Category: Uncategorized

Your 2.5 year old child can tell how much trouble you’re having getting off the floor and comes over to hold your hand while saying “Oh Mama!  I’m’a help you up, Mama!  Let’s get you up offa dere!”

I have read a large number of children’s books to Liam, and I am critical of a number of them. Here are my complaints:

Retellings of the original story are popular ideas, even more popular than the original. There should be a warning labels for these kinds of books, like “The Wolf Who Cried Boy” or a book about the 3 pigs where they break the 4th wall. Liam doesn’t know the original story yet, people!

When writing dialog, do not have lines from different characters back to back without identifying the speaker. Also, keep it simple. “Frog says, ‘hello'” is 1000 times better than “‘hello,’ wept Frog.” Don’t make me do voices just because you can’t write good dialog.

Please don’t have bad behavior unless the one acting badly is immediately eaten or bitten by fleas.

No French phrases, thank you very much.

Always have a “The End” page.

The End.

Liam’s rendition of “Bah, Bah Black Sheep””:

Lyrics:

Bah, bah, black sheep
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
3 bags full.

One for my master,
One for my dame,
One for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

Bah, bah, black sheep
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
3 bags full.

…they just get bigger and better over time:

We’ve had wonderful luck with the weather this vacation. We haven’t really had any rain directly on us any of the times we wanted to go outside. That is not to say the area is in a drought, it’s just that we have had extraordinary luck. I mean, check out the current radar (we are the lucky little orange triangle):

See the previous post, Jump! (Commentary), for context

Shannon and I ran the Peachtree Road Race this morning for the first time in our lives, and it couldn’t have been easier. The weather was perfect, the volunteers were awesome, and we both stayed mostly pain free for the whole race (10k = 6.2mi). The dreaded hills didn’t seem as bad as the ones around our house, which are some of the worst I’ve ever run on.

It’s hard to believe we’ve lived here our whole lives and haven’t participated before, but we can check this off the list.

Getting there was fun- the Chamblee MARTA station parking lot was nearly full and we parked in a rarely opened auxiliary lot. While walking into the station we overheard an announcement that trains were going to run every 10 minutes all day, good news! When we got to the platform there was a massive crowd that had clearly been waiting more than 10 minutes. We heard another garbled announcement that contained the phrase “sorry for the delay,” and the first train showed up almost 20 minutes later. We somehow managed to all fit on the train, although we were both in the middle of the car away from any handles or things like that. We got to the starting paddock with time to stretch, and then we were off.

The finish area was awesome, with a very well organized setup. They had huge balloons signifying the locations of water and different t-shirt sizes. There was a mysterious lack of port-a-potties at the end of the race, or at least we couldn’t find them. I’ll tell you what we did find, though: Blue Bell ice cream. They were giving some away, and it’s my new official post run snack.

We just had a new banister with newel post installed on our stairs leading to the basement. Not only does it look great, but Liam is now far less likely to break his neck falling off the side! (Not to mention some of our more “mature” relatives…) Of course, Liam is still not allowed on the stairs.

From the basement:

From the landing:

From the top:

I have a set of silverware that I keep at work: a fork, knife and spoon from IKEA. They are decent and do the job. I am particular about my spoons, however. Recently my spoon seems to have disappeared. I’ve looked through my office, my desk, and even at home, but I cannot find it. That doesn’t mean it’s not on my desk somewhere anyway, as my desk can be messy sometimes. I alerted my side of the office via email:

I am missing a spoon. It is silver, and should have IKEA stamped on the back of the handle. It’s highly possible that I accidentally took it home or that it is actually in my office somewhere, but hopefully someone else just picked it up after I forgot it in the sink. I am very particular about my spoons, please let me know if you have it.

After a few days and some humorous comments, I posted this on my door:

A few days went by, and then the following was put below my picture:

I was very impressed with the note, so I wrote another email to my office mates:

Dear Creator of the Spoon Ransom Note on My Door,

I appreciate the effort. Really. However, I can’t even tell it’s my spoon. It could be just some spoon that looks like mine. Unless I can actually talk to the spoon and confirm that it is mine, there is no deal. Also, ransom notes generally list details like where I should leave the money, but still, A+ for effort.

We’re planning to go to IKEA in a few weeks, and I think I should just buy a dozen spoons in case my replacements are stolen.