Yes, I know it’s May. Sue me.
April started off busy with Easter and Ivan’s birthday nearly back to back. Culinarily speaking, both were successful. I finally learned how to dye eggs naturally with yellow onion skins using this site. The only modifications were that I got the eggs to boil in the dye, then turned off heat and sit for 10 min; cooled both eggs and dye, and placed eggs in dye again overnight. I tried red onion skins, too. The eggs didn’t need an overnight soak, but the color was reddish-brown. See photo below: the left one was dyed in yellow onion skins; the right one, in red onion skins.
I also learned how to roast fresh ham well, using the Coca-Cola brine from Cook’s Illustrated. The brine was a pain – among other things, it called for 1/4 cup of crushed peppercorns and peeled and lightly crushed cloves from 2 heads of garlic – but it was well worth it. And the boys loved their Easter baskets: Peeps, Jelly Bellies, and chocolates from Muth’s in Louisville. They got even more candy from our neighbors, making me wonder when Easter became the new Halloween.
Ivan’s birthday was relatively more relaxing: I only made spinach lasagne, broiled salmon, and apricot-pistachio coffeecake. Of the numerous presents he received, the most popular one was a battery-operated bubble maker:
But probably the best part of Ivan’s birthday was that I scheduled it for Saturday night. Although it was crazy because Nikita has numerous lessons on Saturday, we were able to all relax on Sunday.
As for work, the assignments for classes kept piling on, and at this point of the semester, I was getting really annoyed at having to chase and reschedule students. Thankfully, I was able to finish one (of my four) classes, which gave me more time to do some of the other things I had to do:
- Finish up my study that I will present in a few weeks
- Help organize a scientific conference
- Help organize a luncheon for Teacher Appreciation Day at Nikita's school (this teaches me to volunteer my time!)
- Co-write two proposals for teaching conferences (Google Docs rock)
- Organize jobs for the summer
Back at the house, our DVD player has been on a regular rotation of Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and Bernstein in Rehearsal and Performance: Shostakovich Symphony No.1. Igor’s been a very regular patron of the MIT Music Library, and has now added Bernstein’s sound bites to his repertoire. So has Ivan, come to think of it (Why aren’t you playing forte?). The boys love the operas, and fight over which arias to watch. Ivan, for example, loves Non più andrai when Figaro mocks Cherubino about his military service, but both boys love the Don Giovanni scene where the protagonist kills Commodore. They enjoy reenacting the fight, too, but somehow Ivan always ends up as Commodore.
Nikita has recently been in a drawing phase, but has (thankfully) also been improving on the violin. And although Ivan’s birthday was this month, we’ve bought a number of things for Nikita, including a tournament chess set and clocks, and a “new” piano. The piano is a 30-year old Yamaha U3, completely refurbished (in Japan) to be like new. Our piano inspector was surprised.
I’ve been caught by surprise by the developmental leaps in both boys. Ivan’s vocabulary has greatly expanded - in both languages, of course, although his Russian seems to be better. Ivan still mangles words (e.g., kepich for ketchup; bagama for bumagu – napkin in Russian; Nikita is now Na-tetya) and sentence structure (my favorite still being, “Want to microwave kasha put.”), but his doctor says not to worry. And Nikita seems to have learned how to read, or shown more of a willingness to sound out words. Igor now spends some time in the evenings “reading” Russian with him. I wish I could do the same, but I already supervise his homework for his two instruments (and Igor still supervises Nikita’s chess).
Despite my busy-ness (or perhaps because of it), I actually have some me-time during my commute. I now try to do some needlework in the morning, and read in the afternoon. I learned how to crochet, and started an amigurumi turtle for Nikita. I also finished knitting a baby sweater, whose simplicity was a joy compared to the frustration of creating Nikita’s fair isle Transformer hat (which I have finally set aside for now). I also finished a number of books, including The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Swallows and Amazons, and Lord of the Flies. The last two books were read as a response to the seeming series of mysteries I was reading (the Larsson book being particularly driven by adrenalin).
Finally, despite the craziness of this month, there were few evenings that I will remember fondly: Igor playing chess, the boys peacefully playing together, and me knitting – all with some opera playing in the background.
