Spook preview

More to come, but for now, here are a few pics of the little bumblebees yesterday outside Sidamo's school. See that snow? It's all that remained of our foot-and-a-half accumulation 12 hours after the snow stopped. And today? Trick-or-treating with no coats, no mittens.

See? There could be worse places to live. Where else can you go from snow angel to swingset in 48 hours?  

Wintry, Wordless Wednesday

In case of nuclear holocaust …

… come on over!

 

 

Maybe it's Maybelline

Seriously, ladies, what would you give?

Will the real Mark Bittman please stand up?

This morning Greg showed Sidamo a photo of Mark Bittman in How to Cook Everything, and said, "See? This is Bitt-Man."

"That's Bitt-Man?" he asked, incredulous. "Why doesn't he have something on his face? That's not how you be Bitt-Man. This is how you be Bitt-Man!" and pulled his hood over his eyes like a mask.

Superhero

Just recently Sidamo has started taking an interest in Batman and friends. He hasn't seen the movies, but the merch is unavoidable.

Today Sidamo pulled his sweatshirt hood over his eyes, sort of in cape/mask fashion, and started yelling, "I'm Bitt-Man!"

"Bitt-Man?" I asked. "Who's Bitt-Man?"

"He's a superhero!" Sidamo replied, while doing his caped, masked superhero moves.

"Bitt-Man?" I asked, racking my brain. "You mean, like Mark Bittman? The one who wrote that cookbook?"

"Yes! Bitt-Man! I'm Bitt-Man!"

Okay, I'll bite. "What's your superpower?"

"I teach Daddy how to make pancakes!"

Finally, a superhero I can get behind. Now where's the Bitt-Man merch?

Bookkeeping

Tooth count: 3
And not where you'd expect them.

First came the bottom two. Not surprising.

Then came the top one, to the right of center. It's just hanging out there by itself, waiting for some neighbors to join it. It's kinda ridiculous looking, but also kinda ridiculously cute.

Word count: 20-ish
These are the ones I can think of right now:

• More (pronounced muh, and used to mean "Gimme that!")
• Mommy
• Daddy
• Daisy (used for every dog)
• Uh-oh
• Beans
• Mine (love that one)
• Stop
• Baby
• Apple
• Diaper
• Poop
• Pop-pop
• Pappy (pronounced Popeye)
• Damo (pronounced Dado)
• Hi
  
• Bye
• Eye
• Woof
• Duck

Slider

Nora is fearless, bordering on reckless. My hair is graying even more rapidly than was predestined by my genetics (did you see Pop-pop's snowy white coif? He had that by age 30). Exhibit A:

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A Man, a Plan, a Canal, Ohio

About an hour from my father's home in Ohio runs a canal. On this canal one can take an historic canal tour on a replica of an old canal boat. Given the fact that this is my second time on the tour and each tour is narrated by a person very passionate about the history of the canal, I should be able to tell you more about it—even its name, maybe—but I can't. I am drawn to it more for the scenery and serenity, both of which are abundant.

Pop-pop with his youngest grandchild

The girls (me, Nora, and my beautiful niece Zoe) looking for turtles

Xavier, Zoe, and Sidamo at the front of the boat. Or the back.

After our tour, we all went to a fantastic playground to burn off some energy. It was so nice to see the big cousins playing so well with their little cousins. Because we're all scattered about the country, we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. That means that every time I see Xavier and Zoe, they've grown about a foot apiece. I can't believe these were my teensy little niece and nephew three blinks ago. And that I used to change their diapers, and they used to spit up (profusely) on me, and I used to wake up with them in the middle of the night like I now do with my own kids, and now they're inches away from surpassing me in height. It's just not right.

Sorry, hips

But fresh, homemade bread is so, so good.


And so much easier, thanks to my recent Craigslist find.


And so much more scrumptious, thanks to a book borrowed from a friend.