Big Babies

My beloved dad [God rest his soul] used to tell us as to the arrival of the first child in a marriage, "The first one can come at any time; all the rest take 9 months."

He used this to explain the phenomena of 8 pound preemies.

Back @It

Back to work today, back to life, back to reality. Having been a little 'Twitterfied', I look at '@' a little differently and expect some Tweep's account name to follow it.

Vacation approaches. Can hardly wait.

Pun o' the Day

Regarding sailboats: Schooner or later, someone would pun. But it's no hardship. There are a whole raft of problems: let's stem this tide with a stern warning.

Discovered amid the detritus, 8/31/2007

How I Spent My Summer

Summer's not quite over. A week at the beach awaits us soon. Still...

In North Carolina, the homeschool year runs from July1 to the next June 30. I came to the realization that we're probably a year round school because I still work full time and thus, our actual school day is shortened. This shortfall can best be made up with more days of shorter duration. Zeke and I worked very hard to get 'caught up' in History/Geography, Writing and Grammar. It took a long time, but I believe we finally have a curriculum that works on most all the subjects for Zeke. I was strongly influenced by the neo-classical approach described in "The Well-Trained Mind," and adopted several of the authors' suggestions. I was also influenced by many of my fellow homeschool moms from the co-op who are taking a similar approach with their students. Finally, I'm reading "A Mother's Rule of Life" which incorporates Catholic monastic ideals and superimposes them on a Catholic homeschool mother's day. And here, I thought homeschooling was just teaching your own kids at home. Who knew it required a total commitment on my part and religious zeal!

Today, after Mass, our family fun outing will be a picnic with the co-op families at church. Our little co-op of 5 families is expanding to 9 families and this will be a chance to meet and greet all the spouses and kids. I feel excited, but at peace.

Found Object -- Lost 8-26-2005

My husband has retina-searing red hair. His father is the 8th redheaded child of two redheaded parents. My man was the only of 35 grandchildren to keep red hair past childhood. My poor father-in-law's nickname is "Red" and he takes off his hat to explain why, but now it's just snowy white. Our three children all have daddy's red hair. [Believe me, that went a long way with the old man].

When my husband was in the Army, the Australian officers called him "Blue". Apparently that's funny to the Aussies... redheads are nicknamed "Blue" there. All his hispanic employees call him "Rojopelo". It's what every culture notices.

Red hair is so beautifully distinctive when natural [in all its variations from dark auburn to blaze orange] and so obvious when phoney. I think that's because other things like freckles and red eyelashes are part of the set.

Just a Courtesy

I wanted to let you few, you blessed few, regular readers know that I might not be posting for a while. Everything's o.k. I'm in simplify mode, probably much overdue from a misspent Lent, and I will see you around the cyber place. If you're a relative or friend-in-person, you know I have a phone that works. There's also an email available if you click on my profile. Thank you.

Anniversary

Tomorrow will be fourteen years since I began work for my employer. It's hard to believe. In another 14 year chunk of my life, I did high school, college, law school, and my short stint in the Army, including my first year of marriage.

What do I have to show for this 14 years? A big thick handful of pay stubs [336 of 'em if they hadn't turned to electronic record keeping a couple years ago] and a mountain of reviewed documents. Most importantly, I have a sense of gratitude for a decent job with good benefits that allow my family excellent medical care and flexible hours.

Feline-y-esque?

We were tweeting about the 'loop' we were in...one thought it was an Endless Loop. I said I'm in the Curiosity Loop. It killed the cat, ya know? Then Annie sent this --rare!-- funny New Yorker cartoon:
Thanks, Ms. Gottlieb!

Pun o' the Day

Did you hear about the hot-headed composer who ventured West in a Conestoga wagon?










He had a score to settle.

DVD Review: Life After Tomorrow

I just watched "Life After Tomorrow" on NetFlix Instant View. It's a brief [72 minutes] documentary about the little girls from various shows and tours of Annie who, as grown women, share their memories and sometimes quite sad stories of making it big as a little kid and the feelings they had of outgrowing their fame. Ultra famous Annie, Sarah Jessica Parker, does an extensive interview and comes off as remarkably well adjusted. Another personal fave of mine, Martha Byrne, who I came to know as Lily Walsh on As the World Turns, does a nice interview, too. There are many, many, many others and their post-show biz struggles are poignant.

