The View From Up There

Shea finally met the last member of her father's immediate family on Sunday when she was introduced to Uncle Matt from Fort Worth--the tallest of the five tall brothers in John's family.

Considering the gene pool in our collective families, chances are pretty good that Shea, too, will be a tall specimen one day. With a mother who's 5' 9", an aunt who clears six feet in flats, and a father and two grandfathers who are each 6' 4", the little baby we could tuck into the curl of our elbow will one day be a quaint anecdotal memory.

Another strong statistical genetic possibility is that Shea will become a fan of potatoes and beer, as she's mostly German and Irish, and as further evidenced by the fact that she decided it was perfectly reasonable to crawl up and into the open beer cooler at Reilly's house on Sunday to help herself to an ice-cold Tecate.

One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Portal To Bliss

John and I began cleaning out the garage over the holiday weekend, rescuing our once spacious, two-car garage from what has become a Sanford-and-Son-inspired land mass of forgotten treasures, baby items, craft inspirations, and home-improvement projects.

Towards the back of the garage we discovered the old plastic children's slide that we had gleefully liberated from a neighbor's "out" pile last fall--a toy we had every intention of putting to good use until we came to our senses and realized that slides of any kind and the concrete in our back yard do not a safe mix make. So, for nearly a year, the slide has gathered dust and lived a largely unloved life of abandonment.

Until Sunday.

We passed the slide on to cousin Reilly, imagining that he would put it to better use in his spacious, grassy backyard. What we didn't imagine until we saw it was what a great addition the slide would make to Reilly's inflatable backyard pool--turning a simple children's wading pond into a WILD RIVERS EXTREME JET STREAM BLASTER FUNNEL!!!

Or something like that.

The poor little twice-neglected slide received a decade's worth of love and appreciation in one afternoon, casting off its curbside-cum-dusty condition and vindicating its plasticized existence. You should have seen it glisten with pride--See, I'm Useful! And Tons of Fun!--as butt after butt after slick tummy glossed its way down its front slope into the warm pool below.

Shea's Walking!

Guess Who Has The Loudest Scream In Our House

Decisions, Decisions

Hmmm...
Take over the world or demand a second cookie from Grandma?

What A Difference A Year Makes

One Year Ago

One Week Ago

The King Of The Jungle

Last week Finnegan got treated to a full day at the San Diego Wild Animal Park with Grandma Emely and family friend Trudi. What this meant, of course, was that each time John or I called in to check on his progress throughout the day we were regaled with stories about the delicious frozen treat he was eating, had just finished, or was about to injest. He was happier than a pig in shit, as my Mom says. Or, if you prefer, he was living like God in France, as my Dad says. They're from New York, you see; they've got a million of 'em.

Any time Finn's with Grandma--away from home and its inherent competition with his sister for his parents' time and attention--Finn's the center of the world. It's a position he seems to seek out regularly. And who can blame him, really? No little sister to outscream, all the lap time he could ever want, and nobody to make him eat his vegetables. (Don't think we don't know, Mom. We can tell by the smile on his face.)

On The Inside Looking Out

Weekend Update

Yesterday Gretchen and I got to hold and snuggle Shea's new boyfriend, adorable baby Connor, born to good friends Jane and Brian on April 24, 2006.

New babies are the best!

I Look Forward To The Day I Can Send Her To The Store For Groceries

This One Makes My Ovaries Hurt A Little

Don't Worry, A Minute After I Took These I Opened The Screen Door For Her

Cheeky Monkey

Shea recently had her one-year pediatric appointment. Although her height (30 inches) and weight (23 pounds) fall solidly in the "average" range now, one thing's for certain: her cheeks remain the overachievers that they've always been.

My Life On A String

In Finn's preschool class this year the kids prepared, with their teachers' help, adorable mementos for their moms in honor of Mother's Day. Most of the collection I was honored to receive got posted on the blog yesterday. (Don't you LOVE that he thinks I'm 51? Another little girl in Finn's class thought her mom was 8. I couldn't decide which estimate was better.)

Yesterday, while displaying the ream of sentimental paper goods I received, I somehow forgot to post the photo below, taken in Finn's classroom last week as it hung from the ceiling to dry. (Preschool teachers, by the way, are some of the most efficient masters of spatial intelligence I've ever seen. Every single surface is utilized within the rather smallish classroom--including the ceiling!--without it ever feeling cluttered, even when all 12 kids and the teacher are in it.)

On the pictured collage there are a number of images of things, clipped out of magazines, that he thinks I like. And, although he didn't include the martini glass I saw on his buddy Collin's page for his mom, his assessment of my sensibilities was pretty accurate. To wit:

According to Finnegan, I like:

• Pasta Primavera
• Big, slobbering, drooling dogs
• Cinnamon buns with drizzled icing
• Gerber daisies
  

Happy Mother's Day

Parallels

Learning to crawl

Crashed out in the crib

In the laundry basket

Hanging in a diaper

Splendor in the grass

All The News That's Fit To Print