When we went to Prince Edward Island two summers ago, we bought an unglazed wine glass. The potter claimed that the clay would absorb whatever it is in red wine that causes me to get headaches after drinking it. We decided that even if it wasn’t true, it was a pretty cup and would be a nice memento.

But it does appear to work. I can drink red wine from that cup and not have a dull, persistent ache across the top of my head. It also changes the flavor a bit, smoothing out the bite which is my least favorite part about drinking red wine.

It is impossible to drink from this cup and not be reminded of communion. That’s mostly when I have red wine, for one thing, and the shape of this cup, the way it is held, echo the cup of forgiveness. Despite its many similarities, there is no cup that takes the bite and sting out of the life we have here. The promise of new life does not mean that we won’t experience pain.

This is something I have thought about a lot this week. Atticus has had a virus, and his temperature was over 105 two days in a row. He had tubes put in his ears yesterday. I would have liked to give him something to fix that for him, something to take away his pain. In fact, I would have liked something for myself, for the scary moments of seeing him so sick and for the surgery, when he had to be away from me for longer than expected.

When he was dedicated over the summer, we prayed that he would be strengthened through injury and illness. If I hadn’t prayed that for many other children over the years, I doubt I would have been able to pray it for my own. During this long, difficult week, I took some (small) comfort in the idea that what he was going through would make him stronger, better able to fight off illness in the future. I cannot protect him from pain, but there is the grace to make it through. This week, it looked like two hands clasped in a waiting room, a sick little boy snuggling with his daddy, a Chick-fil-a breakfast delivery. And, yes, a cup of red wine. There is not much comfort in the idea of learning or growing from pain. But at least we can go through it together.

For the first time, I had to cut students from my Battle of the Books team. In the past, I have been lucky that the number dwindled down to the magic number of students I am allowed to take to the competition. But not this year. This year I had to choose.

There was one student in particular who didn’t make the team and it broke my heart. I ran the numbers and I tried to make it work, but I couldn’t swing it, not in a way that was fair to everybody else who had worked so hard. I told him that I was sorry, I wanted him to be on the team, I would take him to the competition next year. But he didn’t show up for practice yesterday.

I feel ill-equipped to handle these situations. I am the one who rejected him, and I doubt he wanted to see me. But I couldn’t shake the image that the other students gave me, that he was sitting in the cafeteria with his head down, refusing to come to the library for practice. And I couldn’t shake the idea that he was my lost sheep, that I needed to go and get him. So I left my ninety and nine quizzing each other and I went to the cafeteria (foreign lands for sure) to find the one.

It was as bad as they said. He was there at a table’s edge, head down, discarded chicken nuggets on a tray in front of him. I made him come with me, told him that he’s important to me, gave him the job of reading the questions. He was withdrawn. But he was there.

It was all I could do. It wasn’t enough, but it was all I could do.

I never coach winning teams. I don’t work the students hard enough. We don’t learn the books as well as we could. I want them to see the library as a place they are welcome. I want it to be fun more than I care about winning. And when it isn’t fun, I guess I want them to know that I care enough to come and find them.

When Mike and I first got together, I didn’t know much of anything about football. I knew how many points a touchdown is worth, but only because of a lucky guess related to being on the Quiz Bowl team many years ago. Such a nerdy reason should hardly count as football knowledge. And so, for many years, Mike patiently answered my football questions just as I patiently trained him in the importance of college basketball. When he would yell, “FIRST DOWN!” I was always confused, so he finally started saying that they reset the downs. Once at a party, someone overheard him say this to me, and they were horrified by the entire conversation. By the time we watched Friday Night Lights, I could tell, just by watching the plays, what the call should be. I am not sure which one of us was more proud.

Because of my excellent teacher, I feel confident in telling you that we punted this year when it came to the Male Bakeoff. Yes, Mike did win a trophy, and, yes, his dessert was delicious, but this year was different. There were not weeks of anxious planning, and there was a marked lack of intensity at our house. Not to mention the fact that Atticus’s nap is right in the middle of the day, so he and I were late, missing most of the festivities.

I left the photography up to Mike, who didn’t manage to take a single photo of the brownie mosaic cheesecake that he made. He named it Tessera, which is also the name of our early service. The benediction in that service often has to do with us being God’s work of art, and I am told that the word tessera indicates individual tiles used to make a larger mosaic. (It is not to be confused with a term from The Hunger Games.) This blatant pandering worked, and Mike’s Tessera mosaic cheesecake won the Most Biblical award.

