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

Oh ! La vache ! (part 2)

The project that included my book, Oh! La vache! was awarded first prize by La main à la pâte, an organization which was begun and is presided over by George Charpak (Nobel Prize, Physics, 1992) in order to promote the sciences in schools.

To receive the award, we took 16 of the children who had participated in the project to (the French Academy of Sciences, in) Paris for a day. It was exhausting, but exhilarating. And the experience has definitely given me the impetus I needed for a couple of other projects I've been working on.

In other words: Back to the drawing board!

Beginnings (Xmas 2007)

This blog post is so long in coming, so I'll keep the comments short and rely on the pictures to convey the happy times we spent back home with Gramma, Grampa, Auntie Ellen, Cousin Gretchen and a number of the members of our beloved extended family and friends. It was, indeed, a happy time all around, and a cold and snowy one, to boot. We arrived at O'Hare in the middle of a blizzard. The boys first saw the, "SNOW! (MOMMY! LOOK!)" and then their "GRAMMA! GRAMPA! (WE ARE HE-E-E-RE!)" and then they settled into sleep in the car as we adults bit our nails and blocked out as best we could the ever-increasing numbers of cars and semis in the ditches along I-80. But then, we were HOME! and the fun could begin...


Below: All but the sleeping boys participate in the Xmas decorating, each in their own way - heh! heh!

The Worm (Re)Turns!

Ellen and Gretchen and I had a lovely drive up to Chicago, where we spent the afternoon with hilarious little Henry and Betsy - and her ever-growing belly! Even got a moment or two with Papa Pete. We were sorry to leave the warmth and welcome of their household, and put it off as long as possible. But Jean-Philippe's lovin' arms were awaiting us at O'Hare...

...and the fog was awaiting us Out There. Another hairy ride towards home put us directly in harm's way, and found us holing up in a seedy motel for the night. Yikes!
The boys had spent several heartbroken days and nights, wondering if their daddy was ever going to join us again, so they were overjoyed when he not only walked through the door, but... he brought Teddy and Wormy with him! A joyful reunion, indeed!

Xmas Bells and Boots

We were happy that the hard weather couldn't discourage the family members who'd planned to join us for the festivities, as well as the turkey that my cousin Arnie had nourished all last year, in preparation for such a meeting. (Unfortunately, there were quite a few days when the camera didn't even come out, so I have no pictures of Uncle Dale's visit, for example. Or Jean and her boys. Or, or... Shucks. Well, I did manage to get a few good ones of the Hogan-Sveningsen visit, below. Whew!) There was much good cheer, to be sure!

The gang's all beered! (excepting the chillins, who were milk-and-cidered)

Left: Great-Gramma & ze boys ("She's GREAT!" "Yes, she is!" "YEAH! GREAT-GRAMMA IS I LIKE HER, BECAUSE SHE'S GREAT!")
Right: Buzz mesmerises the boys. Again. And again. And...

The boys were little angels all Xmas day, beginning with their unwitting help in making one of their Grandmother's oldest wishes come true: a morning-long opening of gifts, with little or no 'tacking and alot of appreciating. Opening the Spider-Man fun kits their great-aunt Kathy sent them first certainly helped the boys in this (albeit, as I mentioned, unwitting) endeavor to please Gramammy, of course...

Above: Tradition! on the night before and the morning of...

Below: Wishes coming true. And Barb being snea-eaky...

Xmas Day was one of the most beautiful I've seen in all my life. Perfect weather for a chilly, snowy scramble about the neighbourhood, followed by fortress-making, followed by warm things to eat and drink, followed by the longest hand - ever - of Zombie Fluxx, followed by a good winter night's deep sleep.

All is Calm, All is Bright

The post-Xmas days were just what we needed to end the year: calm and gorgeous. The stress of the year gone by melted away, even as we found ourselves in the midst of the political storm that is pre-causus season in Iowa. The boys were treated to everything they could be treated to by their lovin' grandparents, the big 'uns got to see some old friends, and we were all very sorry to know that this utopian state of things wasn't going to last forever.



