7Quick Takes 19: A boy and his cat

1. I had a spike of excitement last Friday when my post got a little interest on the blog and Facebook. It just goes to show what using the words "confessions" and "knickers" does for traffic. So I thought about what might garner even more interest, and obviously the answer is "cats" (but not cats and knickers, or I might have people reporting me to animal protection agencies).

My first idea was for a cute photo essay, but that was scuppered by several factors:

• I'm short (near) sighted and take bad photos.
• Trying to take photos of the cat and baby while holding the baby is pretty impossible.
• I'm too disorganized to spend the whole week snapping away in order to sift out the few good photos from the thousand bad (so here are the few bad ones anyway).

2. So. Odie. This cat turned up on our doorstep as a kitten - quite literally. I heard cries outside the front door, opened it, and he crept out from behind the woodpile. It took us about thirty seconds to decide we would keep him if he was a stray. We named him Odysseus because he'd obviously been wandering around before he got to us, but he turned out not to be quite as cunning as his namesake (i.e. pretty stupid), so Odie stuck instead.

3. Odie didn't read the manual on cats and babies, because he actually likes Alcuin. He comes running when the baby cries. He follows us on walks around the garden. He lets Alcuin 'stroke' him, even when it involves grabbing a handful of fur before I can intervene. Heck, he's even teaching Alcuin how to pet him by rubbing up against his hands.

4. As I've mentioned before, this cat also loves water. He leaps onto the sink to share the baby's morning wash. He's ready for bathtime fun, especially playing 'catch the flannel (washcloth)'.

I'm trying not to show the naked baby here.

I'm holding the naked baby in this one.

5. He showed me that breastfeeding pillows make great cat recliners. That's my husband trying to escape the photo.

"Hey, that's mine!"

6. Odie understands that I have declared the crib a cat-free zone.

It was bed changing day. Don't judge.

Especially when the baby is in there.

He was starting to get suspicious of my taking pictures by then.

But he doesn't care.


7. Kelly's blogger question for this week is: what is your favourite blog you have discovered through Seven Quick Takes?  That's a hard one to answer because I can't recall whether I discovered certain blogs directly through Seven Quick Takes or by clicking through other blogs on there. I know This Ain't The Lyceum was one, but that sounds like sucking up. Better than Eden is another blog I currently subscribe to, and think I may have discovered via 7QT. I love reading about Mary's organized, intentional life even though, as I've mentioned, my own could better be described as "Comparable to the London Underground at Rush Hour".

Head over to This Ain't The Lyceum to read blogs and enter the sweepstakes!

7 Quick Takes 18: Confessions of a Geriatric Mother

1. Here I am, heroically rising to Kelly's challenge for Link-toberfest and getting out two posts in two weeks. I'm almost afraid to post something non-snarky because every time I have something gentle and positive planned, life punches it out of the way. But here are reflections on what I've learned from being a geriatric mother (that is, having a surprise third baby this year at *cough cough* 45).

2. Gratitude
For a healthy baby. Some people our age pay thousands just to try to have a baby, and ours was a free gift.
For God's mercy. To be honest - it didn't feel like a gift for a long time. I was counting the years until an empty nest when I planned to spend every day doing exactly what I wanted. Boy, was I 'saved' from a life of selfishness :)
For my body. It's amazing that I'm breastfeeding a baby with ease at 45, when so many younger women are telling me all the reasons they gave up.

3. Patience
With the baby. Both my husband and I are way more patient, which is good as Alcuin is, to put it politely, rather particular.

He who must be obeyed.

With my waistline. I guessed that it would be a slower haul back to my prepartum figure. At least my maternity clothes are now loose - as I discovered last week while lecturing and realised my skirt was slipping and threatening to pull my knickers down with it. Maybe I could do a blog post on the art of hitching up your underwear while nonchalantly discussing Sophocles.

4. Exhaustion 
Man, am I tired. Scrap that. I'm knackered. It used to be that when my girls were babies, I'd put them to bed and spend an hour or two writing, working, or just hanging out. Now, when Alcuin goes to bed, I pretty much fall in after him. But I know it's not forever, because I have...

5. Perspective
Everything is just a stage - and life zips by so quickly. Sometimes, in the midst of exhausted dejection, I tell myself it will all be different in a year - and I'm not being sarcastic. Before we know it, it will be one year, five, ten...

