phoenix

i've never been to phoenix. i'm pretty sure chris hasn't either. we have no family who lives in phoenix. and yet, the first thing i hear every day when i wake up is the phoenix weather forecast, delivered by my four-year old.

as i've posted before, liam and chris enjoy breakfast together every weekday morning while susanna and i catch a bit more sleep. they chat and eat, and while chris peruses the rest of the newspaper, liam studies the national weather map on the back page of the metro section. as soon as chris departs for work, liam bounds up the stairs at a volume only a young boy can create, plowing through my bedroom door with an excited, "mommy! mommy!" after i sit up and give him a kiss, he follows up with, "guess what the high is today in phoenix?!" i always throw out some random number, like, oh, 42. and he'll laugh and say, "no! today in phoenix it is going to be 98 degrees!" and then, just like that, his work is done, and he scampers off to his room to get dressed. it's been like this every single day for the past few months. i really have no idea why he's chosen phoenix. his uncle is in st. louis, his aunt is in california -- both places that are easily found on the weather map. but phoenix, for whatever reason, is the current shining star.

two fridays ago, however, i had a feeling the morning routine might take a detour. i heard the same herd of elephants him clomping up the steps, and i smiled, anticipating a different entrance. "mommy! mommy!" he yelled. and then -- no mention of weather whatsoever. instead, he said breathlessly, "i'm in the paper, mommy! look! it's a picture of ME!"

and sure enough, clutched in his proud outstretched fist was page 2B, and on it was his photograph, printed in black and white, for all the world to see. there was no story or column to accompany the picture; just a caption identifying him and what he was doing. (see the picture below.) a few days a week, the news & observer will fill extra space with a cute picture of children or pets or artwork or, really, whatever they receive from readers that they deem interesting. i had taken a few shots of liam blowing bubbles in the front yard one day the previous week, and on a whim, e-mailed one to the section editor. he kindly replied that he would indeed be using it that friday.

so there you have it -- liam's first brush with celebrity. but why stop here? i'm thinking we need to go national. global, even! so my next step is to contact other major newspapers and see if they'll run it too. maybe i'll start with phoenix.

birth stories

i think we all enjoy a good birth story. especially our own birth story. now that i'm a mother, i love hearing my parents recount how i was born. how i was a month late (truly!) ... how drawn-out and never-ending my mom's labor was ... and how, after waiting as long as he could, my father went home to feed the dogs and when he returned, i had arrived. (yes, you read that right. my father missed the birth of his first child because he was feeding the dogs.) so on sunday, as we four ate our dinner together as we do almost every evening, i asked liam and susanna if they wanted to hear a story. a story that unfolded on the same night three years ago, when our family of three turned into a family of four. we told them how we had put liam to bed the night of may 17, mommy's belly huge as she leaned down to give him a kiss goodnight, and then how he woke up the next morning and found out from his grandmother that he suddenly had a new little sister. a crazy whirlwind of a night, that was, involving a lightning-fast labor, three pushes, and a hearty wail as chris and i learned we were now parents to a daughter. and i realized that this is how family histories are woven -- over a meal at the kitchen table, with a mesmerized three year old girl and her big brother, listening raptly as their parents took a trip down memory lane. while liam kept peppering us with questions about himself: "where was i?", "what did i do?", "who took care of me?", susanna was content soaking it all in, since it was all about her. a generation from now, this story will assuredly be part of our history, after having been told and re-told and owned and adored by our children. susanna will share with her kids how she was almost born in the hospital bathtub. liam will laugh about the fact that the only thing remotely interesting to him when he arrived to meet his sister for the first time was the reclining button on the hospital bed. i'm sure chris will exaggerate about how tightly i gripped his knee as i suffered contraction after contraction on the ten-minute ride to the hospital at three o'clock in the morning. other people have far more spectacular stories, of course, like my friend liz, who brought home a son to a wall-to-wall pink nursery after having multiple ultrasounds confirm she was carrying a girl. (surprise!) or my friend mary beth, whose baby had open-heart surgery performed on her in the womb. or my friend laura, who was born on the bathroom floor, delivered by her father when her mom realized she was just not going to make it to the hospital. so, no, susanna's birth is really not a spectacular story. but to us, our little family of four, it's where our history begins. it's our genesis as a family. it's when we became us. i guess it's pretty spectacular after all.

party pointers

susanna turns three on monday! thinking back on the seven birthdays we've now celebrated between our two children, including the one we just hosted yesterday, i've learned a few things.

