7 Quick Takes

1. Baby Stella can roll over now. She's not an enthusiastic roller-over, but really that's just fine with me. She has a funny growl that's new this week, and when she's interested in something she says "buh" quietly to herself. Definitely seeing some curl and some red and some gravity-defying propensities in her hair, which warms my cockles. Actually, it superheats my cockles. I am enjoying this baby so much.
2. Why do we say that hearts have cockles anyway?
3. I have come up with a new plan and it seems to be working pretty well. You might remember that I am doing my last two analyses simultaneously, planning to have a complete dataset by the end of June. I am going to do the year 1 and year 3 transcripts first, and I'm going to do 40 of them each week. That's not a kick-back-eat-bonbons pace, but neither is it a hellbent-for-leather pace. I'm not going to pressure myself to go faster. I'm not going to be done before school is out for the boys, and that's all right. For a couple of reasons too boring to post here, I'm not going to able to sustain that pace for the year 2 transcripts -- and that's all right too. June is good.
4. Last night we celebrated the feast of St. George with shepherd's pie and fairy cakes (for the English connection, and the Faerie Queene connection). After the shepherd's pie we took a minute to pray and I encouraged them to ask for help with any ongoing struggles. I told them that we didn't know which parts of the St. George story were literally true and which parts were legend, but that his feast day could remind us all that we can do hard things, big things, with God's help and for his glory. All on his own, Marty prayed that I could finish my PhD. Then I served up the fairy cakes, which they all enjoyed. Marty said, "We should do this every year."
5. This morning I drove Elwood to work because he was up very very late winning at poker. We were talking about the location of Mississippi State and he thought perhaps it was in Pascagoula. "No," I said, "I think Pascagoula is a tiny little town that people only know about because of the Ray Stevens song." Elwood looked blankly at me -- he had never heard of Ray Stevens. I tried to sing him the squirrel song but he continued to stare blankly. He kissed me goodbye and I said, "You still smell like beer. Hope you're not going to work tipsy." "I'm fine." he replied. "I am not the one singing about squirrels in church."
6. My hair is falling out. I should be used to this since it's the fifth time I've been through it but it never fails to astonish me when I see gobs and wads and fistfuls of hair coming out every day for weeks. At the same time, Stella has learned to grab a handful and put it in her mouth. I see a haircut in my future.
7. Pete's birthday is Monday, so I just have a few more days in which I can say that my boys are 3, 6, 9, and 12. It sounded so orderly.

More quick takes here.

Comments

[el-e-e]

I can't believe you actually know who Ray Stevens is! You seem much too sophisticated for The Day the Squirrel Went Berzerk!!

;) (Now I feel a new bond with you, however. Heh.)

[Angela]

"...seem much too sophisticated..." hmmm...el-e-e doesn't know you very well, does she? ;)

I make sock monkeys now and I sometimes use them as puppets to perform "Harry, the hairy ape" for Tay. He's starting to enjoy it but I think my DH likes it more.

Also....we were going to be married on 3/6/9 and I was disappointed when it turned out to be 3/14/9...for the same reason you mentioned.