Sounding Barbaric Yawps

I'm too lazy to put these in with the post already written, so I've given explanatory notes to events which may be unidentifiable. Like the first.
Julia pretending to be the gypsy from the song "The Bells of Notre Dame", dead on the steps of the cathedral. This is a daily game, vehement arguments over who will be a running gypsy and who will not attending most renditions.

Learning German with Rosetta stone. Das ist mein Bett. Ich bin auf mein Bett. Ich laufe nicht; Ich laughe.

Baby-sitting for two friends. To think my father had such an abundance of estrogen surrounding him ALL the time! Justin escaped to the library for this.

Katharine at 6 months, a lover of sitting unsupported and eating paper.

A highlight for me from the week just ended was the unexampled privilege of joining forces with the New Haven First Ward Elders Quorum Moving Crew (NHFWEQMC) to help with a half dozen moves in as many days (actually only 5 real moves; the sixth was the responsibility of the irrepressible Brady Pope, whose immense appetite for the lifting of heavy objects was only whetted by the week's endless sequence of moves, and who, in pursuit of further pain, concocted a quixotic scheme to fetch an upright piano—offered for the taking on Craig’s List—in North Haven, return it to New Haven, and then foist it up three flights of stairs and into his living room; thanks to the concerted efforts of six hale and hearty men, but mostly those of the invaluable Brian Knudsen, the piano now rests in the Popes’ palace—aka “The Vatican”—where it will stay forever; Brady had grateful things to say at Brian's funeral later that day).

Another highlight was a “nature walk”—almost rising to the dignity of a hike—we took as a family up York “Mountain” in Hamden. Lia had been aching to flee urban life, and as we entered the woods I satirized her longings for liberation with an effusion of Wordsworthian apostrophes: “O wooded glen! O mighty oaks and warbling birds! Winged harbingers of freedom! Sworn enemies of the Urban Tyrant! O brookes and rills and shaded alcoves! O blessed emancipation from the shackles of urbanity, the crowded mass of humankind gone astray! Hear all, my rough barbaric yawp!” Lia humored me with a forced laugh. Julia was less gentle. “Daddy, stop talking,” she grumbled.

It was a nice walk/hike. Lia carried on her back Katharine in a contraption designed for the purpose. Katharine rode in easy style, a contented Cleopatra. On the way back Katharine’s pacifier fell from her mouth and plopped into a brooke below. Lia rescued the pacifier; Julia thought the episode immensely funny. Eli was a trooper, but she soon trooped out and spent most of the outing on my shoulders. Julia, perforce, made the entire trek on her own, doing a prodigious amount of talking but little complaining. The girls were all very cute, especially when we stopped for lunch and Julia and Eli shared a log and some fruit snacks. Most of all, we basked in the moral purification of nature and were grateful for the handiwork of nature’s God.

Other highlights of the week included a birthday shindig—not quite a party—for Brady Pope, who turned 29 on Thursday (was the piano episode really his way of shouting to the fates that he’s not thirty yet?); an all out birthday jamboree on Saturday for Oscare Valle, who turned 1, and whose festivities—attended by Lia and the girls while I contributed to yet another move—lasted nearly five hours and attracted more than fifty guests, including a bilingual clown (Julia and Eli came home very dirty but very happy—perhaps happy because dirty); and the receipt (this was actually last week) of a birthday/Christmas package from Aunt Caci containing Swedish Fish for me, “whimsical” (Caci’s term) slippers for Lia, and cupcake scarves (made by Caci herself) and a princess beauty set for the big girls, and dresses for Katharine. Additionally, Julia sent out her first four emails today—personally-typed missives to each of her grandparents—and was not shy about her achievements. “I wrote four emails in one day,” she bragged to our dinner guest, Whitney Pope (Brady’s at a friend’s wedding in Utah), “can you believe it?” Collings Family Adventures may soon be featuring posts from a very junior editor. In any case, she may already, at two words a minute, type faster than her maternal grandfather, though she cannot yet—like certain illustrious persons known to her Opa—type without looking at the keys.

Pictures to come.