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This baby just slept through the night so I'm surprisingly awake at this time of the morning. I know this won't happen again for many many many many days but I'm really grateful just this moment.
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In two weeks we will have had two funerals. The down side of this is that its really sad and awful. The upside is that my house is full of beautiful white funeral flowers that my mother and I have been coaxing along and hoping to put on the altar for All Saints. There's something sort of bittersweet about bringing a baby into a house full of funeral flowers.
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We've temporarily solved the trouble of Halloween being the same day as Reformation Day. Last night, as a means of welcoming home this lovely new baby (who shares, by the way, a birthday with my dear cousin, Erasmus And John Cleese) we carved a pumpkin and ate Reformation sausages cooked in beer. Said Matt to the children, "Do you know why we're cleaning out this pumpkin?"
"No!" they all shouted.
"Because," he said, "on this day Martin Luther began the Reformation whereby all the gunk was cleaned out from the church."
So Saturday we will go trick or treating without feeling like we're missing the Reformation and later we'll invite friends over (hopefully) for fondue to celebrate John Calvin. And I need to seriously think of some food for the English Reformation. hmmm.
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Continuing vaguely with the subject of Halloween, Elphine, this year, has determined to dress up as Queen Victoria. This is a direct result of Classical Conversations Week 9 History Sentence which begins 'During the age of Imperialism...' and was So catchy that my mother and I discovered ourselves both to be reading Kim in the hospital while I was in labor. The whole week has been taken up with volleys of emails between me, Matt and my mom comprising pictures and information of Queen Victoria and debates about whether Elphine should go as a Young Victoria, or Old Victoria or a Bride Victoria. Anyway you look at it, I don't know how we're going to make a crown.
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Romulus and Alouicious are going as knights. Gladys will be the proverbial Bee. New baby, hopefully, will be a chili pepper. It really saves time to have a standard set in this matter. Every child starts out in the nice soft felt chili pepper, graduates (hopefully angrily) to the bee which has a really fine stinger. And after that some choice may be exercised but we encourage the use of some favorite already existing costume.
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Speaking of Imperialism, we're also reading the Jungle Book and the Just So Stories for school. Can you tell the Kipling is one my three all time favorite authors? Except that I've never actually read the Jungle Book as one who really hates suspense in any form. If my dad hadn't read Kim to me as a child I never would have read it. So I'm pulling myself together and reading the Jungle Book out loud. It is So Exciting. When we get to the CC history sentences about Africa we're going to read The Long Grass Whispers.
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So far, my favorite part about having 5 kids (besides the children themselves, which, obviously, is Joy Enough) is the look of horror when people, having asked 'Is this your first baby?'
hear 'well, no, its my 5th'.
AND then, usually, whoever it is will say something charming like
'Wow, you don't look it!'
By this they could mean that I look Way Too Young or that I'm Way Too Skinny. Either is just fine. Of course, I haven't actually gone anywhere yet with all five, so who knows if the love will keep flowing.
Go check out Jen and have a lovely weekend.
11 comments:
I would say take the compliments any way they come. That's my policy. It serves me well.
I would vote Young Victoria, myself. So much more charming on a small child.
Here from CD, yes to Kipling. Just read Riki-tiki-tavi again to the kids, but there's some suspense there...
Catholic here, of course, and have to laugh at the pumpkin guts behind the junk cleared out of the Church. Next time I get frustrated at Mass I'll just think pumpkin guts and it will smile me through.
Funny how when I was pregnant with my third I was never asked if it was my first. . . I'll pretend it's because the other kids were usually with me in public, but I suspect I DID look it!
I couldn't help asking Elphine, when she told me about being Queen V., whether she was going to be amused or not amused. There's something else figure out, besides just young vs. old!
Congratulations on the new baby - glad you and she are well.
I hope the camera will come out tomorrow to record the whole gang in costume.- CT reader
What good QT's! How nice that you got such a good night of sleep...now if you could somehow store that up and pull it out when you need it next. That'd be a real gem.
Congratulations on your growing family!
I've always liked Kipling's poetry, especially the military poetry. Very earthy and realistic - you get the feeling these were actual people he knew and wrote about.
I've never read "Kim," but will try to get it.
Why is it either/or? I would go for young AND skinny.
I have no idea how I would begin to celebrate the Reformation. I'll have to think on it through the day.
Don't forget daylight savings!
And I need to seriously think of some food for the English Reformation. hmmm.
I would suggest steak, stake and kidney. A whole bunch of toothpicks sticking up out of the pastry ought to give a good feel for the whole Reformation style of England ;-)
That is a great costume idea! I don't think I was ever anything that historical for Halloween. Just avoid the gin in teacup routine until of a legal age.
Kass didn't dress up this year, but he did get paid to carve 8 pumpkins (lots of reformation guts,) and I facepainted two days straight. It was odd the number of parents who insisted their children get 'something scary' when they and I were perfectly content with ladybirds, piglets and butterflies.
Anne - I know you probably have 500 other things to do, but is there any chance of a new recipe or two being posted soon? What do mothers of new babies eat/cook? (Besides "something somebody else made," I mean!)
My husbands favorite stories to read to the kids (only 4 of them) are Kipling's Just So Stories. They just roll off the tongue and it is lovely to read to "Best Beloved". I have had other mothers complain about how much trouble having 1 child is in front of their 1 child to the point that I have actually apologized to the child in front of the mom. We had a dinosaur costume for the newborn and a yellow towel ducky costume for the toddlers. A toddler can even do a great duck walk. The only problem is that they always ended up with the most candy which I had to hold and unfortunately usually ate myself. Enjoy the compliments even if they are a little awkward.
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