Signed, Sealed & Delivered

D2 is napping. D1 went with DOB to the credit union. Even the Guys Upstairs apparently have no housekeeping to do and no games to watch. (Well, of course not, they are napping after staying up all night, practicing the guitar.) The house is silent.

I don't know what to do with myself. So I shall blog.

DOB is going to the credit union to deposit a check received yesterday after signing several hundred pieces of paper. ("And this one is the certification that you've read and understood the Foreclosure Disclosure Enclosure, which is this 35-page stack of paper I have under the desk here.")

We were running late yesterday, as usual, and when we stopped by the house to check things one last time we discovered that the refrigerator had not been cleaned. The refrigerator is my housekeeping Nemesis. Goopy things go in there. Lids come loose mysteriously. Vegetables bought with noble plans get lost behind the peanut butter jar. One has to bend over, fight off D1, and waste large quantities of energy to clean it. Right after D2's birth, cleaning it wasn't even on my least favorite things to do list.

So we took out 15 minutes and the roll of paper towels thoughtfully left for us and tried to scrape off the unidentified goo. We didn't actually get it clean, but we got it to the point where it looked like we had just forgotten to clean it.

And now the buyer (our realtor's ex, which strikes us as unspeakably odd) has signed the papers and she's stuck with it. If the furnace breaks again, it's her worry. If the tub starts backing up, not our problem. All the headaches are hers now.

I miss our house.

This must be my lucky day!

This morning D2 was being suspiciously quiet. I checked on him. He was rolled on his side, contentedly examining chair legs, with a large, spreading stain on his backside.

I whisked him up to take him to the changing pad and discovered a very good reason for the blowout--his diaper was not attached. I don't know how that happened.

So I took the stained pajamas into the laundry and added them to the next load. I grabbed my trusty bottle of stain remover and started spraying them. It didn't seem to be doing much good, and it smelled kind of funny, but I figured I'd give them time to work and started switching the loads around.

My eye happened to fall on the bottle I'd placed on the freezer. It was a bottle of windshield rain repellent. Risking death from chemical mixtures, I promptly sprayed them with the right bottle. (They came through fairly clean and not particularly waterproof.)

DOB called a little earlier to say the reason his lunch bag was so light this morning was that I had forgotten to put lunch in it.

I'm glad I don't have to drive anywhere today.

Just another pretty face

I have often noted that one can easily identify the decade in which a fantasy or historical movie was made simply by looking at the heroine. Fashions in beauty change over time; while none of the heroines look downright ugly, the girls from an 80s or 60s movie would definitely not be cast as the most beautiful woman in the world today. (The 20s are perhaps the worst of all; whereas the stars from the 40s movies still look incredible.)

Sometimes it seems to be a bit more consciously done: I have always thought that in the Pride & Prejudice miniseries, while Elizabeth is far more appealing to modern eyes, one can see that Jane might well better fit the image of beauty of the neoclassical era.

Anyway, I have always reflected with some comfort that the only thing that keeps me (or any other reasonably decent-looking young woman) from being dazzlingly beautiful is being born in the wrong era. And perhaps a good makeup artist.

Not according to Hoyle

We've invented a new card game, for those who love mental math. Or who have calculators handy.

We call it Pemberley, because it's our card game and we can call it what we want to. It's for two or more players--we're not sure how many more, because we haven't tried it with more than three.

The objective is to win.

One wins by scoring the most points.

One scores points by getting the cumulative total of cards played so far to land on certain selected numbers.

If you're still reading, here are the rules:

Dealer deals seven cards to each player. Player to right of dealer cuts the deck, and dealer turns over the exposed card. This card is the starter.

Cards are treated as numbers 1-13, Kings being 13, naturally. Each suit is assigned an operation, as follows:

♥=Add
♠=Subtract
♦=Multiply
♣=Divide

The players set down cards alternately (keeping their piles separate), calculating the new total based on applying the operation and number indicated by the card last played. That sounds confusing, but it's quite simple, as you'll see when I get to a sample round.

All totals must be whole numbers, and they cannot be greater than 500 or less than -500.

Points are granted as follows:

• Landing on 1 is worth 1 point the first time, then 1 more point every time it is reached in the game.
• Landing on 12 or a multiple of 12 is worth 1 point.
• Landing on a prime number is worth 1 point. (List of primes.)
• Landing on 0 is worth 2 points
• Landing on 7 or a multiple of 7 is worth 2 points.
• Landing on 13 or a multiple of 13 is worth 3 points.

Because points are acquired as play proceeds, it's easiest to use a cribbage board to keep score. If you don't have one, perhaps hash marks would work.

Any cards that cannot be played will deduct one point from the player's final score.

Once all cards have been played, the players gather up their own cards and arrange them in sets which, again working off the starter card, make numbers that score points. Any card that cannot be used in one of these sets is another card to deduct from the final score. These points are to be added to the ones scored in the first part of the game, extra cards are then subtracted, and the winner is the one with the most points.

OK, here's a sample game to make it clearer: ♥=Add ♠=Subtract ♦=Multiply ♣=Divide

Starter card is 3♣ (Disregard the suit on the starter card), so starting value is 3.

P1: Q♦, 3*12 is 36. Divisible by 12, 1 point.
P2: Q♥ 36+12 is 48. Divisible by 12, 1 point.
P1: 8♣ 48 / 8 is 6.
P2: 2♣ 6/ 2 is 3. Prime, 1 point.
P1: 8♠ 3-8 is -5. Prime, 1 point.
P2: 5♣ -5 / 5 is -1.
P1: 8♥ -1 +8 is 7. Divisible by 7, 2 points.
P2: 4♦ 7*4 is 28. Divisible by 7, 2 points.
P1: 7♣ 28 / 7 is 4.
P2: 3♠ 4-3 is 1. First hit of 1, 1 point.
P1: K♦ 1*13 is 13. Divisible by 13, 3 points.
P2: A♥ 13+1 is 14. Divisible by 7, 2 points.
P1: 7♠ 14-7 is 7. Divisible by 7, 2 points.
P2: Has a 10♣ unused, which is set aside.

At this point, P1 has 9 points and P2 has 7 points. Now they take up their hands and lay them out to make the maximum points they can find:

P1: (8♥, 7♠, Q♦, 8♣, 8♠), i.e. ((3 (starter) +8-7)*12)/8)-8=-2, prime, for 1 point.
(K♦) 3*13=69, divisible by 13, for 3 points.

P1's score is now 13, but he was unable to use his 7♣ this time, so one point is deducted, and his final score is 12.

P2: (Q♥, 5♣) i.e., (3+12)/5=3, prime, for 1 point.
(3♠) 3-3 =0, for 2 points.
(4♦, 2♣, A♥) 3*4/2+1=7, for 2 points.

P2's score is now 12, but the 10♣ must now be deducted, so his final score is 11, and P1 wins. If you want to do multiple rounds, you can set a winning point value and keep a running tally.

We welcome thoughts and suggestions (except for "You guys are hopeless nerds.")

Something Old, Something New

This refers to activities, not people, so it has nothing to do with your birthday, Juliana. ;-)

In the old activities, my former roommate, with whom I have lived for a significantly larger portion of my life than I have with DOB, was out in the vicinity for business and was able to stop in for the weekend. She is fortunately used to my cooking and therefore remained undaunted when D1 dropped the ant trap in the potatoes and when the chicken refused to cook even though it had been in the oven much longer than the recipe said. (I should just not try to follow recipes, as it only confuses me.)

She is also good with a hammer, and thus with her help we were able to put up pictures in much of the house, which makes it look like we are living here, not just camping.

In the new activities, D1 finally found something at the park sufficiently dangerous to give her serious injury: sitting on the bench. She fell off face-first onto the concrete and had a swollen lip for the duration of the weekend. We carried her screaming home, washed her up, and as soon as she was released, she ran to the door saying, "More park?"

D1 has also been promoted to attending children's church, which is taught by Grandma and one of her uncles, so she seems fairly tolerant of the idea.

D2, meanwhile, has been promoted to sitting in a booster seat at the table while we eat. I am still trying to hold off on him actually eating food, however eagerly he may try to grab our plates, but he found it interesting to sit up, look around and gnaw on a spoon. After awhile he got tired of tipping over, though, and was happy to return to his customary place on the floor.

And I seem to be suffering from a case of baby carrier elbow, which has decided me that D2 shall no longer be carried in and out in the car seat.

Somewhat disturbing

I decided to try the favorite Google search game with my alter ego and typed in "Queen of Carrots is."

One reference was to me. The rest were to . . . tarot cards. Apparently the Queen of Carrots is a very auspicious card. Much better than say, a beet. Or potato.

Well, I would hope so.

Anyway, on a brighter note, I tried "Duke of Burgundy is" and discovered that the Duke of Burgundy is a quite lovely European butterfly.

And here are some apt quotes on ducklings:

All Ducklings are Beautiful
Those ducklings are way too cute!!
The ducklings are master mess-makers.
Ducklings are also extremely fragile, easily chilled and can be injured .
Ducklings are amazing. I could sit and watch them putter and dabble for hours.
When my ducklings are 3 days old, they can find their own food. (Well, sort of.)

DOB Opines

QOC: You know that song that goes "Duh, duh, da-duh, da-duh-duh?" I found it online yesterday. It's called "Scotland the Brave."

DOB: That's a stupid name. Scotland isn't brave.

QOC: It's not?

