Blog Book Review--Reunion

Well, she has done it again. My talented friend Allyson Condie has finished her Yearbook trilogy with just the right combination of style and sentiment. She has the ability to create characters that the reader can both identify with and feel invested in. Ally's style flows easily and effortlessly from story to story, subtly interweaving them together with themes of friendship, love, and faith.
I found myself reminiscing about my own high school and college experiences--wondering what it would be like to go back and live those days again as my current self. I think that is what resonated with me the most about this series--you can never go back, you just have to do the best you can now with whatever you have. The struggles and crises that the characters endure are not unique. I think that is something that gives me comfort now, the realization that althought difficult circumstances may be unique, the ensuing feelings can be understood by more people than we realize. And of course, the best sources of strength and consolation never change--good friends, family, and the Lord.
I highly recommend this series for anyone--it was my favorite Birthday present.

Adventures in Daddysitting

Scene: Busy hospital reception area. A nurse, Jennifer, has just been paged to answer a personal call.

Jen: Hello?

Husband (on phone): Hey, how are you doing honey?

Jen: Oh, not the best day.

Husband: Really, uh . . . sorry to hear that. Why's that?

Jen: It's been kind of crazy around here today. Nothing too bad, just kind of stressful.

Husband: Oh, okay, umm . . . I was just calling with a question. If someone needed stitches would you take them to the pediatrician's office or an urgent care?

Unfortunately this isn't a poorly written excerpt from a mid-season sitcom replacement. This is a poorly written excerpt from last Friday.

Alec was meeting at a McDonalds "restaurant" with an extremely thoughtful professor, who had suggested this meeting place to accommodate a dad who was taking care of his kids for the day. Things were actually going quite smoothly at one point. The kids were stuffing their messy faces with a cinnamon roll and climbing around on the play set. The meeting was productive. In fact we were just about to wrap things up when Lily climbed up on a bench and tried to step from one bench to another. Apparently her foot didn't make a solid connection with the bench; however, on the way down her head did. Things are now running a little less smoothly. Alec's next 5 minutes run as follows:

• Pick daughter up off of the floor. Assess damage.
  
• Clean up blood running down her face and apply pressure to the wound with sandpaper quality McDonalds napkins.
• Ignore customers who are craning their necks to see why that little girl is screaming bloody murder.
• Help son put on his shoes, gather up daughter's shoes, pack stuff up in backpack--all while comforting daughter and maintaining pressure on the wound.
• Apologize profusely to professor, who is apologizing profusely herself, even though this is in no way her fault.
• Buckle daughter in the car seat, buckle son in booster seat, and give daughter a crash course in first aid so that she can apply pressure to her own wound.
  
• Drive. Turn around every 3 seconds to remind daughter to keep pressure on her wound. She seems to be doing a good job of keeping pressure on her nose, cheek and hair. Unfortunately, the cut is in none of those places.
• Physically readjust her hand every 3 seconds to keep pressure in right place.
• Call wife to ask where the nearest urgent care is and realize he doesn't have insurance card.
  

And that takes us back to where we started.

A close up of Lily's stitches--2 on the surface, 1 sub dermal.

Luckily she was back to her normal self pretty quickly. This was taken at a Sun Devil's game that night.

Amazingly it appears that she still trusts/loves her Dad.

Mom, on the other hand, is not so sure and is definitely ready to call it a day.

Thomas Redux

For anyone out there with a boy between the ages of one and who knows how old, I am sure you can relate when I say that I am glad that Eric has not outgrown his obsession with Thomas, the lovable blue tank engine. After spending an unnamed sum on toys, movies, etc, the fact that he still plays with them every day is unspeakably comforting.
Alec has started doing something that Eric absolutely loves--making up his own Thomas stories when we are on a long trip, in the store, or any other place that brings out the inner demon in children. Let me just say that these stories were not at all what I expected. One involves a plot against the King of Sodor by his Frankish enemies that is foiled by Percy. The other involves the Cold War, a covert Soviet spy (Agent X), Thomas undercover as a Russian engine, and even a cameo appearance by Sherlock Holmes.
This got me thinking, maybe we should market these ideas to the Thomas industry. Surely they would appreciate an opportunity to expand the age range of their target audience, no? It would make Thomas stories relevant for older boys, thereby encouraging them to continue buying Thomas merchandise. Alec and I came up with a few possible titles:

Diesel 10 Starts a Turf War
Thomas and Emily Elope to the Mainland
Mommy, Where Do Baby Engines Come From?
Toby Finally Gets Scrapped
Sir Topham Hatt Has Lung Cancer

Halloween Costumes

As we were going through our kids' Halloween bags, collecting our 50% commission for transportation, costume design, and supervision, we realized that we hadn't posted Halloween pictures yet. We had a hard time getting good pictures of the kids' Halloween costumes this year, but we may have managed one or two cute ones. For bonus points, answer the poll at the upper right.