dual personalities

It’s Thursday again — and a new month!

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”

I am an annoying person who says “April is the cruellest month” about basically anything regarding the academic calendar (fellowship rejections in graduate school, budget season in administrative life) but outside of work we are certainly enjoying spring — even the rain, which is causing all of the trees to burst into bloom and that unreal shade of green to pop up everywhere.

Katie is close to 10 months old, and I am excited to be in the midst of birthday season in our family. We have some big ones coming up!

The news around here is that Katie has been to a playground and sat in the swing a couple of times. There may have been squealing!

In addition to keeping very good balance in a bucket seat while swinging through the air, Katie also shows her strength while practicing standing. She is getting quite close to pulling herself up, though for now she mostly just pulls into a little kickstand position.

I am confident that before we know it, she’ll be climbing up the walls of her “pen” —

and really getting into trouble.

Speaking of trouble, I had to go to the doctor on Monday about some eye pain — turns out Katie scratched my cornea! You could probably say it’s my own fault for not tending to her nails well enough. She has quite a mean swipe! It isn’t too bad — just a week of eyeball ointment and Zoom meetings with no makeup. Lovely for my vanity, but I forgive her!

*my preferred poem about lilacs, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooyard Bloom’d”