that you feel it was used in good spirit.

Atticus interviews Mom

Here are some funny videos of Atticus and his mom. I was at the Community Center getting ready for the Assembly meeting that I am in charge of. That's it, except "May I have a Word?" is a segment from WordGirl on PBSkids.

Women's Rights in the Aftermath of the Arab Spring

Once upon a time in the land of Fes, I went to a conference on the above topic.

It. was. fascinating. Ok, so maybe it was a little boring too, because I was getting (most) everything translated from French and I was "self"-translating the Arabic and there was a bit of English dispersed in the mix, and I think I missed some crucial points in the translations which caused some of the talks to be... yawn. But, having not been at many academic conferences before, especially ones that are about EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE STUDYING... it was kind of awesome. Here were a group of scholars and activists who were not only fascinated by what I'm fascinated by, but they were THERE. They were Tunisian and Egyptian activists, they were Libyan and Mauritanian and Syrian and Lebanese (and obviously Moroccan). One of my favorite talks was actually about civil marriage in Lebanon, something I didn't even know was an issue before attending that session.

And while I thought I knew a lot about women's rights and social movements in North Africa post-Arab Spring, I gained so much insight and context, which is crucial for my future research self. And in addition to that, it was a really perspective-altering experience too. Sitting amongst hijab-clad women and uncovered Muslim women alike during a talk on Islamic feminism feels so much more authentic than reading about it in North Hall. I was also astounded by how many men both attended and presented at this conference. Men rarely study gender and women's studies in the US, and if they do, it's assumed they are gay. There was not that assumption or the feeling at all that this was a "women-only" issue -- it was a human rights issue to these men, and in that way, this conference was ages ahead of similar ones in the US. It was very impressive, and made me rethink prior assumptions about masculinity and oppression in the Arab context.

I've been thinking about these three days a lot lately as I've been reading The Butterfly Mosque, a memoir about an American women who moves to Cairo, converts to Islam, marries an Egyptian Sufi and tries to navigate her new life in a new family as well as come to terms with her past life in relation to her present. I highly recommend it, especially if you still harbor misconceptions that Islam is misogynistic or evil (and desire to not) -- it was quite eye-opening for me even to think through a lot of these culturally-entrenched biases that are passed down to us from generations before or the mass media. I think Islam is a beautiful religion full of meaningful, lovely traditions, symbols, and teachings, and even us educated liberals lose sight of that fact sometimes and need to be reminded.

Here I am, showing an embarrassing amount of collarbone for living in an Arab country. Oops.