The Top Ten Lessons I've Learned From Children's Birthday Parties

1) take full advantage of warm weather birthdays, and plan parties outdoors. (i learned this after liam's first birthday, when i had 45 people in my house and found icing encrusted on the bottom of my couch a month later.)

2) does any one-year old really need 45 people singing them "happy birthday"? why do all first-time parents do this to themselves?

3) avoid hosting on your own turf if at all possible. playgrounds and parks were invented for a reason. use them. (i learned this after an overzealous three-year old guest trucked inside our house from the party in the back yard and somehow caused our toilet to overflow, which we did not notice until we had cleaned up the back yard and returned inside to find water seeping out of the powder room.)

4) plan B? who needs a plan B? having absolutely no alternate rain plan is what i call living on the edge. a life filled with danger makes me feel alive.

5) cake is overrated. not only is it a pain to slice and serve, but you've then got small children wielding sharp plastic forks in close proximity to other small children's eyeballs. not to mention the fact that these small children have often not quite mastered the art of blowing out candles, and let's face it, there's nothing appetizing about seeing a small arc of saliva being sprayed all over the food you're about to eat. cupcakes are the way to go -- unless you opt for another kind of individual pastry (see #10).

6) no gifts, please. we need another toy with 30 tiny parts like we need a hole in the head. little kids don't really give a flying flip if they received presents or not; they're just excited to see their friends and have their own special day. (however, i will acknowledge that this can't last forever. marketing and greed take over about when they hit five. sigh.)

7) if you're going to hire a balloon artist, make sure he knows what he's doing. i dredged this photo up from our archives, from a little boy's fourth birthday party in our neighborhood in asheville. (i think it's supposed to be a sword. )

8) i'm not a fan of fill-in-the-blank thank you notes. seriously, how long does it take you to write your own, "thank you for the lego set. i love it! i'm glad you came to my party." ? how lazy can we possibly be? *

9) rise and shine. we hosted a morning party for the first time yesterday, and i don't think we'll ever have one in the afternoon again. it wasn't yet hot, we didn't have to deal with scheduling around late naps, and everyone had the rest of the day ahead of them. not quite sure why it took me this long to figure that out. coffee for the adults, doughnuts for the kids. easy.

10) and last but not least ... never underestimate how snooty us north carolinians can be about our doughnuts. you wouldn't have believed the backlash we got when we mentioned the possibility of serving dunkin donuts. around here, it's krispy kreme or bust, baby.

* i have many more lessons i've learned over the years, but i must stop. i really need to get started on last year's christmas thank you notes.

hit & run

4-year old t-ball league registration: $85.00 t-ball glove: $11.99 t-ball bat: $26.50 t-ball tee: $15.49 watching your son compete in his first-ever sporting event with a huge smile on his face: priceless first hit ...

... and crossing home plate!

all this proud momma has to add is this: by the time the preceding footage is included in the forthcoming 2025 ESPN special entitled "Liam Mann: The Beginnings of a Superstar", he will hopefully not need a reminder to run.

About My Mom

liam presented me with a few gifts he had made for me for mother's day at preschool. one was an adorable flower pot with his thumbprints turned into ladybugs, containing flowers he had planted. one was a placemat with his picture and handprints. and the third was a list entitled "About My Mom". halfway down the list was the sentence, "my mom weighs", followed by my actual weight. i was mortified.

the back story ... liam is currently so enamored by addition and subtraction that one afternoon last week, i thought i'd turn his interest into something fun on the bathroom scale. i had him stand on it, and then i joined him, and we watched the needle spring forward to the sum of our two weights. we then determined that if he were 45 pounds, and our sum was x pounds (won't say it here), how much must mommy weigh? he counted on his fingers in increments of 10, just like the scale, and figured it out. fun and educational, right? well, you know what they say about good intentions. i grimaced, imagining his teachers asking him an open-ended, "what can you tell me about your mom?" and him immediately replying with, "ooh! i know her weight! and what size clothes she wears! tonight i'll work on calculating her body mass index! anything else you'd like to know?"