6. Couldn't care less-ness
We like the name Alcuin. So there. The Blessed Alcuin of York was an 8th century British scholar famous for engineering the Carolingian renaissance. He's the only name in mathematics in this period - and my husband is a mathematician. We went through a little angst over what our parents would say - then thought about the names on our class rolls and decided we didn't care. We were going to compromise and call him Quin for short, but he's so serious, he was born to be an Alcuin. Actually, he was literally born at the very time my church was celebrating the life of Alcuin of York in their noonday service - when we'd already decided on the name!

My halo is cooler!

                                                           

7. Kelly's question for this week is: how many blog posts have you written? Considering what life has thrown at us since I started in January, I'm going to pat myself on the back for managing 18. To link up your own first or hundred-and-first Quick Takes, or read other blogs and enter the giveaways, visit This Ain't the Lyceum.

7 QT 17: Dead Doors and Ducks

1. I haven't posted for a while, because life has been hectic, plus essay grading (which is more Purgatory than life). I still have some late essays to grade, but it's Fall Break, so I don't go back to work for a week, plus Kelly has declared October a Link-toberfest and offered the chance to win goodies I don't need but might just change my life anyway, so here's the post I almost completed a couple of weeks ago, minus any pretty pictures because I have a streaming cold and this is as much as I can manage.

2. It all started with the back door. It always shifts when the weather changes, but when the house also shifted too much, it got completely stuck shut. I'd never taken notice of how much we used the back door to pop out to the window boxes, or the compost pail we have set outside, or just generally. Which had a snowball effect...

3. With no quick access to the compost, and no time, my husband left a butternut squash quietly rotting in the spare bathtub. Then one day I happened to venture into the bathroom and realised it was Invasion of the Fruit Flies. Of course, opening the door just let them all out into the house where they were merrily flying around and reproducing every five seconds. I was at a loss, not wanting to let loose with fly spray or whatever dubious chemical is on flypaper. I was lamenting this as my husband and I sat flapping fruit flies away from our glasses of wine. Then it came to me - fight fire with fire. So I set out two glasses of cheap wine to catch them. It's sort of working, and at least they're dying happy.

4. So fruit flies everywhere meant we had to stop collecting compost indoors and start taking it out via the front door. Which lead to another hard-won discovery. First, my husband got stung hard on the rear. We thought it must have been some random insect that bumped into him. Then, the next day, I was emptying tea leaves into the porch bed when something stung me on the foot - very painfully. We realized that yellowjackets had built a nest in one of the wood stacks by the front door. After a week of donning his beekeeper's suit and spraying, my husband took about 5 seconds to be persuaded to call the exterminator. We have been judging the success of the operation by the "Odie test". Our less academically-abled cat had obviously been attacked by said yellowjackets as he took to bolting out of the front door as, well, as though wasps were after him. Obviously he is too much a creature of habit to take the alternative, like one of his TWO cat doors in other parts of the house. Anyhow, the Odie test consists of watching how fast he leaps across the porch to judge whether the wasps were still there.

5. I don't think this was related to the door problems, but it added colour to the week anyway. I was out with the baby one morning, as usual, seeing to the poultry. Caroline the duck waddled to the pond, maybe a little slower than usual. Then, she opened her beak, flapped her wings, and keeled over. Dead. The baby appeared not to be traumatized, but I'm sure the memory will resurface in thirty years' time when he's talking with his psychotherapist about all the childhood traumas he does remember.

6. So updates: wasps are gone and it prompted my husband to pressure wash the porch, so a bonus there. Our carpenter has fixed the door, but found we need major work under the house, to the tune of $10-15,000. But my daughter's appendectomy bill 'only' came in at $4,000 so I'm going to pretend that's a small win.

7. Kelly's blogger question for this week is: when did you start linking to Seven Quick Takes? her throw-back post made me realise I'd been reading them since the beginning (2008). It's become my little breather on a Friday morning. Almost as strange was to look back at my blog and find I'd first posted in January this year, which seems forever ago, being B.A.  - Before Alcuin, as my husband has coined time in our house.

To read or post Quick Takes, plus a chance for reader prizes, head to Kelly's at This Ain't the Lyceum.

7QT 16: The Not-Boston edition

For once, I planned to write a snark-less (maybe) blog post about our trip to Boston/Cambridge to deliver the eldest daughter to MIT. You know, pictures of famous landmarks, our having fun etc. etc. Only I didn't get to go, and this is why...

