Come, Mommy

We’re pretty good with household finance around here. We pay off the credit cards every month, we know how much we spend on the usual bills every month, and we squirrel a little money away for unexpected expenses. But after this week, I’m thinking we vastly underestimated the latter category this year.
Last weekend we picked [...]

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I was fixing Liam some breakfast this morning. He was playing in the toy room. A series of thumps occurred…
Thump 1:
Imagine the sound of a thirty pound boy tumbling onto the floor…“Mommy, come here! I fell backwards. You need to kiss my backside!!”
Thump 2:
Large thump followed by the sound of things rolling around on the [...]

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The weather, she is a bit spooky today. I grew up in the Midwest, and even though I haven’t lived there in years, apparently I’ve still got a sixth sense about tornadic activity. Although the weather forecast involved nothing but rain and more rain this morning, I stepped out the door and the hairs on [...]

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Apparently our entire state was recently relocated to another hemisphere, and I never got the memo. Yes folks, the weather is less like New Jersey in summer than New Delhi in monsoon season. It has rained. And thundered. And rained. And poured. And drizzled. For three or four straight days now. And it’s not supposed [...]

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Apparently, I am not scary enough….

You Are Not Scary

Everyone loves you. Isn’t that sweet?

How Scary Are You?
Now what is scary is the cold I have. I would whine, except there is one benefit here. Despite the heat and humidity today, I have enough of a fever that it actually feels good to be outside.

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There’s a new kid in town, and his name is Little Toad. We’ve found several of these cute little Fowler’s toads in our yard recently, and Liam is quite taken with them:

Liam identifies with small animals (that’s what you get growing up with lots of pets, I guess), and much of his imaginary play is [...]

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I’ve got a bad case of writer’s block here. (Blogger block?? I dunno.) Accordingly, I’m punting with a topic Kevin suggested - why does bathtime take so darn long in the Menagerie House?
The answer is that Liam, like most toddlers, is a creature of routine and repetition. A couple of months ago Liam decided baths [...]

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You’ve probably heard about helicopter parenting in the press. It’s a phenomenon in which anxious parents of college kids call professors to discuss grades, roommate problems, and things of that nature. It’s not the best for professors or students, at least in my book, since by college age, students should be approaching professors on their [...]

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Kevin is setting out to build a big sandbox for Liam and his pals. He started out yesterday by removing two bushes to make room. Liam was into it for, oh, five minutes or so, but quickly lost interest. See the highlights below, with actual Baby Duck commentary.
“Daddy’s using his shovel again. It’s funny! He [...]

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Welcome to Hurricane Season 2006! The first storm has formed, and it seems to want to visit Florida early next week. We’re sending storm-deterring thoughts your way, y’all.

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