Oh, and did I mention already that we not only saw 2.5 presidential candidates "in ze flesh", but that I also had something like an epiphany as I shook Obama's hand? No joke. At the risk of sounding apostolic (or drugged), it was a very moving experience. What was perhaps most incredible was that I actually had this long and utterly peaceful moment as I shook his hand, during which I was able to say everything that I meant to say, hear everything he said in response, turn around... and only then did my knees begin to buckle. I've shaken hands and/or spoken with many people I admire, for one reason or another, but never had this kind of experience.



A funny story: The boys are still trying to figure out what titles really mean, in family and otherwise. Even tonight (23 January, folks. Ugh) at supper, the boys were plying us with questions, and supplying their own, now well-rehersed answers (as in: their daddy is my daddy, we are their grandparents' parents, and so on). We do our best. But they're still so wee. Sometimes I lose sight of this for a moment or six.

So anyway: One day, I was making the bed (HA! It's TRUE!) in our room, when Tomi padded down the hall and sat on the top step, yelling, "MO-O-O-OM!" to which I turned and answered, "Yes, honey?" He looked over and up at me, cocked his head and said, "No, I mean the other Mom!" Me: "You mean Gramma?" Tomi: "..." Me: "See, bunny... your gramma's my mom, but she's your grandma." Tomi: (raises his shoulders, hesitates...) "GRANDMA-MOM!"

Adieu, 2007!

The last two days equalled more brilliant winter weather, more calm good times... A great way to start the newest year. But we couldn't just end it on that bright note, now, could we?

So I ended our trip with a horrendous, terrifying ear infection, compounded by severe angina and other problems, all of which started the night before we left, and which made the trip home so devastatingly painful that I really didn't know if I was going to make it. Actually, I'm not certain that I would have, had my dad's quick thinking not brought me to the able hands that hover over Mark Smith's Shiatsu table the next morning. Even with this help, though, the pain was unbearable. Having (at last! at last!) got home and got the luggage and the boys upstairs, I raced (read: moved as quickly as I could) down the street to the doctor, who was absolutely appalled at what he saw. While Jean-Philippe went to fill the prescriptions, I settled uneasily into bed, and didn't really wake up again for 72 hours, except to (very painfully) swallow medications and change positions. Didn't eat for four days, actually, aside from a tiny bun that I forced down for a half an hour one night, in order to be sure that my meds would stay down. Even now, the thought of all of that makes me shudder... Oh! And we almost got kicked off the plane, because I realised at the last second that my insulin case had fallen out of my bag as we were driving to Chicago. At the very last second, I found a bottle of Humulin that I thought I'd put in the baggage we'd checked in. Who knows if we'd've made it, had they kicked us off the plane? What a thought. Enough of that, though.

Most importantly: Many many many thanks and best wishes to all of our friends and family whose company we were able to enjoy over those couple of weeks. The truth is, that the lack of digital images of y'all attests very simply to the fact that we were so intent upon and happy being with you. It may sound corny, but I'm very serious. And the wonderful times we had were worth the lack of images, to be sure. Such beauty, such joy...

And special thanks to Mark Smith, and to my parents, without whom...

And to all of you, near and far: We wish you a very VERY wonderful newest of years, filled with family and friends, good times and great cheer.

And should hard times befall you, remember, and sing along with Tomi and Vic and me: "You are... never alone...!"

Wormy Update

So... I spoke with Mom & Dad (Gramma & Grampa) yesterday, as they fumbled about in the candle-lit dark, thanks to a power outage that the ice storm caused. Among other things, they mentioned that Wormy, Jr. had arrived, but that they didn't think he looked quite like the Wormy we knew and loved so well. We'll see...

So today, I told Leo that Father Christmas thought he might have found his Wormy, and that he'd fixed up the Wormy he'd found and dropped him off at Gramma & Grampa's house. I thought I was being very cautiously subtle; that he wouldn't get the fact that I was trying to avoid the Utter Lie; that he would appreciate the note I was adding without knowing exactly what that note meant. Leo got teary eyed again, though, and sobbed:

"No... It's not going be MY Wormy! WHERE is MY Wormy?! He's not anywhere! He's los' an' I can't find him! Father Kiss-muss didn't find him, too!"

