Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

Well, I’ll admit to struggling this semester.  I have a lot fewer hours of childcare than I did last year (on child duty at 3, rather than at 6, with no one but me to make dinner), I’m teaching six courses, and Nathaniel’s been sick several times this fall.  Oh yes, and we now have a house of our own (lots of time with home-repair guys and yard work) and two cats.  Eek!  So, let’s just say that research has been, um, more of a desire than a reality.

But for the first week of November, I’m going to be taking off for a few days to drive up to see Sydney in Ithaca (yes, we’ll both be working, and I’ll be spending some time in the library archives) and then back down to Pittsburgh, where I’ll be giving two short papers at a major conference in my field.  One way or another, I’m going to be doing research-type things shortly.  I’m attempting to get things ready at school and home so that my parents can take over the kid-care while I’m away.  But Nathaniel’s had a couple of bouts of the stomach bug this week (one requiring me to cancel my classes for a day), and we just went through it again in the wee hours of last night.  Three all-nighters are well over my limit for a week!

Erin

Although I had really been enjoying Domino’s company over the past few weeks, we wondered if he would ever leave cuddles for play and exercise.  So, we visited a local shelter and found him a playmate: Woodsmoke.  Although Woodsmoke (born under a woodpile, and, yes, the color of smoke) is only a month older than Domino, he looks like he’s going to be a big cat.  He’s still a bit skittish, but he enjoys vigorous rub-downs when you do catch him and plant him in your lap.  I’m a bit worried that I’m going to want to abandon work entirely in the evenings, since he really likes to have your full attention.  The kids, meanwhile, wonder at the kittens’ play, since it looks like just the sort of thing that I would get on my kids’ case for doing if they tried it . . .

In other news, Katherine recently came to me with a complaint: her tooth was loose.  I knew that we were deep into kindergarten territory with her, but this one caught me by surprise.  Losing teeth already?  I still have vivid memories of the sleepless nights we spent with her when she was first getting those teeth!  We didn’t have a tooth fairy visit, but she’s already figured out that this is a new right of passage, and she’s quite proud even without fairy dust.

Erin

Nathaniel clearly thought the tomato chunks in his bowl were a bit dubious (this from the boy who had wolfed down an entire bowl of fresh cherry tomatoes yesterday), so Katherine put on her best encouraging-teacher persona.

I told him, “Honey, there are tomatoes in every bite, even the ones where you see no red.  They’re all blended in, but they’re there.”

Katherine adds, “They’re like God.”

Me: “Well, yes, in a way.”

Nathaniel gave up on us and dug in.

Erin

Both Katherine and Nathaniel gave us some choice suggestions when we first adopted Domino and considered giving him a new name.  She offered “Chickenhead,” and he offered “Sniffy.”  Thankfully, I’m currently teaching literature of Victorian England and have no qualms about instituting a monarchy instead of a democracy at home!

For the record, when I was small I wanted to name the neighbor’s kitten “Kitty-kitty-gumdrop.”  So, I’m no pro either.  It’s a miracle our kids made it through without some overwrought name attached to their cute little personalities.  Thank you, Sydney 🙂

Erin

Domino is actually a boy.  Thanks to our vet for that one.

Erin

We had a really good time with church friends this past weekend during a trek out to eastern Kentucky for a retreat.  Bethel Camp is tucked into the hills, and we enjoyed fall leaves and campfire and singing . . . and, of course, mosquito bites and s’mores, too.  We also came back as a family of five, rather than four:

Domino is just a few weeks old, but she seems to know all about being affectionate and gentle.  Although Katherine is still not totally sure about this cat with claws, Sydney and I have found her very sweet.  She comes when called, is always keen on finding a lap, and will put up with pretty much any kind of cuddling, roughhousing, or manhandling.  I gave her a thorough try-out before we let Nathaniel near, and she’s been wonderful.  Our only problem looks to be that I’ll be keen to steal away from the office so that I can work from home.  Tomorrow one of my classes is coming over for scones and a final discussion on George Eliot’s Middlemarch, so Domino should have plenty of company for the morning.

Erin

After pretty dismal scrounging for dinner last week, I decided I needed to do better.  So, thanks to a bit of time to plan out meals and a good grocery shop with the kids last weekend, we started the week prepared and have made the following things:

– chickpea curry

– turkey crockpot chili

– oat biscuits

– my most perfect omelet of all time, with red pepper and onion and amazing texture–of which Nathaniel promptly ate more than half

– pumpkin rice pudding

– swiss-chard lasagna

– kale pizza

– cream-cheese sandwiches with beets, radishes, pepper, cucumber, and green onion

Katherine’s and my lunchboxes have been smashing, particularly since I’ve been including great apples and Asian pears from our orchard haul.  We had two different sets of people over this week, which encouraged me to dig out some favorite recipes I haven’t made in a while.

Now, we’ll be gone at a church retreat this coming weekend, so I’m expecting next week’s food to be far from glamorous and a bit rushed, but I am glad that I can get up the motivation to do right by us when life is reasonably stable.  It’s particularly hard when Sydney’s away, since while I’m outnumbered it’s tempting to prepare foods that I know the kids won’t complain about, but I was glad to see that each found some good favorites out of my weird cooking this week and then proceeded to argue their case against the other one, who had chosen a different favorite. 🙂

Erin

Although I’m well aware that the temperatures could still climb back up to 90, for the past several days we’ve had cool, dry, crisp-leaved days here in Kentucky.  Katherine has started requesting coloring pages of apple trees, she makes up apple songs, and she asked to go pick apples, so this weekend I took the kids to Boyd’s Orchards.  This is no ordinary apple farm.  There is a huge playground/petting zoo/activity area, and since I was keen to give the kids a chance to burn off energy, I said that we would prioritize playground over picking.  It meant that we walked out with squash and apples that we didn’t pick ourselves (though they’re delicious!), but we also had a great time playing hard and climbing hay bales and playground equipment that is truly for big kids.

Since there was a lot of equipment that Nathaniel found daunting, Katherine was very sweet and took his hand to help him through.  In fact, as they climbed inside structures and prepared to slither down slides, you could hear her offering instructions, scoldings, and gentle encouragement all the way until they emerged together at the other end.

Katherine was, as you can see, a bit unimpressed with the speed of this slide.

Erin

As we’re settling into the new house and new routines, we’ve had a lot of help.  Sydney had a lot of helping hands from church friends when making the big, sweaty move.  Over the past two weeks, my parents came down ready to work and they not only helped me with the kids while Sydney was away, but also repainted the kitchen, fixed lots of non-functioning lights, scrubbed like crazy, helped pick and hang curtains everywhere, and took care of a lot of little things that I didn’t even know needed to be done in a house.  Now, with just the kids and me at home (and our project-funds exhausted), I’m keeping my ambitions pretty small.  But I did manage to paint the kids’ room the same green as our kitchen and hang up some cork boards for the piles of projects they bring home from school.

Now I need to get back to researching and scrambling to keep up with my students.

Erin