Tadhg Amos, Your Lips Can't be Beat

I'm bumping all other posts to the back of the line in favor of this one.  It's the best! Plus, I know a few of you are patiently waiting for snapshots of this non-Owen baby.

With just enough drama to make an interesting entrance, Little Tadhg* Amos, with a cartful of Irish blood from his Daddy's side, safely arrived a few weeks back, and we are smitten with his perfect lips and impressed by his large hands.  He'll be the Big Tadhg of his own legend someday. 

*pronounced "Tige," like "tiger"  

p.s. He's just shy of 2 weeks old in these snapshots.

And, ah, Deborah. The girl who still played with dolls when she was twelve has joyfully slipped into the role of mother.  Tadhg was perfectly shaped for just these arms.

I was able to snap a few hasty but still sweet snapshots last week before they left for a doctor's appointment, but I wasn't there long enough to take a picture of him with his eyes open.  Future post to come, I bet...


Those hands, though!

We are thankful that God kept Tadhg and Deborah safe through all (and Rundy, too!).  We can't wait to watch him grow into those hands of his.

And here are some repetitive pictures for you, Deborah, so you can snag what you want.

Real Time

This afternoon, the younger children and I started a new science book about flying creatures.  While explaining terms like "lift," "thrust," and "drag," I absentmindedly poked my belly, still jiggly with 30 pounds of baby-doughnut weight.  A few minutes later, an unnamed child looked at me thoughtfully and said, "Um.  If you were a bird, I don't think you'd fly very well." When I innocently asked, "Why is that?" knowing the why full well, she was too embarrassed to explain her reasoning.

Right on.

May Love Be Equal to the Task

I just deleted most of this post, because that's what I do. What's left doesn't make much sense, but who said I ever make sense?

John and I read Howards End recently, together-apart.  Given a stack of potential books to read, I wouldn't have singled it out, but it surprised me, and I enjoyed it a great deal.  I don't take notes while reading a book for the first time (with apologies to all you commonplace journalers), but I was tempted to extract lines here and there to save for later.  I didn't, but now I find myself thinking of several of those lines and wishing I could recall them more clearly (and now all you commonplace journalers are saying, "See!  I told you so.")  Wait a minute...
There.  I just looked up one quote that sunk straight into me so that I wouldn't mangle it through rephrasing:

Under cosmopolitanism, if it comes, we shall receive no help from the earth. Trees and meadows and mountains will only be a spectacle, and the binding force that they once exercised on character must be entrusted to Love alone. May Love be equal to the task!

Life behind the blog is fraught with tangles, as living is for everyone.  These winter months have minor hardship (not even hardship when looking at the reality of worldwide suffering), and they can stretch long.  In the quiet and dark, I wake up with the company of old sorrows and new worries, as everyone does.

Trees, meadows, mountains.  Those secret spaces still exist, and a part of me is still there in them.  A quick walk down the hill, and there they wait. The true 10-year-old self, the turbulent 16-year-old self,  the sober 20-year-old self-- right there.  Perched on the rock where the deer spoke; swinging legs from the barn beam, watching the sun illumine dust; hiding under the dripping, mossy overhang by the ravine.

My, Their Feet Have Grown

McGamma, the girls can wear Darn Tough socks right into the ground, and the three oldest just had replacements for their Christmas socks mailed to them recently.  Susannah and Mildred both chose the same style, so when they dressed all matchy-matchy for church, I wheedled a picture.

A flock of birds!  We must be aching for spring.

And these three together.  I love to see them growing up so fine and true, but still...sigh.  Remember them?

Reality. Check.

Zeke thinks the optimal place to work on mathematics is on top of the world's largest laundry pile waiting for me to fold it.  Sisyphus, I empathize.

I have no idea what's going on in this picture, but I include it to prove that I at least gave haircuts to those shaggy boys I found living in the laundry pile.  I'm all about balance...

Now Both of Us Look Like Middle-Aged Ladies

Someone acted without thinking and evened up the front wispies to match the ones in the middle that are growing out after being singed off.

Someone regrets giving her daughter such silly-looking bangs.