Happy Memorial Day Weekend! To celebrate, here are some Easter pictures.

Anyone sick of looking at St. Patrick's Day pictures yet? I am! About a month ago, shortly after Easter, I uploaded a bunch of Easter pictures to this blog. And there they sat, in my draft folder, with no attempt by me to give the pictures context, share anecdotes of the events depicted, nada. So I was just about to declare blog post chapter 7 and get a fresh start with a new post, but then I decided, heck, I'll just post the pictures. Who needs cohesion, or a theme?

We spent Easter in Athens with David's parents and grandmother. Here's Caroline on Easter morning, hunting eggs at Grandmini's house. She doesn't give a damn about the eggs, she just likes carrying the bucket.


Jacob and Elizabeth, on the other hand, DO care about the eggs.



Jacob is distressed that Caroline has so few eggs and doesn't seem to care. He is giving her a motivational speech, a pep talk of sorts. He's not angry, he's just pointing (Jenny T, are you out there? I know you, I know you!)


Acting goofy.


Dressed up after Easter brunch, itching to get out of these clothes.


Caroline was SO not interested in standing with her brother and sister for pictures. Nor was she interested in smiling.


Jacob and Elizabeth, on the other hand, were strangely agreeable about the whole picture business.



Back to the morning Easter egg hunt. Grandmini, Grammy and Caroline, going back in to pick up that bucket.


Easter bunny came (we're working backwards here, apparently). Chocolate galore.


Caroline helped herself.


The day before - Easter egg hunt at the club. Jacob's bucket was overflowing with eggs. At one point, he walked over to a family and waited as they finished up their conversation. I did not know what they were talking about or why Jacob was standing there. As I started to walk over, I heard him offer his eggs to their little boy, who was upset that he didn't get enough eggs. Proud moment for mama.


And here is my boy a couple of days earlier, at our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt, pre-haircut. (Big thanks to Mr. Clay, who actually gave the boy the first decent haircut he's EVER gotten!)


Elizabeth, once again taking the whole egg hunting business seriously.


Caroline, once again mystifying her siblings by not caring about egg quantity.


A rare picture of all three children standing together looking sorta happy.


Happy Elizabeth.


Poker face Caroline.



See you a month after the next major holiday!

Top 'o the morning to ya!

Sorry, I meant to post this closer to St. Paddy's Day, but I'm finding that life gets in the way of blogging from time to time. I've always loved St. Patrick's Day. I'm half Irish, and I went to a very Irish Catholic college -- my friends and I used to do a rendition of a typical class roll call: Collins, Connelly, Cullen, Murphy, O'Brien, O'Connell, O'Connor, O'Donnell, O'Dougherty, O'Hare, O'Keefe, O'Leary. Anyway, in keeping with my Irish roots and education, I love drinking and I hate snakes, so I can totally get behind any holiday that involves drinking green beer and thanking St. Patrick for driving the snakes out of Ireland. As with most holidays, though, St. Patrick's Day has gotten a bit more elaborate than it used to be. When I was a kid, we wore green and possibly ate a green bagel. That was it. When I was in college, we wore green and drank beer, but that didn't really distinguish it from any other day.

Well, starting last year, leprechauns started visiting my children's classrooms and, yes, causing trouble. Turning the toilet water green and such. We tried not to think much of it -- we figured "okay, so there are leprechauns now. Clearly they are "classroom leprechauns," not "house leprechauns," so we don't need to worry about them showing up at home and ransacking the place. The elves really create enough holiday-related mischief for one year, thankyouverymuch.

But then Jacob started lamenting the fact that St. Patrick's Day fell over spring break this year, and therefore he would not be there when the leprechaun came to his classroom. We tried to explain to him that vacation is really much better than some desk chairs getting turned upside down, and pointed out that if it's an ungodly mess that he's hoping to see, he could just look around his own house, and he wouldn't even have to wait until St. Patrick's Day.

But the leprechauns must have heard Jacob's pleas, because we were shocked to wake up on St. Patrick's Day and find this:


We are thinking they must be bigger than those little elves, because there is no way that the elves could have possibly turned that brown chair upside down. Presumably the leprechauns were far more wasted than the elves, however, so it is still a pretty impressive mess.

If I could direct you to the hearth, where Jacob is standing, you will see that the leprechauns left a old rusty planter pot of dollar store crap gold at the end of the two pieces of poster board hastily scotch taped together and colored after midnight in exceedingly juvenile manner rainbow!


The kids were delighted! The parents had a bigger mess than usual to clean up! Sound familiar? We're just hoping that the Easter Bunny will be too busy hiding eggs to be bothered with egging the house or whatever the next big thing in holiday-related mischief will be.

Doing our part to stimulate the economy, one donut at a time

My friend Amanda is a passionate lover of Krispy Kreme donuts. I ran into her one day, and she was distraught because she had heard that Krispy Kreme landed on some list of "Companies Most Likely to Fail in 2009." I said what I could to console her; told her that even if they have to close some locations, surely Krispy Kreme as a brand will not disappear -- but words seem hollow at a time like this, they really do. So I decided to shut up and take action. This morning, I loaded the kids in the car -- daylight savings time, so we were all messed up anyway -- and drove straight to Krispy Kreme. We were happy:





And felt good knowing that we were doing our small part to help a donut powerhouse in need.