1. Tuesday night, three days before we're due to fly out, my daughter calls from the next town where she's been visiting her boyfriend. She says she's on her way home BUT she has a stomach ache, a little like the pain she had when she had a bout of appendicitis this summer in Italy (still never got around to writing about that saga). So, despite being exhausted, I stay up late to check on her. She gets home OK and doesn't seem too bothered - she decides to sleep on it. We cross our fingers.

2. She gets up close to lunch time the next day and says she still hurts, but not half as badly as when she had appendicitis. She wants to wait it out, but I check in with my husband, and he orders her to go to the doctor at once. Which she does, meaning I have to cancel middle daughter's violin lesson as I no longer have a vehicle.

3. A little later, the doctor (a friend from church) calls. Magdalen has obviously been trying to persuade him to take the European route of prescribing antibiotics. The only thing is, apparently they just don't do that in the US, and he has no prognosis for that course of action. With my permission he persuades her to go across the road to the hospital for a CAT scan. My husband leaves work to join her. Next thing we know, she's headed for surgery. It's now less than 48 hours before we were supposed to fly out to Boston. However, it's laparoscopy surgery, and the surgeon assures her and us that she should be able to travel in a few days.

4. Husband pops home from the hospital to take the rest of us to meet her as she gets out of surgery. We spend the time waiting in her room, with the baby alternately getting testy and spitting up over the floor. I hope baby spit-up doesn't have too much bacteria in it. I was tempted to take a photo of her room for the blog, but I thought the rest of the family would think me weird. I was also slightly tempted to take one of my daughter in recovery, but I knew she'd cut me out of her will. So, no photos. I stay until the baby is no longer manageable, but my poor husband gets to stop at the hospital because my daughter doesn't seem very sure the hospital staff will do her bidding understand her needs.

Husband gets back very late, then stays up checking on changes to flights, hotels etc. My ticket was a companion deal and can't be transferred, so it would be an extra $1400 for me to go, on top of a more expensive hotel room. Plus, our struggles in the hospital make it clear taking the baby would not be helpful. God sends a final sign when I get a text the next morning that our pet sitter has had an accident and couldn't come to take care of the house anyway. No Boston for Alcuin and me.

Didn't get to see this.

But the baby got one of these.

5. That same morning, we're just off to fetch Magdalen home, when text alerts from campus start buzzing: there's apparently an active gunman at MSU. I call out to my middle daughter: "Band's going to be cancelled, there's a gunman on campus. See you later." Yes, I did. What can I say? Things were falling apart. Luckily, she has enough of my husband's mathematical logic to figure out she's safer 7 miles from campus than in the car with us, heading to town.

I spend the drive to the hospital checking texts, worrying about my students, and wondering if we'll even get in to the hospital under the circumstances. Hooray, we get in, but everyone is constantly checking messages, and it's had to concentrate on getting my daughter out of there. Eventually, it turns out the 'gunman' only threatened to shoot others and himself but didn't actually have a gun. But classes got cancelled until mid-afternoon, which was a score for me because I couldn't have made it anyway.

An aside: here's a police woman strolling to the scene with an assault rifle and high heels because this is Mississippi, ya'll, and no lady steps outside unless she's looking her best.

6. So, I spend the next couple of days packing under my daughter's instructions, but I'm still losing my mind, because I pack enough cutlery in her carry-on for a culinary massacre on the plane, and my husband has to run it out of security and stow it in his truck (thank goodness for small-town airports where everyone knows you).

This, by the way, was the same airport where a young couple were stopped on their way to join Isis, which baffled me because they must have known half the people on the plane, and how do you make casual chit-chat about eloping to Turkey and crossing the border to fight for terrorists?

7. But... my daughter is safely at MIT, recovering wonderfully with lots of help from Student Support Services, and began classes this week. And a large Amazon package arrived from her yesterday - full of her textbooks.  She'd forgotten to change the shipping address.

Hope your week has been good. Join Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum for more Seven Quick Takes.

7QT 15: Back to school fails

I have several ideas for themed posts bouncing around in my head, but life's been hectic, so here is a cheating 7 Quick Takes that randomly divides our back-to-school multiple fails.



1. Week One. We've been back in the US for a week, no extra curricular activities have started, and my husband and I don't go back to teach for two weeks. A perfect time to ease my twelve-year-old into homeschooling with a lighter lesson load, right?
Wrong. Unlike every other new school year, she seems to have zero motivation, or a big distraction in her new baby brother. Every time I check on her, she's reading, writing her novel, or playing 2048 or some new word search game on her tablet/computer.
I try to tell myself it's only a first week. Out loud I have a break down about my inability to manage life and declare she'll have to enroll in school. I pull myself together and plan for a better next week. Maybe the problem was not enough structure.