This is the third time Mike has won Most Biblical. What I like best about that award is that it acknowledges the silliness of designating things “biblical.” Because, yes, Mike’s Tessera cheesecake was supposed to remind you of Ephesians 2:10, but that doesn’t really make it more biblical than the other desserts. It’s just another way to win a trophy. I’m just glad that the church didn’t retire the Most Biblical category when they had to give it to a Lord of the Rings cake one year for want of other possible entries. Or after The Hill of Foreskins Cheesecake, because . . . what is more biblical than that?

A good time was had by all, Mike’s dessert was wiped clean, and Atticus managed to break his dad’s trophy into three parts before we even got out of the fellowship hall. I super glued it back together once we got home. Perhaps the trophy, like regular human beings, is a bit more beautiful with its cracks and flaws. Perhaps this even makes it more “biblical.”

Previous Male Bakeoff posts: 2005: Chocolate Irish Cream Cake, 2006: Hill of Foreskins Cheesecake, 2007: Whore of Babylon Red Velvet Cake, 2008: Peanut Butter Cup Pie, 2009: Best of Show, 2010: Goliath’s Birthday Party, 2011 Best of Show.

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are, to see through plastic sham to living, breathing reality, and to break down our defenses of self-protection in order to be free to receive and give love. – Madeleine L’Engle

I have given two years of my body to Atticus, nine months of growing him and thirteen months of breastfeeding. We’re going to round those extra two months and call it an even two years, okay? While I was growing a person, both in and out of my body, I felt a marked lack of creativity. I expected it; I was told that it’s not possible to grow more than one thing at a time. But I didn’t know how draining it would be. Now that I am feeling more like myself (an extra tired version of myself), I pulled out one of my favorites to remind me what creativity feels and sounds like again.

When it comes to Madeleine L’Engle, I am the worst kind of hipster. I don’t get excited that you have also started reading her. I get mad because she is mine and, to be honest, I would rather not share her. Please go away and find someone else. There are so many other authors for you to choose from. I have seen a lot of people mention Walking on Water in the past year, and it made me squinch up my nose, because that is a book that meant a lot to me when I read it almost 15 years ago. A book that, eventually, helped me decide that I did want to open myself to parenthood. I don’t know how to share it, or to put into words my feelings about it. I simply know that it helps remind me what it means to be human, how so much of this dance of life is about co-creation with God.

So I re-read it, and I can’t point out any deep revelations. Instead, it simply reflected back to me so many truths I believe deep down that I needed to hear again. If I weren’t such a hipster, I’d tell you to read it yourself. Instead, I want you to know that it was part of me before all the cool kids were talking about it. Oh, and by the way, I listen to bands that don’t even exist yet.

My impression is that I tend to read a lot of non-fiction in January, but I went and looked at my reading lists, and it’s not true. I did read a lot of non-fiction last January, out of desperation: Now I have a baby and I don’t know what one does with a baby. But I didn’t write down what I read last year, so I can’t prove that to you all. This January, I have already read three non-fiction books, and I’m in the middle of another one (with several on my bedside table). Perhaps this will be the year of non-fiction.

1- My mom got Atticus a bubble machine for his birthday. It is the awesomest thing he has ever seen.
2- Mike spent the day with us instead of going to his classroom.
3- Workday! Got to see some of my friends at a workshop.
4- A friend came over to return some baby stuff and finally our babies are big enough to play together.
5- A challenging student told me that he likes me. Victory!
6- New friends over for dinner.
7- Birthday party for some friends’ kids. It was very fun to feel like this is our new life.
8- I was really cranky, and Mike was really really patient with me. God bless him.
9- I stayed home with a sick Atticus and he and I had a really good day. He is very pitiful when he is sick.
10- Still AND The Fault in Our Stars in the mail.
11- I took a meal to a mom on her first week back at work. It made me feel like a superhero.
12- I was sick when I got home from work. Mike took good care of me.
13- Decorating for Alisa’s birthday brunch with two of my funnest friends.
14- Alisa’s birthday brunch was beautiful.
15- Sick day. Good things: leftover cough medicine and hot toddies.
16- I can’t overstate the importance of people like Mike and Alisa and my mom on days like today.
17- I had a really good hair day.
18- Took dinner to Brian and Sarah on Sarah’s first day back at work. I am a superhero AGAIN!
19- Workshop talking about books with colleagues who are also friends. What’s not to like?
20- Workday! I had lunch from Iron Hen and we had friends over for dinner.
21- Atticus slept awesome and we all got much-needed rest.
22- I went to church by myself, which made me sad, but it was a good thing in the end.
23- Dinner with Brandy and Alisa!
24- It’s nerdy, but I love watching The State of the Union address along with Twitter.
25- My boys’ book club started. They loved the first two chapters of The Hunger Games.
26- There was drama and I was not involved in it.
27- Friday night pizza was delicious.
28- Breakfast at our favorite diner, dinner at a birthday party, dessert and Downton with Alisa and Jason.
29- Mike and I had a great morning sans Atticus, who was at my mom’s.
30- Mike loves me even though I am not gracious.
31- Workshop after school ended early.

