lawnmowers, snow and choclake

As I write, some overzealous lawn-master is mowing his lawn. I still have snow in some parts of mine and even if the grass were long enough to mow it's still so matted and flattened from the snow that you'd never be able to tell!
We've had a busy month of traveling to California and moving, but it's all done now and pictures will soon be up.
California was beautiful and sunny. Anna and I laid on the grass in the sun and ate oranges from her orange trees. Flannery ran wild with her cousins. Literally. I didn't brush her hair for 4 days and by the time we left she had little dreadlocks, which cause much sadness when it was time to brush them out. Brendan puttered around in Nate's shop and built me a cd shelf.
When we got back to our house we packed it up, or rather many good kind friends packed it up because I was still pretty nauseous. Then we moved the Saturday after we got back. We love our huge backyard and intend to begin our raised bed building this weekend. Fitting for Easter I think.
Flannery is bobbing around the house chanting things these days. We have had never-ending renditions of "little bunny foo-foo" except her version goes, "little baby Seussy...". Today the word of choice was "choclake" over and over and over in a little chanting voice. That's her version of chocolate in case you couldn't tell.
She also has a new interest in personal hygeine as related to prettiness. So, this morning after eating strawberries she went into the bathroom and spent a LONG time with the water running. Finally I called her out. She came up to me very concerned that she still had strawberry on her face and it was making her face "not pretty".
Anyhow, I just wanted to update. We'll post pictures later. I'm doing much better - I think I'm actually over the morning sickness now. We've heard the baby's heartbeat, I've felt movement and I'm definitely showing, so now begins the fun part of being pregnant.

One moment at Maryhill

Train traffic in the Columbia Gorge was slow, owing to trackwork on the Oregon side (that is, the UP main), Saturday doldrums on the Washington side (I don't even need to mention that that's the BNSF main, do I?), and an economy slain by derivatives, indebtedness, GWB, and now BHO.

Nonetheless, there were trains running. While still on the I-84 I spied an eastbound in the Wishram yard which looked like it might move sometime soon. Crossing over at Biggs a few miles later we climbed up US 97 to WA 14, drove a mile to the Stonehenge replica/war memorial, and then back down the hill to a railroad crossing next to an expanse of riverside orchards. Breaking out the baguette and cheese we procured in Portland for supper, we set in to eating. I rolled down the windows so the fresh, clean, cool river air could move through the car, and so we could toss our strawberry leaves out onto the gravel.

The unmistakable thrum of some 12,000 horsepower floated upriver from Wishram, and soon enough three points of light appeared at the bottom of the bluff at the far edge of the orchard. I jumped out, found a spot by the tracks, and got a picture of the eastbound freight. Returning to the car, I found Flannery, strawberry and magic markers on her face, standing up out the window, watching the train pass, in awe at the movement of metal and the wet wind it blew up at her and through her hair.

Moments like that make a fella feel like he has somewhat of a handle on parenting.

Mooscick

So, three records that Flannery's digging, conveyed to you in a post by her Papa, who got her into this stuff. Before I go on, I must say that Flannery is an ardent devotee of nearly anything that makes sound, and of musical sounds in particular, and even more particular-er, sacred musical sounds. During the prelude at her auntie Katie Hathaway's wedding, she, sitting on my lap, kept turning to me and pointing at the cellist and pianist and whispering in the most delighted way, "Papa! Mooscick!" She insists on having something--anything, really--to sing out of during church, and it's usually my Greek Bible that she ends up with because it's more convincing to her than the bulletin. But the regular service music--the Gloria in Excelsis, the Lord's Prayer, the Nunc Dimittis--she doesn't usually need anything to sing out of. Because she seems to know the words. Would that one of the readers of this blog had looked at my Amazon Wishlist and seen the iPod Touch about halfway down the page and gotten it for me--whether for Christmas or for Sharon's birthday or for any old reason--I could have downloaded one of the voice-recording apps and discreetly recorded it for this blog by now, but y'all have your priorities in a real knot, haven't ye?

