A Nerdy, Nerdy Family

My husband's birthday was the other day. Since he is a Catholic philosopher and since we both love St. Thomas Aquinas, I gave him a commentary by St. Thomas. (Yes he liked the book. As I noted, we are a nerdy family.) Happy Boy helped me wrap the present and then we brought it out to the living room. Happy Boy ran up to my husband with the gift and said, "Happy birthday, Papa! Here is a St. Thomas Aquinas book!" I guess he is too young for me to tell him what kind of presents we are giving.

My husband's older brother called him up and wished him a happy birthday. Then he gloated, "This may be your birthday, but tomorrow I turn 12,000 days old. That is much better because 12,000 is a very Biblical number." They then quickly calculated when my husband would turn 10,000 days old. If you think that's nerdy, you should see them when they get together with the rest of their family!

In other nerdiness news, my husband started a blog which is primarily in Latin. When he is feeling benevolent* he translates the posts into English.


*Meaning, when he has the time.

Me to a T

I took this quiz and was pretty impressed with how they pegged me. Make this hair brown, a little longer and lots more split ends (ahem) and that is what my hair looks like. The only other difference is that this picture looks nice, but mine always looks bad, even when I try to style it. But since they are talking about ones ideal hairstyle, I guess I would have to agree that what they show pretty much is what I would choose.

Your Ideal Hairstyle:

Full and Textured

What Women's Hairstyle Is Right For You?

Muffins for My Honey

My husband has to leave early for work on Thursdays and often doesn't have time to eat breakfast. Since he has a large break between classes in the middle of the day, he usually comes home about ten. I try to have something waiting for him and most of the time it is muffins. They are easy and Happy Boy loves to help me them, so they are my natural fall-back. At my cooking blog, you can see our family's new favorite muffin recipe.

Bananas for Boys?

This CNN article claims that eating lots of bananas will help you to conceive a boy. I must admit I am a little skeptical. It didn't give any statistics about the study at all. Since the normal boy:girl birth ratio is about 51:49, I wonder what it was in this case? If it only went up a couple points then it may have been a fluke. On the other hand, if the ratio went up significantly, I might start eating bananas by the bunch if I don't get any more sons.

This reminds me of an antic dote a pregnant friend relayed to me. She said that when she and her husband told her non-Catholic NFP-ignorant inlaws that they were expecting, the inlaws asked if she wanted a boy or girl. She said that she wanted a boy but based on the time of conception thought she was having a girl. She told me there was dead silence and looks of utter disbelief on their faces. I guess they didn't know the benefits of charting. ;)

The Penderwicks

Recently Elizabeth had a post about how much her daughter enjoyed The Penderwicks. Since I love children's chapter books (I am hesitant to say "young adult" because most YA is trash) I immediately requested it from the library. I am always on the lookout for quality books that are easy for me to read while parenting children who need lots of attention.

I am not quite done with it, but I have loved every chapter. The charming style reminds me of E. Nesbit, or other older writers. Even though the story takes place in modern times, the children actually behave like children ought to: they play outside, use their imagination, and never touch video games. The whole family is delightful: creative, academic, polite. The father even speaks Latin sometimes!

Some of the reviewers on Amazon complained that the story was "idyllic", but that is one of the reasons I enjoyed it. I suppose if idyllic stories aren't your style, you can always read Braless in Wonderland, or any other number of pathetic modern stories. Sure it's not very realistic (it's possible, but not probable), but I'll take that to this any day.

Jealousy and Danger

Every time Reeda sees me holding Happy Boy she drops what she is doing, runs over, and starts crying. I don't want to not hold my son and reward her jealousy, but her screams drive me bonkers, so I am not sure what to do.

In other news, Reeda is all monkey-business. She is the most skillful climber I have ever seen. (At least, for age.) Many one year olds are not even walking yet, and she is scaling her high chair. It is quite the experience to see someone not even 20 pounds adroitly climb three feet into the air. Most of that experience is fear on my part, but there is some amazement there as well.

A Post Worth Reading

Flannery wrote a beautiful post about supernatural virtues, grace and God's goodness. Here is an excerpt:

The happiest moment of my life was the moment when I realized that "good" is said of God, not because He happened to take that side of the opposition but could conceivably have taken the side of "evil," but because He is Good in the deepest and truest sense of the word, and it is not possible for Him to be evil: and that if it were possible, "good" would not really be good.