Volume VIII, issue v. May 2012

Charlie's GRANDE Sombrero Cake made from a giant home-made chocolate chip cookie and TWO cakes in the shape of a Barbie skirt. Of course we had to eat it with ice cream to cut the sweetness. 

Cinco de Charlie
Our mercurial cherub turned one this month.  He's still tiny for his age, but he makes up for it in charm. And our charming Charlie has a whole entourage of admirers made up of both relatives and friends telling us how cute he is.  We may be a little biased, but we whole-heartedly agree.

We visited specialists twice this month who took all sorts of blood-tests and sweat-tests and measurement and the verdict seems to be that he is "catching up."  Compared to the grim diagnosis we were looking at in January, the whole thing feels miraculous in a very Mount Moriah-esque way. My Dad asked me if I was going to take the news and run with it and I said, "Well. . . I think I'll take it and walk carefully with it."

The fasting, the prayers, and the comforting words have all helped more than you could know or realize.  Let's just say for now that we are not the same people we were in January.

 As I was combing Charlie's wispy golden threads, I noticed how long the locks were getting right behind his ears.  My memory was jolted by those baby-blues and blond strands of hair, and my mind revisited an episode from those tender TV years when Tom and Jerry were our daily after-school snack. I whooped aloud when I saw the actual image because it was as exactly and as perfectly Charlie as I had remembered it to be. Before I trimmed Charlie's "old man do" I had to capture the two side-by-side to show-off Charlie's doppelganger.

Charlie's newly acquired talent this month is the ability to do what Eric calls "Winkies."  You can't see it, but Eric is winking at Charlie behind the camera.

 On Mother's Day, you get to eat breakfast in bed, girlishly open true treasures like home-made cards and presents created with legumes and pasta and paint, and enforce a dress-code with items like lacy pantaloons and bow-ties just because you can. What a good day!

I started to ask the girls to go and pose for a shot with their Dad, but before I could even focus the camera, I looked up and noticed the configuration on the right.  The shot is unbelievably organic. It was as if two planets had returned to their natural orbit around their sun. The shot on the left was requested, but I got a kick out of the little lift in Marie's leg as she leaned in for the smooch.

While it happened to be Mother's Day that day, EVERY day is Father's Day at our house!

I Beleeve in Sci-ence

I'm not a scientist.  I'm not a genius.  But I am pretty scrapbooky, and since that's what it takes to succeed in the 4th Grade Science Fair arena, I'm all set. I can create images of talking pennies and boys who look like they're sailing off into the scholastic sunset on a literal bottle-rocket even if I can't use the scientific method to help perform, well, actual science.  Basically, I am scientifically useless and creatively priceless.  I can create a darn good party and if that helps my kids pass 4th grade science, well then, keep calm and party on!

Watching the heat "blow" the coin off of the frozen bottle was as exciting in person as it appears to be on film.  We cut the first twenty seconds of anticipatory boredom, but Caleb's signature smirk is better than the actual scientific finale and makes me blush with maternal glee.

I used the same creative philosophy to help Ethan with his history project about Napoleon Dynamite, er, Bonaparte.

Pure Medieval (as in Fruits of the Dieval)

This is a repeat from an earlier note, but I couldn't help but revisit the revelry.

Eve's teacher's note said to dress her in "midevil" clothes for their class play. Now, if I understand correctly, if your basic evil garb is rated on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being dressed as one who cuts people off in traffic or tells you that "you don't look fat in those jeans" while 10 would have her dressed like a terrorist or Hilter, then "mid-evil" should fall smack dab at the halfway mark. So, my question is just how should I have her dress? Like, how evil is too evil? For example, is a Toddler and Tiara mommy too evil or not evil enough? How about OJ Simpson? Is that leaning too far one way or the other? Is it evil like "fru-its of the dev-il" or just evil enough to burn a little? HELP!!