but in talking with some of the other moms, my fears were partially put to rest. i learned that the kids were fed specific questions, including "how much does your mom weigh?" to elicit funny, off-the-wall responses. apparently most 4-year old children have no idea, and their answers reflect that. the group was laughing, sharing their child's answers. "my son thought i was 10 years old and weighed 50 pounds!" said one mom. another, "my daughter said i was 2 pounds and liked to cook soup! i never cook soup!" but liam's answers were all pretty much reasonable -- unless you consider the age question, and you can't really blame him for that, since i've kind of misled him in that department. at least i have now learned that i need to refrain from divulging any personal numerical data with him, because he will certainly remember it, and make sure the rest of the world knows it too.

here's liam's list (minus the weight part):

About My Mom

My mom's name is Mommy.

She is 26 years old.

She loves me because she hugs me.

Mom likes to cook potatoes.

Mom likes to play Chutes and Ladders with me.

She is special because she loves me.

When I grow up I will buy her yogurt.

Happy Mother's Day 2009!
Love, LIAM

restraint

i can already tell my children's teenage years are going to be especially challenging for me as a parent. our kids are undoubtedly going to make as many mistakes as i did when i was younger, and it's going to take every ounce of my strength to refrain from commenting and just let them go. and then they can look back a few years later and marvel at how their mother didn't insist on removing the aqua net hairspray can from the bathroom to prevent the huge birdnest bangs from being constructed on their forehead let them learn from their mistakes. thankfully, that time has not yet come, because my parenting experience only goes back four and a half years, and i still have much to learn. and on saturday, in the middle of the toy store, i just couldn't hold back. i had to weigh in on a grave error my son was about to make. liam has been earning a daily allowance for a few months now. he has seven chores he must do every day, and we pay him a whopping nickel for each one. and after we dole out the coins to him, he's required to put one immediately in a special box for the church offering plate the following sunday. which really means that he nets a maximum of $2.10 a week. needless to say, it's taken him quite a while to save up enough to make a trip to the toy store worthwhile. but on saturday, the time had arrived. he had informed everyone he saw last week -- teachers, classmates, neighbors -- that he was taking his cash and going on a shopping spree at tookie's toys. the four of us piled in the car and headed over, unsure of what we might be returning with, but excited all the same. he walked in, wide-eyed at the world of possibility. when liam talks about the abstract concept of heaven, i'm pretty sure that he's conjuring up the image of tookie's toys, this independently-owned toy store in a fun shopping center near us. but amidst all the wonderful items in there ... he bypassed it all and headed straight to the dadgum car section. now, before i go any further, let me just say that we could open up our own toy store that specializes solely in cars. he has almost 100 matchbox cars. a parking garage with its own type of car. a racetrack with its own type of car. big ones, small ones. ones that make noise, ones that don't. i could go on but i find the whole subject rather boring, so i won't. and yet, there he was, in a sea of enticing prospects, and he snatches up yet another police cruiser and starts heading to the cash register. he had enough money and he seemed quite sure of himself. chris shrugged; he seemed to be drawing from some impressive supply of restraint. i do not have such a supply. "don't you want to look for something different?" i encouraged. "ooh -- look here! some cool bubble tools. those would be neat out in the yard. or ... wow! what a fun balloon toy! we don't have anything like that." with each suggestion, he'd clutch the police cruiser even tighter, steadfast in his choice. and i just couldn't do it. i couldn't let my son, fresh off three months of hard work, drop his life savings (literally) on yet another toy vehicle. and so i turned into I Have Your Best Interests In Mind Mommy. i put the cruiser back on the shelf, steered him towards the outdoor toy section, and talked up a "stomp rocket" until i was hoarse. i honestly think i could be a salesperson for their company, i was so convincing. and finally, he relented. we spent two hours after we got home playing with that thing. several of our neighbors even walked over as we tested it out in the cul-de-sac, and had as much fun with it as liam did. four days later, he's still racing to it as soon as we get home, eager to play with it some more. far better than some dumb police car, don't you think? in one actual action of restraint, i have managed not to utter the words, "i told you so" to my son. but i think just by virtue of being a mother, that's implied.

