on raising readers
We’ve had a strange phenomenon in our home, concerning books. I realized not long ago that I barely pick up a picture book anymore. I used to write a semi-monthly series called What We Read which mostly featured picture books from the library–then I had a falling out with our local library (which I don’t think I’ve ever described here, but should write about) and the constant traffic of new books in our home rather ground to a halt.
[Read more…]twenty-two months (eldore rex)
Eldore turned twenty-two months on September the 19th.
Since I have missed a couple of months, this update will encompass more changes in Eldore than an almost-two-years-old update usually would.
Jump to a section:
The Great Sleep Fiasco And How It Was Reconciled
The Developing Conversationalist
Miscellany
post without pictures, 9.21.19
in which we all go outside to where the shadows are blue
“Why don’t you go out and jump on the trampoline?”
It was worded as a suggestion, but Anselm knew from experience that it was anything but. He was dangerously close to surrendering to his boundless energy and dashing around the Colloquium, an action that is strictly forbidden, given his own proclivity for dashing and then tripping and then falling into things.
[Read more…]post without words, 9.19.19
on orchards
I think it was when we were walking the trail in the field, when I was in labor with Beatrice, and Jeremy and I had a brief conversation about gardens and planting and growth and fruit. Namely, about the timing of the harvest of some plants versus others.
Our garden last year had been brief and exciting. We plowed, we tilled, we planted, we watched eagerly. Then plants sprang up, the fruit grew, and the harvest was bountiful. All of this happened in the span of a handful of months.
five months (beatrice darlene)
Five months for Darling Beatrice, the sweetest baby at Janderhil. (She is also the only baby, but that is neither here nor there.)
four months (beatrice darlene)
Miss Beada turned four months on the fourth of August.
If she knew how tardy this update is, she would most assuredly growl at me. She’s a most accomplished growler, brazenly grumbling at her hands (invariably clenched during this exercise) or at her feet (she’s just realized they’re down there) or at the doctor at her four-month checkup (“Is she growling??” The doctor asked, and I nodded.) I am not sure why she does it. It is probably because she can.
[Read more…]breakfast work
Three years ago, while Jeremy was still in Georgia getting our house together to sell and I was living here alone with four children, I started reading the Bible to the kids over breakfast.
[Read more…]the lure of slow living: on paying attention
I am drowning, I wrote to myself in my journal. No, that’s not right. I’m being bricked in. It was a few weeks after Beatrice was born. I was already back in the swing of things–I had been since her second week. Schooling, housekeeping, childrearing, everything. I had sent a text a friend saying I felt “thin”, like Bilbo with the ring. To another, I confessed, Number Six may be the one that does me in.
[Read more…]