DOB: No, Scotland is just a piece of dirt. Its only use is keeping Scotsmen out of the ocean.

QOC: I think it's poetic use of the language to indicate that Scotsmen are brave.

DOB: Then they should call it "Scotsmen the Brave." Now with "America the Beautiful," it's accurate, because America really is beautiful.

QOC: Even though many Americans are in fact homely?

Side note: Do you see our burgundy carrots? Do they look burgundy enough? I'm afraid I may need a different backdrop.

Medical emergency disrupts service

According to the usual rules of church seating distribution, all the older folk in our church, after a leisurely breakfast at Bob Evans and a drive ten mph below the speed limit, mosey in fifteen minutes before the service starts and secure the seats in the back. Then the younger families, who have spent the entire morning in a whirlwind of diaper changes, smeared egg yolk, and missing socks, and after following the old folk from other churches who start even later, sneak in during the third hymn and take seats front and center, where everyone can observe their disciplinary techniques and number of trips to the restroom. In our church it makes more sense than in most, because the nursery can only be reached by crossing the podium behind the pastor, so at least one is centrally located to deal with whatever age of child happens to be having the issue.

This Sunday it was D1 who was having the issue. Usually D1 is one of those model children who makes us look far better than we deserve in church--well, except for an unprecedented interest in the ladies' room which is not reflected during times when using it would be less disruptive. Yesterday, she was not. She wiggled. She writhed. She made pathetic little moans. No position was comfortable, not even for a split second. At last the expression of distress on her face grew so great that I took her downstairs to try to diagnose the problem.

We tried a trip to the ladies' room. No help. Next on the suspect list was hunger. I found some stale potato chips and offered them to her, suspecting that her unaccountable lack of interest in pot roast the night before might have something to do with it. She ate them cheerfully enough, but not with the attitude of one famished. Her distress remained evident.

By this time D2 was getting noisy enough that DOB came downstairs with him. We traded children and DOB took over the diagnostic work. We asked her if it hurt, and if so where.

"Beybutton," she said. (A favorite word.)

With an expression of deep concern, DOB laid her down and begin prodding her central regions, checking for symptoms of appendicitis and the like. None of it seemed to bother her.

Not being able to diagnose the pain, DOB decided to try distraction. He started playing with her feet. She burst into tears. A light began to dawn on DOB's face. He took her shoes off. She relaxed. He took her stockings off.

Sure enough, she had managed to outgrow her shoes midway through the service.

Not your most cautious mother

Yesterday the ducklings and I were at the park, as is usual anytime we can avoid sub-zero temperatures and torrential downpours. D1 lately has mostly preferred climbing part of the way up the jungle gym and sitting there, watching the cars go by. But she finally decided to sit down backwards on the top of the short tube slide, perhaps preparatory to turning around and sliding down.

Next thing I or she knew, she had started to slide down as she was. Encumbered with D2, I could not grab her, nor travel very quickly around to the other end. By the time I got down the jungle gym, I was only in time to see her emerge head-first from the slide, do a neat back flip, and land on the ground.

She didn't seem too upset by the experience, nor did she even notice that her face and head were covered with beauty bark. But she was content to climb halfway up the jungle gym and sit and watch the cars go by some more.

I've been reading all about brain development lately. I'm sure there's some essential synapses formed by doing back flips off the end of the slide.

DOB reading to the ducklings

On Cooking

From the Headmistress, at the Common Room

1. How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? How many are in your family?
19-20 meals. The others are eaten at DOB's parents' house, but I make one of them (Sunday evening dinner, if we're going to evening church). DOB eats lunch and breakfast on the road, but he takes them in his snazzy insulated bags advertising some investment product or other, which he picked up at the last big company shindig. There are four of us, but D2 has not yet started solid food, although the day is lurching uncomfortably close.

2. How many cookbooks do you own?
About half a dozen general cookbooks, half a dozen one-topic cookbooks, and a cereal box or so full of old Taste of Home magazines. Anything that wouldn't fit on my top shelf in the cupboard is destined for Goodwill.

3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week?
Two or three times. I rarely read a recipe unless I'm baking. Everything else is quite forgiving, and more adventuresome if you don't look.

4. Do you collect recipes from other sources? If so, what are some of your favorite sources (relaties, friends, magazines, advertisements, packages, the internet, etc)
If I want a specific recipe for something and it's not in my cookbooks, I look it up online. I also enjoy very much being part of the Martha blog.

5. How do you store those recipes?
Umm . . . if I get so far as to print them out, they get wadded up and stuffed in the converted cereal boxes with the magazines. I have an empty cookbook ready to receive recipe cards, but never get around to copying them to a suitable size and putting them in. Perhaps D1 can do it when she is old enough . . .

6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas?
A recipe is merely a theme to invite improvisation.

7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it?
Generally American, a lot of Americanized Italian and Mexican. Alas, I almost never get to fix Asian food, which I love, because DOB is allergic to soy.

8. What's your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation? (eating the finished product does not count)
Seasoning. Such an adventure, especially if you don't use a recipe or measuring spoons. Mixing up the herbs with shaker tops and the herbs without shaker tops can lead to too much of an adventure, though.

9. What's your least favorite part?
Cleaning up the dishes I didn't get done after the last meal so I have room to work.

10. Do you plan menus before you shop?
I never thought I would, but I have caved in. I just don't have the free brain power to keep improvising. I've made up a four-week rotation and am about halfway through. So far I'm loving it, but we shall see.

11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances?
Kitchenaid, crockpot, blender. (When D2 starts on solid foods, blender will move to the top.)

12. If you could buy one new thing for your kitchen, money was no object, and space not an issue, what would you most like to have?
A complete, matching set of sturdy, stainless steel pots and pans

13. Since money and space probably are objects, what are you most likely to buy next?
A four-quart pan. (If that's the middlish sized one.) With a lid that fits. So I can fit all our breakfast cereal in one pot without getting out the soup pot.

14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage?
We have an extra freezer, a spare one from DOB's parents, without which my life would be difficult indeed.

15. Grocery shop alone or with others?
If you have to ask, you haven't been around here long.

16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week??
Two or three dinners, depending on whether the bean dish gets meat added. But since lunches are always leftovers or beans, that number should be a little more than doubled.

17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors?
Carrots, naturally. I hope this time I can get things up more than two months before we move out. For colors I use orange and green--though in moderation.

18. What's the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you?
The first thing I remember knowing how to cook was chocolate cake, at about eight.

19. How did you learn to cook?
I think everybody showed me a little something--my mom, my sister, my aunt and great-aunts and grandmas and dad, and even my older brother, who makes the best steak in the Western Hemisphere. A lot of trial and error. I also picked up a fair bit from my former boss. Special mention goes to my former roommate, who put up with a lot from my cooking.

20. Tag two other people to play.
I'm going to cheat:
1. My Weird Aunt
2. All the Marthas. If you want to.

That Old House

Here are some shots of where we used to live. No particular reason, except I only now got the camera and cord together and took the pictures off it.



The living room. If you look closely, you can see that I forgot to move someone's breakfast bowl before I took the picture. I was rather in a hurry to get on with packing.












The nursery. The sunflower curtains and bedskirt were made by my sister, with fabric that I traded in a Baby Looney Tunes crib set for (shudder). Don't get me wrong, I love Looney Tunes, in their place. Which is not in home decor.










The master bedroom. It was neither fish nor fowl, being a blend of carrot things and sunflower things. But at least it was colorful.

Honesty is the Messiest Policy

So I was making a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up milk, because we were all out and I didn't want to wait for the grocery day tomorrow.

And they had a sale on butter, and I wanted to show D1 the fish, and we wound up in the electrical aisle, trying to find a three-way light bulb that would fit in our bedside touch lamp so I don't have to get up and switch it off every night.

One of the rows of bulbs was a little too close to the edge; I brushed it and down it smashed. The best thing to do seemed to be inform the lady we had just seen cleaning the fish tanks and have her come sweep it up. So I did.

Then, of course, the proper thing to do was to take the light bulb up and pay for it, though it pains me much to spend money on things that no longer exist. I picked up the box, which still had shards of lightbulb hanging out of it, and decided such a thing should not be in the cart where the ducklings might reach it. Instead, I put it on the bottom rack of the cart.

We meandered on, as I wanted to check out the clearance sales on clothes, and somewhere in between men's athletic wear and junior's seduction wear the box fell off the cart and shattered more shards of lightbulb everywhere. No salespeople were in sight this time, but I did spot a red phone for assistance, which I used to summon help from Sherry in Jewelry.

A lady appeared from somewhere, produced a broom and began sweeping up the mess. The box still contained shards of lightbulb (who knew one little lightbulb could contain so much glass?), so I explained my predicament and the history I and the lightbulb had together. She left the box in the pile of fragments and said to forget it, with a manner that indicated she could do her job better without interference from lunatics who try to transport lightbulb fragments in the bottom of their shopping carts.

So I gave it up and came home.

General update

I had some profound thoughts on unrequited love to write, but no profound moments in which to write them.

We have a contract on the house. Rumor also has it that the bathroom has been painted, although no word yet on whether the bathtub drain is working. Now we must get back up and pack up our remaining belongings, which we have been living quite happily without and now must find a place for.

D1 has been having some digestive troubles of some sort or another. We have read a certain few books many, many times. I have done many loads of laundry. I hope I can figure out what it is soon.

Stacks of boxes and a toddler who has just figured out how to climb are a dangerous combination.

