on last year's vacation, you may recall, we issued vacation moniker's to the kids based on a prominent behavior we observed given all the time we spent in and around each other. this year we did the same. this is the result:

• isabella 'bella daddy say whhaatttt??' walter dearmitt because of the mannerism she picked up from her hannah montana/miley cyrus marathon on one of the five televisions at our house rental. this is apparently something miley/hannah says at least once in every show using a funny, sing-songy affect which bella seemed to have perfectly captured.
  
  
• alexander 'nuts and weiners' walter dearmitt because of how silly he got running around with a friend close to his age that stayed with us in the house. these games rapidly devolved into the boys (via alex's tutelage) constantly referring to, singing songs about, or threatening to karate chop everyone's nuts and weiners in the house. i couldn't be prouder that my boy was the one to teach their boy this lovely and becoming mannerism.
  
  
• anthony 'pee-face' walter dearmitt because this is how he tries to keep up with his nuts and weiners older brother by calling everyone a pee-face. in mulling this over i've come to consider this an impressively effective and entirely under-used phraseology and one i will be introducing to my corner of society in the near future. which i guess ultimately means that in this cycle alex influences anthony and anthony influences me and this would be just about where i've always fallen on the trend-setting train my entire life.
  
  

and i reckon if we can brand the kids with personality-illuminating nicknames, there is no reason the courtesy shouldn't be extended to the parental units that allow the obnoxious behavior noted above to happen.

• marty 'twin bed' jean walter because even though our room had a spacious and inviting king sized bed with an expansive ocean view, marty slept on a twin mattress on the floor (with an obstructed view of the window) because she couldn't deal with sleeping with more than one person in the bed (anthony and i) regardless of its size. by the end of the week, marty was blissfully alone on her twin mattress on the floor while i slept with not one, not two, but all three of our children in what proved to be a veritable tangle of humanity and limbs.
  
  
• and i think i would have been branded troy "georges" lane dearmitt in honor of the book i was obsessively reading every free moment i could steal. the severity of my condition was fully exposed when i was caught reading in the corner of the toilet nook in our master suite's bathroom. i could see how an outsider might call it a bit off but this stool sitting beneath a skylight even if smack between the comode and the two-head, walk-in shower was made for a private moment and a good book, which georges by dumas so completely was!
  
  

you hopefully didn't notice but i was away last week. as for where i was, i was at the beach. as for which beach, it was one south carolina way, just south of myrtle.

as for the week ... simply put ... it was great. it was eight days shorter than our 2009 outing but in the end proved more relaxing. i only left the beach house, for non-beach business, once. i never pulled my laptop out of its bag. i only had to respond to three emails (via an iphone). and, i read an entire book with days to spare. for a guy who enjoys time at home with family and who predominately sits in front of a computer and never gets as much time in his books as he'd like, i'd say the week was everything an over-committed, into-his-kids, introvert could ask for.

oh, and marty and i got some ok minutes together as well.

we've been dog sitting for the last five weeks. he is a small, light-shedding, black and white terrier of some sort named oscar. he was obtained from a shelter by the family of a friend of marty's. he is very mellow and easy going which can be mostly seen in how he shoulders the unpredictable life of sharing living quarters with anthony.

the first week oscar was with us alex kept a small supply of dog food in an R2-D2 toy clipped to his belt-loop. every time alex would pass oscar he'd stop the dog, hunch himself over, pat the dog on the head, and ask if he wanted a treat. the first few times oscar would sit there jittery with excitement, his tail swishing erratically behind him. alex would then fight to open the small toy given it's awkward position at his waist. once open, alex would pluck a few pieces of dog food out and lovingly say, "here you go oscar-boy" holding his palm out to oscar who would nudge and push the small bits around with his nose before tentatively pulling them into his mouth with a lapping tongue. after oscar discovered these seemingly sacred and hard to get to treats were no different than the dry food he was already neglecting downstairs, oscar's body language emanated an "are you kidding me" affect and the impromptu R2-D2 snack breaks waned.

a few weeks in, the dog's owner, marty's friend, called to check on things. alex was the one to answer the phone. before marty became aware the call was for her, alex had told the lady that oscar threw up on a rug and pooped in the basement and that these things made his mom yell. by the time marty intervened, alex had the poor woman on the brink of packing up her family and returning home early in attempt to salvage this maimed relationship. marty, using all of her skills and grace, demoted alex's apocalyptic descriptions as mere transition pains and said everything was good and fine.

