Monday Notebook
Shall we kick off the week by catching up on odds and ends that have accumulated? I think we shall. M. took another step towards big-girlhood a week ago when she got her ears pierced. Our rule has always been there will be no piercings until the girls can take care of them themselves. M. seemed ready for that and…
4
Birthday time in our home again. Today L. leaves the easy ways of three-year-oldom behind for the hard-knocks world that is being four. She’s pretty excited. So who is little L. today? She’s a piece of work, I tell you. She has always had a spark about her that delights pretty much everyone she runs into. There’s a glimmer in…
Sisterly Love
Two years ago, when M. was learning to read and write, we came across a notebook with some “Direy” entries in it. My favorite entry read: Dear Direy, C. hit me. Love, M. Now that C. is going through the same learning process, we’re finding fun little notes from her. Like this one that was lying on the floor this morning. Translated for universal…
Suddenly It’s Last Summer
When you really think about it, there are three different days when summer ends. If you have kids in school, there’s the first day of school. There’s the really-real end of summer, which is the date of the autumnal equinox. And then there’s today, the day after Labor Day, which has long been the traditional end of summer. There’s an…
A Quickie
More firsts over the weekend. M. and C. each caught their first fish. Both snagged a blue gill off a dock with a little help from a friend of ours. I didn’t have my camera or phone with me, but I can assure you they were thiiiiiiiiis big! Actually, they were quite small but that didn’t make their joy any…
Stuff
First, yes, another visual change to the blog. If you’ve been checking in during the late evenings over the past week, you may have noticed various changes on each visit. I continued to tweak my initial choice of theme on Squarespace 6. Instead of getting more pleased with my choices, I liked it less and less. So I explored the…
Off They Go
The alarm went off at 6:20. Ten minutes later I was up and rousing the girls. They stumbled downstairs, shoveled some breakfast in, and made their lunch requests. We brushed teeth, put on uniforms, and fixed hair. We loaded backpacks and grabbed bags of school supplies. And then we were off. The 2012-13 school year has begun. The morning went…
All Hail Liberated Man
Finally, a tribute to some real American heroes: the men who stay home with their children. “I sort of take things upon myself,” said Mr. Griffioen, whose family has added a son and moved to Detroit. “I don’t go to the store to buy my kids toys. I make them toys. I do woodworking, leatherworking. I learned all sorts of…
Tubing
Another entry into the list of things the girls did for the first time in the summer of 2012: tubing on a lake. Thanks to some friends, the girls got to go out on a boat over the weekend. M. and C. both got a couple turns on the tube behind the boat. Both had great times. M. was the…
Big Girl Gets Bigger
Today is M.’s eighth birthday. The kid is growing up and beginning to leave the trappings of early childhood behind. Over the weekend, we were in the vicinity of a group of girls I will guess were in the 12-14 range. M. kind of drifted away from the rest of the family and just stared at the party for the…