By diligent effort, it is possible to get a cheerio inside a pop bead. It is not possible to get it out again. *

D2 has started rolling over again, although it still is quite difficult and sometimes frustrating for him.

*Update to the update: DOB can get cheerios out of pop beads! Fathers are amazing creatures.

In honor of Valentine's day, an unromantic honeymoon story

Per DJ's request.

For reasons I would rather not elaborate, we were running a little late heading home from our honeymoon. Ordinarily DOB's . . . ummm . . . assertive driving skills would have resolved the problem, but even he cannot drive on water. We missed the ferry boat by three cars. Still, we thought there was hope that we might have time to just make our flight even after the next crossing.

In hopes of expediting our arrival, we swallowed our pride and called His Majesty, who at the time worked at the airport, asking him to meet us at the curb. We got the ribbing we expected, but it was worth it to have some help unloading the four boxes and four bags into which I had crammed the last of the worldly goods with which I had endowed DOB.

But we arrived at the airport only a couple of minutes before the check-in deadline. Thinking all was hopeless, I did not utter the flight number as I alighted upon the curb--it turned out later that had I done so, they could have expedited us to the departing flight. Instead, they hastily rebooked us, checked the four boxes, and provided us with only a half-hour to get ourselves through Monday-morning lines and out to the gate to catch the next flight.

Ordinarily when DOB has to transverse such long distances, he requests a wheelchair. Waiting for a wheelchair in an airport is a very iffy business, and what with it being Monday morning it was more iffy than usual. After fifteen or twenty minutes in which no wheelchair had appeared, we gave up and decided to transport ourselves and four remaining bags on foot. We reached the security lines, which were long and slow.

DOB requested of the gatekeeper that we be permitted to go through the handicapped line, what with him not only having trouble standing, but us being about to miss our flight because we had waited so long for a wheelchair. The gatekeeper was adamant that people without wheelchairs could not go through the handicapped line, no matter how much in need of a wheelchair they might be. DOB was summoning his long-honed debate skills to tell the fellow exactly what he thought of such a policy, and I was in surrender making my way through the long, slow, ordinary line, when a nearly-miraculous intervention appeared.

A lady in our airline's uniform, not clearing five feet even in heels, was marching through the airport calling our flight number. In her wake came a collection of worried travelers, and before her the crowds parted and even recalcitrant gatekeepers bowed in reverence. We immediately joined her entourage and found ourselves whisked through security, through the tram (which under our guide's supervision traveled faster than usual), and to our gate just as they were calling our names one last time before they shut the doors.

We crammed ourselves and our bags in and the flight took off. Thanks to our last minute booking, our seats were separated, but someone was kind enough to switch with us so that we could sit together. Another little change was that our flight went through Detroit instead of Minneapolis. The airline did manage to provide a wheelchair in Detroit, along with a gregarious wheelchair pusher, which was good because as usual our incoming flight was several miles from the departing one, and it left out of air travel purgatory--the unfinished wing of the Detroit airport which contains no seats, bathrooms, or cheery little food places. Fortunately airlines still served food in those days, because we certainly had no time to buy any.

When all was said and done, we made it to Dayton at about the time we had been originally scheduled to arrive.

But we haven't caught our breath since.

The Honeymoon is Over

Not the one with DOB--that ended at 11:01 a.m. September 8, 2003, when we arrived at the airport one minute after our flight home departed.

It's the one with the garbage disposal here. I had had so much trouble with my previous relationships, but I thought I knew how to make it work this time. I gave it plenty of water. I made sure its food was always in small pieces. I tried hard not to overfeed it. I apologized profusely the time I dropped D1's fork inside on accident.

Things went along well for awhile. Then I grew bold and careless. I started to take it for granted.

Finally, on a sinkful of sweet potato peels, it had had enough. It chewed and spit and groaned and gave up. The water wouldn't go down. The peels wouldn't go down. When the dishwasher ran last night, it filled the sink to the brim.

Today the maintenance man came out and, with a bucket and siphon and some fiddling unclear to me, restored it to functionality. We're back together again, happy but a little bit wary.

I hope I can do better this time.

Game Over

So another Super Bowl has come and gone, leaving me pondering once again why I dislike professional sports. Not just am indifferent. I really don't want to know. I don't like hearing or watching the game, or even being around it unless I have something else sufficiently absorbing to do. On the other hand, I don't mind listening to people analyzing it once it's all over and I know the outcome.

I have come to the conclusion that it's because I hate the emotional drain involve. It's all skillfully choreographed and dramatized to get you to care; to keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering who is going to win, agonizing with every setback of your team, rejoicing with every turn in their favor. It seems a terrible waste of emotional energy.

But then, I don't mind at all when a book or movie keeps me in suspense, gets me to identify with one side over the other, and makes me care what happens to them. We watched To Kill a Mockingbird the night before, and I didn't feel like it was a waste of emotional energy to cheer on Atticus Finch or to mourn the death of Tom Robinson. Perhaps it is because in a book or movie, there's a reason for caring. Atticus Finch might be fictional, but he's a fictional representation of good. Bob Ewell might be fictional, but he's a fictional representation of evil. Even when the bad guys win, one has the comfort of philosophizing about the difficulties of a fallen world.

In sports, neither side is evil or good; one cheers for one side over the other by accidents of birth or education. There is nothing to really rejoice in victory (they'll probably lose next year), and nothing to learn from defeat, since as a fan one cannot affect the outcome.

DOB does enjoy sports to some degree--he even pondered borrowing a TV to watch the Super Bowl, though he never did. I think it's because he knows enough about the games to enjoy analyzing differences in skill and strategy, which gives it, if not quite a moral component, at least an intellectual one. But I don't know enough, and don't want to bother to learn enough.

Or maybe I'm just annoyed that the Seahawks lost.

A Collection of Books

Before they go back to the library:

Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn, by Hannah Holmes. I've been trying to get inspired about nature study even here in the concrete jungle (with a few strips of well-tended turf.) This was the book to do it, although the author's overgrown suburban backyard still sounds a lot more wild than mine. Adventures of squirrels and crows, ideas for tracking what's going on out there, incredible facts about plants and animals you thought you knew about, and quite a few laughs. She's an environmentalist, but a reasonable one who understands tradeoffs and human needs. I am inspired. Someday I, too, shall have a Freedom Lawn. (Actually, since it consists of never using chemicals or watering, mowing infrequently, and only weeding out invasive non-native plants, that's exactly what we had before, although it wasn't necessarily an environmental effort.)

The Wild Out Your Window, by Sy Montgomery. Same reason. In some spots more literary in style, but not as much fun. Full of fascinating facts. Did you know that turkey vultures mate for life, as much as sixty years? Perhaps they realize they'll never get another date.

Better than School, by Nancy Wallace. A personal account from the early days of homeschooling. I had forgotten how much we owe to those pioneers who had to explain and defend every thing they did to uncomprehending officials. Also, now I want my children to be older, so they can do cool stuff, too. Only I also want them to stay little.

The Heroes, by Charles Kingsley. Fabulous retellings of the ancient Greek myths. (Carrie, if you ever want to revisit the Ancient Greeks, this is much more cheery than the Iliad.) A bit moralizing in spots; one could hardly expect otherwise in a 19th-century father writing for his children. But oh, such fun. "It is better to die like a hero than live like an ox in a stall." Even the Bowdlerizing is scintillating: "And Daedalus fled to Crete, to Minos, and worked for him many a year, till he did a shameful deed, at which the sun hid his face on high." I can't wait until the ducklings are old enough to listen to it.

Except I want them to stay little and cute.

And a bonus one that's not from the library:

The Lost Princess, by George MacDonald. My favorite book on child discipline: though the methods are not precisely applicable (I don't have a magic room that won't produce dinner until the floor is swept), the heart of the book is. I was reminded again what an awesome job it is to have an immortal soul to guide. And I spotted a few lessons for myself, too. For the Wise Woman still has rooms to lead all of us through.

D1 and D2 get tagged

By Rose

Four Jobs (We) Have Had in (Our) Life:
1) Floor Cleaner (D1, but D2 is learning)
2) Table Setter (D1)
3) Dishwasher Unloader (D1)
4) Spare Object Holder (D2)

Movies We Could Watch Over and Over Again:
We don't know yet, Mama and Papa always watch them after we go to bed.

Four Places We Have Lived:
1) Wilmington, OH--apartment. (D1, technically. But she didn't get to see any of it.)
2) Wilmington, OH--house.
3) Loveland, OH--apartment.
4) And that's all. We haven't been alive very long, and Mama says that's quite enough for now.

Four TV Shows We Love to Watch:
We don't have a TV. Mama and Papa explain that we'd have to get rid of books to have room for one, and that would be terrible.

Four Places We Have Been on Vacation:
1) Olalla, WA
2) Olympia, WA
3) Corvallis, OR
4) Mama says that was enough places for one trip, too.

Four Websites We Visit Daily (or at least weekly):
1) The Duchy of Burgundy Carrots, to see what Mama's been writing about us.
2) Introducing the World, to see what else Mama has been writing about us.
3) Ben's Blog He's two. Being two must be so cool.
4) The Jones's Blog Stuart and Addie are even older, so they get to have even more fun.

Four of Our Favourite Foods:
1) Milk--but D1 likes it from cows, and D2 likes it from Mama.
2) Bananas
3) Beeeeeaaans
4) Cookies, but it's really tricky getting Mama to let you see where she hides them.