because i nickname everyone and everything, i took to calling the dog osky. one morning when i passed through the kitchen for breakfast and bid osky a good day, anthony told me not to do that and that osky was a bad word. before i could defend myself, bella jumped in, telling anthony that osky wasn't a bad word. after a pause and a reflective grunt from anthony bella added, "that is unless you change the 'aaww' to an 'aahh', and remove the 'skee'. then you had a bad word. and if you added the word 'hole' on the end of that word, then you would have an especially bad word." there is something to be said for getting what you know will be your most terrifying and surprising moment of the day out of the way before you have even have pants on.

two days before oscar was to leave, i asked bella what she thought the best thing about having oscar was. she thought for a moment, just a moment, and said the best thing about having a dog was it brought our family closer together. i asked her to explain why. she went on to say that since oscar needed lots of walks it caused people in the family to go out together; she and mom, she and i, anthony and i, she and alex. and also, there were several times where we'd gather around to see how someone was playing with oscar because it was cute or funny. i will give it to the girl, she can make a solid on-the-fly argument that is more cogent than i've seen grown men make in the heat of debate. in thinking about her observation, i would say that in the last five weeks just about the only one on one time i shared with anthony was while he and i were out walking oscar. although i guess i should also count the numerous times when i was explaining to anthony, one-on-one, that a dog's anus is not its GO button even if it looks like one and pushing it does, without fail, make the dog go.

in the end, we've learned the kids are closer to being ready for a dog than they were a year ago. we've also learned the same could be said of their father even if my progress hasn't been as significant. and we've learned that when all is going well, marty could possibly be caught petting and loving on the dog. that said, we've also learned that when marty's not feeling the life with a dog, the dog and whoever is responsible for bringing the cur into marty's home better sleep lightly until marty's funk passes.

it's that time of year again when i join the rest of blog-free america for a month. this year, i almost decided to not take my usual sabbatical but then a few things happened, three things to be exact. the first thing i wasn't around for personally, i just heard about it afterwards but when i heard what i missed i was beyond bummed. i thought if i had more time perhaps i could have seen it first-hand. the event in question dealt with a mother's outing (yeah, i know i'm a natural fit for that group) from the neighborhood. one of the women, who was quite drunk, turned to another one of the women, who is a hard-bodied, personal trainer, and told her that if she were a lesbian she'd be really, very attracted to her (the personal trainer lady). why can't the drunk people i'm around ever say classic, sexy stuff like that. instead, the drunk people i see say nothing but inane, bumbling, and predictable nonsense not worth remembering or repeating.

the second thing making me decide to take the month off is the last few days. usually i say i need time away because i'm getting hammered by life and am tired and burned out and spent and fed up. but this time it is the complete opposite. i'm none of those things. i'm stoked about my work, my kids, my wife, my days, my challenges. and i feel like i'm making ground and progress on all fronts and spending my days as i want to. this can very much be seen in my last four days which saw the following:

• i made big ground on a long-standing work to-do
• i received multiple, disconnected professional kudos and compliments
• my kids began their summer break
• alex and i went on a great end-of-school adventure (go-karting)
• three great-weather days (!!!) at our community pool (a pool i love to spiritual degrees) just opened up
• i made amazing progress on my mission to swim a mile (a goal currently two-years overdue but not forgotten or dashed)
• a family tennis outing
• great quality time with family
• time with friends i haven't seen much of
• time with marty (someone i also haven't seen enough of recently)

simply put, life is crazy good at the minute and i want more, more, more of it and want to live as distraction-free as possible for a bit.

and the third item is a blend of the above two and deals in time and in family. yesterday anthony was helping me do laundry and, more importantly, i had the time to let him help. he's actually a surprisingly good assistant. to begin, i deliver the laundry to the upstairs laundry chute. anthony's job is to send it all down the chute to the basement. granted you get a couple of bonus items like alex's shoes and anthony's train cars and bella's books but you also get all of the soiled clothes through his efforts. then downstairs anthony climbs into the laundry chute collector and pushes the clothes out onto the sorting table. when done there, he stands at the end of the table where i hand him the clothes an article at a time and say 'near one' (whites), 'middle one' (lights), or 'far one' (darks) and he throws them in the designated basket. the proper delivery of each article is met with great celebration and i can assure you a more exuberant laundry-man could not be found. during yesterday's laundry sorting when anthony was in the laundry chute pushing the clothes out, he paused for a moment to look up the hole as if something caught his attention. after a moment and as if he was speaking to someone he saw, he yelled, "if you're up there and can hear me, you are a pee-face."

