Pirogi and a Wingback

Caleb's digestion has not calmed down entirely, so for the first time ever in my parenting, I find myself up at 4am and then simply awake. He only fussed for perhaps an hour this morning, but I'm not used to my babies fussing. That's the third time in the last week that I've had about four hours of sleep, and then just a nap later in the day. There are a few hours where I feel the brain fog, but the rest of the time, I'm oddly awake. I doubt this state of high energy can last long, but for the moment, I'll enjoy the extra few hours a day of productivity. There's certainly enough to do!

The boys helped Phil castrate a calf this morning. Of the two babies born last week, one was female and one was male. Were four boys necessary? I doubt it. But they were eager to help.

I have been looking for a loveseat for six months. A sofa is too long for the space (not to mention a full set!), but a loveseat should work well. There has been nothing that has caught my eye, so on President's Day Phil and I finally decided to go shopping. (The many inches of unmelted snow meant that little would happen around the farm anyway. It was a good day to get out.) I don't think I'd ever been to a furniture store before, usually preferring hand-me-downs or Craigslist finds, but it was quite fun.

Perhaps my favorite moment was when Abraham looked at a wingback chair and said, "Look! That's what Tristan would fall asleep in!" We've been reading James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small as we drive around town, and one of the characters did, indeed, fall asleep in a wingback chair. At the time, I don't know that the boys had ever seen such a chair in real life, so I'm pleased that our verbal description carried over into real life.

Home again, I made lasagna for the first time in Virginia. Sadly, I was also making Pad Thai for a late lunch, and by dividing my attention that way, I managed to overcook the noodles for both dishes. My frustration with both semi-ruined meals and the incredible number of dirty dishes was soothed by Phil voluntarily cleaning the dishes. It was the worst night for it yet, but he pressed through.

While eating dinner, Phil wondered aloud if it is difficult to make ravioli. The boys didn't know what that was, so we tried to explain, eventually coming up with something like, "It's like a dumpling with the flavors of lasagna."

Then Phil got a faraway expression and said, "Oh! Hmm."

"We could probably figure out a way to do it," I said.

"Do you think so?"

This exchange seemed so natural to him that he wasn't aware that I'd read his mind until I pointed out that I knew he was talking about making pirogis (a Russian dumpling) based solely on his expression and the general subject matter. Then he was quite impressed.

Speaking of food, Joe created a little set up with his stuffed animals. The large gorilla is eating multi-colored spaghetti. The tiger is eating a vanilla ice cream cone. And the little black gorilla on the end has a bowl of friend monkeys.

Today Phil designed built-in bookshelves and calculated and designed the trim for windows and doors. That is the next step. And he went up to do a major shopping trip. I think he figured he needed 42 8' sections of wood just to trim out the doors and windows! Add to that the baseboards and the crown molding: that's a major haul.