Four Singers We Can't Live Without:
1) Mama
2) Papa
3) Umm . . . Mama is feeling bad because she never plays vocal music for us. She means to do better someday. But the cd player is on top of the china hutch, and it's hard to reach.

Four Places We'd Rather Be:
1) The park
2) Grandma and Grandpa's House
3) The library
4) The grocery store

Too cool

Get your own! http://www.snapshirts.com/custom.php

Miscellanea

With DOB's help, D1 discovered the slides at the park. After a very little coaching in climbing, and a few rides down in someone's lap, she scorned the short slide put in as a concession to small children and made a beeline for the top of the tall, twisty slide, scooting down on her belly, and hitting the ground running and squealing, "More!"

We went to evening service for the first time in a very long time, and she learned the first step in becoming a good Baptist: A hearty "AMEN!" (or two or three) at the end of everything.

D2, meanwhile, is exercising his fascination with speech to a greater degree everyday. He'll talk to anything now . . . a spare pair of pants, a table leg, a loose pillow. But he did not like B5's clarinet solo, not even with the brand-new professional grade clarinet.

We are still reorganizing the books. It goes very slowly. It wouldn't bother me--what is more fun than going slowly through one's books--except that all the neighbors can see of our house is the big pile of book boxes by the patio door. I want to put up a sign that says, "We're not slobs! Really!"

How it's done

I used to see mothers with two small children in the supermarket and wonder, "How do they do that?" People now look at me with that same question on their faces, and sometimes on their lips. In case it is on yours, I will explain.

First, we have to leave. This entails making sure everyone has been fed, changed and/or pottied, and dressed in shoes, jacket, and hat. (Actually D2 hardly ever wears shoes, even to church. I'll pretend it's my concern for his proper muscular development and not just laziness.) This must be done in the proper sequence, or a step will have to be repeated again before we go. Half of the steps must be left until the absolute last minute, when they must all be done simultaneously.

Then we must get in the car. I no longer measure the difficulty of a trip by how long we spend driving, but by how many times we get in and out of the car. D2 rides out to the car in his carrier, which he is just barely small enough to still fit in, and just barely light enough for me to still lift. The diaper bag is, hopefully, on my back, and D1 walks on her own volition, holding my hand whenever I can manage a free one. Sometimes she trips and falls, especially while going over the curb.

We arrive at the car, where I try to determine whether it would be better to set D2 out in the elements while I put D1 in the car, or trust to D1's training in standing still with one hand on the car while I put D2 in the car--the answer depending on the inclemency of the weather, the busyness of the parking lot, and which side of the car I happened to go to first.

We drive to the store. There, I must repeat the getting-in-the-car process in reverse, with the added twist that now D2 has to go in the pouch I am wearing, and thus if I get him out first, I have to lift D1 out while D2 gets smashed between us. He doesn't like this. He doesn't like it again when I try to lift D1 into the shopping cart. (I always circle until I can find a parking spot next to an occupied cart return.) Bonus fun if the shopping cart has one of those automatically sticking up plastic flaps, which require you to have three hands: one to hold the plastic flap down, two to maneuver the child. I quickly grow a third hand.

After this, we are home free for awhile. D2 is happy in the pouch, watching the proceedings. D1 is happy riding around the store, commenting on the produce and greeting all and sundry. By the time we are halfway through the store, however, the cart begins to get very heavy and veers dangerously from side to side. (Remember I'm propelling 40 pounds of children and diaper bag on top of a week's groceries for three hearty eaters.) We do our best not to flatten anyone's grandma, while politely answering her exclamations.

We make our way through the checkout line, get everyone out of the cart and into the car, and unload the groceries into the back. We drive home. Here the getting-out-of-the-car procedure is reversed, and I face another conundrum. I dare not leave the children alone in the car--I should not leave them alone together in the house--the food, if left in the car, will spoil--and everyone needs to be fed and changed and/or pottied again, plus outdoor clothing removed. I work out a compromise based on the most urgent needs (usually like this: D1, potty; ultra-perishable food; D2, lunch; somewhat perishable food; D1 and I, lunch; put D1 down for nap; remaining food).

As soon as the last bag of food has made it into the house, I consider myself done for the week. D1 can help me put things away later. I go take a nap.

A shopping trip gone awry

One other thing to dislike about moving is the difficulty of getting used to shopping at new stores. I always wander around new stores like a squirrel navigating a traffic jam, colliding with the displays and forgetting what I was after.

There is a grocery store across the street. There is another down the road one way, a Wal-mart down the road the other way, and a fourth somewhere on the other side of the freeway. I decided the best plan would be to visit one store each week, stocking up on whatever thing that store had the best deals on.

Last week I shopped at the grocery store across the street, in the evening so that DOB could watch the ducklings. This week I decided to visit Wal-mart.

As I was pulling into Wal-mart, the thought occurred to me, "What if this isn't a Wal-mart with food?" But I was already there, so I went on in. Sure enough, it had no food, although it did have the non-food items on the list.

Now, the most sensible plan would have been to head back to the grocery store across the street and finish my shopping. The second most sensible plan would have been to call DOB and ask for directions to the grocery store on the other side of the freeway. (This is one of those places where several main roads and a freeway all collide in a profusion of big box stores, and even a good navigator has trouble keeping his head. I am not a good navigator.)

Naturally, I pursued neither of those courses. Instead, I ventured off into the darkness lit with signs in hopes of finding the store on my own. After awhile, I determined that I must have gone too far and tried to turn back. Unfortunately, I didn't have room to turn, and before I knew what had happened, I was heading south on the interstate.

It's been a few years since I drove on the interstate after dark, and I never liked it when I did it frequently. I have a hard enough time telling whether someone is beside me in the daylight; in the dark, all the lights look the same distance. So I just turn my blinker on for awhile and then change lanes, hoping for the best and ready to stop if I hear any crunchy noises.

I looked anxiously for the next exit where I could turn around, but alas, it intersected with another interstate, and I knew it would only take me farther afield. A few miles further south, I finally found an honest exit where a befuddled traveler could turn around and drive home.

Why had I not called DOB for help all this time? The answer soon appeared to me, when my phone started ringing: I had left my cell phone in my skirt pocket, which was under my coat, which was under my seatbelt. The contortions required to get it out would have stumped Houdini.

So the phone rang, and rang, and I got off at my exit. Unfortunately I had never gotten off coming from that direction before, and before I knew it I was wandering some dim world of office parks I had never seen before. I did manage to extract my phone at a stop light and call DOB. As I had expected, D2 was raising hue and cry at the delay of his supper. DOB gave me directions home and I returned, without food and a gallon or so of gas lighter, but very thankful to find my way home again.

I think we'll just shop at the grocery store across the street.

The New Place: Lofty and Low

Lofty:
1. Functioning dishwasher
2. Open floor plan for easy spotting of exploring toddlers
3. Maintenance included
4. Park across the street
5. Big closets
6. West-facing windows
7. Surprisingly good sound-proofing
8. Nine-foot ceilings mean DOB can lift ducklings in proper paternal fashion without banging their heads
9. Two full bathrooms
10. Textured neutral-colored kitchen floor hides dirt beautifully

Low:
1. No garage
2. No attic
3. Who wants to be able to walk to Sam's Club?
4. Slow maintenance
5. "Secured" building with a broken lock (see 4)
6. Neighbors on the top of them, neighbors to the left . . .
7. Boxes, boxes everywhere
8. Too much concrete
9. QOC has to do all her own housework now
10. D1 can reach the bathroom door lock (oh wait, that would have happened anyway)

A Suppressed Rant and Two Stories

What I would like to do is wax eloquent about how much I hate moving. But whining makes poor copy. Instead, I will give thanks that DOB is not in the military and move on to tales from the move itself . . .

The Key Incident
It was a day last week when evening fell and I had had all the moving-out mess that I could take. So while DOB and his brothers finished putting together a load, I took the children and a very full station wagon and drove to the new apartment to see how I could fare in moving-in mess.

I arrived, carried in D2, with D1 (rather soggily attired) clinging to my hand. I tried the key. No luck. It would go in, but it wouldn't turn. I tried a few other likely-looking keys, but they wouldn't do anything either. I called DOB, who called maintenance, who agreed to come out in a few minutes.

In the meantime, I had two hungry children to keep occupied on the doorstep. Fortunately a bag of chips happened to be among the stuff in the wagon, and D2's snack is always at hand. So we sat in the hallway and ate and told stories. It was actually quite a bit more fun than moving.

If this were a story, a lady would have passed us in the hallway and stopped to chat about our predicament, and she would prove to be a kindred spirit and become a lifelong friend. But nobody came by, and the voices I could hear did not sound like kindred spirits--at least not to each other.

We had finished The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks when the maintenance man arrived. If this were a story, he would have identified that we had been given the wrong keys and apologized. Instead, he pointed out that I was trying with the wrong key. (I could have sworn I tried with the right key, too, and that it wouldn't go in at all, but I have since discovered that it is a little tricky to get in the hole.)

Anyway, we were home. Despite the lateness of the hour and her general lack of a nap, D1 immediately set to work unpacking the Tupperware into a suitable kitchen cupboard. I can't wait until she's 12.

How to Obtain a Library Card
The Saturday after moving we had to run around to various stores to get those various essential things that somehow you don't have and are absolutely essential to get the house running.

Being us, we wound up at the library. Alas, it is not an elegant Carnegie library like the one in our old town, but a bland slot in a dreary stripmall. But, it is part of the Cincinnati system and should have great selection potential.