it was at that precise moment i knew i needed to take my monthly sabbatical to BE with my family because while i'm always present i'm not always there and that is the very last thing i want to be remembered for. as always, i leave you with the monthly vomit:

what i'm eating
what i'm reading
sassafras tea
june gallery

i'll be back on tuesday, july 6th hopefully with many great stories and experiences to share and tell

someone recently commented to me that my blog seemed to be a lot about poop and penises and nudity.

i commented back that they must not have children.

the third thing marty said to me the other morning was, "tonight i think you should get an erection at the dinner table and then show it to everyone."

if you're wondering how such a request comes to pass, this is how.

1. it begins with an unfinished patio project in the backyard.
2. this is followed by a two-hour game of boats and moats which involves the muddy patio pit, a running garden hose, and my three children (as well as a few neighbor kids).
3. then comes a dinner call.
4. before children may enter the home, they must be hosed off. for the older children, this can be done by them holding hands out and pulling pant cuffs upward. for the three year old, nothing is salvageable and he must be stripped of everything and hosed down like a reluctant prisoner being processed for incarceration.
5. next comes the three year old's very usual reluctance to put a diaper back on which results with him eating dinner naked.
6. shortly after thankfuls, the three year old looks at his lap and says his penis is 'giant'. to this, his biology teacher mother flatly says, "that is called an erection anthony which means a lot of blood has gone to your penis but you don't usually see it because it is usually hidden in your underwear" to which he says a reflective "kewl" and to which his brother who is already keen to the giant penis condition says nothing but his sister (who is not so keen on the condition) says, "neat, can i see."
7. to this anthony says sure, stands up on his chair, juts his groin forward making his miniature staff hover over his prepared dinner plate of french toast and syrup.
8. alex and marty paid him no mind. bella craned forward to see better. i sat taking the whole scene in and guessed this very scenario had probably never gone down in our eighty year old dining room and thought it was super cool (kewl) it was unfolding (pun prop) right before me. standing there as he was, he looked like a miniature gladiator home from expanding the empire, and for me conjured images of roman decadence and pride.
9. without looking up, and while stabbing a few bits of french toast marty said (again flatly), "boys at my dinner table don't show off their penises while the family is eating so please sit down and finish your meal."
10. and once again, marty earns our home's title of 'spoilsport'.

a few weeks ago marty was out with a group of mom's from the kids elementary school. at several points through the evening women would break away from the conversation to call home and check in on the dads and the state of bedtime.

when one woman called, one of her kids, a first grader, answered. the mom asked how things were going the kid answered by saying, "johnny's being a dickhead." the woman's head dipped, she massaged her temples, paused and said, "put your dad on please."

obviously marty would never get a report like that from her house. not because her kids are above such blue language but because marty still doesn't have a cellphone.

marty told me about a house rule some friends of ours have. the rule loosely states that the mother is done being a parent come 9pm. the rule less loosely states that if you need anything reviewed, fixed, cleaned, spoken to, mended, treated, approved, addressed, or checked get it done before the nine o'clock hour.

this law came about after one of their kids asked the mother for help doing her due-tomorrow homework at 9:30 one night. the mom glanced at the page handed to her and then at the kid. the kid asked what the problem was. the mom replied that everything written on the page was in french. the kid asked if that was a problem. seconds after the last question was uttered the child was sent to bed (with her unfinished homework assignment in hand). and seconds after the child was sent to bed the off at nine law came into being.

a memorable moment from each of the kids over the last few weeks.

everytime we drove by a nativity scene, anthony would call out, "hey! baby genius! baby genius!"

and during our christmas meal thank-yous at my parents house alex led off with "i'm thankful we have food to eat and that none of us died before this christmas day."

and while driving home from visiting friends bella enlightened the family with the following bit of wisdom:

BELLA
don't ever say 'sitting' while holding your tongue.

TROY (after thinking it through)
where'd you learn that?

BELLA
school.

TROY
from who?

