An even better way to celebrate Leap Day than getting new plumbing fixtures

The weather is so warm today that the girls went out on the trampoline and jumped (I mean, leapt) for about an hour this morning. Mabel taught Rose an “exercise class,” and, out the window from where I was doing paperwork, it looked like they were having the time of their lives. Now Rose [...]

Happy Leap Day! (And a plumbing tale)

So that’s why there’s a frog on the Google homepage. I had to see a mention somewhere else of it being leap day today before I figured that one out.
I celebrated Leap Day early by having all the plumbing fixtures in my house replaced. Long story short medium: we started getting [...]

Crash pictures

My sister Lili’s doing a Master’s in book conservation at West Dean college in England, and she just finished an internship at Oxford. Just before returning to West Dean, she was awakened in the night by some drunk kids high-centering their car on the neighbor’s low brick wall. Thank goodness at least the [...]

It’s naughty to give your sister the flu

Rose slept through the night last night without waking up screaming with leg pain, which was a big improvement over the night before. (I’m still exhausted, though, and would love it if I could sleep all day, and will definitely take a nap when Rose and Henry do. But I’m also cautiously hopeful [...]

Rains/pours, short version:

1. I was very sick Saturday.
2. Now I’m better, mostly.
3. This morning Rose had symptoms that made it look like she had spinal meningitis.
4. She had a spinal tap at the ER. She doesn’t have spinal meningitis. I’m very grateful.
5. I’m tired. I’m blessed. The end.

I know it pours when it rains, but PLEASE let this rainstorm be over with for now

“Mommy, that was a fun day with the doctors!” Those were the first words out of Rose’s mouth as we finally left the ER at 3:10 PM today. “That was fun watching TV with the doctors!”
Saturday afternoon and evening, I had the most intense attack of stomach flu I’ve had in ages — [...]

Ho. ly. cow.

Can I just say that no matter how exciting I think my life is lately, it just keeps getting more exciting? Today was another amazing adventure — and, unfortunately, it was more a long, stressful, scary kind of an adventure than a fun one. I’m in the process of writing it up — [...]

Piccadilly Cowboy: The longest 6-hour romantic comedy I’ve seen this year

Dean and I picked up this movie at the rental store last night under its alternate title of “Anxiously Engaged.” I remembered reading something about it fairly recently, and we’d seen it for sale the last time we went to Bombay House, which reminded me that I think I read that the producer of [...]

One of those things that makes all that web-surfing so, so worth it

Customize your Barbie.  (Way, way better than Build-A-Bear.)
(Caution.  May frighten small children.)  (Mabel thought it was gross, but now she’s laughing.)

He knows cute when he sees it

I didn’t see this happen (although I saw the aftereffects,) but Mabel saw it:
 Just now Henry managed to open our photo-viewing software to the page with the peanut-allergy pictures of himself from yesterday, and he was cooing at the pictures and saying “Ooooh!  Henny!  Henny!”
 (I’ve never heard him use his name before, but he can [...]