Answer Me This

I know I am a little behind the times joining in for Kendra's Answer Me This, but I am going for it anyway!  :)

1. What did you and your family wear to Mass on Easter Sunday?


It is always my goal to get a picture of the whole family in their Easter finery, but that desire is counteracted by the goal of getting the children OUT of their Easter finery before they ruin their new clothes!  Here are the little ones before they got into the Easter candy:

(Well, at least one of them was looking for this one!  Also please ignore our dead/overgrown lawn!)

I am particularly pleased with the girls' matching outfits.  Daniel's current favorite color is pink, so the shirt and tie were his choice.  I had intended to cut his bushy hair before Easter, but I didn't get around to it until Easter Monday.  He now looks like a little shorn sheep!  :)

I wore a bridesmaid's dress from a friend's wedding -- bright green J. Crew with a white lace cami underneath and a white sweater (no picture, naturally) -- and Amos wore a white shirt and bright green tie.  We looked unusually sharp, if I do say so!  ;)



2. Easter Bunny: thumbs up or thumbs down?

After the idea of Saint Nicholas coming into our house and leaving things in his shoes so profoundly upset Daniel, we decided to pass on the Easter Bunny and such things!  Our family tradition is to have the children choose little gifts for each other for the Easter baskets (and stockings at Christmas).  This year Anastasia chose a little Lego set for Daniel and he chose crayons and a new pad of drawing paper for her.  I made a little date out of taking each child alone to shop, and they enjoyed seeing how much their sibling liked the gifts they chose!

(A boy and his Legos!)

3. Do you prefer to celebrate holidays at your own house or at someone else's house?

Humm... Bless you, it all depends!  If we are very close to the people we are visiting and they have small children it is nice to go to someone else's house for holidays.  Less frantic house cleaning that way!  But I also like to host because then I get to be in charge of the menu and the details! (I am a perfectionist and an oldest child -- I like to be in charge!) 

(Beatrix Potter coloring book courtesy of Auntie Duckie)

This year I really wanted to have Easter here because it is our first holiday in the new house.  We had one family that we are very close with (they are Anastasia's godparents and we are their son's godparents) and one of my grad school friends who is far from her family.  It was very low-key and relaxing, despite the fact that I was still rolling out pie crust as the guests arrived!  I made ham and roasted potatoes and salad and cheese cake and strawberry rhubarb pie, and E. brought fresh baked bread and green beans, and T. brought wine and a fancy appetizer, and we feasted and watched the children play (ok, watched them bounce off the walls because of the excess of sugar!) and talked poetry and had a grand time!


4. What is your favorite kind of candy?

Do you mean favorite Easter candy or favorite over-all candy?  Because for Easter (and only for Easter) I adore Spring Peeps.  Yes, the deformed, sugar coated marshmallow chicks.  I know they are gross.  I just can't help it!  

The rest of the year, it is a toss up between really dark chocolate (preferably with a glass of red wine) and Butterfingers.

5. Do you like video games?

Until quite recently I would have said no, but in the past year I started playing Sims Medieval and now Amos and I are playing Monkey Island together.  

Monkey Island is the best because in order to sword fight (you are a pirate, so sword fighting is very important) you need to know the fine art of insults.  For example, if someone were to tell you that you fight like a dairy farmer, your obvious response would be "How appropriate!  You fight like a cow!" Yes, I know, I know.  A 32 year old woman should not be as amused by this as I am.  I have no regrets!!!

6. Do you speak another language?

I can't speak another language, but I can read French and Latin, both of which I had to learn for my graduate program.  The French was not too difficult, since I had a fair bit in highschool, but I am pretty proud of my Latin skills.  I took Advanced Latin at the end of my pregnancy with Eleanor and took an exam on Augustine's Confessions a week before giving birth!  

Apart from my academic pursuits, it is useful to me to know Latin because our family goes to a Latin Mass parish and I love being able to translate the readings and Propers directly.  I have to be careful in choir though -- if I pay attention to the text as I sing, I slip into Classical pronunciation and my v's turn into w's!

I went back to the doctor Wednesday  afternoon (well, to a different doctor at a clinic) and it turns out that I have a stealth case of strep throat.  The doctor on Monday looked at my throat and said that it didn't look at all like strep so she wasn't even going to do the test.  The second doctor said the same thing, but since I have a little fever and we just wanted to rule it out, she did the swab.  She was so sure that it was going to be negative that we were talking about how long the probable virus would last when she checked the test and was amazed to find it positive.  So I am on antibiotics that make me vaguely nauseous, but that is a world better than laboring on with untreated strep throat!

The concern now is that one of the children will have caught it from me, so we are keeping a close eye on them for fevers or sore throats or rashes for the next few days.