BELLA
i don't remember. but they taught a bunch of people by telling them to all say "i was sitting on the toilet the other day" while holding their tongues.

i hope your break was equally irreverent, insightful, and educational.

the Liefer family of five were walking along. one of the younger children did something that caused a parent to chastise them. the child resisted the parent, asking why they couldn't do what they wanted to do. the parent stalled, unable to verbalize the reason. the first parent looked to the second parent for help. before either parent could say why they wanted the behavior to stop, their oldest child, a girl of ten, interrupted the process saying, "you can't do it sam because it's not the Liefer way".

i don't experience gradations of illness. meaning, i don't go from being healthy to not so well to under the weather to sick to deathly ill. i go from fine to not fine. those are my two settings. what? you expect me to be beautiful and hearty? that's a rare combination my friend.

this latest illness lasted almost exactly 48-hours. i know because i sat down at my desk sunday night at 9pm to check my mail for the day and felt fine. at 10pm when i rose, i should have gone to my bike to exercise but instead i fell into bed where marty was reading. i was fast asleep within five minutes (aided by a super-awesome marty back-scratch). in the morning i was wrecked. then tuesday night, i sat at my desk at 9pm feeling dismal. at 10pm instead of moving to my bed as i feared i would need to, i passed it up and went to my bike and had my 10pm spin. put me back in coach.

below i'm posting the picture i planned on posting sunday night. but it's better here because i can give you a larger version of the photo. this was from a few weekends back when the family went paddle-boating. this is one of the several neat city features that is within biking distance of our home. although this particular activity is slightly brutal given the fact that you bike a couple miles to the place, then you paddle a bunch of humans around a couple of miles around a network of ponds, then you're back on the bike peddling the couple of miles back home. on this particular day bella and alex were saying they wanted to get two boats instead of one. marty thought it was an ok idea. something told me i was going to get hosed in the deal. i told the kids we could get two boats but they each had to peddle their share and if they didn't, we were turning around. they agreed. as you can see by this photo, marty scored both of our peddle-abled children and i got stuck with the guy who shoves his mucus coated finger up my nose when i'm sleeping. you don't have to spend much time with three year olds to know they intentionally build them this adorable. none would survive otherwise.

that said, it turns out my troy-getting-hosed spidey sense is working just fine.

when in santa fe on our holiday we stayed with another family. they had four kids. all but one was older than our kids, their oldest months from driving. one day while we were lazing about i asked the kids if there was a rule in their house they didn't like. after about thirty seconds the fifteen year old boy excitedly answered, "yes, the like jar was pretty lame." his sister immediately seconded the thought. i asked what the like jar was and before my sentiment was even complete, their mother groaned and her head sagged and to avoid her children's editorial she confessed the following, "i just couldn't take it anymore. the word like. it was constant. each and every sentence out of anyones mouth was peppered with five or seven or more likes. it was maddening. so i made a rule that every time someone said the word like in conversation and not in meaning they had to pay the like jar." her son then brightly added, "but it happened so often that mom couldn't keep after us about it and it died after, like, a day or two." i smiled at his enthusiasm as well as his slipping a 'like' into his taunt.

i said to the mother she should have promised them each fifty dollars at the end of the month but each time they said like, the month-end booty dropped a buck. with this she eyed the kids and with that they stopped smiling. or stopped smiling so obviously at least.

after more than 14 days, after more than 3,000 miles, we're back home. as for our destinations, they were:

saint louis, mo to buena vista, co (2 day stay)
buena vista, co to santa fe, nm (7 day stay)
santa fe, nm to fort collins colorado (4 day stay)
fort collins co to saint louis, mo (352 day stay)



i've got more pics and notes from the trip to share but at the moment all i've got time for is this note announcing our safe return home.

i do however have time to share my favorite comment of the trip. it came from bella when she and i were sitting in the back seat of the van and somewhere in eastern colorado. she asked me if i knew why you couldn't tickle yourself. i said, truthfully, that i did not know why you couldn't tickle yourself. she said it was because of your fingerprints. she said that everyone has unique fingerprints and only your body knows them and therefore isn't ticklish by them. but your body doesn't know other people's fingerprints and finds them ticklish to the touch. i gotta say that is the soundest explanation anyone has ever provided to me as to why i cannot tickle myself. i will also say that if you spend enough time in the car all conversations start sounding like late-night dorm-room banter. and by my meager estimation, there is no better form of discourse.

