Seven Quick Takes

Thanks to Jen, our hostess.

1. Central Texas is bracing up for as much as 1" (that's 2.54 cm!) of snow today, and everything is just falling apart. Events are being canceled, friends are warning each other not to go out in these dangerous conditions, and provisions are being stocked with the kind of care you might expect in rural Alaska. I myself canceled a rehearsal for a play I'm directing for the homeschoolers, but I have an ulterior motive -- I feel so morning sick (and all-day sick) that I really have less than no desire to leave the house.

2. As I was feeding my kids leftover pizza for breakfast (again), I thought how low we'd sunk from our cheerful planning at the beginning of the school year. Then I was getting up and making breakfast every morning, and we started our lessons at 9:00 with a clean table. Then the flu struck, and shortly after we all recovered (a month-long process) we got pregnant. Now our former weekly shopping trip, made with the assistance of a crafted list, has devolved to Darwin stopping at the store on his way home or at odd times, picking up whatever he can remember that we need (I just can't man up enough to take all four kids through the store anymore). The state of the pantry and the fridge are haphazard, though we're glad that before everything went south we signed up for a 40-week share from a local farm. At least we have vegetables.

This all leads me to think that it wouldn't be a bad idea for a family to have an list of emergency running procedures for times of chaos like flu season or early pregnancy -- a kind of bare-bones how-things-get-done list just to make sure the kids don't eat too much leftover pizza for breakfast.

3. We do have some communication advances: Jack, almost 15 months, can now answer "yes" to questions. Usually he does this with a deep head bob and a grunt, but sometimes he'll say, "Yeah". He's also gotten good at following basic directions, which means if I tell him clearly and slowly, "Jack, go find your cup on the kitchen floor," he'll toddle off and get it.

4. The neighbor girls have introduced my girls to this series of books called Rainbow Magic, about a pair of human girls who assist the trendily-named fairies of Fairyland in finding various magical items that get lost. (The fairies seem rather incompetent -- they can't seem to do anything without the assistance of two pre-pubescent girls.) The books are harmless if fluffy, but there are a ton of them (it's one of those interminable Scholastic series, though interestingly enough we've determined that it's originally from England), and the ladies have been checking them out en masse from the library. Things have come to a head, however, and I'm putting my foot down on allowing any more of these things in my house. For one thing, they've become a trigger for nausea for me (seriously), and for another, Jack has already thrown one of them in the toilet. It flicks on the raw to have to buy such a dumb thing from the library, so that's the end of trendy series for a while in the Darwin house.

5. Watched the new The Lion in Winter recently, the one with Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart, and it's just not up to the standard of the old one. Both leads are fabulously talented thespians, of course, but I just can't buy Glenn Close as the aging beauty of the world.

6. I've only just discovered that you can listen to various radio stations on iTunes. This is useful knowledge since we don't actually have a working radio in the house.

7. A few months ago I bought nice pillows for Darwin and myself (at least they were the highest-end option at Wal-Mart). And we've spent the last few months waking up with neck aches and trying to pound the things into shape. Anyone have a recommendation for a really comfortable pillow? After all, for the amount of one's life one spends in bed, it's not worth it to have a lousy pillow.