accessorizing

the front door burst open. i looked up from cooking to see Tornado Susanna standing in the foyer, her hands on her hips. "i need my bus," she informed me. i had no idea what bus she was referring to, but she seemed quite sure of herself (as she always does) so i left it to her to get it. she clomped upstairs in her pink and white flower sandals, her mission clear. i'm not sure if it's just our children, or if it's typical of this age in general, but neither liam nor susanna can ever find ANYTHING they're looking for. the object of their search is often right in front of their eyes, and they still require assistance. so, not surprisingly, i soon heard susanna calling for my help from her bedroom. "i can't find my bus anywhere!" she wailed. i stood at the bottom of the stairs, patting my hands dry on my apron, as she stared down at me from the top. in my mind i inventoried our endless supply of toys and still came up short. "honey," i said, "i have no idea what bus you're talking about." she sighed. "not a bus, mommy. my BUUUUUUUUUUUUUS." as the over-enunciation didn't help, i asked her to describe it. "it's black. with sequins! i put my treasures in it," she explained. and suddenly, i understood. it was no bus she desired; it was her purse. (her difficulty with the "r" sound often makes things a tad tricky.) as soon as we finally located it in the playroom under her pink ballerina costume, she headed back out the door. she beelined it to liam's hand-me-down big wheel, looped the straps over the handlebars, and then straddled the plastic seat with a gleam in her eye. and the lesson is this: if you're going to be racing your older brother down the driveway at full speed, winding up in a giggling heap in the grass with dirt in your hair, you better darn well look fashionable doing it.

left to chance

"you don't even have to be a good pitcher if you're a leftie," chris explained, "and you still get a huge contract with the majors. we'd be set for life!" i had just asked him what in the world he was doing, after watching him play with liam on the floor of our family room in asheville. liam, all of five months old, seemed to be as confused as i was. chris was crouched on the floor a few feet away from him, rolling a ball over and over again solely towards liam's left side. the child had just recently mastered the art of sitting up on his own -- and even that was iffy sometimes -- and yet, proud papa was trying to get the poor thing to throw him a left-handed curve ball. or something.

of course, this is all tongue-in-cheek. we are certainly no high-pressure, stressed-out, do-or-die set of parents (although i might qualify for an overuse-in-hyphen award.) but seriously ... chris really didn't care if liam turned out to be left-handed. our son might wind up hating all sports entirely and singing in the glee club, and we won't care in the least, as long as he's happy. but in the meantime, the whole dominant side thing became sort of a joke between us. "did you see that, honey? he's got all his nasty wet cheerios crammed in his left fist!" "ooh -- liam just dumped his entire tray of food onto the floor with his left hand!" "wow! liam picked his nose with his left finger!" and so on.

four years later, alas, it's become clear that liam is no leftie. he writes, brushes his teeth, eats, and yes, even picks his nose all with his right hand. based on a few preliminary t-ball practices, chris is still holding out hope that liam might turn out to be a switch-hitter, but for the most part, we're thinking that all those ball rolling exercises proved rather fruitless. but all is not lost! check out the (quite indicative) picture below of our children devouring their ben & jerry's ice cream, gripping those spoons like there was no tomorrow. and then tell me ... how much do professional leftie softball pitchers earn?