Anyway, we had not even arrived before it occurred to us that we would be unable to check anything out, because we had no card and no proof of residence with which to obtain one. Not easily daunted, DOB determined to go see what he could do about it.

Fortunately he happened upon a sympathetic librarian.

"Do you have any children with you?" she asked. (The ducklings and I were already hanging out in another part of the library.)

"Well, yes, but they're really little," DOB replied.

"That's OK, just make it look like they signed their names," the librarian said. "We don't require proof of residence for people under 18."

So D1 carefully assisted DOB in printing her name, as legal guardians we signed her as authorized to check out anything she wanted from the library, and we were set. When we had accumulated a sizable stack of books and a couple of DVDs, she sat proudly on the library counter and handed over the card to check them out.

I did get her a couple of books, too. Most notably Make Way for Ducklings, which she has wanted to hear over and over. The first full-length story book! Now we are in for some fun.

We Return Again (Because apparently I've used that title before)

We are moved. We have internet service as of today. We also have the sound system hooked up and the dishes put away. Besides that, it's boxes.

Our address is different, our phone number is different, and now our email seems to have gotten lost, too.

Don't be too hasty with congratulations, as the house has not sold yet. We mean to get back to that one of these days. Right now DOB is busy getting going with his new job and I am busy trying to reconstruct my old one. He's having fun. I'm not . . . yet.

More later . . .

How To Move With Small Children

The ideal way to move with small children is to wait until they turn 10.

Next best would be to have them stay in a cozy, safe, distant place until the entire move is over.

Third would perhaps be to have good weather and health, and somebody free to watch them for you on site.

Move about ten more notches down the list and you will find us: in the middle of January, tired and cranky from all our pre-moving activities, and pausing in our work to discover that somebody has just unpacked a box we just packed or exploded through a diaper because we forgot to change him in the last five hours.

We know it will end sometime, and we are very grateful for the help we receive. But right now we just want to go home.

Useful Information

At least in the unlikely event that you made a New Year's Resolution to learn useless but intriguing math trivia:

There are, of course, prime numbers. There are also perfect numbers, and even semiperfect numbers. Some numbers are happy; the rest, of course, are unhappy. Some are lucky, but most are not. Some are happy-go-lucky numbers. A few are even weird.

The age I turn next is happy and perfect, the only such combination in the standard human lifetime. It's not weird though, not by a long shot. Nor is it lucky.

DOB and I were married in a happy year, but we were both born in unhappy years.

Showing Off

The little sign has gone up in front of our house. We have found the place to which we want to move, and what seems like the ideal apartment (ground floor, no fireplace, and the larger size for the smaller price) is available until January 10. We have been ridding ourselves of boxes and bags of stuffs. We have started showing.

The phone call for the first appointment came about 5 p.m. yesterday--asking for a showing at 9:30 this morning. At the time, we were an hour away, finishing up a day-long round of preliminary errands pertaining to the new home and job. The house looked like you would expect a house to look after several days of sorting through junk and a hurried morning preparing three meals at once before walking out the door--in other words, absolutely the messiest it's been since we finished moving in. (As a free bonus fun thing, the dishwasher has been on the fritz, too.)

This was a real showing--for real, live, potential buyers. With a realtor you can hope for some leeway, since they have the professional eye to realize there is a lot of space where that overcrowded desk is stuffed. But with buyers, the general idea is to make it look like no one has ever lived there.

DOB's family was kind enough to trade us two teenagers and a large, empty van for a toddler. D2 was kind enough to go to bed early and sleep late. The rest of us went to bed late, rose up early (hopefully not in vain) and proceeded to do in a twelve-hour stretch the organizing and cleaning that had been put off for two years. We removed large pieces of furniture and large bags of garbage. We vacuumed the places that never get vacuumed.

In the end, we were scooting the last dust bunnies out the back door as the prospects walked in the front. But the house looked fabulous. I was tempted to look around and think, "Hey, why don't we keep the house this neat all the time?" And then I recalled that I was desparately short on food, water, and sleep, I could only dimly recall what my children looked like, and there were six loads of laundry concealed around the house.

Somebody else is coming at five. Somehow we must conceal that we have been living, eating, drinking, washing laundry, changing diapers, potty-training, sanding drywall, and painting in the interim.

Save Time AND Money

I generally avoid reading articles or postings about frugality. This is not because I lack interest in saving money, but because they don't offer much advice that His Majesty didn't teach me twenty years ago. I saw an article today headlined "Save $150 a week on groceries." If I were to find a way to do that, I'd be walking out of Wal-mart with a large gift card every week. Learning that it's cheaper not to buy frozen entrees isn't very helpful when you reflexively regard canned beans as a luxury item.

Keeping house is a little like trying to pack too much stuff in a suitcase. Poke the shoes in one side, and the shirts comes bulging out the other side. You finally stuff it all in, sit on the top, and fasten it, and then you realize you forgot to include the present for Aunt Margaret and must start over.

Every household has a finite amount of time, money, and space. Some of us have limits a lot tighter than others do, but they all are less than we could use. But you can't save on all of them at once. Find a way to cut costs, and it's likely to cost you more in time and energy. Find a gadget that saves time and money, and it takes up too much space. If on top of this you add a few other concerns, like health or education, the challenge gets that much harder.

I do know an easy way we could save money. I could stop doing things like dropping my cell phone in the parking lot on a dark night and running over it. But after 27 years of diligent effort by all in the vicinity, I think that may be a hopeless endeavor.

The Duchy Seeks New Territory

In very rapid succession in the last couple of weeks, DOB has decided to take a new job in Cincinnati, we have decided the commute would be too long and we would have to move soon, and then decided that even soon would be too long and we would have to move now. DOB called a realtor on Thursday and he came to view the house Friday. Cleaning a house to sell is a little like cleaning it for a Presidential visit, except the President probably wouldn't be looking in the closets and under the sinks. On short notice, it's impossible. But we did what we could.

So instead of enjoying the post-Christmas season (all of the fun and none of the stress of Pre-Christmas), we have already put Christmas away and are trying to begin packing everything else up, figuring out what we can sell or give away and generally how to fit ourselves into a smaller space for the time being.

It's a little sad. And a little exciting. And a lot of work.

Merry Christmas!

D2 being held by "Joseph." That's a tax collecter in the foreground.

Lofty and Low: Christmas*

Lofty:
1. Cookie plates
2. Icicle lights
3. Used gift bags
4. "White Christmas"
5. Tree Scent
6. Cleverly disguised gifts
7. Spiced cider
8. Frosty noses
9. The first quarter of a candy cane
10. New snow


Low:
1. Fruitcake
2. Giant inflated snowmen
3. Used wrapping paper
4. "The Little Drummer Boy"
5. Tacky nativities.**
6. Cash in envelopes
7. Smashed bows
8. Colds
9. The last three-quarters of a candy cane
10. Old snow

*Note: Concept shamelessly stolen from The White Shoe Irregular, which has been idle for several years now, so hopefully the Redactor won't mind.
**Link rated PG for language. Probably worse if you read the comments.

My First Christmas Pageant

By D2

My regular schedule keeps me pretty busy--eating, sleeping, hitting toys. Still, I've always wanted to pursue acting. The opportunity I was waiting for finally came this past week when I was cast as Baby Jesus in the church Christmas pageant.

The part itself was relatively undemanding. All I had to do was lie around and wave at the audience occasionally. Uncle Paul was Joseph, and we get along great, so that played well, I think. Isaiah's mom played Mary, which was my Mama for the play. She didn't feed me, though, so I didn't think much of her as a Mama.

Fortunately my real Mama stayed handy to provide the food. She was also making sure everyone was in the right costume and helping D1 go to the potty every fifteen minutes. Right before the performance I realized I was in the wrong outfit, so I messed it up so she would get the right one out of the diaper bag.

Papa was busy, too, telling everyone what to do and reading the story. It's quite a story--pretty weird to think God would ever want to be my size. If I were as big as God and could do everything, I don't think I'd want to turn myself this little.

Helping Mama

(By D1)

As you can probably guess, my mama needs a lot of help. She has Papa and D2 and the house to look after, and she's not really good at some of this stuff.

Often she remembers to ask me to help--with the dishes, fixing food, and folding laundry. But there are lots of things where she just doesn't realize how much help she needs, so I volunteer.

Like keeping things picked up. She likes the house neat, but she often forget she's left something out. So I make sure to point to it and shout, "AWAY!" until she puts it where it belongs. If I can reach it, I'll put it away myself, but for some reason most stuff isn't down where I can reach it. I'm getting taller, though, so it gets easier.

Last night she was late clearing the dishes off the table and too busy feeding D2 to notice, so I took the water pitcher off. That got Papa in to help clear the table right away.

Mama also could use a little advice on the interior decoration and organization. Sometimes I find new places for things where they will work much better. She usually doesn't want to leave them there, though, for some reason.

I've also heard her complain that she can't quite button her favorite skirts yet. I talked to D2 and he said no way would he stand for her eating less. So instead we work together to get her to exercise more. D2 will fuss until Mama picks him up and starts bouncing around singing to him. When she does something sufficiently aerobic, I will grin and clap my hands and say, "Again!" repeatedly until she has put in a good workout. I've found that parents will do almost anything for the right smile.

It's important for her not to sit too long in one place, too, especially on the computer. When I think she's getting too sedentary, I say "Potty!" This gets her to run with me to the other end of the house. It's a nuisance for me, but I do what I can to help Mama.

