Sugar Coaster

Happy Halloween from Iron Man and Butterfly Girl!

Summer Nights

In case you were wondering what goes on in our house in the evenings...

Last Day of Summer

When the snow-cone stand shuts down for the year, it is officially the last day of summer.  Of course, it is still hotter than 100 degrees Fryinhat outside, so it only means no more snow cones.

Baby Snarl Face

I love this baby.  I love this face he is making.  Love, love, love.

Desi gets tough.

Metri-cute-lation!

Tillie graduated from daycare and started pre-Kindergarten.  This is her first day of elementary school!  I'm a little bit weepy, proud, and nervous.  Fortunately, her bestie from daycare, Gianna, is also in her class, so I know she will have a really fun day.

Cute Crossing

1st-day excitement

Gianna, Tillie, and their teacher Ms. Alonzo

Tiny mortarboards!

First Gallery Show

Tillie proudly displayed an original piece of artwork at the hotel's waffle house.

Natural Historian

Travels

Cousin Canon

Local Flora

Traveling Light

Beach Babes

Tillie and Django went to the beach with Uncle Mike and Auntie Amy. Being knocked over by waves, popping seaweed nodules, digging for sandcrabby thingies, building sand castles, finding shells, chasing the ice cream truck, eating Popsicles, and jumping on Uncle Mike. It was an Adventure!

Treasure Map

Sometimes her drawings blow me away!

Anticipation

Tillie is excited about our trip to California.  She made a list of all the things/places/people she wants to do/visit while we are there.  I'm getting kind of excited too!

"Party" Doesn't Quite Describe It

Yesterday we celebrated Camile at her parents' house.  It was the third birthday party of hers that she did not attend.  Our kids are now old enough to run up the stairs to her bedroom and change out of their wet bathing suits and then race back down for cupcakes.  I wasn't a four year old when I did this, but I was still a child with childlike joys.  Like me, Tillie did enjoy the ever-present, eat-what-you-wish candy bowl filled with "nemanems" (even though she was disappointed to discover that M&Ms are all chocolate, never vanilla).  I miss my friend.  I'm glad we all know what to do on July 10th.

Tough Guy

Screen Time

Sometimes they get along.  Usually it involves a screen.  Is this a bad thing?  Mama guilt overfloweth.

Clowning

My niece Wyley impressed me (and Tillie) a while back by making balloon animals as gifts for the 4- and 5-year-olds at her little sister's, Raphie's, birthday party.  She is not yet 9 and already a delightful party guest!

The hyenas feasting:

Freedom

It is fun to teach your kids to love America by having a day off from school/work, taking them to the movies, eating hot dogs and French fries, drinking delicious beverages, going swimming, lighting sparklers, being brave around loud fireworks, and chasing puppies.

How to Drive a Tractor

Step 1: Hop on board.

Step 2: Engage the clutch and put it in gear.

Step 3: Raise the front loader.

Step 4: Put on your farmer hat.

Step 5: Drive away with farm dog in pursuit.

Step 6: Now it's Salim's turn!

Crack-Ups

These two crack me up!

Desperate Powerlessness

The love I have felt as a parent is one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced.  The despair I have felt from losing a dear friend is one of the most crushing.  I cannot begin to imagine what happens when the two combine.

Two friends lost their baby recently.  This was not a surprise.  They knew before he was born that their time with him would be brief.  Thinking about it has been barely bearable for me.  In part, it is because...well obviously, it is just a truly horrible thing for a little baby to die.  But also, for me, it is hard to bear because my friend Camile would have loved and then mourned this particular baby.  She would have been crushed to hear of his brief life and the deep sadness his grieving mothers felt.  She would have offered them food and flowers and presents and support.  She would have taken some of the burden of their grief and carried it for them.  I can’t stand being reminded that the world is a bleaker, less comforting place for the lack of Camile.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about group grief.  It is a sad, beautiful, complicated organism.  I remember there was an Onion headline soon after 9/11 that said something like “Housewife Doesn’t Know What to Do about Terrorist Attacks So She Bakes a Flag Cake” or something like that.  It was funny.  It was lightheartedly mocking.  But, it was also a completely accurate description of the way I felt.  When horrible things happen to people you care about, you want desperately to undo them or at the very least alleviate them.  But what can you really do?  You do not have the power to reverse time and stop the planes from crashing or make cancer go away or save a baby.  All you can really do is make a flag cake or cook food or order flowers or buy someone the dvds of seasons 1-5 of a fun show.  You do these things with heroic fervor, and so does everyone else around you.  But even as you do them, you realize they are hollow endeavors.  They are like single drops of water in a desert of sorrow.  There are not enough of us to make it better.  We are—even collectively—ineffective.  I felt it all over again with this baby. 

Rest in peace, little Ellis.  There are people who will always love you, and there are people who will always take care of them.

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