2. That weekend, one of her rats gets sick. After much back and forth with the vet school on their emergency line, we hold out until Monday, since she's drinking and eating (but only vanilla Greek yogurt). On Monday, the vet diagnoses a lung infection that went to her ears. She comes back with 6 medications/supplements she has to be fed per day. Plus, she has to go back to the vet every morning to spend 30 minutes in a nebulizer. Except my daughter gets muddled and thinks its a sodomizer...
I try, try, try to encourage my daughter to schedule work time before she leaves and take along work every morning, but she has three rats in three cages to feed (sick rat has to be separated from companion; third rat we bought gets attacked by said companion, hence three cages) plus medications.
In an effort to keep my daughter focused, I forbid her from doing any work in her room without permission, and despair of her ever getting a proper education, despite the fact she's in seventh grade and doing Algebra I and is on her fourth year of Latin.

3. I go into work for a meeting, leaving everyone in charge of the baby, plus a bottle of formula. I return two hours later to the relief of everyone and a very unhappy baby. I have never felt so popular. On the downside, I have to go out and buy a breast pump. I am not blind to the irony that now I am finally laid back enough not to mind giving a baby the odd bottle of formula, I have one who isn't interested. I start to make plans to nurse the baby in class and slap a Title IX lawsuit on anyone who complains.

4. Week three - almost a full school schedule, and the semester begins for my husband and I (I'm teaching two classes two afternoons). I have to get up extra early each morning to pump milk. Before I go in on Tuesday, I try to nurse the baby. He is outraged that I dare to make him feed not on his personal (random) schedule and starts screaming. I leave in trepidation. Half way through, I text my elder daughter as I don't dare call my husband to see how things are going. When she doesn't reply, I imagine the worst. Eventually, she texts that things are OK. They survived by trying to keep him asleep all afternoon.
That same afternoon, $250 and a week of daily vet visits later, the rat dies. If Saint Francis isn't pleading for me at Judgement Day, I want to know why.

5. Off to class again on Thursday, leaving half a bottle of breast milk and one of formula. Get home to find the baby has taken about an ounce, but surprisingly not grumbled over much. Apparently he knows where the real stuff comes from and isn't going to be persuaded otherwise. I think we have to resign ourselves to the fact he is going to fast the few hours I'm gone, and count the weeks until we can give him solids.

6. TGIF - really, really TG. Trying to catch up with housework as we've got two people staying this weekend. Promise my daughter I will take her and her friend for frozen yogurt if she finishes her work, but she spends so long on a Galileo report there's no hope of that. I've just broken down and said I'll take them anyway. I need the sugar calcium.

7. And I'm not even thinking about the fact we are flying with my elder daughter to Boston and MIT at the end of the following week. Yes, I have a three-month-old and a college freshman. Proof that God has a sense of humour.

For more quick takes, join Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum.

7QT 14: My British Things

I've been away for a month in the UK, and the new semester is looming, so here's a super-quick Seven Quick Takes. Having lived in the US (mostly Mississippi) for twenty years, I often feel an outsider in both countries. On the plus, I *think* I'm better able to see the good and not-so-good in each culture. Here's some shallow light-hearted examples of British Things I'm always grateful to get back to...

1. Yay for outlets where you turn off the power at the socket. It used to terrify me to have to pull plugs out of a live socket when I first moved to the US. Of course, having lived away for so long, sometimes I forget to switch it on and come back hours later to find my phone etc. hasn't charged.

 BUT... regulations are so strict, you are forbidden to have either an
electrical socket or a light switch in the bathroom (you have to have a pull switch or a regular switch outside the door - good for throwing your enemies/siblings into darkness at crucial bathroom moments).

Scary.

Safe.

2. The national impetus to recycle. In Mississippi, we live outside town and have to drag our recyclables up to work where we (illegally? I'm not asking) use the campus bins.

 BUT... the bins, the bins! My parents only have three: general recycling, food waste, and unrecyclables. My aunt in London has five. All have to be properly sorted for the dustmen (refuse collectors) or you get to face the wrath of the local council My parents' local council was even talking of putting microchips in the bins, I suppose so one can instantly report recycling offenders or the rubbish 'swingers' who are bin-swapping.

Once upon a time, there was a family of bins...