D2 does batting practice. I think he rolled himself over today--at least I could have sworn I left him lying on his tummy, and he was in a different spot on his back. But my brain is a bit fuzzy and I'm not 100% sure.

Ah, the weekend

On Saturday we had DOB's aunt and uncle over to help us decorate our Christmas tree. Our evening was progressing in a relaxed and festive manner, when we received notice that the toilet was overflowing. A few minutes and the usual procedures revealed that this was no ordinary backup. To wit, all the rest of the plumbing in the house was backing up as well.

DOB called our regular plumber, who informed us that he could only help us if we had a certain vent in the ground next to our house. This sent DOB and his uncle out on a treasure hunt through the dark and five inches of snow to see if our shrubbery concealed such a vent. They concluded, after some time, that it did not.

So DOB went searching through the phone book to find a plumber who could address the problem through the roof. He finally found one, but they told him it would be after midnight before they could come out--and that we would have to clear the snow off the roof. So DOB set boldly forth once again in search of a neighbor who owned a ladder.

In the midst of all this we muddled through dinner and the like without making use of the drains. After everyone had more or less eaten, the gentlemen (augmented by B3, who had stopped by to use the exercise bike and was impressed into service) set forth to clear the roof. They finally did this by establishing a bucket brigade of hot water, while I at last was able to be of some help by filling the buckets. Then they salted it down so the plumbers would not be greeted by a slanted ice rink in place of the snow.

After everyone left, DOB and I prepared to retire for a short winter's nap until the plumber arrived. At this juncture, DOB noticed that our air vents were dripping again. His goal was to catch the leaks without making too much noise, and he decided glass was the ideal substance for this. Unfortunately, the glass that came closest to hand was my best crystal serving dish, which was still sitting unwashed on the table because I couldn't use the sink. When I protested this, he obligingly went and got my second-best crystal serving dish. I finally persuaded him to settle for a small corningware dish. And we went to bed.

At 3 a.m. I awoke for the usual reason and realized the plumbers had not arrived. DOB went to call and found that they were still on their way, hoping to arrive sometime before 5. They in fact made it by 4:30 and went to work deconstructing our plumbing and diagnosing the problem.

The diagnosis was tree roots. This was gratifying in that it was a genuine problem and not something that was our own fault, like stray toys. (It occurred to me later, though--was it just coincidence that tree roots overtook our plumbing on the very day we erected a Christmas tree? Or was something more sinister afoot?)

It was disturbing however, in that having a giant tree-eating machine enter one's house through the roof and work in the basement is just as loud as you would think. Naturally everybody in the house awoke. It was my job to keep them happy while DOB supervised the plumbers. Fortunately the little ones are still easily pacified.

The plumbers left, I took a short nap, and then I had to get up and clean up the aftermath in time for us to get ready for church and arrive there early to prepare for the Christmas pageant practice.

We arrived at church later than planned, but still in time; we got the costumes ready and otherwise prepared; we made it through practice, which is far more interesting with two small children, one of whom keeps busy moving a chair around to random parts of the stage and then protesting because she is too short to sit on it, interspersed with calling out "Potty potty potty."

We had lunch. The place was deserted--even the bulk of DOB's family had left us for the community band concert up in our town. We loaded up the car and fastened the children in their seats. The car would not start.

The pastor was kind enough to come back and loan us his car, so we were able to make it home and collapse in a heap. We're still recuperating from that and trying to get ready for next Sunday, when the pageant actually occurs.

And we're making plans to have DOB's aunt and uncle over again. Maybe in the spring, when it's time to clean out the gutters . . .

More on Movies

Is it just us, or is the ending of The Bridge on the River Kwai incredibly, incredibly frustrating? Two and half hours spent building up personalities, character issues and moral conflicts until both kings are close to check and then at the end they just tip over the table and knock the chess pieces on the ground.

I'm sure it was deliberate. I just disagree strenuously with the worldview reflected. Sometimes two goods may come into conflict, but they still are good. It is worthwhile to use building a bridge to maintain your sanity and show up the enemy; it is worthwhile to blow up a bridge and destroy the enemy. With only very minor changes, the movie could have ended several ways that would have created moral resolution. Instead it ended in moral anarchy.

Watching movies in snatches may sound like it detracts from the movie watching experience, but we are getting to rather like it. It's more like reading a book. One has time to ponder, speculate, and analyze. And watching movies sitting bolt upright in office chairs insures that I never fall asleep during them anymore.

D1 got her Bible and took it with her horse riding. Perhaps she aspires to be a circuit riding preacher? If so, she better overcome her current fascination with the word "money." We think she actually means "bunny," but we can't be sure.

In which I start a new blog

Blogs are like potato chips, you can't stop at just one.

I want to journal the learning of the ducklings from long before we do anything that could resemble school: what they learn and how they learn it, how we do things, what I think about education and how that changes with experience.

I'm terrible at keeping journals. Blogging, however, is quite addictive. On the other hand, I didn't want to weigh down my general blog with such detail. Plus, I really wanted to join the Homeschool Blogger community.

Hence, "Introducing the World."

The Duchy of Burgundy Carrots will still host thoughts on everything besides education, cute stories that have no profound application, pictures, random quizzes, my personal misadventures, etc. Introducing the World will be the detailed observations of learning, more for my own recollection and reflection than anything else. But you're welcome to read, yeah, and even comment. I write much better when I have an audience.

Wide World of Symbols

Last week I was pondering the aisles full of toys you couldn't pay me to take home, and noticed that they still sell the little red-handset Fisher-Price telephones I had when I was a toddler.

"Does this make sense?" I thought to myself. "Phones look nothing like that anymore. Do kids even know what they are supposed to be?"

Then I recalled D1's phone fascination. Not only does she talk into my old cell phone, she can turn pretty much anything else that can be held in one hand into a phone. Suction cups. Film canister lids. Surely a red handset would be as much fair game as anything else. Except that she's used to cordless and probably wouldn't want to be tied down.

Despite having received a doll from a neighbor, she doesn't show much interest in it. (I don't blame her, it's ugly.) But she does love to burp things. She helps burp D2, of course. "Pat-pah?" Then she burps her blocks, her glass at dinner, and the other half of the film canister. Versatile things, film canisters. Except it drives her crazy to have the lids stuck on. "UCK! UCK!"

All this book reading during potty training seems to have finally sparked an understanding of what pictures in books mean. A few weeks ago, I would try without success to get her to point to the most obvious things in the books we'd read dozens times. Now she looks at new pictures on her own and points things out. When you think about it, this is quite an amazing mental feat. Somehow she knows that a couple of colored smears on a piece of paper are meant to reflect a reality.

D2, meanwhile, is fascinated by the discovery that his flailing arms sometimes come into contact with solid objects. He's at the ideal holding stage--he can smile and coo at you, but doesn't try to leap out of your arms. If only he weren't so heavy.

Advice from the cereal box

My treasured boxes of on-sale Wheat Chex have an ad on the back for a book called Women are Not Small Men, providing specially tailored advice on what women should do to avoid heart disease. The feminine advice? Eat healthy, exercise, and avoid stress. As opposed to what men should do to avoid heart disease, which I suppose is to sit around eating doughnuts while their boss yells at them. I would try to come up with some profoud musings on how our culture muddies all the important differences between men and women while highlighting nonexistant ones, but in fact I think it's just a lame market segmenting ploy to sell twice as many books.

But aren't we all . . .

You are Edmund! Boy, you really screwed up in the
beginning, falling into the trap of the White
Witch and betraying your friends and Aslan! But
Aslan took your place for you, defeating the
White Witch, and you turned out to be one of
the greatest kings in the end!


Which Chronicles of Narnia Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Nobody tagged me, so I'll do it myself . . .

Seven things to do before I die:
1. Tour castles in Scotland.
2. Publish a book.
3. Spoil my grandchildren (moderately).
4. Make a complete patchwork quilt.
5. Take a second honeymoon in the same place as the first one--only for several days next time.
6. Perform in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.
7. Get the entire house clean at the same time.

Seven things I cannot do:
1. Catch up on the filing.
2. Keep my clothes dry.
3. Finish a cross stitch project.
4. Cook neatly.
5. Care about celebrities.
6. Sleep in (even when the kids do!)
7. Wait patiently.

Seven things that attract me to DOB:
1. His fine grasp of the English language.
2. His weirdness.
3. His hair when it's messed up.
4. His hair when it's fixed right.
5. His ability to motivate people.
6. His patience with me.
7. His imagination.

Seven things I say most often
1. Are your pants dry?
2. Oh, poor little Pookie Man.
3. Hi there.
4. No, that's not for Abbey.
5. Are you stuck?
6. That must be Papa!
7. Ooops. (That should probably be 1)

Seven books or authors you love:
1. G. K. Chesterton
2. J. R. R. Tolkien
3. Shakespeare
4. Tolstoy
5. Jane Austen
6. Dr. Seuss
7. W. S. Gilbert

Seven movies you (would) watch over and over again:
1. The Princess Bride
2. Taming of the Shrew
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
5. The Scarlet Pimpernel
6. Pride and Prejudice
7. The Mikado

Seven people I want to join in, too:
1. Continuing the non-tagging tradition, if you want to do it, consider yourself tagged.

Facing Fears

I suppose most people have some deep, intractable fear of something or other. Snakes. Spiders (not naming names). The dark. Heights. Confinement.