I think this film should be required viewing if you have any plans of putting your daughter in show business or on the pageant circuit.

I am an Anniephile. Dad must've belonged to some record club because I remember hearing Broadway Cast albums of many shows. Dad would play them on Sunday mornings after 7 a.m. Mass when he would cook breakfast for Mom and the rest of us. I wore out the grooves of my Annie album. We bought the piano music to "Tomorrow" and I played it always. I knew the words to every song. The National Tour came to Milwaukee when I was a junior or senior in high school. I bought tickets and dragged my boyfriend to the show. We made a day of it, riding with his folks there and back and having three meals on the road that day. I was in heaven. I bought the t-shirt and wore it until it became a gym shirt and then I wore it for gymnastics practices. I know there's a picture in a high school yearbook where I'm wearing it. That musical touched me. About 10 years ago, the show was coming to Winston-Salem and I won the easiest trivia question possible about Daddy Warbucks [first name 'Oliver'--duh!] and took my man to see it. I was way up in the balcony on the edge of my seat, enraptured. I still knew every word to every song, even though I had only seen the show the one previous time in the late 70s.

And then there's this.

It was a little sad for me to see this film and tarnish some of my golden memories. I highly recommend this pic, but only for people who loved the musical.

Superstitious Silence

I've been tweeting up a storm and this little piece of cyberspace has gotten a little quiet. There are things to report but they all seem so mundane and unexceptional. Part of the reason I even began this blog was to mark the mundane for my children. There were moments of high drama and sadness and a commemoration of the NICU battlefield. But we're just being lately.

We are doing this thing called Catholic homeschooling and I don't say much about it because we're still doing it. I cannot report a finished product or great fruit because I'm still planting, pruning and praying. I don't want to 'jinx' it. It's humbling and satisfying. It torments me and uplifts me. It calls me to be so much more than I expected. It is a cross I took on before I knew I would need some kind Veronica to wipe my face and some conscripted Simon to help me carry it.

One new thing we took on in January is a homeschool cooperative. It meets on Mondays and is a place for several Catholic homeschooling families to gather to create for our kids an opportunity to be among other seriously weird and radically square kids...kids who call me 'Mrs. Adams' and 'Ma'am,' kids who are still innocent, kids who are just kids who happen to be Catholic. Academically, they took on some subjects that are more fun in a group: Science, Geography and Latin. We pray a Rosary at the beginning of the school morning and pause at lunch for The Angelus. We play and pray and it is good.

And the journey continues.

What's Your NPR Name?

In the Twitter playground today, Mary Katherine Ham pointed out this old blog post, which asks "What's your NPR name?" and gives you the how-to of generating your very own NPR name. Mine?

Rauth Vaduz.

So I tweeted that. And behold, my Twitter pals played along. So thanks to the intrepid NPR reporters: Darrcy Oranjestad, Sijmon Cordes, Brucer la Bufadora, Rognald Windsor, and Randwy Bourton-on-the-Hill.

Seven

A New Heroine

You know, for all those who have been de-listed.

What to Say When a Trooper Pulls You Over

It's not a sausage link, but Bacon is still in the family.

Eighty

Today my thoughts turned to my father. It was his birthday. He would have been 80 had he not stopped celebrating earthly birthdays 3 years ago. I have nothing but happy thoughts when I think of him. It's a nice reminder of a very good man.

Premature Evacuation

Vacation starts tomorrow. But I'm into vacation mode too soon! it seems.

There still is the little matter of packing left to do.

grrrrrrr.

NICU Wall Art

A while ago, I allowed my girls to be photographed for an art project at their old NICU. This weekend, their nurse posted her pictures of the finished prints and her musings on the wall of fame that now graces her workplace.

Thanks, Sara. You are an amazing nurse and you have enriched our lives by being so good at what you do.

The Happiest Days are When Babies are Born

This blogosphere thing is the darndest place. In my first year of blogging, I was found by Kevin, because of a pun I wrote and he commented. Shortly thereafter, he and Maria were married and I added her blog to the blogroll. A couple deployments, a new job and a move to DC later and they created a new joint blog. They had their first child yesterday. Welcome to the world, Mia!

She's a beauty and known only to me via blog.

Daughter of Retweet Theatre.

The first line is my most recent Tweet. I bow to the master of Retweet theatre: James Lileks.