That said, she loves mooscick, and I'm beyond delighted, even in the mornings when she heads straight for the spindle piano in our living room or begins singing to her dollies about two hours before one's head is ready for the dulcet tones of her lilting little soprano.

So, the records, in no particular order:

First, Bloodshot Records' kids compilation The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs for Bumpy Wagon Rides. My cousin Beth sent this around the time of Flannery's birth, and as far as I remember, it's the first record she paid any attention to. It's a string of covers of children's songs performed by a generally hard-living troupe (Alejandro Escovedo, who hadn't yet cleaned up as of this recording, sings one; Split Lip Rayfield's on here, the Meat Purveyors, Freakwater, others). About half of Neko Case's backing band shows up on these tracks, in case there are Case completists among our readership; Flannery really digs Kelly Hogan's "Senor El Gato" and we played Robbie Fulks' "Godfrey" (the sickly unemployed amateur children's musician) and the Cornell Hurd Band's "Don't Wipe Your Face on Your Shirt" for her often enough that some scribbling was undoubtedly done on the wet cement of her little mind. For formative influences on your children, you could hardly go wrong with a record like this. I believe it is part of what has made her such a delight to others when we go out in public.

Next would be M. Ward's new and really excellent record, Hold Time. She refers to this one as "Bang Mooscick," most likely referring to the drums on the lead single "Never Had Nobody Like You" or the cover of Buddy Holly's "Rave On." Tonight as we were waiting for Sharon to get ready so we could all go out and get to the supermarket, "Rave On" came on and she made the following demand: "You pick me up and dance so I can put my arm around you and you hold my hand." And so I picked her up, and she put one arm around around my neck, held the other one out and grabbed my hand, and we dipped and spinned and two-stepped around the room wherever she dictated: "to the kitchen! no! not that kitchen! my kitchen!"

Hold Time is one of those records I hope forms something fundamental in her music tastes. I'll spare you my pontification, though, because I know y'all are here for Flannery, and not me.




And finally, the record that perhaps stirred this post out of me in the first place because of the frequency of her requests for it and the joy it gives her to hear: Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, or, in Flannerese, "Woooh Mooscick." Woooh Mooscick refers specifically to "My Girls," which might already be 2009's undisputed song of the year. Y'all go and watch the video contained in that link right there, and around the three-minute mark you'll understand why it's called "Woooh Mooscick" -- and if you listen all the way through you'll continue to understand its appellation. Flannery absolutely loves this song, and whenever they yell "wooooh!" in the song, I have to lip-synch to it, or she calls me on it: "You forgot the woooh! Papa!" Correction: I get to lip-synch to it.

You'll notice from the cover art and the video that these guys seem to dig the consumption of certain sorts of exotic fungi. The staggering thing about this song, however, are the lyrics, which go, more or less, like so:

There isn't much that I feel I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
With a little girl, and by my spouse
I only want a proper house

I don't care for fancy things
Or to take part in a vicious race
And children cry for the man who has
A real big heart and a father's grace

I don't mean to seem like I care about
Material things like a social status
I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls


I'm noticing this stuff because I'm realizing how two records that played almost constantly during my upbringing -- the Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense and Neil Young's Harvest -- pretty much set my music tastes all but in stone (cousin Beth's influence at the crucial age of 12 or 13 pretty much established other listening habits from which I've never recovered). Most everything I listen to now in some way descends from the sounds I heard on those endlessly-repeated albums, even though I don't necessarily have those platters on heavy rotation 'round here. Those records were certainly a part of my, well . . . around here we call it the paideia, the world-forming nurture and admonition. Flannery, thus far, has grown up hearing Neko Case, Calexico, Dolorean, Iron & Wine, not to mention a lot of bluegrass, Brahms, Copland (Appalachian Spring), Tallis, Josquin, and the sacred songs we sing to her every night at bedtime, to mention but a fraction of it all. And I'm hoping this, that the music her life is filled with will, in part, help develop in her an intriguing and winsome and catholic eclecticism. Music and the world God has breathed are too interesting to raise her to be anything otherwise.

updating....

