We’ve reemerged

With the unwieldy slush gone and the worst of the flu behind us, we’ve reemerged from the house.

Sydney made the mistake of going out birdwatching without cleaning up (he’d been holed up on the top floor, working hard for a few days) and found himself meeting colleagues out on the meadows in his disheveled state.  He promptly put in a request for a haircut, which I happily gave him, and he now looks a bit less insane today.

Katherine, though still interested in learning new words, has also started giving us instructions in return.  She is particularly fond of her word for birds and tries to convince me that the butterflies are also “Caw caws.” I easily resist her commands, but it’s pretty hard to hold out when she tries the big-eyed, hopeful approach.  Sydney loaned her one of his bird identification books and she’s been happily screeching her bird word with every turn of the page.

I just missed my goal to finish up a chapter by the end of the year, but I did so largely because I just found some new and interesting stuff to cram into it at the end.  Sydney’s been very patient with me as I prattle on about talking corpses in poetry and angry dead women, and I’ve been happily adding to the monstrous chapter that is now a bit over seventy pages.  Tomorrow I get to start revising it and, presumably, paring it down before I send it off to my advisors.

For anyone who’s counting, we’re six weeks away from the arrival of the baby.  Mom and Dad are making plans to come out and I’ve organized the house to the hilt.  I also ordered several months’ worth of laundry detergent and toilet paper.  I’m into being prepared.

Erin