Don't Watch If You Get At All Seasick

As I was deleting content from my camera tonight, I came across this gem, starring Rose #2...

Visiting Baby Franny

On Wednesday night we went to my sister's house to see the new baby in her natural habitat. We weren't able to get to the hospital - for one thing, they stayed only one night! It was a madhouse the night we were there - I think 5 of my 6 siblings and their families were there to visit the new baby. Here she is with her mama:

And Rose #2 loves to hold a baby, just like I do! Massive recurring fear of mine - my child is holding a newborn and gets tired of holding the baby, so just gets up and baby falls to the floor. I must have told Rose #2 like four times to tell me as soon as she was done holding Franny so I could get the baby before she just stood up. I was sitting right next to her the whole time, too. Luckily baby Franny emerged unscathed!

And here's me holding sweet baby Franny. I love a new baby. I must admit that I am pretty glad I don't have one myself - for one thing, I'm getting way too old. We're set with the three that we have, but oh I love holding a new baby...

We had a fun Halloween - pictures tomorrow for Nablopomo!

I Love Your Voice, Mama

Last night I was putting Rose #3 to bed, reading her a story and telling her how much I love her. She was all snuggled in her bed and looked up at me and said, "I love your voice, Mama."

What a nice thing to hear from my beautiful girl.

Welcome to the World Francesca, Born One More Redeemer!

We are overjoyed to welcome our niece Francesca to the world and our family! Born right on her due date and with a minimum amount of fuss (or so I understand), here's a picture of one more redeemer:



We haven't met her yet - tomorrow - but we're so happy she's here! Congratulations Aunt Heidi and Uncle Jay and Beatrice and Gus!

Guppy's Birthday Party

We started the party on a beautiful fall evening at Guppy's favorite park, Cherokee Park in West St. Paul. Here are various shots from the kids having fun at the playground there (and the only picture of Rose #3 is in the car on the way home, because she was too busy making friends to pose for a picture):

Well, AFTER the park we returned to our house for a delicious pizza dinner, of which there were many, many pictures. Sadly I deleted all of these pictures from my camera BY ACCIDENT after thinking I copied them to my computer's desktop. Rats. You'll never see the pictures, but they were cute. And numerous. We had pizza! And wine! And Halloween-sized candy bars! We had a toast to Guppy and lots of comments about how Guppy would have loved the party. Guppy's BFF came and brought balloons for the kids, which Guppy would also have loved.

Guppy, we sure do miss you. Rest in peace.

A Birthday Song

Tonight Rose #2 wrote a birthday song for her Guppy, who would have turned 68 tomorrow:

The lyrics are:

You are my Guppy
And you no (know) you are
You make me happy
Evere (every) step I take
You never no (know) dere (dear)
How much I love you
Please doet (don't) take my Guppy away
Oh please doet (don't) take away.

And here's the lyricist, who's looking pretty chipper for a sad topic.

Tomorrow night we're going to have a pizza dinner at Guppy's favorite pizza spot, and try to remember and celebrate her in a way that she would have loved - all her family together, eating good food, having fun (and crying a bit too).

Rest in peace, Guppy. I wish you were here. I would have found the best present ever for you. We sure do miss you a lot.

I'll Bet You Didn't Know There Is a Planet Apollo

Rose #1's first home project of the year was to design and build her own planet! We channeled the spirit of Guppy and decided we would make it from papier mache.

Although you might expect to find a picture of the planet on this website, you would be disappointed. I didn't take any pictures of the planet. I can tell you that she named it Planet Apollo, because there is a lot of music on the planet and Apollo is the Greek god of music.

Maybe you would expect to see a great picture of Rose #1 at her school event, the Planetary Expo, which she worked hard to prepare for. She made a travel brochure, a travel ticket, two solar system booklets, and testimonials from past "visitors" to Planet Apollo.

All you get is one picture of Rose #1, not even looking at the camera.

(In her defense, she had to pay attention to the "customers" that came to her booth at the Travel Expo.)

Here's a picture of a friend that Rose #1 has known since the infant room at daycare, explaining his planet to Rose #1's grandfather:

I mostly stayed out of the way and watched Rose #1 explain her planet and visit the planets of her friends. It is a very nice and vibrant 3rd grade community at Rose #1's school.

How the Day Ends When You Are Age Four And Tired

After 30 minutes of deductive reasoning homework, which was not mine but rather Rose #2's (in FIRST GRADE, people. I don't think I learned deductive reasoning until like last week.), Rose #3 completely gave up the ghost. She fetched herself a living room pillow and made herself a makeshift bed at the kitchen table:

Here's the shot from across the room, so it can all just seem even more pathetic. Poor Rose #3. She is a very, very tired girl by about 7:45. I can't ever seem to get them ready for bed much before 8:30. So she did it her very own self.

I have to confess that we spent some of tonight watching the news about the miners in Chile. I was riveted by the countdown of the number of rescued miners and the number of miners stll underground. They were truly fortunate to make it out alive. Thank goodness.

They Play Games!

The Roses have gotten old enough to play board and card games. All By Themselves!

They have a (thrift store) Monopoly set, after a trip to a cabin this summer where there were two Monopoly games. Yesterday H and I were sitting eating our breakfast when I heard a scream from the basement: "You took my money! Give it back!"

Weary of having to broker endless fights, I wearily went to the top of the stairs. "Guys, don't take people's money! It's not nice! That's THEIR money, not yours."

Beat. Beat. Beat. Then, Rose #1 said: "Mom, we're playing Monopoly." Just the right touch of exasperation.

They also play Uno. Obsessively. Repeatedly. Notably, once, in church (the lady behind us was very offended - she got up and moved. Really, people. It's a UNITARIAN church. A little Uno won't kill you. And I say this as a lifelong Unitarian.). I sort of really hate Uno. It takes forever. The person who wins, gloats. The person who loses, screams and flings the cards everywhere. (Even me.)

The latest is War. They play War anywhere, anytime. They don't even need a full deck of cards. I did catch Rose #2 trying to stack her hand with aces - aces are high in War (DUH). Right now they are playing War at the foot of my bed. I love it that they can amuse themselves.

Happy Twelfth Anniversary to Me

And my husband. We've had three children, two houses, several cars, several trips, one graduate degree (almost two - go honey!) and lots of wonderful times in the last 12. Here's hoping for 12 more, and then 12 after that, and then maybe even 12 after that.

I love you H!

Goodbye, Old Rusty

15 years ago, in my salad days (when I was green in judgment), I bought a 1995 Saturn SL1. Thanks to my husband, it was a manual transmission. I did not know how to drive a manual transmission at the time I purchased the car, so my husband had to teach me. He was not my husband at the time. He still is today. If I hadn't mastered driving the stick shift, I'm not sure he would be.



Last night, we sold the car. We put an ad on craiglist on Sunday night, and sold the car by Tuesday. Just like that, a piece of history - gone.

I have lots of memories from that car (don't worry, they're all G-rated):

I remember driving Rose #1 over to her Guppy's in that car, singing a dumb song I made up (We're gonna go see your Guppy, your Guppy, your Guppy, we're gonna go see Guppy, right away. Your Guppy really loves you, she loves you, she loves you, Guppy really loves you, very much.)

I remember driving to Cincinnati, OH with my brother and sister to see our grandfather in that car.

I remember driving that car from our house in Como to law school on exam nights, and then after exams were over, to the McDonald's drive through for french fries.

Last night after we got back from the DMV from transferring the title, Rose #1 looked at me, and said, "I'm going to miss Old Rusty."

(It was a Saturn, made mostly out of plastic, but it was a little rusty in spots. I'm going to miss Old Rusty too.)