i saw the sign

there's a reason why i haven't been posting as often as i usually do. every spring i work online as an assessor for a national educational testing company, scoring open-ended questions on an end-of-year exam. this year my students are from the great state of delaware, attempting to prove their mastery of the algebra I curriculum -- you know, things like variable expressions, systems of equations, operations with radicals, etc. fun stuff. anyway, i commit to putting in at least 20 hours a week, and every year i'm reminded of how difficult it is for me to find 20 hours a week to sit in front of my laptop, reading response after response after response (so far, i've graded 1,798). i can't do it while the kids are awake, so i find snatches of time in the morning and evening and on the rare occasion that they're both at preschool and i'm sitting at home eating my bon-bons. [just a little stay-at-home-mom humor.] so, unfortunately, the blog has to fall by the wayside, along with cleaned bathrooms and folded laundry. rest assured, however, that at least i have my priorities in order. as i sit here to type this brief entry, there are three baskets full of clothes screaming for my attention. so i'll keep it short and sweet. i took the kids to ben & jerry's today for their annual free cone giveaway. on our way from there to the playground to meet up with friends, i got distracted by a cell phone conversation with chris. when i get distracted while driving -- whether it's by my phone or a song on the radio or a question one of the kids has asked from the back seat -- i'm proud to say that my quality of driving does not diminish in the slightest. in the 17+ years i've been a licensed driver, i have yet to be involved in even so much as a fender bender. but what does diminish is any sense of direction that i'd like to think i might have. so, somewhere along the way in our five-minute ride from the mall to the park, i took a wrong turn. BUT ... the detour turned out to be quite serendipitous. a mere block away from my normal route, i came across the intersection shown to the left. i just happened to have my camera (had to capture those munchkins in all their ice cream glory) so i jumped out to snap a picture. what are the odds that our two alma maters would find kinship in a set of street signs in raleigh? maybe someday when liam's really into his teenage hijinks on a bored friday night, he can sneak out with his friends and steal the signs for me. [just a little more mom humor.] i hope for a more enlightening post next time. would any of my faithful readers enjoy a comprehensive dialogue on how to properly assess the mathematical proficiency of a ninth grade student? (lesson #1: when you read a student's solution that begins with, "once again, me and equations DO NOT MIX GOOD", you just might be in for a doozy.)

sneaky little devil

there's been a debate ever since children began to exist as to whether boys or girls are easier to raise. of course, there's no true answer to the question; personality assuredly has more to do with it than gender. but i've always had my own theory: boys are more difficult initially (which i think i surmised as i witnessed toddler liam scale a six-foot high dresser to retrieve a toy he had catapulted onto the top shelf), but girls will give their parents a run for their money once they hit the pre-teen years. (i arrived at that conclusion after teaching middle school for almost a decade.) but i underestimated my daughter. at the tender age of two, our susanna has already begun to practice the fine art of manipulation and deceit -- all rolled into a sweet package of blond-haired, blue-eyed, chubby youth and innocence. after she finished her breakfast this morning, she trotted off in search of diversion while i emptied the dishwasher. i heard her playing with marbles on the hardwood floor, but after a minute or so of silence, i went to investigate. turns out that what i thought were marbles were actually peanut M&Ms. and what i thought was the floor was actually the top of the dining room table. a few weeks ago i had filled a glass vase with easter-colored M&Ms, and had trouble deciding on a spot for it that would be distanced from grubby preschool hands. i ultimately decided to put it on the middle of dining room table, which is surrounded by parsons chairs that are fairly hard to maneuver. but they were no match, apparently, for a chocoholic two-year old. there she was, sitting on top of the table, with her hand, literally, in the candy jar. she looked up at me when i entered the room with wide eyes and a full mouth, pausing mid-chew. "what are you eating?" i asked.

"nothing," she replied. (at least, i think that's what she said. it was rather garbled, given that she had a mouth full of chocolate at the time.)

i thought i'd give her another chance to come clean. "are you eating M&Ms?" she swallowed. "no ma'am," she said, emanating a wave of chocolate peanut breath that washed over me. the gall of this little person! "susanna, we do NOT eat food without asking mommy's permission. this is a no-no. please take your hand out of the vase." and then, as any strict disciplinarian mother would do, i grabbed the digital camera to document this event (ahem) before removing her from the table. she looked up at me, with the most innocent face she could muster, and then had the audacity to utter, "but i was just getting a blue one for liam. he likes blue, you know. it's his favorite." there were so many things i wasn't sure about with this scenario. for one, i wasn't sure of my reaction: do i laugh? marvel? cry? i also wasn't sure how her little mind came up with playing the i-love-my-brother card to attempt to get out of trouble. and, obviously, i wan't sure what to do regarding discipline. but at least i got confirmation that my theory is indeed correct: she's definitely going to be giving us a run for our money. that's the one thing i am sure of.