Probably for the last time for a while as the whole sleeping bag in the bathroom thing is becoming more and more likely.
Brendan is officially doing all the cooking, I am doing all the nausea management, and Flannery is already bossing baby Seuss, she tells him every day, "Baby Seuss, you may not tell Mama to throw up! Good job!" He, apparently, is already establishing his ability to ignore her bossing.
We're doing well though, and I just hope it doesn't last as long as it did with Flannery.
Time for me to go eat...again.

Presenting:

Baby Seuss!
Of course you can't see him yet. You'll have to wait, along with Flannery, until the leaves turn colors. Not the springtime colors either. The fall ones. We're sort of wondering if Baby Seuss will make his arrival on his father's birthday...we'll see.
note: we haven't peeked - I'm only saying him because I hate calling babies "it" and I would like a boy. So there you have it.
Flannery has begun reading "sonnets" to Baby Seuss already. By the way, she also named him...for now. The sonnets were read out of her father's KJV and went something like this: "Shay nay tay, blay fray kay, stay hay ray, and the Kingdom of Heaven came down to lil Richard!" (her cousin).
She rhymes significant portions of her authoritative words which pleases the Lord mightily I'm sure.
I'm feeling okay. It's too early to tell yet if I'm going to spend the next three months in a sleeping bag on the bathroom floor...but the possibility has been discussed. As has a trip to Costco for large bags of meat that can be cooked and frozen and pulled out as needed...
Needless to say, we are thrilled to pieces. I've never been so excited about nausea and Flannery has already claimed the title of big sister. Brendan is preparing to become chief cook and bottle washer if need be while secretly dreaming about teaching this child (if it's a boy) how to hop a train.
On that note, I need to go make dinner.
Sharon for the O'Donnells 4

Flannery as Brendan For Halloween



Complete with a bird's egg on her neck, a miniature dagger on the forearm, sideburns, "pink" on her knuckles, boot-cut jeans, cowgirl shirt and boots, wallet on a chain, sunglasses and a small pompadour.

after a month long absence

We are back into blogging all the witty and ridiculous things our daughter says - and a few of the witty and ridiculous things that God does. Like dump 2 feet of wet snow in one night on our little piece of geography. Did we mention that we had a car accident? Amazing what tiny little fragile snow flakes can accomplish regarding the steel framing of a car.
We've had the best Christmas yet and our tree was beautiful. Brendan went and cut it with a friend. Despite the fact that they had to cut the tip of the tree off (it was dead) and that the tree really likes to lean towards the fireplace, it was beautiful. I also didn't put the red/hot pink lights on it this year. Much improved.
Flannery has continued on her path towards ever more precocious verbage. The other day she informed me that she had "slept her eyes out". She also recently told her papa "Don't tease me! I'm fragile!" which I'm sure she heard in a movie or her Auntie Erin taught her or something...
I should mention too that I have decided that the Leap Frog Letter Factory dvd that we got her combined with the dry-erase letters and numbers Priddy Books are also well worth their weight in gold. If you have a preschooler - look em up.
I'll stop talking now and post pictures instead.

and people ask me if I'm a health nut...

Flannery is standing on the couch watching Strawberry Shortcake. She is eating a bag of peanut m&ms (her reward for being sweet at the grocery store). Did I mention that she sings the Strawberry Shortcake theme song? "Straw-bop-bop-a-berry SHORTCAKE!!!!"

Also, Brendan was tasting some coffee the other day and commented that he tasted something he couldn't figure out. Flannery asked for clarification. Brendan responded that there was something bad in his coffee. Flannery wrinkled up her nose and said, "Oh. Spiders." And marched off, satisfied that she had identified that strange taste in her papa's coffee.