I tried to assure him that I thought it WAS his Wormy, but that he shouldn't be surprised when he saw him, because of the fixin' up and all. He wanted to believe me; he tried to believe me; he gave into the need to believe, at least a little...

Leo needed to cuddle after all of the emotion. And Tomi came in to explain it all to him again (I love it when they do this, as though things are better coming from them than from their parents. Which may be true, after all...) and give him a pat on the shoulder...

p.s. Mark, I haven't yet seen Knuffle Bunny, but I love Mo Willems' Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, so it shouldn't be long...

It's Little Moments Like These...

So... we realised tonight that Wormy* was gone for good. Which made for a very sad bedtime, indeed. Leo was unconsolable; Tomi was squirmy, not quite sure how to show his feelings; Mommy and Papa were not quite sure how to proceed, except to keep looking and hoping and offering consolation...

June 2006 - Image With Wormy

And then (and please remember that I'd done such a search some months back, when it seemed as though we'd lost the little guy, and come up with fifty times nothing), what to my wondering eyes?! I FOUND IT! On Amazon. I squealed, "JEAN-PHILIPPE! LOOK!" And suddenly, two little boys were streaking out of their beds to see what I'd found. But it was, "Out! Back! Get back to bed!" with them, and then: click! click! pay! send!

And after this, a tiny, sad little voice from the boys' room, "I want a song!" It was Tomi, who could hear me singing, "You are never alone..." This is his favourite song, ever since he heard me singing it one morning, and came in with a curious expression on his face, asking, "It's from where, that song?" I said it was Vic Chesnutt's, and he said, "But it's from where?" After a bit of gesturing, eventually towards the stereo, I realised that he was asking which CD it came from. He liked the (Vic) Chesnutt idea, but he wanted to hear it. So I put it on, and we danced and sang and I tell yeh... he's goo-ood!

Anyway, he wanted a song tonight. So I got the guitar out, sat down, and started playing a little accoustic ditty I've been working on, despite Tomi's protests (because it wasn't The Song. But I don't yet know how to play it, and anyway, it was pretty clear that the tyke wouldn't last the song out, regardless which song it was). And very soon, there was silence from his side of the room... And so... After a while, I started winding up my wee work in progress. And when I was done, Leo stopped fiddling with his little Transformer, sighed, and said, "That was very beautiful!"

And the point of this story is not that it was or that it wasn't. It's that it's little moments like these...

And this: I thanked Leo for his kind kind words, gave him a kiss, and suggested the following scenario to him...

"I'm going to write a little letter to Father Christmas tonight, and ask him to keep an eye out for Wormy as he does his nightly rounds of the world's post office boxes. Because you know, Father Christmas sees lots of things that we don't see, and sometimes he finds a missing toy, and sometimes he even has time to fix the toy up a little, make it look like new!"

Leo: Oh-ho-ho-ho! Me: And so maybe he can put the little stuffing-balls back in...  Leo: ALL of them! The LOTS of them that fell out! Me: Yes, ALL of them, even! ...and even maybe sew up the holes from which the balls were falling out!  Leo: OH! Ye-e-e-es! Me: And then he could wash him up and maybe even put some new antennae on him!  Leo: And he could put new colours on him, too! Me: What a good idea! He was missing alot of his colours, wasn't he? Leo: Yeah, but Father Christmas has new colours an' he puts them on an' Wormy will be beautiful! An'...

And suddenly, his lip began to quiver, his eyes began to well up, and he sunk back into his pillow, wailing, "But I want my SAME Wormy!"

I did my best to reassure him that it would be the same Wormy, only with a make-over. I think he believed me. Sort of. But you know... I also think he didn't. But that he appreciated the effort.

We shall see, when he and found-and-repaired-by-Father-Christmas-Wormy meet up at Gamma-Gampa's house... In nine days!

Ya-a-a-a-a-ay!

* For those who missed the earlier episodes: Wormy and Eddie Lizard were gifts from our friends, Ina and Jerry, on the boys' first birthday. After a throne-sharing period of several months, Wormy eventually usurped the throne that (Aunt Peg's) Goo-Goo (Bear) had occupied, and became King Wormy in Leo's Little Guy World. He has occupied this position ever since, though Goo-Goo retains a special place in Leo's heart that is especially apparent when Wormy goes missing.

