By The Numbers

20: Approximate number of diapers I change in a 24-hour period (well, the Jellyman does about half of the ones that occur while he’s home….)

51: Number of minutes since my parents left with Raisin, who is spending the night at their house.

3: Number of projects I have started since then.

0: Number that are anywhere near being finished.

6 kajillion: Number of times I have thought, “You know, when you were 20, you wouldn’t have thought that doing laundry, vacuuming*, and caring for two 3-month-old babies was an afternoon off.”  (But it is.)

Infinity: Number of times I’ve uttered the following phrases in the last three months: “Just a minute.”  Hold on.”  “I’ll be right there.”  “I’ll take care of it as soon as I change your sister’s diaper/feed the babies/take out the trash.”

6:30: Latest Raisin will generally stay in her bed, no matter how late she was up the night before.   Tomorrow, I will not be getting up at 6:30.  (When I worked in an office, I had to get up way before that.  Somehow it seems a lot earlier now….)

2: Number of months it took me to figure out that it’s not “Kunta Cave,” but “cool, dark cave.”  She got the phrase from a book, and she is severely disappointed that I took so long to get it.

*Do I get credit for vacuuming even if the Roomba is doing it?

Merry Christmas!

Reading the newspaper makes it hard to believe in Christmas miracles, whether they be of the Santa variety or the Child-in-a-manger variety.

Looking in my children’s faces makes it much, much easier.  Peace be with you and your family.

Christmas Bells

I HEARD the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

(This was written during the American Civil War, I guess, which explains the middle verses.  It’s the last two stanzas that speak to me this year….)

Raisinisms, Part Whatever

I want to remember the cute stuff she says, especially on days like today. She threw a major tantrum and told me to stay away from her. (I know she’s not being intentionally hurtful. Still, hurtful.)

1. When Raisin gets tucked in at night, she insists on being covered from head to toe with her “puppy blanket.” She calls this her “Kunta Cave,” which I can only assume is a reference to Kunta Kinte and is intended to symbolize her enslavement in a system that allows the ruling parent class to set arbitrary bedtimes.

2. Raisin is learning to count and to say the alphabet, but both are still incomplete. She seems to especially loathe the numbers three and four, and her alphabet song usually goes like this: “A B C D E F G H I J K Emily Elizabeth.”

I would claim not to know where she gets this stuff from, but my parents would assure you that I was just as weird at her age.