a slight misunderstanding

the kids and i were seated around the kitchen table eating lunch yesterday afternoon. susanna and i chatted back and forth, but liam sat still, staring out into the backyard, deep in thought. after a moment, he turned to me and asked, "where are we going to put all the animals?" i had no idea what he was talking about, and told him as much. "you know, the farm animals. where will we put them? in the back yard? or on the deck? can they drink super's water? do they need beds?" the questions kept coming, and with each one, i became even more confused. i still hadn't a clue, and told him as much, again. he sighed. "you know, mommy. the animals from our mite boxes! the ones they give us when we take our mite boxes to church on Easter. those animals." and all of a sudden, i got it. and then, i began to laugh. our son, who has been dutifully donating five cents each day out of his allowance throughout this Lenten season, had evidently misunderstood the charity to which his nickels were going. this year, the funds raised through our church's mite box program are supporting heifer international. on the day the kids brought home their mite boxes from sunday school, chris and i explained to them that this money will help give families farm animals, who can then provide the families with milk and eggs and future baby animals. we thought it best to keep it simple. our simplified approach was apparently not very effective. [for anyone unfamiliar with this amazing organization, here is the mission statement printed on the bottom of each mite box: "Heifer International has helped 8.5 million families in more than 125 countries move toward greater self-reliance through the gift of livestock and training in environmentally sound agriculture. the impact of each initial gift is multiplied as recipients agree to 'pass on the gift' by giving one or more of their animal's offspring to another in need."] for the past six weeks, our son has expected that on Easter Sunday, in exchange for presenting his mite box at the altar, he will be given a cow. and a sheep. and a goat. and a chicken. ("that's all i need," he said.) and, furthermore, that we will be returning home with these animals to peacefully co-exist with us, as they graze in the grass of our back yard next to the swingset. farm animals, from church. on Easter. kind of gives the phrase "holy cow" a whole new meaning.

the kindness of strangers

"here you go, buddy," the older gentleman said, his palm outstretched toward liam. in his hand was a baseball. a dirty, grass-stained foul ball, from the first half-inning of the UNC vs. davidson baseball game. this kind usher, dressed from head to toe in carolina blue, then helped us find our seats. i'm not quite sure how the ball had come into his possession; it might have landed in his vicinity, or he might have retrieved it from an area where no one was sitting. shoot, he might have even caught it himself. but no matter. he gave it to liam as a gift, as an elder lover of the game to a future lover of the game -- a bright-eyed little boy, decked out in a dodgers jersey and a UNC baseball cap. liam held on tight to that ball throughout the remaining eight innings, precariously, at times, as he chewed his hot dog from one hand and a soft pretzel from the other. he slept with it in his bed that night, and brought it to school the following morning for show-and-tell. it's amazing what an impact a seemingly small gesture like that can have. i'd be surprised if the usher even remembers it; there are hundreds of excited little boys who sit in those seats throughout the season, and hundreds of foul balls. to him, it was probably just another foul ball and just another little boy. but to liam, this memory will come flooding back years from now, as he reminisces on his first carolina baseball game. he loved everything about being there, from sitting in the fancy new stadium with the cool scoreboard, to witnessing home runs and amazing catches, to watching the tarheels play against the team that his own daddy played on in college. but there's no doubt that his foul ball was the highlight of them all. if liam has one iota of his father's baseball skills, i'm sure that there will be many, many more balls in the years to come, from games in which he's a player and not just a spectator. but the first one is special. the first game was special. and that man, who knelt down and bestowed this gift to my son, well, he's pretty special, too.

true to her hue

easter egg hunt #142 of our week took place this morning after church, all over the beautiful grounds of st. michael's. we've had hunts at school, in our house, in the backyard, at my parents', at friends', and at the park. you'd think that by now, this simple pleasure might be getting old -- but it's not. the elation on their faces, as they clutch their baskets in their hands in eager anticipation, is priceless.