Our Two Little Big Joys

They're four! And they're over the moon! And so are we...

Jean-Philippe took the day off yesterday, and we spent the afternoon at le Vaisseau (a children's science museum, of sorts), where we had a fabulous time all around (and despite we parents' being awfully sick). Forgot the camera, unfortunately. But here's a wee anecdote:

As we left le Vaisseau, the boys asked if they could each buy two of the teeny-tiny packets of gummy bears the museum shop offers. We said yes, gave them each one of the two packets, and promised them the second one when we got to the tram. But we hadn't anticipated the long way to the tram that we'd picked (because we hadn't yet been on this part of the new line), and so there was this hilarious exchange, wherein the boys claimed that there was no tram "this way," and we bet them the second packet of gummies that there was, and they lost, but we were "nice" about it, and by this time we were walking along the tram line, but it was still a ways to go to the next stop, and Leo couldn't take it any longer, so he slumped his shoulders and refused to move any further, and I walked back to him, smiling slyly and dangling the bag with the gummies, and his head sunk further into his shoulders as his smile spread, and when I got to him, he said (indicating that he understood that he could only eat them once he'd got himself to the tram stop), "But I can hold them, okay?" I willingly gave in. And he held them carefully in front of him in their little white paper sack - as though they were small, precious jewels in a velvet bag - until we'd all got to the tram.

I went to get the groceries necessary for their now-traditional birthday meal (lasagne, which we had this year with fresh-from-the-farm, amazing roquette salad. You don't even need dressing with these leaves! Mmmm...), while Jean-Philippe took the boys to pick out their birthday dessert: chocolate eclairs (their current dessert-y fave). We met up again along the way home, and I began dinner preparations while Jean-Philippe and the boys settled down to watch Spider-Man and get hungry.

After dinner, there was the usual, traditional fanfare (though the cake was decidedly un-trad, but what can you do? We've been so sick these past couple of weeks, and the thought of making birthday cake three times this week just didn't give un any more energy than the little we already didn't exactly have):


And the boys' gift wishes were more than a little satisfied:


A funny moment: Just as the boys began digging into their prezzies (starting with the talking superhero cards from Gramma & Grampa), Leo realised he needed to go to the toilet. Tomi opened his as we waited, and was absolutely delighted. He (and I) kept urging Leo to finish up and get back to the table to open his, but Leo's system wasn't having any of it. After a while, Leo called out to Tomi that he could open the other card for him. Tomi was kind enough, though, to take the card in to Leo and let him do the honours himself. A really funny family bathroom scene followed. I'll try to get one of the mini films up in the next few days...

Before they went to bed, Leo asked us to remove his cape. I carefully laid it over the guard rail, but he smiled, slipped his hands out from under his covers and pulled it back under with him, saying, "I don't want to leave it there, because the monsters can get it." Have I mentioned the scenario that Monsters & Co. has put in their heads? They refer to the idea in mostly amusing ways, but still...

This morning, the boys' usual first words ("Mommy, you can make us some breakfast?" or "Papa, tu peux nous faire du 'breakfast' ?") were replaced by squeals of glee, as they rushed into the living room to take a gander at the loot from the night before. Leo walked into our bedroom, asking, "Je peux regarder le Tomi film ?"* and concentrating his gaze on the Cars DVD in his hands. The answer, of course, was, "No, it's time to get ready for school!" We had to work to get the Bat Boys into their Normal Kid clothes, but it was pretty humorous work, and well worth it.

Well... to sum up a lot of thoughts, etcetera, on the subject(s), and at the risk of sounding like nearly every other mom in the world: 

Our little ones become more and more delightful with each passing day. And every night, as I re-check on them before I lay my head down on my own pillow, the butterflies flutter a bit in my tum and I think, "What beauty. What joy." And this, even on the Very Tired Mom days. Or perhaps even especially on those days...

* "Can I watch Tomi's film?" Tomi had opened up Cars, and Leo had opened up Peter Pan, so even though we explained that they were both both of theirs, well...

It's Snowing (and Spiderman) Again

Before I sit down to some illustrating, today, I feel bound to blog (yet again) about the weather.