We're pulling for you, Krispy Kreme. Stay Hot Now, baby!

Denial: It's not just a river in Egypt

The other day, David gently asked me the following question:

"Caroline is starting to sport a little mullet, don't you think? What should we do about that?"

And I replied: "What mullet? I see no mullet."

I will admit, on rare occasions, but only from certain angles, you can sometimes spot the telltale

Business in the front


Party in the back


signs of a mullet. But that's just when the light catches her hair the wrong way. We are nowhere NEAR the point at which we have to consider taking my baby, my LAST BABY, to the hair butcher to get shorn of the locks that were on her head on the day she was born, are we? No, I didn't think so.

"We don't eat paint. Yucky." and other things I never thought I'd say

We had a fun-filled, spring-like weekend around here. Jacob ran in the Mercedes Kids' Marathon on Saturday morning. It is a really fun event. The program is run by the local elementary schools in conjunction with the Mercedes Marathon. The kids train by running a total of 26.2 miles -- they run most of them in gym class over the course of the fall and winter, and then complete the final mile at the Kids' Marathon, which is held the day before the full Mercedes Marathon.

David ran with Jacob (this is the last year he gets to run with a parent -- once he is a big second grader, he will run on his own). Here they are speeding by:



And after the race:




And with their goldfish-eating cheering section:



Saturday was also Valentine's Day, of course. It is really hard to think of Valentine's Day gifts for David -- there are only so many monogrammed locket cuff links that one man can wear. So this year, we decided to be practical and get David what he really needs: one six pack of beer per child who lives in the house. The good stuff, of course -- only the best for my Valentine. Here are Jacob and Elizabeth dancing to the musical greeting card that accompanied the beer:


We also did some art projects. You know, this is definitely one area of parenting that I romanticized before having kids -- "we'll do arts & crafts around the kitchen table, it'll be great!" -- but the reality is that I am just not an arts & crafts mom, and I will look for any excuse to avoid breaking out the paint. It reminds me of a story my law school roommate Jenny (miss you, babe!) used to tell about a friend of hers who remembers complaining to her mother: "Katie's mother does crafts with her. How come you don't do crafts with me?" And this girl's mother replied "Don't worry, Mommy does shopping, which you will appreciate much more someday." That mother and I would be friends. Reason #1,567 why I love preschool -- the kids can spend hours each week creating masterpieces in a variety of media -- puff paint, clay, pipe cleaners, pom pom balls-- and I do not have to clean it up. Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy many of the domestic arts with my children; we bake together regularly, for example, and they unfold the laundry that I fold. But craft projects are just not my thing. I have three kids and I have tried MANY times to become a craft-loving mom. I even subscribe to Family Fun magazine, which gives you more things to do with egg cartons and Floam than MacGyver can do with duct tape and paper clips. It's just not happening. It's me, not the crafts.

But Elizabeth asked me if she could paint on Saturday, and I said, "sure, you can draw!" But she saw right through that and said "no! I want to PAINT." My instinct in this situation is always "hell, no!" but every once in a while I do try to stop that Pavlovian reaction and say yes. So I said yes, got out the paint, filled up the cups of water, and sat Caroline and Elizabeth at the table in the basement:




Caroline's teachers tell me that she LOVES to paint. They have never said anything about her eating paint, so I wasn't really prepared for what was to come.

Innocent beginnings:



She was painting with PLAIN WATER -- it was a craft-hating mom's dream come true! But eventually she found the paint.

Aaaaand ate some paint:



I always figure that kids will take one bite of something like dirt (we ate that yesterday too) or paint, realize it is not particularly tasty, and then stop. But no, Caroline kept going back to that paint the way that I keep going back to that bowl of queso at La Paz. Once I realized that she was not going to stop on her own, I intervened. I did not photograph the scene in which I took the paintbrush away from her and took her upstairs to wash out her mouth -- because really, you all know what a temper tantrum looks like.

I hope that everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day!

One year olds: I could eat 'em up.

Of course I love my children at every age, and there are nice things about all of the various stages. But I've got to admit, I've got it really bad for one year olds. As adorable as infants are, I find toddlers to be particularly edible. They are like little upright babies, but they've got the added personality dimensions that come with full mobility and quasi-talking.

They still sleep with their little bottoms in the air:



They are curious about everything, like "what will happen if I stick my mouth under this running bath water?"




They "talk." You don't know what they are saying, but they do, and they are very earnest about it. Caroline and I had the following conversation the other day:

Me: Oh Caroline! Look! It's a PUPPY!! Can you say puppy? Pup-py. Pup-py.
Caroline: Woof.
Me: Ooooooooh, that's so CLOSE, sweetie!!! You so smart!

They attack their food with gusto:



And view with suspicion anybody who seems to be getting too close to their cookie:



I know many people mourn the end of the baby months, but what can I say -- the baby months don't tend to go so hot for us. But somebody better remember to bring mama a few boxes of Kleenex on Caroline's second birthday.

David Beckham has a lucky ass. Discuss.

I was in the middle of an excrutiatingly boring afternoon at work last week when my great and ever-alert friend Maureen sent around this news bit. Thank you for the pick-me-up, MSB!! Apparently Goldenbuns is the new good luck charm for AC Milan. Isn't it interesting that in the entire universe of the things that could be touched for good luck, the team chose Becks' ass? I'm just sayin'.