quick takes

one
Just finished the Old Testament, in record time too, six months. Had hoped to perfectly time starting the New Testament with Advent, but also wanted to finish it by January, which would have made for a more than usually crazy December. And it would be bad to take an entire month off of something like Reading The Bible. So I guess I'm going to plow on, even though it doesn't line up perfectly. After reading Malachi, expecting my daily readings to line up perfectly is a shade too much like bringing my blind bull to the altar. It means all the flock in my own cupboard is pristine and God again gets the short shrift. Or something.
two
I'm trying to write while the baby holds my ring finger. When I try to gently move her over to accommodate my laptop she lets out a piercing shriek and presses her heavy head on my chest and lets real tears fall. Which, shockingly, stop the second I stop typing. Throughout the day I have to lug her around everywhere while she shouts directions and screams at everyone. Well, as I type this, I can see that 'have to' is a touch too strong. I've been manipulated into lugging her around and now we're both in the habit. She has basically, as Marigold did, managed to get everyone to do everything for her, only she, the Baby, is willing to use language where Marigold was not.
three
Having moved all the toys up in case of flooding, and all the outside furniture in in case of it being blown away, two major sections of the house continue to be Off Limits.So here we all are, altogether in the kitchen and then altogether in the living room and then altogether in my room, all of us together. And why would a single one of us want to be separated from all the others for even one tiny second?
"Mommy," whined Elphine yesterday as Romulus accidentally kicked her in the head, "Can't they go downstairs? I can't get anything done."
"No, my sweet," I said, 'they could get into terrible mischief, so we will just have to cope."
four
Every morning I go in to the living room and I find the Fancy Russian Nesting Dolls in some kind of new arrangement. Here, I think, they are all dancing. You can't really see but the Swedish Horses are also careful proximity to each other.

And here they seem to be all lined up paying homage to the photograph of Elphine in her Aunt's Coronation Dress. I'm not sure why the little basket/bowl is turned upside down.

Sometimes I find the dolls carefully lined up by height around the coffee table, or arranged all over the room on different bookshelves, or each with a tiny tea cup placed respectfully in front of each one.
five
We've nearly totally memorized John 3:1-17 in an exaggerated and lilting way.
'Now there was a MAN of the PHARISEES named NICODEMUS, A Ruler Of the Jews! This Man came to Jesus by NIGHT and SAID to HIM.....etc. So we were thinking about what next to memorize and the consensus was Numbers 21: 4-9 since that's what Jesus is referencing in John. It hadn't been exactly what I had in mind, but I'm willing to go with the preference of the group. Much discussion was had about whether it was possible to be bit over and over again by a fiery serpent or if looking up at the serpent on the pole once was sufficient for all time. Theology aside, Alouicious thought it would be awesome to be bitten with impunity. He acted it out and we wasted another ten minutes laughing at the craziness of it all. hardy har har.
six
Also, the Word of the Day two days ago, for those of you who were longing to know, was Lily-livered. Usually the Word of the Day is kind of a drag and impossible to use in a sentence if you're only five years old, but this one was really good and easy, heh, to think of examples of Other People who display this character flaw. Gladys always has the same sentence and puts every single Word of the Day word into it.
"The girl had an ice-cream and then her brother came and knocked it over and she was so ______" insert Word of the Day (words like Beatitude, Uncanny, Catachresis, Fracas, Heliotrope). But on this day we got her to consider rearranging the words in her sentence so that she was able to have "The girl had an ice-cream and then her lily-livered brother came and knocked it over."
As a point of clarification, this sentence was assembled by Gladys and was not influenced by any other party and no one knows of a real life occasion of any such thing ocurring.
seven
Look, I got through six takes without mentioning the election one time. And so, instead of mentioning it, I'm going to go make breakfast. Have a lovely weekend and go check out Jen!