Danielisms

I love having an almost five year old in the house.  The other day, while pretending to be a robot, he was running around the house doing "robot arms" (you know what I mean), and shouting in his best monotone, "Call-a-nerd!  Call-a-nerd!  Danger!  Danger!"

It took me a while to figure out that "call a nerd" is Daniel for "red alert."

Today while playing pirates he burst out with, "Timmerme Shimmers!"  (He has also taken to plundering the living room and secreting his spoils in a blanket tent.  I reminded him that he would have to clean the whole thing up before lunch, but it has not quenched his zeal for theft.)

My impulse is to laugh and then correct these little malapropisms, but then I remind myself that he won't be doing things like that for much longer as he gets older and becomes more savvy.  I also try to resist the temptation to laugh.  I remember being laughed at as a child for silly mistakes like that, and it was always a little mortifying.  My mother laughed heartily when I applied the adjective "livid" to a pink house I particularly liked when I was about 9.  I know she didn't mean to be unkind, and it was pretty silly, but 20 years later I still feel a little writhe of embarrassment every time I hear the word.  

7 Quick Takes: Catching Up!

To get into this blogging thing, I am going to try joining 7 Quick Takes, hosted by Jen.

1

As I mentioned in my little post of the other day, I now have three children.  D., our oldest, is turning five at the end of the month.  He is very excited about this birthday because then he will start school.  We are sending him to a Montessori school founded and run by a grad school classmate of mine, and are very excited for him to begin.  He is very precocious in many ways (he was reading at 3.5), but he doesn't have a lot of friends his own age, and he isn't very good at things that require hand-eye coordination, like drawing.  Maybe it is because he is a lefty.  At any rate, I think the Montessori environment will help him with the latter, and just being around other children will be good for him.  

At present his main interests are building with blocks or his train set and riding his tricycle at alarming speeds.  He reads voraciously.  He idolizes his Papa, and wants to do everything he does, including carrying around an old brief-case with his "work" in it.

2

 A., who I was pregnant with right before I took my massive break in posting, is now almost 3, and a sweet, milky-skinned, golden-curled little lunatic.  I mean "lunatic" in the best possible sense, of course.  She is crazy and sweet, and a lot of fun.  She is my bravest child by far -- D. is always a little hesitant in new situations, and is afraid to do things like go down the tallest slide at the playground, but A. just charges right in.  She runs and turns somersaults and climbs like a monkey.  She also loves having me put her hair in pigtails (although she can't resist pulling them out longer than about five minutes), and helping me dress and put on my make-up in the morning.  

She is obsessed with cats -- she and D. play "Baby Kitty Cat" or "The Uglified Kitty Cat"  (I don't know, so don't ask!) all the time.  She mews and insinuates herself into any available lap to snuggle... and then abruptly transforms into a dragon and roars fearsomely!!! 

She, too, will be going to the Montessori school, but just one morning a week for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.  Next year, if we can afford it, we will send her for the morning program.

3

Our newest family member is E., born May 25th.  She is a sweet, cuddly little bundle and we all dote on her.  D. wants nothing more in life than to hold her, and kisses her extravagantly at every oppertunity.  A. likes to say, "That is MY baby sister!" and to help me change and care for her.

She made her entrance into the world a little dramatically two weeks early, precipitated by a nasty 12 hour stomach bug that swept through our family.  I think I will save the story for a separate post though!

4

Since my last post here, my husband finished his coursework for his philosophy PhD, took his comprehensives (he passed) and is now starting to think about a dissertation on Plato while working at a computer company.  He loves the work he is doing, and is pretty sure he won't want to go into academia full-time.  He is happier now than he has been in a long time, and is getting back into creative projects that have lain dormant for a long time.

5

One of those creative projects is the resurrection of the literary magazine he used to run back in the days before children and PhD work.  The Grub Street Grackle has been on hold since a couple of months after D.'s birth, but now he is running a kickstarter campaign to get it going again.  I don't think anyone reads this blog, but on the off chance, you should check it out!!!

6

I am getting used to life back at home with three kids after a couple of years back in school.  The first two semesters I took it really slow, just three classes the whole year.  Then I decided to take a full load in the Fall, and then found out that I was pregnant a couple weeks after the last day to drop classes.   So I just did it.  It was probably the hardest semester of my life, since I get pretty awful morning sickness during the first trimester, but I made it, and then took a full load in the spring as well, which wound up exactly one week before I gave birth!

7

I think the combination of adjusting to three kids and not having the intellectual outlet any more is hitting me pretty hard.  The balance between my vocation as wife and mother and my "other" vocation as a student (and hopefully someday a teacher) has never been easy for me to navigate.  I have gone through phases where I felt that it was my duty to give up the academic life altogether.  I know now that is not right for me, but at the moment I am so exhausted that I have trouble stringing a simple sentence together, let alone writing about Big Ideas!  I am hoping that in a couple of months I will be able to gracefully keep the delicate balance in all of this, but for now I will be happy to get through the day without yelling at my children!!!