Dianthus earns his name

He's been taking steps for some time, but on Saturday I felt I could confidently say that the little man is walking.
If he had my last name instead of the Mister's, he'd have to wait for chess tournaments or palatial construction to earn his name.
*Saturday was two days shy of thirteen months, making him smack dab in the middle of average. As for other milestones, he had his center four teeth as of our house hunting trip in late May. His upper left lateral incisor and his lower left lateral incisor popped through on that trip (at 10 months) and no teeth since. So, for three months he has had six teeth, four on one side and two on the other. It appears that the upper right lateral incisor is on its way in now (to which we hope to attribute much of the recent crankiness), making his teeth timing average to average, two early and two late.

Big wheels keep on turning

I live in a town surrounded by windmills (98 of them, in fact). My walk from my house to day care to campus is entirely in the older (i.e. "has trees") part of town, so I don't see the windmills constantly. I was unaware that they were part of my sense of home until last week. For at least three days, two of them pleasantly windy, all of the windmills were stopped. It disturbed me. I felt off-kilter. There's something surreal and disquieting about looking out at a horizon dominated by stationary windmills as the wind gusts around one's skirt.

The windmills are turning today. All is better.

So it goes with the rest of my life as well. I haven't figured out a time to sit down and post book reviews or how to keep the kitchen clean when opening the dishwasher is a Dianthus magnet, but things are settling down. There's a pile of quizzes to grade, a front yard to make into a flower garden, and blank taupe walls waiting for art to be hung. Nothing is caught up. It will never be. But Dianthus is walking, the Mister and I planned multiple weeknight meals when we went grocery shopping, and we're almost through the hideous chemistry part of the semester. Wheels keep turning.

Image from travelpod.

Much as I like CCR, by the way, the Tina Turner version of Proud Mary is now my favorite. "Big wheel keep on turning, Proud Mary keep on burning. Rollin'. . ."

Someday I'll Move the Mirror

The mirror on the mirror hanging in the master bathroom isn't exactly my style, and, as it happens, the frame hits my reflection right in the eye. Except for the hole for the nail that holds the gilded mirror, the mirror in back is completely sufficient on its own. So why haven't I moved the top mirror in the month that I've lived here?
Because I was waiting until I unpacked the bathroom stuff?
Because I can't move the mirror until we're ready to hang all the art?
Because I had to leave it to show our visitors (The Mister's parents, happy cricket, my parents and Sunflower Spinner four weeks in a row!)?
Because school started?
Because I have a one year old?
Because I'm plain tired?

While the former are all true, the latter is what's getting me.
This is supposed to be a relatively light load. The Mister has cooked dinner every night this week. I haven't done a thing except walk Dianthus to day care, walk to work, work and walk home. And I'm beat. Needing high doses of chocolate kind of beat. "I can't believe classes just started yesterday I'm so worn down" kind of beat.
But I don't plan to bring any work home this weekend. So maybe I'll move the mirror and hang the paintings. Or maybe I'll mow.
Or maybe I'll play with Dianthus and pretend to change my personal style so it fits the gilded mirror on mirror and all of these light fixtures.

Why We Moved, Part II

So the Texas panhandle, northeastern New Mexico and southern Colorado (or western Kansas and eastern Colorado or the Oklahoma panhandle and southwestern Colorado) go on forever, but still, they take less time to cross than eastern Colorado, all of Kansas, all of Missouri and parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky (or Ohio) and West Virginia.
The fourth photo was taken in Colorado about a month ago, the rest were all here in Oklahoma this past weekend.

Why We Moved, Part I

Part II arrives Friday evening.

Climbing

Dianthus is a climber. If there is something he can be on, up, in or through, he will be on, up, in or through it, whether it is stairs, a box, a dishwasher, or a step ladder. Based on comments from people who are around other one year olds, Dianthus is unusually enthusiastic in his climbing.

Heavy Light Reading and Light Light Reading

While venturing across the country, I picked up and read several small books from other people's bookshelves, all of which are recommended for somebody and the last of which, The Good Women of China, you should all take note of.

The Mother of the Mister is a retired school librarian and maintains an intriguing collection of children's* and Young Adult books. I read Ann Martin's A Corner of the Universe and Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff. Both are good. Like so many YA books, both are deceptively light and are actually filled with angst. Both made me cry. A Corner of the Universe felt a bit too light-hearted for the subject matter, but that light-heartedness made it readable as a pleasure novel. Pictures of Hollis Woods made me want to go out and become a foster parent.

From my mother's bookshelf, I picked up a few genuinely light books. I read the last two of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series (first mentioned by me here) by Alexander McCall Smith: The Kalahari Typing School for Men and The Full Cupboard of Life. Correction, I read the fourth and fifth book in the series; it turns out there are now eleven and the series is still growing. The "mysteries" become even less mysterious in these books, but the charming sense of Botswanan pride is still there and the personal entanglements become all the more interesting.

I also grabbed Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters, partially because it had previously been owned by my grandfather. While the mystery itself felt more like a Scooby-Doo episode than a whodoneit (their was a mummy to unmask, after all), I enjoyed the book far more than most of the few modern murder mysteries I've read, mostly because I'm really not into crime scene investigation or murders, and I am into delightful characters. Like Mma Ramostwe of the No. 1 Ladies', Amelia Peabody is an opinionated and sometimes obnoxious joy to spend some time with (Nymeth's review discusses some of the interesting attributes of the contradictory Victorian early feminist narrator). In Crocodile on the Sandbank, Miss Peabody leaves England for Egypt, without male companionship, at the off-the-market old age of thirty-two. C on the S is a great summer read in the classic sit on the beach sense (not that I have ever sat on a beach reading, but I think I could), and while I am not in a hurry to read further installments, I think it is likely that I will.

From my Mother's bookshelf, I also borrowed The Good Women of China by Xinran and translated by Esther Tyldesley. It turns out my mother has not yet read this book; otherwise I'm sure she would have warned me. This is a devastating book. The Good Women of China is similar to YA books in that it is short and uses simple language and then takes on heavy subjects that make one bawl**. Except that this is not fiction and nothing about it feels sensationalized or manipulative. The journalistic tone makes reading the true stories of "normal" women's experiences in China all the more traumatic. I'm reasonably aware of the Cultural Revolution and its effects (I've read Life and Death in Shanghai and Wild Swans and a few other memoirs), but, wow, I wasn't prepared for The Good Women of China. The editing of the stories is excellent. I never noticed the writing, which means it completely serves it purpose for the book. Everyone should read this book. It is so much more than stories of rape, suicide, abuse, denigration and unfulfilled longing. I'm not sure if anyone will want to. It is, in fact, stories of rape, suicide, abuse, denigration and unfulfilled longing. Read it anyway, but read it on a day when you don't need to be cheerful in the evening.

*I also picked up Eats, Shoots & Leaves, the punctuation book by Lynne Truss, off of my father's nightstand. Truss has a special affection for apostrophes and her voice is making me particularly paranoid that whatever spellcheck is on blogger won't accept "children's literature".

**I'm not alone with this. Many of the Amazon reviewers mention their tears and their hopes that these stories weren't really true.