the organizers today split up the children according to age, so chris took liam to one of the side gardens while i stayed with susanna on the front lawn. for the 1- and 2-year old classes, the word "hunt" was probably a misnomer. it was really more like an easter egg pick-up. there was basically a couple hundred eggs strewn in plain sight in the grass, and right at 11:30, they declared it open season for the little ones. susanna was quite particular in mapping out her strategy. i had my eye behind the lens of the camera for most of the time, so while i noticed how she would pass up a few while marching over to a certain egg she desired, i didn't give it much thought. it wasn't until she concluded her hunt and proudly showed off her collection that i realized her criteria for the eggs she selected. there were eggs of every color in the rainbow in that grass this morning, but somehow, only one color was deemed worthy enough to earn a spot in susanna's basket. any guesses as to what it might be? a riddle to assist: to determine the hue,

you don't have to think.

from the photo you view,

it has to be ...

keen on routine

as we drove to school yesterday, i alerted liam as to why it might just be shaping up to be the Best Day Ever. "you have FIVE great things to look forward to today!" i exclaimed. sure enough, it piqued his curiosity, as well as susanna's. they asked me what the five monumental, life-changing events might be. "first, you get to tell your class about mr. bear's visit," i reminded him. (mr. bear is a traveling stuffed animal who goes home for one week at a time with each student.) clutched in his hand was an elaborate four-page report documenting mr. bear's stay, complete with photographs showcasing a trip to the library, making chocolate chip cookies, and swinging on the playset. "second, you are the snack person this week! we packed the cookies you and mr. bear made, as well as cheddar cheese and crackers." they continued to listen with rapt attention. "third, sutton is coming home with you after school for lunch and a playdate. fourth, you have soccer practice with coach scott. and fifth," i said, rounding out the day's agenda, "the weather is so nice that we'll stay at the playground afterwards and play with all your soccer friends!" and that was the extent of the excitement -- at least in my eyes. the rest of the day would be the same as yesterday and the day before that. the conversation wasn't over, however. susanna seemed to pick up where i had left off. "and sixth," she added, "we come home and have dinner!" "and seventh," liam responded, "we clean up our toys!" susanna: "and eighth, we take a warm bath!" liam: "and ninth, we put on our jammies!" susanna: "and tenth, we brush our teeth!" liam: "and eleventh, we read stories!" susanna: "and twelfth, we say our prayers!" liam: "and thirteenth, we turn off the lights and go to sleep!" and then there was silence. satisfied, content silence from the backseat, as they had run through the entire plan for march 30th and had reached the day's conclusion in their minds. while i waited at the same traffic light for the, oh, 152nd time since school began in september, i was struck at how routine our days were. i wondered, for a brief moment, if our lives were too predictable. too monotonous. too boring. "wow, mommy," liam said. "that does sound like a great day!" susanna echoed the sentiment, clapping in her carseat as if we had just found out we'd won the lottery. and then it struck me -- with routine comes a sense of security. and really, isn't that one of chris's and my main goals for our children? to provide them with the strongest sense of security possible? honestly, isn't security one of the most basic needs of everyone on the planet? the light turned green, and i continued down the route towards preschool that i swear i could do in my sleep. i adjusted my steering ever so slightly to avoid the pothole that i knew was coming up on the right side of the lane. the kids sang along to the sesame street CD, in slot #4 of my car's CD changer as it has been for months. and we began our day. safe and secure.

running man

chris said he wanted to cross one thing off his "bucket list", so today, he ran his first half-marathon. on the soaked streets of raleigh on a nasty, wet morning. with a sinus infection that kept him home from work two days ago and that was still causing a deep rattle in his chest. by himself, after two friends had to drop out. and, poor guy, without even a cheering squad. (we both decided that dragging the kids out in the weather mess in a double stroller among thousands of people wasn't exactly optimal.) he finished about two minutes ahead of his goal time, which is impressive considering he never really altered his schedule to fully train for it. the kids and i are so proud of him! what an amazing accomplishment! he came home with a few things: a shiny medal for participating, a race t-shirt, a half-eaten bagel, some warm gatorade ... and the knowledge that not only was this his first half-marathon, but that it would also be his last. people had warned him that once he did the first one, he'd be hooked. "those people are crazy," he muttered, as he attempted to stretch out a foot cramp before heading up to bed tonight at 8 p.m. i can't wait to see what's next on his bucket list. don't you think that that "give something shiny to my wife for our tenth anniversary" would be a nice addition? (and no, the half-marathon medal isn't quite what i have in mind.)