I've never seen the proper name for my deep fear. I don't think I would want to.

What I fear is potty training.

I know, I know, everybody gets through it. I looked through the church directory, I watched movies, and I thought . . . All those people got potty trained! Their mothers did it, you can do it too!

Still, I was afraid. I'm not sure exactly what I was afraid of, except the prospect of absorbing every moment of my time wiping up accidents and extolling the virtues of dry pants.

And I finally realized that, afraid or not, the time had come. When a child starts sitting on the potty chair for fun and superintending the proper conducting of diapering, it seems only fair to at least let her give it a try.

So Monday we started. I spent it wiping up accidents and extolling the virtues of dry pants. We greeted everyone with inquiries about their moisture preferences. Everyone voted for dry, except for D2, who after all is a baby and doesn't know any better.

At the end of the day I wanted to quit, to the extent I was able to think at all. But I had promised to give it three days.

Tuesday we spent wiping up accidents and extolling the virtues of dry pants. With one key advance: most of the accidents occurred en route. There was a faint glimmer of hope. Still, one can only for so long chase around a toddler, watching for suspicious moments and trying to find out where they went.

So we will carry on, but at a slightly slower pace. I am counting the days until some waterproof cloth training pants will arrive in the mail, and we can resume use of our beds and couches.

Meanwhile, we have read Blue Bug's Circus 57 times, and can point to Blue Bug (who is a terrible role model for potty training, since he doesn't wear pants). We have learned several new words. We like dry pants. We like cheese. And the naptime load of laundry today was a little bit smaller.

A Birthday, from various perspectives

Mathematical:
27 is the cube of 3, one of only three cubic birthdays in the standard lifetime. I suppose the proper way to celebrate would be with cubes of cheese, lumps of sugar, and playing Yahtzee.

Historical:
One decade ago, I was in my first semester of law school, spending endless hours designing complex diagrams of torts, contracts, and criminal law. I still hadn't managed to pass my driver's exam, so I had to bum rides to the law library. My only notion of Ohio was that it was that shield-shaped state somewhere in the middle of the country. Getting married was very low on the priority list. I hated the color burgundy.

Culinary:
It's great that my birthday coincides with the sales on Wheat Chex, because I love Wheat Chex and it's one breakfast I don't have to cook.

On the other hand, birthday cake is somewhat redundant this time of year. I am making birthday cupcakes so we can freeze the surplus and move on to Christmas cookies.

Futuristic:
A decade from now, D1 will be old enough to bake my birthday cake uninstructed. And she won't keep putting her fingers in her mouth. At least not where I can see. D2 can help, too. There will likely be several more Ds by then. Hopefully we will live somewhere with room to put them.

Cinematic:
This week we have watched, in very short stages because it's impossible to do anything any other way right now, two old favorites of mine which DOB had never seen: Cyrano de Bergerac and The Quiet Man. We watched one new favorite neither of us had seen: The Great Escape. All for free. I love the library, except for my inner anarchist who still thinks it's evil.

Random Notes

• Taking two babies grocery shopping is every bit as difficult as it looks.
• Do not run over your cell phone.
• If you destroy the display on your cell phone, text messaging is not going to work no matter how well it still dials.
• Snow is beautiful from Thanksgiving week through Valentine's Day. But no longer.
• Happy Thanksgiving!

What Baby Likes

D2 likes to eat. All day. Most of the night. D1 was sleeping through the night about now. With D2, I don't look forward to him sleeping through the night so much as being able to get up and get his own snacks. But I couldn't sleep if he did (storage capacity does have its limits), so it works fine. We can get the feeding done while both of us sleep. Meanwhile, he's looking on track to double his birth weight by two months.

D1 likes to talk. She has started coming up with the occasional two-word phrase. "Bible go?" "Mo' Nah-nah?" (Nah-nah means water, for reasons not entirely clear.) Mostly, though, she likes to chatter congenial syllables, sometimes a random "Odley, odley, odley," sometimes a more devout "Beelahbeelahbee" (The B-I-B-L-E) and sometimes a Shakesperean "Nonny, nonny, nonny."

She's also showing every sign of being the organizer I so desperately need. Yesterday she reminded me to get the clock for my exercises and located Carl's missing hat in the playpen. This bodes well, within limits.

Oh yes, that sounds exactly like my life

The Monk You scored 34% Cardinal, 56% Monk, 29% Lady, and 40% Knight!

You live a peaceful, quiet life. Very little danger comes you way and you live a long time. You are wise and modest, but also stagnant. You have little comfort, little food and have taken a vow of silence. But who needs chatter when just sitting in the cloister of your abbey with The Good Book makes you perfectly content.

Link: The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test written by KnightlyKnave on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Too poor to even pay heed

Kim, in the eponymous (now there's a word one doesn't get to use every day) book by Kipling, begins his training in the Great Game with a humiliating defeat in the art of noticing things. He can't even remember the contents of a tray of household objects as well as the jeweler's apprentice. But with a little practice he has mastered this essential skill for a spy.

Or for anyone else. Noticing things and remembering them is largely a matter of education; and vice versa, education mostly consists of noticing things and remembering them. Learning styles may influence how easily you pick up a certain type of noticing, but the real clincher is practice. Through long practice editing, I can't skim anything in print without one eye out for misspellings and those loathsome misplaced apostrophes. But ask me to describe a car that just drove by, and I might be able to tell you its color--even though that's a visual skill, too. DOB, on the other hand, will rattle off its make, model, year, and a close estimate at the mental abilities of the driver.

I used to blame the things I didn't pay attention to on innate ability. I'm not an auditory learner--so don't expect me to listen to what you're saying. I'm not good at spatial perception--so don't expect me to avoid your car in the parking lot. But I've learned that I can learn. I can learn how to notice which muscle movements shoot the ping-pong ball back at my opponent and which send it careening into the shelves. I can learn to focus my mind on a speech and not spend the time composing my own thoughts on the subject.

The reason I'm working harder at paying attention is not just to make my own life easier. I want to be able to teach my children to devote their whole attention to something, as a matter of choice, not just of ability or interest. That means I have to learn it first.

So I'm working on what is perhaps the hardest for me: listening. I've set myself the challenge of actually listening to the sermon every Sunday, recounting in the car all the main points and any particularly noteworthy illustrations without notes. It's hard work, because I'm not used to it. You would think it would be the children who make it hard, but it's not--just my own bad habit of being more interested in my own thoughts than in what I'm hearing.

Maybe once I master this, I'll learn how to notice how close my shins are to the dishwasher.

An Unmentionable Quandry

QOC: I don't know how we're going to pottytrain D1. Apparently a key element in everyone else's potty training is the desire not to wet on the child's favorite cartoon character.

DOB: Don't worry about it. Maybe we can find her duck underwear.

QOC: But ducks like getting wet.

Quack. Quack, quack.

Educational Toys

By that mysterious process known only to marketers, I am starting to receive educational toy catalogs. (I haven't even bought any toys except at garage sales, except for one measly, but much loved, package of alphabet blocks at Wal-mart.) I was unimpressed by their collection of write-on plastic birthday cakes (Teaches writing skills!) and books that read themselves (why bother?). Maybe I should start my own catalog:

Bowl of Beans
This attractive plastic dish full of black and white beans, accessorized by an empty film canister, will provide hours of fun and learning as your child masters fine motor skills, sorting, colors, math, and auditory discrimination. For added fun (and less vaccuuming), buy the extra "Charmin Soft Tissue" box to use when playing with the beans.

Tupperware Cupboard
Bursting to the seams with educational activities, the "Tupperware Cupboard" teaches shapes, colors, stacking, sorting, and dishwashing skills. Plus, it will increase your own coordination as you learn not to step on scattered tupperware.

Baby Brother
This adorable little fellow will give your toddler wonderful opportunities to role play, practice sharing and social skills, and learn anatomy. Best of all, it grows with your child! Cost varies with delivery method. Ongoing maintenance costs not included.

Mommy
This one does it all. In addition to the letters, numbers, colors and shapes that everything teaches, this one can teach hygiene, nutrition, safety, household maintenance and pretty much anything else. Sings songs, reads stories, and serves as jungle gym. Some models also do windows.

Moving at the speed of life

My life used to seem busy. After all, I had a full-time job. For awhile, I had another part-time job on top of that. I volunteered. I spent part of the week in one house and part in another. I had a large, close-knit family who were always doing something. I cooked dinner every night. I went for a walk every day.

Now I know I didn't know what being busy was. In the past twenty-four hours, I've served over 20 meals, changed about 15 diapers, and changed somebody's clothes 12 times. I've had an oil spill, two eruptions, and 345 instances of tears, many occuring concurrently. I've read or told at least six stories and washed or folded six loads of laundry. Someone is always moving, and as a general rule every person in the house and at least two appliances need attention at the exact same moment.

The month I spent traveling around the state promoting a new curriculum while studying for an unexpected bar exam seems serene and straightforward by contrast. The only job that I can imagine providing a similar sense of nonstop crisis would be managing an emergency response station during a natural disaster.

Sometimes I lay down to rest and find I can't because my mind is spinning, trying to process everything that has just happened and subconsciously convinced that someone, somewhere, has just gotten into my makeup drawer again. Even if everyone who might is temporarily immobilized.

I used to think that the comment "You'll have your hands full," was a figure of speech. Now I know that it is quite literal. I almost always have someone in at least one arm, often on both. I think of efficient things I should do--take this here, move that there--but I can't because my hands are full.