Atticus has been sick constantly over the past month, fighting ear and sinus infections. I am not the first to note the desperation that comes with being the parent of a sick child, when you have tried everything you can do and still he cries out with pain and discomfort.

It was on one of these days that Still by Lauren Winner arrived in my mailbox (via my friend Kristen, through my friend Katey). It is a book about the middle life of Christianity, when things are no longer fresh and hopeful. What is it that keeps us still here, still tied to these ideas of faith? What do we do when all we hear is the stillness, and no voice answers us?

While Girl Meets God is one of my favorite books, I relate more to the middle than to Winner’s story of conversion. I don’t remember falling in love with Jesus. My story of faith has been about finding meaning here, in the difficult and ordinary part of the journey. Winner’s mid-faith crisis was brought about by her mother’s death and her unhappy marriage and subsequent divorce, but Christians in the middle of faith know that the ordinary wearing down of life can cause these same feelings of crisis. What I believed is not working, and I do not know where I have found myself.

Still is structured into three parts: the Wall, Movement, and Presence. At first, God seems absent, then there are heart stirrings, and finally, there is a reconciliation of sorts. It is those heart stirrings that have interested me lately. The people who would quote Exodus and say that the Lord will fight and that you need only to be still are not talking about the still void that Lauren Winner means here. How do you make the first move into that void? It would be nice to imagine that the movement will all be in your direction, but in my experience you must at least make space for God to move in your life. And sometimes that is quite a lot to ask. The heartbreak and joy of the middle is that things will have to change. For better or for worse, you will lose the faith you had. But there is the hope of something new and alive that could take its place.

In an interview in the back of the book, Lauren Winner points out that coming through this crisis doesn’t mean that she’s reached the end of her faith journey. Instead, these same cycles will likely play out again and again in similar ways. We live our lives in the middle, and it is an idea that I hope that more authors will wrestle with in the coming years.

I have started to wonder if I am drawn to something about the transition of the middle. What I like about working in a middle school is that these are such formative years. The students are staking claim to who they want to be. And the middle-of-the-middle, 7th grade, is by far the hardest on them. I love to see 8th graders who have come through it all with clear eyes and a sense of self. They are still in the middle, but they know they are going to make it. Middle school is an apt metaphor for the stages that Winner goes through in this book.

One night, Atticus could not be calmed, so Mike brought him in to me and I nursed him. For an hour, he tossed and turned, crying out with discomfort from his sinuses. I held his ankle and prayed, not that he would get better, but simply that his body would find some peace. Finally, he propped himself up on Mike and we all got a couple of hours of sleep. I was relieved by the eventual stillness of his body and the idea that if he would only stop fighting, we could offer him some comfort. It is too simplistic to spout stillness as a catch-all answer for the middle times. It is work to say prayers into a void when you are not sure anyone is listening. It is work to go to church when your heart is broken. And sometimes, it is work to still yourself in the silence.

I recommend Still to anyone who knows the dark and quiet time of the middle.

I see people talking about margin a lot these days. Leave margin in life so you have room to breathe. Scribble in life’s metaphorical margins. Be mindful of the people in the margins.

Do you remember being in middle school? It was awful for everybody. So awful that burly men look at me with respect, all five-feet-two-inches of me, when they hear I work at a middle school. Knowing that now, it’s easy to see through the students who seem like they are having a good time. I have been here, I think, and I know that you are not having a good time. That you are as sad and lonely and confused as I was. As everyone is, in middle school. I keep a playful tone with students and try to speak respectfully. Because I remember.