It's been snowing in little flurry-bursts for almost 24 hours, now.

Yesterday, after a morning spent at some friends' house (the boys and ours - a swank family, met through a common interest and social obligation: the schooling of children), we walked back the short way home, through the wet drippings from the cold, grey sky. It was strangely lovely.

We passed a parked car with Belgian license plates. Hunks of snow still clung to the bumper. The boys and I saw it at the same time; Leo pointed and cried, "It's snow!" and Tomi called out, hopefully, "It's going to be Christmas-time, Mommy?!" I remarked to myself that the weatherman had been spot-on for days, now - perhaps the longest stretch, ever.

Back at home, we had a light lunch and were pottering around, when - lo and behold! - the raindrops began magically transforming themselves into snowdrops. And then... snowflakes! The boys were thrilled. Tomi asked again, with hope ever present in his little voice, "There's going to be presents, now?!" If you haven't noticed, our boys have recently become keenly aware of the gift-giving that certain "special days" entail.

Speaking of which: their birthday is coming up quickly - though not quickly enough for them, it would seem.

My boys (especially Tomi) have gone utterly over the top about Spider-Man (which is how we're forced to spell it, now). When we asked them what they'd like for their birthday, Tomi blurted out, "SPIDER-MAN! An' black Spider-man an' red Spider-Man an' Spider-Man car an'..." Somewhere in the litany, Leo joined in with, "LOTS OF! Spider-Man things!"* And so on...

So. The other night, Tomi was softly but insistently crying in his bed (Leo had already fallen asleep). I thought he was saying, "I want sump-ting (to) eat," but when I went in to investigate, he was saying, "I want my birt-day (to) be here!" He was so excited about the prospect of getting a Spider-Man thing, that it was driving him to tears! We had a long, quiet talk, and things seemed to calm down. He got to sleep, anyway. But then, there were Spider-Man-obsessive sketches all last weekend, too (some were REALLY funny)... And Bat Man. But especially Spider-Man. Oh-yé!
Oh, and two days ago, Tomi came into the kitchen (where I was preparing dinner, which is when the boys have ample time to get into all of the things that they can't when I'm in the living-etc-room with them) sporting my boa-like scarf and black leather gloves, smiling slyly and saying, "Mommy, look! I'm Bat Cat! I have griffes!" (Bat Cat is their name for Cat Woman and 'griffes' is French for claws.)

*Leo is also really into Spider- and Bat Man everything. But he's got an obsession all his own, which stems almost certainly from his love of theatrics. To wit: princess things. Every time they go to Felix and Eliza's house, Tomi makes a bee-line for the superhero outfits; and although he's more than happy to participate in all of that, Leo waits until Eliza's princess accoutrements have been shed... and then he surreptitiously dons it all himself.

p.s. Felix and Eliza recently moved house. The Spider-Man pictures are from just before the move, and the Princess pictures are from a few days after the move. There are many other really cute pictures (of kids and adults alike) from both gatherings of friends, but since work is calling, I'm going to have to post them later...

Ich bin... erstaunt.

Above: the boys on their first day of school (two months ago -- I know, I know. This post was actually begun on the 6th of September ( !! )). In the first picture, they are blocking our way out the front door. I chose the second picture, not because it was the best of the four, but because the two together show two sides of the boys' elfish-ness. & the word "elfish" is one that characterizes my boys perfectly...

This year, the boys are in the French-German bilingual section of their pre-school. At the parent-teacher meeting at the end of last year, the director and the teachers gave us lots of information about how things work, etcetera, including this mini-warning: "DO NOT expect your kids to come home spouting German right off the bat. Some kids won't speak a word of German in front of their parents for several years, even. There is no reason to be worried about their progress until a teacher has a word with (the parents) about it..." Since our boys never told us any more than that they'd "eated," "played" and "painted" at school last year, we weren't expecting anything like instant results. So you can imagine our shock when, at dinner after the third day of school, THIS conversation took place:

Papa: So, guys, what did you do at school today?
Leo: Umm... I painted!
Papa: What did you paint?
Leo: Monsters!
Tomi: Yeah, me too! An' a rabbit!
Papa: Did you learn any German today? (He looked across the table at Leo and said) For instance, "Ich heiße Leo?"
Leo: ...
Tomi: Ich heiße Tomi!
Mom & Papa : (Exchange shocked expressions)

A couple of evenings later, again at table, having been asked a similar question, Tomi smiled, looked sweetly over at us, and said, "Ich bin eine Mädchen!" We laughed and laughed and asked if he didn't mean 'ein Junge,' to which he replied, "Non, eine Mädchen!" And then the boys began laughing uncontrollably, yelling, "Mädchen, Mädchen! Eine Mädchen!" and so on...

