Answer Me This

Joining the fun with Answer Me This again, because why come up with my own blogging topics when Kendra asks such fun questions? :) (Edited to Add:Evidently I fail at reading instructions, because I seem to have answered the wrong questions! Sorry!)

1. How did you get your name?

My birthday is just a couple of days before Christmas, so Natalie was an appropriate choice! The other serious contenders (I am told) were Noelle and Leah.  I think I could have been a Leah, but Noelle just never would have suited.  My middle name, Rose, is for my paternal grandmother.

2. Do you have a set time for prayer in your day?

We pray consistently at meal times of course, but that is about it right now.  Some times after dinner we do a song and a reading from the Office of Readings. My father in law is visiting and we have prayed Compline with him a few nights while he has been here.  I recently set up a little shrine with an icon and some holy cards and candles (inspired by Auntie Leila!) and I hope we can begin to develop more prayerful habits now that there is a space set aside for the purpose.

3. Did your mom work or stay home (or both)?

My mother only worked very briefly while I was growing up. She was a waitress at a sea food restaurant, and one of my best memories was going with he for dinner one night.  It was exciting for me to be out at night, especially at a nice restaurant. I had a plate of pasta with mussels and felt like royalty!

4. Do you vote?

I know I ought to vote, but I don't. Part is just laziness, but I also know I am not well enough informed to make good decisions in local elections and I am frankly fed up with both sides in national elections.  I really just want to send ALL of our politicians to the corner and take away their toys until they figure out how to act like adults.

5. What's your favorite drink?

Depends on what category we are talking about.  After being indifferent to soda for many years, I recently developed a taste for Pepsi if we are talking non alcoholic.  But nothing can beat a good margarita!

6. How are your photography skills?

Pathetic!  I am not even going to put any pictures in this post because I don't have any good ones from recently.

Answer Me This

Well, I am in time for the link up this week, so hurrah!  :)

1.  Are you becoming your mother?

In a few ways I think I am. I laugh like her sometimes and my sense of humor is a bit like hers.  I wish in other ways that I were more like her.  I am not as accomplished of a housekeeper as she is, and I am not comfortable with people or able to put them at ease like she does.  So, lots to aspire to!

2.  Coffee or tea?

O coffee, coffee my love!  I have been a coffee addict since 9th grade.  Maybe that is why I am the shortest of my siblings?  But really, coffee is the best.  I love the taste, I love the smell, I love making it in our little air press...  The only time I don't like it is in my first trimester of pregnancy when the smell of coffee or even the smell of someone who has been drinking coffee is enough to make me, well, you know!

I do like tea as well, especially Lady Gray or Constant Comment, but not with the overwhelming passion of my love for coffee!

3.  What foreign country would you like to visit?

Well, it has been so long since I have done any traveling that I would not be particular about the destination of I could just GO!  Right now I would love to go to Paris and walk along the Sien, but it would also be lovely to go back to Rome or London!

I would also someday love to go back to Prince Edward Island where we spent our honeymoon.  It is so peaceful there, especially before tourist season starts, and so lovely with the blue and rose lupines  and the ocean and the red sand...

4.  Do you cry easily?

Yes.  Which is to say, I tear up over everything.  A picture of a kitten or a baby is all it takes.  Last night we were at a party and I got all terry over a sweet story someone told. It is embarrassing!  I have always been this way, but pregnancy and ahem, certain times of the month are even worse! (Not pregnant, just to be clear!)


5.  How often do you wear heels?

I wear them to work and church and really any time I feel in need of a little extra confidence (which is to say, often!). I am on the short side at 5'2" so heels really do make a difference for me in the "not being overshadowed by my students" department!

6.  Do you play an instrument?

Not really.  I dabble on the piano, but that is about it.  I sing though, so maybe that counts.  I have been an alto (and sometime tenor -- my range is very low) for so long that I compulsively harmonize. I catch myself humming along my own back up vocals to the songs in stores.

Amos is a bass and my secret hope is that Daniel will be a tenor (real tenors are a rare breed) and at least one of the girls will be a soprano so we can do 4 part harmonies together as a family someday.

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!!!