marty found a state park which had old cave dwellings which you could walk through. the experience began with a short walk through a forest and field to the main cave system. a few of the rooms were accessible via home-spun ladders. while the spaces looked spacious for a hole in the side of a cliff, they felt less cavernous once you crammed five people into them. and we didn't even have any of our stuff. like, where would i put my chinese teapot collection?



after working your way through the initial set of caves you hit a fork in the trail. one arrow points you back in the direction of the visitor center and the other sends you on an additional 1.5 mile hike through more woods to the community's defensive lodging. still feeling good, we opted for the extra leg.



when we arrived at the base of the defensive stronghold, you couldn't really see where it was situated in the cliff. but by the placement of the first ladder you got the sense that it was 'up thataway'. we ascended this first ladder and then wended our way through some tight walkways carved out in the stone. we hit the second wood and rope ladder. this one was twice the height of the first one and was bolted to a stone face that was more sheer and ominous than the first. in the below picture, it was about were that man was standing, facing out, with his arms in the air that i lost it. i blame him.



bella went first. then alex. then marty. then anthony. then me. on that ascent at about the point where the man was waving his arms the first wave of nausea hit me, then sweat. i was close in on anthony essentially looking at his butt. when the dizziness hit me i called up to marty saying i wasn't feeling right. marty is well aware of my issues with heights and immediately started talking to me, "ok troy. it's ok. you're almost here. just a few more. just keep looking straight." as soon as my body took in her words of encouragement. anthony let go of the ladder with his left hand swung out so he could turn and look down at me and said

ANTHONY
go pee daddy

TROY
no pee anthony. not now anthony. turn around anthony.

MARTY
anthony. not now keep climbing buddy.

TROY
go anthony! go now!

as of late anthony is playing this game where he likes to announce when he's going to go pee. when you ask him if he wants to go in the toilet he says no. i think he's just rubbing our nose in the fact that we're about to have some work to do. at seeing anthony hanging precariously off the ladder, holding on with just one hand, i was done and officially worthless. my sweaty hands tightened their grip on the uneven rungs and i pulled myself in closer to the ladder. marty coaxed anthony up the next few rungs and pulled him off the ladder and then talked me up the last few rungs. at this landing was another equally tall and sheer ladder. i looked at it then at marty. she put a hand on the my shoulder and said it was ok and she could handle the kids. which was good because while she was dealing with me, bella and alex already jetted up that ladder and were waiting to climb the next. marty followed anthony up and they continued onto the large cutout above while i sat on the ledge staring at the cliff wall.



marty and the kids returned after about twenty minutes. marty asked how i was doing. i said ok. i had been steeling myself for this moment and was prepared to get back down the evil ladder without issue. this time, alex went first, then marty, then anthony, then me, and then bella. marty was making sure anthony got down ok and was again talking to me. seeing what marty was doing once i was on the ladder, bella jumped in, as is her way.

BELLA
ok dad. it's ok. imagine that you're climbing on a ladder and that ladder is flying through the air.

TROY
oh jesus bella!

MARTY (in a hurried tone)
bella! you need to tell him things that make him feel strong. confident.

BELLA
ok. ok dad. dad. you're strong. very strong. you're as strong as a dinosaur.

amazingly, i got off that cliff without the aid of a helicopter.



in these woods that led to, and more importantly away from, the hell-cave we found that the trees smelled of cinnamon which for our family made them smell like french toast. bella sniffed the tree. bella hugged the tree. bella said the tree smelled so good she could marry the tree. and she doesn't even like cinnamon. that's my girl, amazingly unpredictable to the end.

the dearmitt clan on television
OR
why we don't own a television

one of the boys we're staying with is on his high school's swim team. i told him that i was trying to learn how to do flip turns. he eagerly launched into a tutorial starting by asking if i could do a flip. i said yes. he said show me. i did. he then went through the mechanics of the approach, the flip and the subsequent push off the wall. i took my place a few paces from the wall, launched into my stroke and took my first crack at the maneuver. after having actually achieved the approach, the flip and a partial push off the wall i rose out of the water knowing it could be better but amazed it at all resembled what i was after. he was standing ready to deliver his critique, "that ... was ... really ... terrible. i mean it was a complete failure."






speak with your heart and not your mouth and you will be loved.

the only time we eat mcdonalds is on vacations. to listen to our children it is 51% of the reason they like or agree to go on vacations. we are in the tenth day of vacation and have yet to partake in the golden arches. this has mostly been facilitated by the point that we are staying in places too remote for even ronald to hang out.


the good side of this means you get to encounter some of the most unique and quaint eateries you could ever imagine finding. if there's a downside, it is that such places don't do fast food, but the speed factor is nullified in that these roadside diners are so interesting and full of character, they are every bit as fascinating as the destination.

the family we were staying with were going away for the day. we asked if we should lock up if we left the house.