Sheesh!

Okay, so... my blogging has gone by the wayside. I keep telling myself that I should just blog about the daily & little stuff, but then big things happen and celebrations and so on, and (these days) it takes me so long to get around to even looking at the pictures, that by the time blogging about it all (or any of it) is possible, the thing(s) is (are) already old news...

Anyway! Alot's been happening. And since I don't have any idea where I could begin to begin, I will do so with a picture and a few words for somebody very dear to me:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRAMMA! I can't wait to see you next, hopefully at Xmas time. It's been more than two years, and that is far-far-far too long...

FYI: this picture was taken a bit more than 22 years ago - though I remember taking it, and it seems like it was done so "only yesterday," as we say... My Gramma was almost exactly the same age that my mom is today; and my mom was exactly the same age as I am today... Whoa. Gramma & Great-Gramma were down around (maybe for?) Anne's birthday, as you can tell from the hanging, woven hearts above their heads, which we put up every year in February. Dad was beginning his career as a bookbinder. David (not shown, here) and I were teenagers. The Little Girls were still little. And now, we three girls are all grown up and bringing up families of our own! The more I think about it, the more my head spins...

YEA-EAH!

Welcome to this side of the placenta, little Gretchen Leigh!
And a big round of applause and back thumps and chin ticklings and congratualtions to her adoring parents, Ellen & Donnie. What joy!

p.s. I'd've given you a better look at her blue eyes and dimpled chin and all, but I promised to wait for that until the reception of an officially bloggable photo (i.e, on e that has the stamp of parental approval).
Stay tuned!

Little Big & Funny Moments

(07 September)

Today, Tomi came running over to me, holding out a drawing and crying: "Mommy! Look! It's Spiderman glisser on the slide!"

I nearly fell off my chair, laughing with delight.

Me: "I LOVE this!"
Tomi: "It's for you!"

Just so's you know: the slide used as a template here actually does look like this. It's a part of a small structure in our neighbourhood park that's meant to look like a wee mountain. And "glisser" means "to slide."

(08 September)

This morning, as I woke the chickens up, I called out, "Who would like to go and look at a house with Mommy and Daddy?!" to which a tiny voice answered, "I do!" from under the covers. I explained that we were (still) looking for a house for all of us, and Leo asked, "With a garden?"
Me: "We hope so!"
Leo: "A big one?"
Me: "Well... I'm not sure how big."
Leo: "Gramma & Grampa have a garden?"
Me: "Yes, they do!"
Leo: "A BIG one?!"
Me: "Yeah, it's really big!"
Leo: "With toys?" (read: things for boys to play on)
Me: "There are a few, but there's also lots of room so you can bring your own toys outside!"
Leo: "An' run an' run an' run an' run? At Kiss-muss time?"
Me: "Oh, yeah!"
Leo: (wiggles under his blanket, eyes crinkling with a big, sleepy smile)

The Return of the Gamma-Gampa!

pre-script: I did start this on the 3rd, even if it's only going up on the 20th (our 4th wedding anniversary!)... Eek! Sorry, G&G. I plead Busy Working Mom.

A thoroughly good summer (if that's what you wish to call this strange, extended autumn that we've been having since mid-June) has now officially come to an end with the departure of the boys' beloved Gamma & Gampa and with those same boys' finally knocking off to sleep a few minutes ago - for when they wake up, they will be readying for their first day of their second year of pre-school. But more about that later...