3. Water conservation: small sinks and baths, plus one bathroom, encourage you to be less profligate with water.

BUT.. as Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum pointed out, low-flow toilets don't get the job done. And they're mighty embarrassing if you're a guest and can't find the toilet brush.

4. Talking of number three: One bathroom per house. I'm disappointed that more people in the UK are getting extra bathrooms and toilets put in their houses (and I'm not even starting on the second kitchen trend among the more wealthy/show-offs in debt). I hate having to clean more than one bathroom. Our family of four managed with one when I was growing up, and it made us keep a lot of our bathroom clutter out of the bathrooms and in our bedrooms. Disclaimer: the toilet was in a (teeny tiny) separate room from the sink and bath, which avoided having to cross your legs if someone was having a leisurely soak.

BUT... see disclaimer above.

5. The National Health Service. It has its problems, but you can't beat it for everyday care. My elder daughter had to go for a check up after getting mild appendicitis in Italy (that's another saga). She saw the doctor that day - no fuss, no co-pay, no insurance so complicated even the doctor's office don't know what to bill you, no unnecessary weighing, temperature check etc., no being lured into the doctor's consultation room to wait for an hour until he pops in.

BUT... she was a little freaked out at the instructions in the waiting room on how to use her ten-minute consultation (actually he took 30 minutes with her).  And getting good hospital care is a lottery.

6. A curry house in every city, town and village (almost). Plus the obligatory After Eight mint at the end of the meal. Bonus points for 70s decor, 'exotic' Indian art and Bollywood music. At one point, chicken tikka was Britain's No. 1 favourite dish.

BUT... there's no but. I heart heart heart my Anglo-Indian food.

7. And the reason for the title? In case American readers felt I wasn't fair enough, here's a tongue-in-cheek song about our favourite 'British' Things via Queen Victoria and Horrible Histories. For some reason, I could only find it with Portuguese subtitles, which adds to the irony...

For more Seven Quick Takes, visit Kelly, who hosts at This Ain't the Lyceum - she has a special and inspiring post for Spinal Muscular Atrophy awareness week.

7QT 13: A Swanage Seven

I’m on my annual (semi-annual if I’m lucky) visit home to the UK. I hail from South London, but my parents moved down to the coast several years ago, to the area of Dorset where we spent many holidays growing up. So, quickly, in between caring for the baby and being on holiday, here are seven favourite things about Swanage.

1. Chococo

Actually, I’m cheating a little here, because my seven could read Chococo, Chococo, Chococo, Chococo, Chococo, Chococo, Chococo. This tiny seaside town has given birth to possibly the best chocolatier in the UK. My favourite handmade chocolate is probably the Espresso. Or is it Old Thumper? Maybe Brilliant Black Cow. Possibly Bob’s Bees. Not to forget the chocolate biscuit cake, which I still buy even though I have the recipe from their cookbook. Their chocolates are so good, I can eat one a day and be satisfied. And then there’s the café, where my current snack of choice is almond hot chocolate with a raspberry Melting Moment, but I’m gearing up to try the 100% hot chocolate (made with Venezuelan chocolate), which you get to sweeten to your own level. Aargh, enough, excuse me while I run downtown...

2. The view from my window

Hills AND the sea. Bliss.

3.Christmas pudding ice cream

On a beach in July. The ultimate satisfaction for lovers of irony.

4. Being able to walk everywhere

 A bonus: pushing a stroller up steep hills equals postpartum boot camp.

5. Being ten minutes from the sea

I never get tired of the sea. I swim even when it’s icy (which is the usual temperature here). It’s really not so bad once you go numb. I’m never indifferent to the way its vastness makes me seem so insignificant yet is somehow so comforting, assuring me I have a place in the universe.

6. Second hand books

Being a tourist town, there’s always a good turnover of books holidaymakers buy and leave behind. Plus an Oxfam bookstore and a local bookstore stuffed with second hand treasures and local offerings. Last year, there seemed to be at least one copy of Fifty Shades of Grey in every charity (thrift) shop. I suppose people were letting their literary hair down (or tying it up!) on holiday.

7. Fetes

July is fete season in England, and around here there’s at least one traditional fete each weekend. I can’t resist a good rummage, fortified by homemade cakes and tea, of course.  Vintage books, cake keepers, plates, lamps, knitted tea cosies, fairtrade rubber gloves… the list of peculiar bargains we’ve stuffed into suitcases to bring back to the States is endless. 

Bonnie at A Knotted Life is hosting Seven Quick Takes this week. Pop over and say hello.