THEM
we'd prefer not because we don't know where our house keys are.

US
oh.

THEM
actually we're not even sure we have house keys. we didn't realize that until we went on a trip to new mexico.

US
and you left the house open for the weekend.

THEM
no, we left the house open for the week.

US
oh.

i guess that's mountain life.

on our second day on the road we gave nicknames to the children. they fell out as follows.

• bella 'really' walter dearmitt because of how she always says "really" after people say things to her she doesn't like or believe.
  
• alex 'no funniness' walter dearmitt because of how he always screams I WANT NO FUNNINESS when you try to play/mess with him when he's not in the mood for it.
  
• anthony 'showpop' walter dearmitt because of how he walks around the house all morning, day and night saying "showpop now. i want showpop now" which is what he calls my stovetop popcorn.
  

our first destination had a house-load of kids before we even arrived. most were teenagers and i learned the tenet of teenagers not finding younger kids cute was still alive and well with this current generation as could be confirmed by a conversation overheard by marty between two of them.

BOY 1
man those kids are loud.

BOY 2
yeah, and what's up with them. one is, like, american and the other one is, like, arabian or something.

poor aleo. and kids who have dogs look quite oddly upon kids who don't have dogs and like playing in the dog crates.



and we also got a taste of our future by watching a fifteen year old girl in summer mode, listlessly move about the house. one morning, or early afternoon, i overheard the following after the girl stumbled downstairs after waking up:

FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL
i feel like it's incredibly early

FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL'S BROTHER
it's 11:30

marty commented on the grace with which the parents shoulder the teenage daughters angst, which is another way of saying it was impressive that they didn't jump all over her when she said things like the above. the dad said that there were a few hard years, especially for the mother and the daughter. one day after observing a battle between the two the dad said to the wife, "you're working too hard. your job is not to run their life, it is to guide them and point them to opportunities." this notion went on to make a large difference and is probably something most parents could be reminded of time and again.

we're holidaying. it looked like we were going to skip this year and then a few things came up and now we're not. so as i'm able, i'm going to give you glimpses into our days as they happen so in case you are skipping this year's vacation like we planned to, you can live a bit through us.



a vacation ritual of marty's is to get a couple entertainment magazines, like Us, People, or Entertainment Weekly. then during a week of vacation, she'll methodically pour over them until they're entirely tattered and torn. you'd be surprised how comical it is to watch someone attempt to stay abreast of such free-flowing information only once every 12-14 months. for instance, such a discontinuous regiment fosters comments like from her:

i thought she just left him but here it says she's been artificially inseminated. but it doesn't say by who.

man look at this guy. he used to be pudgy. he looks pretty good now. but jeez, i think my treasure trail is more prominent than his.

we checked into the hotel at about 1am and immediately went to sleep. in the morning, we rose and packed getting ready to leave. as soon as the kids realized we were preparing to get back in the car, they freaked out thinking we were leaving without letting them watch any television. marty, reactionist extraordinaire, took the kids out to the lobby, got each of them a travel cereal boxes and marched them back to the room, each of them balancing their milk laden bowls. she then pulled a table to the end of the bed directly in front of the television, lined them up sitting on the foot of the bed, cereals in front of each and grabbed the remote. when she turned the television on, there was an image of an untanned meat-back flexing his oiled muscles in front of the camera sans shirt. that was all that was happening. nothing in the background, no sound, no voice-over, no nothing. just this smirking guy from the waist up. all five of us just sat mesmerized by this image that invaded our room for about ten seconds. then the inanity of the moment hit me and i started belly laughing. what struck me as so funny was not that this was on television (nothing will surprise me there) but that this is the the first glimpse of television my family got dealt on this vacation. after i started laughing, marty depressed the channel button. the next channel had just started credits for some animated dog show. alex immediately said, "oh i love this show" even though i'm quite certain he's never seen it before. so marty set the remote down, got her people magazine out and i opened my laptop and started typing this note. after about ten minutes we looked up to find all three children completely transfixed. bella's cereal was gone. the boys' was untouched. it looked like a scene out of one flew over the cookoo's nest. it took three calls of alex's name for him to even acknowledge anyone else was in the room. there's little doubt that marty and i could have been half way across the state before any of children even noticed or cared they'd been left behind.