...and back to Gamma & Gampa! Who arrived on the last day of the boys' summer school, about five minutes after I'd finished the first of the revamped S'MAGs and sent it all off to the printer's. We picked the boys up just as they were waking from their nap and readying for the afternoon's fun on the playground. They were still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, and it was terribly sweet to see them realise who was before them, at last. They immediately took their grandparents' hands and started talking up a storm with them. Mostly, the storm concerned pteradactyls and Batman and Leo's new-ish shoes (which never seem to lose their sheen for him)...

Their visit coincided with the end of a visit from our dear old pal, Agnès, whose departure for the southern climes about three years ago has been felt sorely ever since. Here're a few scenes from a day at the park with friends and family: Below are a few shots from our trip back to the Kehl train station, where there is a series of fountains to occupy people of all ages as they await their locomotive. Some take off their shoes to enjoy them (or wear water-walking sandals), whereas some... Poor little elf. (I felt a bit badly about taking this photo, and yet...)
And then, on Saturday, we headed into the Vosges, to a place called Hautes-Huttes. We had the love-r-ly company of Eric, Caroline, Fred, Dylan and Lara for the first two days, and beautiful weather to boot! The second of these two pictures is another from the four-year-old photographic genius, Lara. I am already a BIG fan of her work. And her dad took the first picture, which is one of my faves from the whole week:
If you look closely, above, you can see that Fred's taking a picture of us at the same instant that I'm taking a picture of the three men around the table. And (below) here we are in various states of readiness for the beautiful day's walk that was ahead of us.
From Sunday night to Thursday night, we were on our own, up to lots of trouble and hiking, hiking, hiking, eating, drinking, hiking, eating, drinking, rolling Yahtzee dice, reading, drinking, hiking, eating, hiking, hiking, hiking, eating, drinking, rolling more dice, reading, hiking, hiking... you get the picture.

Here are some scenes from a very foggy, romantic day's walk: Tomi pointing out one of the many patches of heather along the paths:
Some scenes from a day at the Bioscope:
A day of walking that ended with the women and children awaiting the men and the car (that they climbed that mountain behind them to get to - an incredible climb, and they did it in about half the time the maps suggested. We were aghast when they explained their route to us, later):
A day of walking that ended (again?!) with the men trekking for the car, Jean-Philippe's being led for two hours all over the windy mountain paths to eventually track us down, and Larry and Neil at the point of contemplating a call to the local search and rescue operation when we finally rolled in (it had been a thoroughly gorgeous day, though, and the fact is that we who were left behind to fend off the hungry bears were actually the most fortunate, in the end, as the valley we were in was one of the most idyllic that I've ever seen, and came complete with a fabulous inn where we could stuff our stomachs. It's a long story, though - too long for this blog post, which is becoming epic in length already)... Starting with Barb and the view from just above our house, where the paths began: Above, the boys learning the beauty of berries from Grampa. Below, a few of Leo's photos (the first one with a bit of help from his mom):An unsatisfactory picture of the valley in which we were held captive until sundown and one of Tomi busying himself at the inn:
And then we were joined by the Ovey clan from Thursday evening until we all made our merry way home, taking in a long and lovely lunch on the terrace of a wonderful place that we found by accident in Villé along the way...
Oh, and here's a photo of the height of most of the ceilings in the house - as Caroline said as we walked in the front door for the first time: "Oh! It's a Yerkes-sized house!" - and also a photo of the effect of those ceilings on the tallest among us (heh! heh!):
If it ain't already obvious, we had a really wonderful time, kids and adults alike. Definately something we will use as a template for future vacations. And I will never forget some of the images (not captured on film) from this Gamma-Gampa stay, like the moment that the boys saw their grandparents in the school hallway and those moments following, during which the boys so happily took their hands and began walking and chatting with them as though this were something perfectly normal; or the evening we spent teaching the boys how to hit balls with rackets (Grampa was with the boys at the bottom of the tiny hill, acting as "catcher" while Gramma and Mom (sans -my, now) stood up above and launched) as Jean-Philippe prepared supper and the sun began setting behind the mountain; or many-many others... But it's taken far too long for me to get this up, and it's a long one as it is, and so... despite the gaps and the omission of the sometimes hilarious stories behind the comments and pictures above... I now hold my breath and close my eyes and hiccup and hit "publish post" at the same time... (yikes!)