Jack and Jill and Their Mother

There's a story behind this picture, as well as several behinds in this picture. Occasionally I get one of these really bang up ideas that turns out really great in my head but falls short of expectations somewhere between the thought process and the execution of the genius idea. This is one of those. Imagine a picture of the back yard hill with all of it's teeny tiny spring flowers (weeds) blooming and my children and I running hand in hand toward our home in the background. Symbolic of where each of our hearts should yearn to be, this would be a picture for the mantle. So, I position Jake way up the hill so he can get the whole thing in the frame. I take a hand of each child and say, "ready set go!", and we run like mad. Well right before that nostalgia and symbolism garbage kicks in, Lucy loses a shoe and goes down like a rock. I still had a firm grip on her hand so she set my balance off too and all my focus went from "run without falling, try to look graceful, run without falling,try to look graceful, run..." to "don't squash your kid! Don't squash your kid!" Well, those who know me best know that I'm not known for my physical prowess, so much as for the length of my limbs. I start to stagger with all the grace and elegance of a drunken elephant and each step is an intense concentration on not bringing one of my giant size nines crashing into Lucy's head. I'm still dragging her through the grass at this point, and she's yelping, "ooh! oh! no!" Just as my brain is frantically screaming, "let go of the little girl!", Tate decides that running next to me isn't dangerous enough and darts in front of me. At this point, Jake decides to finally push the button, thus capturing forever the grace of Alison and her posterity. These other pictures are just some of the fun from the week.

We are lucky enough to live within very short walking distance of a little road with a small grocery store, post office, dry cleaner, and bank. This is a very tiny cemetery (maybe nine or ten graves) just plopped in the middle of a neighborhood.

That's our garage behind Tate, our house is on the right, and our neighbors garage on the left.

I don't imagine Tate or Lucy will do well on their driver's exam in 11 years.

Jake took this and it would be a perfect picture if it weren't for the giant bruise on her cheek. She ran into the corner of the kids' art desk while fetching a stray crayon.

They're keeping me on my toes!

Well, no time to be bored I guess. We've had an interesting week with Miles. He had a seizure early Friday morning, and since this was his second in two weeks, his doctor sent us immediately to the emergency room. He had a CT scan, which he did very well for. They didn't even have to sedate him, just handed him a pacifier and he was happy as a clam to lay still and hold my finger. They also did some blood tests. These he did NOT lay still for, and the three nurses it took to finally get some blood out of him kept using alternate words for "fat". I suppose they learn this in sensitivity training or something, but it was funny to hear them try and describe why they were having such a hard time. "Your sons foot is just a little too. . . uh. . thick to find a vein." "His arm is so. . . uh. . well padded, that we can't reach the vein." I finally just said, "you mean fat." They nervously glanced at one another and then admitted that "yes, he's very healthy". Well, he finally got sent up to the pediatric part of the hospital where all the nurses and doctors just loved him. I'm sure they mostly get very sick looking and acting kids, so they didn't know quite what to do when Miles kept ripping off the wires from his abdomen and chewing on them. All the tests came back fine so they're sending us for an EEG on Tuesday and an MRI after that. I called my wonderful friend Michelle (a pediatrician) to find out all the things that could be causing this and she gave me a list of "don't want it to be this" and a list of "ok if it's this". We're voting for electrolite imbalance or caused by reflux. I will keep you all posted when I find out anything new. Please remember Miles in your families' prayers.

Brownies are BAD!!!

