La bohème

Abe was in the children's chorus for Utah Lyric Opera's production of La bohème last week. He did so well. I loved the performances and I was so impressed with the children, running around acting onstage while singing (the quick-tempo Italian lyrics) so beautifully! I was in the children's chorus for Carmen at BYU when I was about his age, and it was such a great experience. I can still remember how exciting it was, dyeing my hair black and getting dressed in my costume, carrying around the little snacks my mom packed for me in my tiny coin purse backstage, and being lifted onto the shoulders of one of the nice BYU students in the last scene. Abraham was really sad to have this be over, and said he hopes he can be in another production soon! I could do without the late nights dragging all the kids down to Provo and back, but I'm so glad he got to participate.

It was cute to see how excited the younger children were to see Abe (Seb went to a performance and Malachi and Daisy saw the dress rehearsal). They're already familiar with much of the music, and even though they probably didn't get half of what was going on, they watched the acting with great interest and laughed sociably at all the jokes. (I asked Seb if he cried when Mimi died, but he said he didn't.) Sebby made his own stage and set with blocks at home later, though he told me his La bohème ended with "everyone going to Disneyland." Sounds good to me!

They are so cute! I love the girls in their ringlets.

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Hudson's Geese

Here is a poem for Valentine's Day: one of my favorite love poems, by Leslie Norris. My favorite lines are these, so magnificently understated: "And what / would he do, the point / of his circling gone?" I love the geometry in there, too: the point, the circle. The careful, analytic precision of it is so incongruous and yet so wrenching. And I also love the surprise in "falling through an air / turned instantly to winter." As if the winter---approaching all the time, surely---had only coalesced into reality in that one moment. 

Leslie Norris used to say he liked to work on a poem until it was so compact that each word was like a brick set tight in a wall; each so sparingly and carefully chosen that the whole poem would collapse without it. I think this poem achieves that perfectly. It speaks with such economy, yet such truth. 

Hudson's Geese
“… I have, from time to time, related some incident of my boyhood, and these are contained in various chapters in The Naturalist in La Plata, Birds and Man, Adventures among Birds …."
—W.H. Hudson, in Far Away And Long Ago 

Hudson tells us of them,
the two migrating geese,
she hurt in the wing
indomitably walking
the length of a continent,
and he wheeling above
calling his distress.
They could not have lived.
Already I see her wing
scraped past the bone
as she drags it through rubble.
A fox, maybe, took her
in his snap jaws. And what
would he do, the point
of his circling gone?
The wilderness of his cry
falling through an air
turned instantly to winter
would warn the guns of him.
If a fowler dropped him,
let it have been quick,
pellets hitting brain
and heart so his weight
came down senseless,
and nothing but his body
to enter the dog's mouth. 

— Leslie Norris

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Lately

Junie loves to walk around the house in Daisy's boots. She is not the first to have this predilection.

Now that they can go by themselves, the boys go sledding about 90% more often than they went when they had to wait for me (and the small ones) to go with them. They looooove sledding.

The girls usually have to be content with pretending to sled.

Junie always has her Baby with her.

Daisy's been wearing some of the dresses I wore when I was a little girl. She looks so cute!

Here's me in that same blue dress (on my birthday?)

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Everyone in this house keeps me laughing.

from Abraham:
"It's a good thing there's no 'self-destruct' button on this car, because I'm sure I'd eventually end up pushing it."

Question in Abe's grammar workbook: "My friends and (I, Me) went to the playground to play."
How he answered it: "My friends went to the playground to play, and I? I took the road less traveled by. And stayed home."


Malachi referred to the balsamic vinegar as "volcanic vinegar."

Ky also talked about getting shots to protect oneself from "Pisces" (meaning rabies).

(Upon entering the bathroom in a hotel lobby): "Oooh! This is a sort of grand bathroom!"

Seb likes to push the shopping cart for me at the store, and he told Malachi and Daisy as they rolled, "You guys are traveling just by inertia . . . and by the laying on of hands."

On the kitchen aisle at Target, he stopped in his tracks and let out an audible gasp. "Oooh, Mommy, look! Zesters!"

He asked, watching a basketball game, "Which teams are versing each other in this game?"

We were talking about the Second Coming of Christ and Sebby said, "Maybe when Jesus comes again, He and Heavenly Father will be standing on top of each other, juggling balls!"

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Ferris wheel, etc.

We went to the new Scheel's store near us on a cold grey day recently. There was hardly anyone there, so we had the Ferris Wheel all to ourselves. It was great fun. I think there are other things to do there also, but we just rode the Ferris Wheel and then walked around and looked at things---big fish tanks, and stuffed elk and moose, and so forth.

Junie was open-mouthed with excitement about the fish

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