The Sunday Evening Post, 19

Or, it's a whirl.

Do you ever wonder what your memories would be if it weren't for photographs to give place to them? I think my kids will be able to remember things much younger because we have pictures to remind them. I also frequently think about my ancestors and what they recall of their children's faces. It's easy for me to think of Isaac as a baby because I can see a certain photograph in my mind. Anyway, our little sweet something is two. Make that, our little something is two.

The only time I hope to ever see smoke effects coming out of his nose. "Again!" is a well used word in our house. Those were hard working candles.

Each present was like a pot of gold. I think we spent $7 total on his gifts. A pack of gum (GUM!!! MINE!!!), a Thomas the Train book from Goodwill (Tchoo Tchoo!!!!! ME!), a lock puzzle board thing (Whoa. ME!), a pack of pencils with balls on the me (BALLS! WHOA! ME!!!!), a Thomas the Train movie (the biggest "TCHOO TCHOO" ME!!!!!!!).
It's worth noting the pack of gum was gone by 7 am this morning. I can see exploding seagulls in my head...

Whenever my kids have a birthday I can't help but think of all the other kids who were born about the same time as them, and equally about the women I pregnant with. Happy birthday in the next little bit to Alyssa, Dylan, and Armour---and here' to you Meg, Melissa, and Beckee!

Natalie has been cursed with my soft voice and being four and a chatterbox about everything in the world and then some. Poor thing. It's a whole lot of talking that I can't catch. I'm trying to perfect the fine art of "Uh hun" and filter out what I can. Any conversation in the car goes out the window with her. Not so unlike the scene from Little Mermaid every day over and over:
Flounder (Natalie): "And whoa and arg, and the shark and ..................."
Ariel and King Triton (me):
Flounder (Natalie): "And then the seagull came and it was this is this and that is that..."
King Triton: "Seagull...seagull?"
All it takes is one word.
This is her first ponytail. She's being waiting for the official day of having long enough hair for one. A sure sign of growing up.

This is his I'm-so-happy-to-be-in-a-tree-with-my-mom-she-has-a-death-grip-on-my-legs look. Really, so happy.

Spiiiike. Way into his fingers and everything a normal baby does like cooing and being just gloriously adorable. Love babies.

A few other things.

I almost burned my kitchen up by leaving something on the stove. On high. I think I will be scrubbing my kitchen ceiling and cupboards and walls for a few more days. You know that pink stuff you chew that shows where you didn't brush well enough? Smoke is like that. It's caught into all the smudges, cobwebs, and grease tops of my cupboards (it is a kitchen folks). It's just everywhere and I'm seeing how clean my kitchen wasn't. Just grateful for two things:
A) Natalie was just standing there in shock next to the stove when I came in the kitchen and didn't try to do anything herself to fix it, and
B) I got there when I did. I was outside and could smell something burning and thought the neighbors must be cooking. Ironic. The Spirit pretty much shoved me and I went back inside the house.
A few more moments and something big, like a wall, would have caught. Maybe that's dramatic, but I kinda don't think so.


Breaking Dawn comes out this week. Don't pretend it's not on your calendar secretly marked as "Go shopping for butter." At midnight. When I was in high school every February the entire school filled out a questionnaire, then your answers were scored or something with everyone else's in the school and then on Valentines Day you could buy a little card that told you who your best match was. Did you ever do that? It was the most fun $2 you could spend in high school on valentines. Personally, I think Bella, Edward and Jacob should just do that. Solve all their problems. No really though, (don't finish this if you want want to read my prediction and I should also say I haven't read anything else about it so if you also have the same prediction or heard otherwise, okay, well, this is just from my brain) all signs point to Edward becoming human again. At a cost. I'm really curious how she's going to resolve the whole SOUL thing. Next subject.


I read the Book Thief by Markus Zusak this week. The Holocaust has been pretty highly documented, don't you think? So when a good friend gave me this book to read my initial thought was, "another Holocaust book" and don't get me wrong, I find the subject endless fascinating, I just wasn't prepared for this take and I complicatedly loved it. I had to re-read the first chapter twice to make sense of the narrator. I've never felt such a loss over a fictional character before. My heart just aches, still, for Rudy. I really enjoyed the author's writing. It is quite visual both graphically and literarily (is that a word? spell check says it's not).


Also read the Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. Not as good as Woman in White also by Collins. Nothing quite will be as far as suspense goes. It was a great read though. This book is the original detective book. Supposedly all others, including Sherlock Holmes, is patterned somewhat from it.

Whew. I should head to bed. I so love sleep.