It's like this...

Do you ever take on the mood of something you're reading? I do. Unfortunately. Or fortunately, depending upon the material I'm mentally consuming. Right now I'm reading We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. It came out five years ago and I never heard a word about it. I wonder if it was due to it's dark material.... I don't know. The book is written in letters by Eva to her husband. Their son committed mass murder at his high school, an event that Eva refers to only as Thursday . I've not finished it yet---but I will. Her thoughts on getting pregnant and bringing home her son are confusing to me. I know everyone is different and though we may experience the same things (childbirth), not everyone processes those same experiences in the same manner. We don't react in similiar ways----but her feelings and thoughts on this matter are foreign to me. Oh, not the tiredness, but the resentment she seems to have over this child who took her body ...

I once wrote a column about how I may have mentioned to my nieces that eating broccoli would increase their....er, chest size. In my defense, I was simply trying to get them to eat more green vegetables. My sister had some rather serious surgery today and so I'm taking care of her girl Nicole. I took her to a doc appt, bought her lunch and then brought her home with us after school and we had dinner together. While the girls were at the table, they were acting like.....well, girls. Much to the dismay and disgruntlement of my father. Somehow the discussion of how eating broccoli will increase their....well, you know.

My father has taken it upon himself to be the sole dispenser of all food for the four footed creatures in our home, of which there are many. He feeds the dogs once a day and this has not set well with my puppy Cassie. Ok, she's not really a puppy any longer but much like how I view my babies as my babies, my dog will always be my puppy. He enjoys taunting and teasing my dog and always feeds her last. He thinks it's amusing to watch her watching the other two canines wolfing down their plate of food while she prances and dances and slobbers. Ah well. He has to get his entertainment somewhere, right?

One of our favorite shows is NCIS. I think Gibbs is cute but my little Ally thinks my age is the reason for my complete lack of ability to sense hotness in guys on tv. At one point there was some danger to the Goth chick Abbey Allison: "Abbey can't die, she's the only cool person on the show!" Me: "Uh uh, Dinozo is way cool" Allison: "You don't know anything because you're a wrinkly old person" Me, mouth wide and eyes staring at her. Allison: "Mom, you can gape at me all you want, it's not going to change anything. You're still getting gray hair and you can't stop aging" I was so proud she used the word 'gape' correctly.

Today was Rosie's second lesson---and she loved it as much as she loved the first one. I allowed Allison to come with us--just this once--so she could see what the instructor was teaching Ash in order to be able to help her practice it on saturdays at the local pool. Here she is leaping into the pool. Ok, leap is bit of an overstatement, but you get the idea. Here's a video of her swimming with a noodle. She's quite good with a noodle. Noodles are good. Oh great, now I'm hungry. And here's the last one---you can see Allison practicing her Air Swimming. She's getting better at it, though she dislikes me photographing her doing so. It was a great morning with my girls.

According to this article , it is! Excuse me while I do a little happy dance. Ahem. Ok. Done. This doesn't mean they're back at work yet, but should be within the week. I went to bed relieved and happy for the first time in....oh, 53 days. We might have a Christmas after all! Ok, back to happy dancing.

Every October we have a pre-halloween-dress-up-and-score-candy night at our church. Well, in the church parking lot. They call it trunk or treat because you're supposed to decorate your trunk and the kids walk around the parking lot and say "Trunk or Treat!" and you give them something destined to cause their parents more dental bills. Tonight our kids did just that. Ash was a little devil-girl, complete with pitchfork and Ally was... uh.... I'm not sure what she was exactly. She had on a Gothic Cross Hat that sported a skull and swords. She also carried a rather large battle axe. They scored a great deal of sweets and came home happy. Life is good when you're young and have candy. Here, listen to the spooky music. You know you want to. Make a Smilebox greeting