They say there's no such thing as a bad food, only "sometimes foods". I disagree. Brownies are a very bad food. Sunday is our treat day and my kids take turns picking what the treat of the week will be. Tate's turn is today and I just knew what his choice would be. It's the same thing every time. Girradehli's triple chocolate chip brownies. Now, most sweets I can eat just a little and then turn over the rest of it to my family. As long as I don't see it again, I can resist, even if I know there's more in the house waiting to go to work with Jake tomorrow. Not brownies. If I think there's even a possibility that one tiny crumb remains, I will scour this house from top to bottom like a bloodhound in the Ozarks tracking down a fox. My sniffer goes into overdrive and I cannot be deterred, my mouth watering, my stomach growling. As soon as I find my prey, I cannot stop at just one. Or two. Or three. I will devour each and every fat and sugar filled crumb until the pan is clean. I don't even feel that much remorse. I just float in my brownie stupor until the sugar wears off and I realize I gained 3 pounds in 15 minutes. Brownies are a very bad food.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time in a land far far north of here, there lived a herd of children and a crazy lady. Every so often this crazy lady would feel the urge to throw a party for one of the herd. They would gather to play and graze and peacefully celebrate the joy of just being together. One day, this crazy lady got the urge to celebrate the fifth birthday of the eldest of her herd. Good intentions abounded, but this party was not to turn out as peacefully as those in years past. As the children were playing unaware, that scoundrel,





the Evil Dr. Miles Stromboli plotted a heinous plan. A passel of pirates was his desire and he chuckled as he pictured the ensuing fracas. As soon as the children realized his intentions,





they scattered like cockroaches in the light.





Some of them stopped to make sure they were properly accessorized,





and some even stopped to practice their Kung-Fu.





Then they ran like mad!




Once they thought they were safe in the garage, they stopped to rest. After some time, they thought Dr. Stromboli must surely have given up and gone back to his crib, so they ventured back for birthday cake.




Only the birthday boy suspected the truth. Dr. Stromboli had poisoned the cake in their absence, and sure enough, as soon as they tasted that wonderful chocolate frosting, strange things started to happen.




Perfectly girly little children started saying things like, "Aargh, Matey!" and trading in their tiarras for bandanas.




Little boys who had previously enjoyed perfect eyesight suddenly found themselves in need of patches. They were even overheard ordering one another to "swab the deck" and "walk the plank", and referring to this little boy as Jolly Jacob No Beard.



This poor little girl was nicknamed "Scurvy Lu" as it became apparent that her beard would indeed, not come off.




The older boys tried valiantly to fight off the pirate's curse, but alas, only little George was strong enough.




Even the youngest soon became "Landon the Landlubber" as a full grown mustache sprouted from his lip.




The curse reached even as far as the babies, turning two sweet little angels into hairy little monsters.





The birthday boy seemed to have gotten it the worst, but he was confident that the curse could be reversed. "Don't worry." he said, "It's not fatal!"



He was wrong.




As Tate mourned the loss of Scurvy Lu,



The party goers could all hear the cackles of Dr. Miles Stromboli as he escaped in his bouncy seat. "Bwa-ha-ha!"




And to this day, if you come near the Parker house on a quiet moonlit night, you can hear the ghost of the crazy lady (for this party did her in) wailing, "wipe your feet at the door. . ".

Clean faced Jake, Happy birthday Tate, and King Miles

Here's the proof that Jake finally parted with Sammy. Check out that nice shiny upper lip! And nice pearly white teeth too.

Tate had his 5th birthday last week and is now very grown up. He and I went out to Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast because I'm a fantastic and fun Mother. Really it's because I forgot to buy the frozen waffles he requested for Birthday Breakfast, but we can let him go on believing the other. He'll be disillusioned soon enough. He was very excited to get a whole bunch of camoflauge stuff from his Nana and Grandpa, and his greedy side emerged when he got $5 from the Woolfs. He's hoarding it. He also got a cool flashlight (which he uses in bed at night to make his glow-in-the-dark stars glow) from his Harris cousins. He's got all sorts of camping plans for his Safford Grandpa now. Grandma and Grandpa sent him Muppet Treasure Island and we've only watched it 7 times this week. My favorite part is "roll call".


(Lucy only likes the pink frosting and sprinkles)

Here's Miles in his new bed. He decided the Queen size was for him and traded with Jake and I. The crib isn't so bad for us, it's that darn mobile that gets in the way.


This is one of our drunken and disorderly dinner parties. Lucy's topless (actually, this is her favorite dinner outfit, and she's bottomless too, but luckily you can't see that part.), Miles couldn't find a lampshade for his head, heaven only knows where Tate is, I'm still using a Christmas potholder, and (sorry Mom) there's no napkins on the table. Those wild and crazy Parkers.