How often does it happen...

Hey, how often does it happen that the senior editor at The Atlantic corrects himself on his blog because you had intelligently thrashed some graph he put up?  Not often, I would guess.  Or at least it doesn't happen all that often to me.  Apparently, though, it happens to Chris.  Derek Thompson, the senior editor guy, corrected his graph (which made a HUGE change) and then explained the difference by complementarily quoting Chris.  I thought it was extremely cool.    
See article here

We made gingerbread houses with the Blacks.  It was awesome.  There is a cop car in the front.  In the back where you can't see, Grandma's car has the severed body of Santa underneath it.  Grandma ran over Santa this year. Oh, and Parker is off playing with trains.  Lyra actually helped put on most of the red hots there on the front.

Also, my kids were being cute and, while it was a time ago, I thought I would throw it in for the many baby hungry uncles and aunts.  Yeah, I'm on to you.  You are just all sending my kids Christmas presents because you simply wanted an excuse to dip your toe into little kid world.  And because I am on to your selfish gift-giving I am still only going to send you a miserably narcissistic Christmas card and DVD of my kids.  That will sure teach you to be baby hungry.  (ok, no, really, you guys have all been so sweet.  Thank you for remembering and finding time to tenderly select, wrap and mail a gift to my kids.  They are rapt with excitement.)

Nov. 29, 2011

Lyra Parker

Lyra: cough cough*

-Parker, with the adorable awkwardness of a toddler, gently patting Lyra on the back

Parker: 'are you ok?'  

Lyra: ok

Parjer: cough cough cough*

Lyra:you ok, Parker ok?

Parker: yeah, I'm ok

-note, we still have runny noses and coughs... will the river of boogers never cease to flow?..

Nov. 30 2011

Parker is constantly marching around the house chanting 'one two three four'  over and over.  Occasionally he will count to five again and again with each footstep, occasionally it is ten.  What is consistent is that those legs are extended fully and as high as he can get them while he counts around the house 'one two three four one two three four'  it is his interpretation of the elephant march song in Disney's Jungle book

December 11, 2011

Lyra and Parker were happily playing together on a box and an ottoman.  Parker had earlier raided the pantry and retrieved a granola bar, which he was still gnawing on. I had long left them to play (forgetting that he had the granola bar) and as I was doing dishes heard from the other room, "here, lyma." in a sweet, brisk voice then Lyra's "gegu"(thank you, Lyra style, the 'th' sound is still hard on her'.  Then, a few minutes later I heard Lyra, "here, pookah" and Parker's "oh, gagu," again, all business.  The exchange continued with a few minutes of time between each "here, lyma," "here pookah" back and forth back and forth for a good half hour.  Finally I peaked in and sure enough, they had been sharing that granola bar, back and forth back and forth till there was nothing but a little slimy nub sitting in the bottom of the wrapper I had left around the bottom.  Sweet little kids had been passing it back and forth that whole time.

Oh, and as long as I am dumping everything under the sun in this post, Remember that goose that chased Parker forever ago at that park?  We went back on a beautiful fall day, Parker, of course, wanted to go see the 'ducks' and when they didn't walk away, he was confused, but happy.  He got closer and some stupid goose waddled up to him and pecked at Parker's shirt just once before I had it by the neck and was throwing it away from him.  Parker was confused, I think the stupid goose will be bruised and I was simply unamused (yeah, I am so rhyme-y and cool).  It was funny, though, how I had confused Parker cradled safely in my arms before I realized how I had actually just brutalized some dumb goose.