I felt marginalized in middle school, relegated to the edge. I started to learn how to speak up for myself, but it was a slow beginning and I still need a lot of practice. My very narrow perspective prevented me from realizing that I was not the only one who was viewing things from the margins. It was a good way to learn about being a grown-up. In the past year, my own margin has been this working mom thing, specifically working with a baby. I could not figure out how to squeeze life into the hour a day I get to myself. I did not know who to talk to about what I was going through. I was tired and sad and lonely. We hunkered down for a year. I couldn’t see myself that clearly, but I saw the people who reached out to me. The margins are clarifying in that way.

Things are better now, in ways I can’t completely define. I have more energy. Everything’s not weighing me down so much. It’s easier for me to look up and see other people. I am trying to use that energy to look out for those who are going through the same things I have been through this year.

All of us are relegated to one margin or another. Nobody can be in the middle of everything, and everyone feels forgotten sometimes. I have a tendency to wallow in that feeling. The past few weeks, I have taken the opportunity to pass on some of the kindnesses that were shown to me in the hopes of making the margins a little less lonely. I could tuck my heart up tight, but it is better to look for the other people in the margins and make my own middle of everything with them.

Every day, Atticus would stand in front of the tree and we would count down 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 and turn it on. His smile was as bright as the lights.

I am not exactly sure when our tree was taken down last year. Our tradition has been to take it down on New Year’s Day, but we were somewhat busy that day. I vaguely recall a meltdown at some point. It’s all still up and we are never going to get it down and how can we manage everything and I am so tired. So Mike took it down for us.

This year, putting up the tree was relatively easy because Atticus was just barely walking. Taking it down, though, was a whole different ball game. Again, I watched Atticus while Mike did the hard work. Does that make it a new tradition?

For the first time, we intentionally took the tree down after Epiphany. I don’t know if that’s what we will do in the future or not. I love the idea, but I also like putting Christmas away with the old year and moving on to the new. This year, we turned on our Christmas lights every night of Christmastide, though everyone else’s trees were already at the curb. It felt right to me, a coda to the season. Our small lights, shining into the darkness. Reminding us of the arrival of the light of the world.

Do you leave your tree up until Epiphany? How do you celebrate Epiphany with your family?

Another one of those things that “everybody says” is that when your baby learns to walk, it’s all over.

I am sure it will surprise no one to find out that I find this a gross oversimplification. For one thing, if it’s “over” when your baby can get into things, then we were out of luck the minute Atticus learned to crawl. And while Atticus was happy to be able to scoot around, crawling frustrated him to no end. He wanted to be walking with the rest of us. His body buzzed with pent-up energy that he could not exhaust no matter how many times we held his hands and walked him around the house. He woke every two or three hours at night, unable to calm his body down enough to sleep for long periods. I frequently battle insomnia and recognized his distress. Sometimes my mind won’t stop racing. Sometimes my body will not stop humming. Sometimes it makes me want to cry into the dark.

Now that he can walk, he is so much happier. He doesn’t beat on things or seem as uncomfortable in his own skin. Even though he’s teething, his sleep has been better. He walks, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He circles the house, finally able to breathe in his surroundings. He goes where he wants instead of depending on us. The biggest surprise of all is that he is more content to sit on my lap, to give me hugs, and to let me hold him. He will lie on the floor and play with his toys and babble to himself. The peace that radiates from him is a joy to observe.

We have ourselves a wild, independent little boy. People often express pity when they see how all over the place he is. I know that this pity often comes from moms who are, themselves, overwhelmed by their active children, but those are conversations in which I prefer not to participate. While I sometimes feel overwhelmed by Atticus’s energy, I reject the idea that anyone should feel sorry for me because of who my child is. I don’t want to talk about him as if my life is over now that he’s here.

While I do, at times, wonder why we didn’t get ourselves a calm, quiet, lap-sitting baby, I know that we invited another person into our house, our lives, our family. Instead of expecting him to conform to my ideals, I try to get to know him for who he is. Together, we are learning to walk, and it is far from over.

Bonus picture from one of those nights when he couldn’t stay asleep. I stayed up with him from 4-6 and then Mike took over so I could sleep. Atticus passed out on the floor around 6:45. I think this picture speaks for itself.

Baby New Year wishes you a happy 2012!