Rough-hew them how we will...

We know not what our faithful readers have been doing these ten days past, but we hope the absence of posts has driven none of them to desperation. Last Sunday, of course, was Mother’s Day. Typically, Justin was out the door well before 7 for early morning meetings (having been at last released as executive secretary he is now the ward mission leader; out of the frying pan into the . . . frying pan; “PEC for life!” is another potential motto). Julia, remembering Justin’s heroic efforts to make Lia breakfast in bed last Mother’s Day (which involved, inter alia, putting an Italian sausage to an unwonted matutinal use), quickly reminded her mother what a special day it was. “Mommy!” she cried eagerly. “Make breakfast!” she commanded. “Then you can get back in bed and eat it!” she exuberated.

When Justin finally came back from meetings he ate his own breakfast. This consisted of delicious waffles made by Lia. Eli trotted over, picked out a sizeable waffle square with her tiny hands, merrily stuffed said square into her gaping mouth, then flashed her father a chomping smile. “Sharing can be fun!” she enthused (this truism is also the title of one volume in a commercialized serial of Winnie-the-Pooh books—not, alas, the real A.A. Milne deal).

As Justin shared breakfast with Eli—which sharing was very fun indeed—the Tabernacle Choir (in their compact disk incarnation) began to sing “Abide With Me” in the background. Eli perked up immediately. “This is a BEAUTIFUL Church song!” she declared. Indeed.

Mother’s Day was, on the whole, a disappointment. In the evening the missionaries called upon Justin to help them teach the law of chastity to a troubled soul. He got home just in time to help the girls—who had evidently been quite demanding in the interim—get into bed. Lia looked exhausted, so Justin put her to bed, too. He kissed her softly on the cheek, told her what a magnificent mother she is, and then wished her the best of luck on another 364 days of going utterly unappreciated.

Actually he said no such thing, but our fact-checker has currently gone AWOL. On Monday morning Justin made up for the debacle that was Mother’s Day by doing the dishes and the laundry, taking out the trash, and cleaning the bathroom, toilet and all. Lia, feeling much cheered after a good night’s sleep, took the girls to the Mall where, in a mighty convergence of economizing and persuasion, she convinced the girls that it would be better to buy 80 plain-Jane band aids at an affordable price and then direct some of the saved funds toward the purchase of Dora stickers to accompany the band aids than to buy Dora band aids in the first place and, so doing, empty the familial coffers entirely. The girls conceded the irrefutability of their mother’s reasoning, and Lia beamed with the pride of parsimonious triumph. Returned home and feeling even better about herself, Lia redecorated the living room walls with pictures from our late photo shoot in the Law School courtyard. The result was dazzling, and our collective narcissism now neither knows bounds nor needs mirrors.

On Tuesday, Lia and the girls went to playgroup at Brooksvale Park, where they “saw the animals” (Eli’s report). The girls were most inspired, naturally enough, by the peacocks. Meanwhile Justin slogged through his Business Organizations final, a calamitous enterprise that confirmed the seeric judgment of the witch doctor who pronounced over Justin’s infant body that such a creature had within him nothing of the stuff of the corporate lawyer. Mercifully, Yale law profs are so unutterably laggard with their grades that by the time students receive them they have long since ceased caring—and some of them don’t remember the exams at all.

Wednesday evening we took a family walk down to Edgerton Park—a.k.a. “The Dog Park” (TDP). This was wonderful. The girls love frolicking through the fields of the old English-style estate (home, among other things, to the mounts of the New Haven mounted police). They spend most of their time these days embarking on Dora-style adventures, and the size of the park allows for an augmentation of the scope of their adventures. The greatest of these adventures occurred when Swiper the Fox (Justin), ignored the stentorian injunctions of Dora (Julia) and Boots (Eli) that there be “No swiping!” and pitilessly swiped Back Pack (Lia). Justin tossed Lia over his shoulder (gently, however, with deference to the new baby) and fled from justice while Julia and Eli tagged behind, giggling tremendously as they cried in unison, “Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping!” We are happy to report that justice was served, and Back Pack restored to safety.

On Thursday Lia took the girls to the Stepping Stones children museum. She forgot, alas, to bring the lunches she had packed, and as a result had to buy a trio of granola bars at the iniquitous price of a dollar apiece. The museum featured a “Water Area,” difficult to describe but which essentially allowed the kids to put on water shields and to romp in the water engaging in all those hydrophilic activities forbidden them at home. For Eli, these were the fields of Elysium, and the unbounded joy of her play was matched by the titanic fury of the tantrum she threw when it was brought to an end. Also, in a great display of anti-literary barbarism, the girls insisted on receiving, as a complementary gift from the museum, “The Music Teacher from the Black Lagoon” instead of a much fairer, hard-bound volume of some superior tale. In the evening, the girls (Lia included) went visiting teaching to the home of Clara Suarez, where Julia conquered her fears and actually touched the brobdingnagian beast that is Clara’s dog. Long after the rest of the household had gone to bed, Justin read the final pages of Norman Davies’s massive but marvelous Europe, a one-volume wonder that traces the story of Europe (all of it—Mr. Davies is an incurable Polonophile and an implacable foe of Western-centrism) from pre-history to the Treaty of Maastricht. Justin loved it, and was set all aflame with eagerness for his full-time return to history next fall. He was also glad to disprove Lia’s frequent complaint that he checks out thousands of books and finishes none of them.

On Friday Lia and the girls went to the North Haven library, where Julia entertained her mother with a puppet show—which lacked a plot, but not enthusiasm—and Eli waxed cuter and cuter. In the evening, we all went to the home of Brian, Keely, and Saviah Knudsen for dinner. Brian and Keely are both Texans (though not Texans of the flag-waving, gun-toting, secession-threatening sort), and they favored us with grilled steaks that were not only to die for, but positively to suffer for. We had a wonderful dinner and jovial conversation. The kids were kept at bay by a Dora video. At one point, the DVD skipped, and Julia begged Brian to fix it (Eli first called on Keely with the impolite, but fervent petition, “Hey You! Hey You!”), adding encouragingly, “You’re big enough!” Eli, hearing this, assumed that Brian’s name was “Bigganuff,” and addressed him accordingly for the duration of the evening.

On Saturday we went to a couple of BBQs, the first, at about noon, was the Whitehall (our apartment complex, not the British Parliament) farewell feast and the second, a couple hours later, was hosted by a sister in our ward whose convert daughter was baptized last Sunday. Justin had to leave the second festival first to go take his Civil Law final (he wanted to get this out of the way so he could devote the whole of the following week to the wonders and mysteries of Tax), an experience which forcefully rehabilitated his self regard in the wake of the Biz-Orgs debacle. Because she wasn’t tired enough yet, Lia rearranged the kitchen when she came home. She finds that moving a refrigerator single-handed with obstreperous toddlers swirling about one’s feet is a near cure-all for exhaustion. Everyone was tired when Justin came home. The girls were promptly put to bed, and Justin and Lia enjoyed a quiet evening of cleaning and gospel study, respectively. We are a very happy family; and CFA remains the first blog of the world.