and, in case it wasn't apparent enough in the pictures above, alex is wearing a tie. a tie he chose and tied himself.

sorry for the quiet days. i've been away camping. in evidence.

the below picture does not do a good job of showing i haven't showered or seen the indoors for three days but it's true. midway through the first day outdoors i thought i smelled pretty bad. the second day it seemed i wasn't so ripe. and by the third day i thought i smelled downright ok. if you could figure out how to bottle that sort of delusion, you'd be a wealthy soul. this picture also gives a sense (albeit blurrily) how many smores bella ate late into the night around the camp fire where she was one of the circle's favorite tellers of scary stories.



and you have a better chance of spotting bigfoot in the brush than catching alex in a foul mood on a no-work, no-school day.


and give anthony enough dum-dums and a big enough box of books and he could not be more sated, unless you could also get him a breast milk I.V.


and sorry we don't have a picture of marty. she was working too fast and hard to catch on film. moms always get screwed.

and for as good as we are getting at this camping business, the post-camping tick-check i get from marty still stands as the best part of it all.

a few sundays back we had brunch at a friend's house. in addition to the usual fixings, the host made a two pound platter of bacon that was wicked good and that my people fiended on like we had never seen the food product before. that night while doing laundry, i found a soggy piece of bacon in the bottom of the washer that one of our children had stuck into their pants pocket. i was only mildly surprised because the week before i found the decimated remnants of three strawberries after doing a load of darks.

the one thing that saves marty and i from having everyone think we are starving our children is that they, our children, don't steal more food from people's tables and pantries because they are too glued to people's television sets to make the effort.

remember, not having a television doesn't make marty and i better parents, it makes our kids better kids.

click to enlarge

in stumbling upon the latest anthony pic (beach tough), i found the above image of the family at the beach last summer which somehow never got pinned to the wall. and given these teasing glances we're getting at warm weather, it felt doubly right to share now.

1:30 i stood up from my desk to go to bed. marty was sleeping diagonally on the ping pong room futon. anthony was sleeping diagonally in my bed. i chose my bed. anthony is easier to push around than marty.

2:22 i woke up to anthony lifting my head with great effort and saying, "no you! ma-ma. no you! ma-ma." squinting my eyes, i lifted my head and had the following conversation with my blonde-headed 2 year old.

anthony, what are you doing?

no you. mama.

no me? no you. i'm sleeping here. mom is in the ping-pong room. if you want to sleep with her, go there. (with this i laid my head back down)

(anthony starts wailing and continues trying to push my head out of the bed) no! mama. mama! MaMa! MAMA!

i get up, carry him like a sack of potatoes under my arm to his crib and leave there wailing. i return to my bed, collapse in and am back asleep within 20 seconds.

2:50 alex whispers in my ear. he says he scared in his bed. wordlessly i lift the covers inviting him into my bed. he crawls in and snuggles into me.

3:43 alex wakes me again and says he really wants to sleep in his bed. i tell him to go sleep in his bed then.

3:47 alex wakes me again and says he still really wants to sleep in his bed but he's scared to alone and wants me to sleep in his bed with him. i tell him i can't because i'm already sleeping in this bed.

3:53 i'm climbing a bunkbed ladder with a sheet and comforter draped over my back like a deranged batman.

7:40 i stir to the sound of bella asking why she doesn't have any shorts in her drawer. as i open my eyes i realize i'm not lieing flat on my back. alex's head is under my right shoulder blade causing a large void beneath me and leaving me propped at an angle and pinned to the side safety railing of the bunk bed.

7:47 i gingerly rise to a sitting position and feel bones i never knew i had in my back rub together abrasively. a new day is underway.

if i had to buy the life story of someone i know i would choose a friend of marty's. i would do so based upon the following facts.

1. she grew up with the last name of Grief in a small, midwestern town.
2. in her family there were six girls and one boy, born last, which made them known around town as The Grief Girls, even after the arrival of the seventh.
3. her home had a communal underwear drawer which meant on any given day you could be wearing a lean pair of jockey briefs or a tattered pair of hip-huggers worn by your mother the week before.

if you don't think the above points to a house, a home, or a group of lives of interest, you and i do not agree on what is note-worthy.