Frankly...

I can't say enough in praise of our wee ones, of late. They have been achingly hilarious, splendidly spontaneous, incredibly imaginative... And then... There was this:


As I was making dinner on Friday evening, Tomi came in happily from the living room, holding this out to me and saying:

"Mommy, look! It's for you! It's a rabbit in a bat costume!"

Another one for the beloved scrapbooks that Grampa made for them...

Breakfast & Breadsticks

Two great moments from the past few weeks.

1) On the weekend after Tomi got the chicken pox, I decided to make breadsticks from the recipe in Beard on Bread (a wonderful book for all bread-making-lovers, which was a cornerstone of our childhood home and is now becoming one for my boys', too). Tomi and Leo were over the moon when I asked them if they'd like to help cook. The memory of their gleeful laughter, as they pulled and rolled and punched that dough, is still ringing in my ears...

2) And a moment I'd been vaguely dreaming of for the past year or so actually came to pass the other morning, when we were woken up by Tomi's padding into our room, and cooing, "Papa? Est-ce que tu veux du breakfast ?"* In the ensuing bits of conversation, it became clear that he had set the table for breakfast, before rousing his various family members from their slumber. The only thing missing was the coffee (but I ain't about to complain about that)!

* "Daddy, do you want some breakfast?"

Off the Wall & Into the Water

A few from the Peanuts' Gallery:
FYI: Parts of the bat outines were contracted out to the artist's parents. They are currently being investigated for insider dealing.

One in a Million

(voices, calling for change)



I generally don't like adding films/pictures that aren't our own, but there are exceptions to the rule. Thanks, Deb!

It Had to Happen

On the morning of the 24th January, I was slow to wake up. The radio was blaring by the bedside, but my body was glued to the bedsheets. As if from deep within a dream, I heard some padding from the boys' room into the bathroom, and a little voice: "...mosquitos...bites of mosquitos..." and a bigger voice, "...non...attends...?!?!...c'est quoi, ça ?...attends..." After a while, I dragged myself into the bathroom and mumbled, "Chicken pox." The odyssey had begun.

Assia* predicted:
First boy = few pox
Second boy = 14 days later & lots more pox
And so it was.

They were both brave, understanding little bunnies. And then, the medications they can prescribe these days are so much more effective than the stuff they had all those 32 years ago. Tomi slept alot for the first two days. Leo had a fever on the first evening, and was all skittish about the lotion spray. All in all, though, it's been a lot easier going than we feared, even with my having to put my work on hold (again?!), and our feeling a bit shut in.

*Assia & Mohamed are both our friends and the boys' pediatricians