But I think I can feel my brain expanding to the new challenge. Eventually you learn to do more with your feet, your elbows, and your nose. Eventually your brain adapts to the constant adrenalin and indeed even thrives on it. I probably would go through withdrawal now at a lower level of adrenalin. That's probably what empty-nest syndrome is.

And to think, this is just with two.

Week in Review

So we come to the end of the first week without full-time (or close to full-time) assistance. And it went like this:

Monday: Did all the exercises, took a walk, kept up on the laundry, cooked a meal from scratch. House was clean and supper on the table on time. Helper came, but had a hard time finding anything for her to do.

Tuesday: Called Grandma to take care of D1, stayed in bed all day. Ate leftovers. Laundry rotted in the washing machine.

Wednesday: Skipped exercises, pawned some of the dishes off, took an extra nap. Laundry got finished (amazingly enough).

Wednesday night: D2 up all night sniffling and gagging.

Thursday: In zombie-like state, found enough food for everyone to survive. Washed a load of towels. Watched D1 take everything in the house from points A, B, and C to points Q, M, and R. Took D2 to the doctor's office and got ear infection diagnosed. Nobody died trying to cross the parking lot.

Friday: D2 is a little better. D1 has a cold and gets to fulfill her dream of constant nose-blowing. Helper has a cold; in case it's not the same cold, I tell her not to come. Adjust to the fact that the house will not be cleaned this week. It's a beautiful day; take a walk and let the dishes rot.

While I was trying to get in the door at the doctor's office on Thursday, a lady opened the door for me and remarked that I looked 16 and certainly not old enough to be the mother of two children. So I guess it hasn't started aging me . . . yet.

I'm getting closer to finding out what a maintainable pace is, I think. And as mother always said (to herself), this, too, shall pass. Too soon.

Reading through the paper

Today is Husbands Make Dinner day. Tomorrow is Sandwich Day (commemorating the birthday of the Earl thereof, I believe). Shouldn't they have combined the two events?

A quote for those of us who blog about everyday life: "Little minds are interested in the extraordinary, great minds in the commonplace." By Elbert Hubbard, whoever he is.

Speaking of earls reminds me that we never got around to awarding a title. Naturally everyone was very far off, but even when everyone missed the target someone must have come closest to staying on the grounds. (Guesses made after hearing of the birth do not count.) And so (drumroll please) based on my best calculations, the title of Countess of Calculations goes to Sara Jones!

(Actually Anonymous scored higher, but the Duchy is too politic to award titles anonymously.)

Precocious Skills

All parents think their children are precocious. We rack our heads to find something that makes our little darling stand out from the crowd.

Walking? Nope, she's well behind average there.
Talking? She does fine, but nothing phenomenal.
Toilet Training? We have only gotten as far as the mommy-having-nightmares-about-it stage.

Ah-ha! There is one area where she is well ahead of the pack of poor, average children.

Nose-blowing.

Yes, for a couple of months now, D1 has been skillfully blowing her own nose. Not only that, she thinks it is one of life's great pleasures. For awhile it was just when she found a Kleenex box incautiously left near the ground. Lately, though, she will use her skill on any available piece of cloth. This morning I heard her wandering through the house, giggling with delight. When I went to check on her, she was trotting down the hall, cheerfully blowing her nose into a spare bib. Burp cloths and washcloths are also favorite choices.

Now, I've spent enough time in the nursery to know most one-year-olds will tie themselves into knots to avoid having someone else blow their nose, much less attempt to blow their own. She loves it so much you can end a crying spell just by producing a Kleenex.

The only trouble is, she doesn't have a cold. She hasn't had a significant cold since she was six months old. (Then again, that's a good thing, considering how indiscriminate her taste in handkerchiefs is.)

I guess we're ready for winter.

Cleaning out the Mental Corners

Did you know that John Lennon went on to design baby gear? I finally realized this after a year of puzzling over the scrawled signature on the clothes and diapers. Kind of weird. The designs are a lot cuter than the name brand diaper stuff with Sesame Street and the like, but I never expected to be diapering my kids with Beatles lyrics.

I have a theory that graphic design is in the process of turning into a standard literacy skill of the well-educated. Gone are the days when you could churn out two columns of small type and get your message across. People are so used to seeing things well-designed that to communicate anything, it must not only be written clearly, it must look good. Writing was once a skill of the hired specialist that now is expected to be universal; graphic design is moving that direction. (See? I've thought about something besides diapers!)

Yet another library sale this weekend. Fortunately this time my sister is here to take half the books and help us figure out where to hide the rest.

Aunt Becky has been taking lots of pictures, and I finally have my hands free for long enough to post a few.

D1 with two of her favorite things: a book and a laundry basket.

This is asking for a good caption, but I haven't figured out what yet.

In which I answer questions you may or may not have wanted to ask

How are they getting along?
D1 thinks D2 is her particular responsibility, and thinks it essential to verify his safety and happiness every time she gets up from a nap or otherwise feels a need to check. She can help burp him and brings extra baby outfits in case he has wet one.

When D1 first showed signs of starting to talk, DOB started coaching her in taking her turn at praying during family devotions: "Dear Heavenly Father,Thank you for Papa (pat Papa), Mama (pat Mama), and Little Baby (pat Mama's stomach)." She was starting to get the hang of this prayer and talk and pat along. However, as soon as D2 was part of the activity, the prayers started to go like this:

DOB: "Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for Papa,"
D1: "CAHHRLL!" (pointing to playpen)
DOB: "And Mama,"
D1: "CAHHRLL!" (pointing to playpen)
DOB: "And Baby Carl."
D1: (with relief) "CAHHRLL!"

D2 thinks D1 is another strange phenomenon of this world, and a non-milk producing one.

What developmental milestones would you like to report?
About a week after D2's birth, D1 finally, finally, finally started walking as her standard means of transportation, to the great relief of all concerned. Although I worked on teaching her to climb in and out of things while I was on no-heavy-lifting orders, she would still much rather have me lift her. Now she has progressed to the carrying things everywhere stage, allowing preliminary instruction in setting the table, putting things in the trash, and running errands.

The inevitable: Is D2 a good baby?
But of course. Actually, he's quite manageable. He only cries for good reason, and sleeps between feedings at night, which is all I ask of a newborn. He likes to stay awake--with a few catnaps--for several hours in the morning, take a long afternoon nap, stay mostly awake in the evening, and sleeps well at night. I've never seen this suggested as a newborn schedule or even newborn behavior, but it works well for me, because I can get a long afternoon nap. So I'm not about to try to change it.

What else would you like to report?
My sister is here for two weeks. Great strides in organization and decoration proceed, while I sit around, feed D2, and raid her stash of airplane reading material.

Yes, we have two kids

The nice thing about having two is you can finally talk about "the kids." It rolls off the tongue so smoothly:

"The kids keep me so busy."
"I have to go see what the kids are doing."
"Did you check on the kids?"

The annoying thing is that it draws out the fertility police. Especially if you have a full sampling.

"Oh, a girl and a boy! How nice." Sometimes they go ahead and say what they're thinking next: "Now you're all done!"

I missed the posting that only alloted us one of each. We haven't even reached the population replacement rate yet, much less done our part to raise the average IQ of the human gene pool.

The bad thing is, I only have two hands. Can I get a surgical implant of a few more?

Maternal things I still can't do

Swaddle--With D1, I gave up after a couple of weeks. With D2, I gave up in the hospital. Neither of them liked it much anyway, even if I told them that Baby Jesus liked it. I just toss a blanket over the top of them and hope for the best.

Wipe a face clean--There's always a little bit of mashed bean lurking somewhere just out of sight, where I will see it only after we are out in public with no washcloths nearby.

Fasten disposable diapers properly--I don't know if it's me, the diapers, or the children. But after a week of trying to use disposables to make life easier, I decided I'd rather do a load of diapers every morning than a load of sheets, towels, and clothes every morning. No matter what diaper I use, however, D2 can last only two hours in one. At two hours and five minutes, I also have to change everything in his vicinity. But at least with cloth I don't have to get any stains out.

All clothed and in our right minds!

Caffeine on IV and other medical oddities

Law students everywhere will be pleased to discover that it is possible to get caffeine administered via IV. The downside is, to get it you have to have what is known as a "spinal headache," which I can assure you is not conducive to bar preparation. Caffeine on IV is also not conducive to getting lots of rest, which is what you are likely to be supposed to be doing after activities that might have given you a spinal headache. It didn't help me much either, so I opted for the patch treatment that fixes the headache right away, but leaves you with a backache.

The whole medical treatment thing tends to build on itself in a This-is-the-House-that-Jack-Built way. This is the medicine to treat your nausea, which was caused by the medicine to treat your pain, which was caused by the other treatment for your pain, etc. By Sunday night, though I had progressed as far as only needing hot rice packs for my back and ice water, which I'm pretty sure don't have any further side effects.

D2, not too surprisingly, had a touch of jaundice, which meant he had to spend Sunday night catching rays at the hospital. I was not at all pleased when my doctor's new partner, whom I have never met, told us by phone we should stop breastfeeding him because of the jaundice. I miss her old partner.

Nowadays when I see someone with multiple body and facial piercings, I think, "Amateur!"

Another thing that is not conducive to rest is coming back in for checkups, for one or the other of us, every day. (Or, while in the hospital, having them check your vitals every few hours. I'm still breathing, OK? Let me sleep.) We should be done after tomorrow, though.