The up side of being sick in bed for three days is that I have had the luxury of burning through not one, but two novels in three days.  I have been going through Laurie King's Mary Russel novels, about an older Sherlock Holmes and his young assistant, and enjoying them immensely.  I have only read one of the original Sherlock Holmes stories ("A Study in Scarlet," if you are wondering) but I am a devoted fan of the Sherlock BBC series and even the Robert Downey, Jr. movies.  The Laurie King novels are not perfect.  There is a lot of dubious theology, and some rather unnecessarily edgy sub-plots that don't add significantly to the story except to be provocative (the current novel has a marriage of convenience between an English Duke and his lesbian childhood friend).  Another thing I don't like about them is that it is impossible for the reader to piece together the mystery apart from the characters -- that is, there are no carefully laid clues that we could, in principle, follow along with the detectives.  Things are often revealed fortuitously or coincidentally just at the right moment for Holmes and Russel to solve the case. But mostly they are good fun, and what they lack in mechanics they more than make up for in style.  The first person narrative by Mary is authentic and engaging, and Holmes is extremely well drawn.  The first (and best) in the series is The Beekeeper's Apprentice.
The ones I burned through during my illness are O Jerusalem and Justice Hall.

Today has been spent largely in bed, due to the nasty virus that has been making the rounds of our family.  Anastasia had it bad yesterday with a fever and sore throat, and we are both in sad shape today.  Amos was able to take a sick day to help me out, and I haven been drinking tea and resting and watching dumb action movies around going to the doctor and nursing the baby.

Yesterday (before the sickness hit) we were at mass and choir.  Our church has a tradition of doing Tenebrae during Holy Week.  The past there years we have just done the chants, but this year we are working on four of the responsories by Victoria for Good Friday.  The plan is to learn a few more each year until we have the whole set.

In case you have never had the pleasure of hearing them, here is one of the ones we are working on:

(In case the video doesn't show up, see http://youtu.be/zHL9GIchStI)

I love this time of year in choir, because it reminds me that the high feast of the year really is Easter and the Resurrection of our Lord.  We work hard for Christmas, of course, but Holy Week...  Well, that is something else!  With three kids I can't be as much a part of it as I'd like -- the Easter Vigil is just not possible right now -- but I love what we do, and remembering the joy ahead even in the middle of Lent because we get to practice all of the happy music too!

Singing is one of the balancing things for me. I am very, very happy when I sing regularly and we are blessed to have a parish where we can use the musical treasures of the Church!

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!!!

It has certainly been a long time since my last post.  In the intervening years (yes, years!) I have had not one, but two babies, gone back to school to finish my M.A. and most of the coursework for my doctorate, and am now, once again, starting life at home with my three sweet children.  So, it seemed like the time to start blogging here again.

I am not quite sure how I will fill this space.  Probably just little tidbits from our days, recipes, some pictures if I can ever find the cord to my camera, maybe some posts about the books I read when I start preparing for comps.  Anything is possible!

After determining last Saturday that painting over high-gloss paint was more of a chore than we wanted to take on, we decided to just move already. So, Monday morning we bought a couch at the Salvation Army, and Monday afternoon, we carted all of our furniture over to our new apartment.

We are fast settling in, and it already feels more like home than the place we have lived for the past year. After all of the anxiety and indecision, it is good. So, so good!

Daniel was really thrown off at first by the whole proceeding. "Go home?" he kept on saying. He spent a couple of days acting out, and one night in our bed, but now he seems to have taken it all in stride. I need to work on our routine, to minimize the bad behavior that comes out when he gets tired or hungry. I hope I can have things well in hand before the next major upheaval of his little world happens in about seven weeks (is that possible?!?).

My favorite place in the apartment, and where I spend most of my time, is the kitchen and dining room, which are divided by an island. It is so nice not to be isolated from the rest of the house while I cook,, and it is amazing to have more than two inches of counter space to work with. I am in the enviable position, for the first time in years, of having more cabinets than I have things to put in them!!! I am already plotting all sorts of culinary adventures, now that it is not so darned cramped to cook!

My mother in law has been here for the past week, helping out with the packing, moving, cleaning, and settling in. She is wonderful -- I don't know what I would have done without her help. Probably put myself into pre-term labor lifting heavy boxes. Daniel is thoroughly enjoying her company, too, especially when she lets him sit in her lap and listen to silly Danny Kaye songs on her computer!

In other news, my pregnancy continues uneventfully. I have the usual aches and pains, for which I have been seeing a chiropractor, and recently started having long bouts of Braxton-Hicks contractions, especially when I forget to eat or rest, but other than that things are going along just swimmingly.

I am now 33 weeks, and finally got to meet with the midwife who will be delivering the baby. It turns out that I had met Helena before -- she was just starting her internship after Daniel was born, and sat in on a couple of my postpartum appointments with Kelsey. Over the past two years,she has finished all of her formal training, and has been attending births alongside a midwife in her home town, five hours away. Now she is back at FBS to help fill the vacancy left by Kelle's departure and to finish up her last few births before certification. I really like her. She is older -- she has a grown son and a couple of grandchildren -- and has a very peaceful, serene air about her. She is very businesslike about the whole thing, but also kind. I feel very comfortable with her, even after just one appointment.