i'm the christmas person in our home. if i didn't set it up, it wouldn't happen. this year, the day we were scheduled to decorate, every time i'd pass bella or alex, they'd eagerly ask if it was time yet? and if i was going to bring christmas up from the basement NOW??? and could they help? and when, oh when, were we going to do it? this onslaught of energy told me this year's chore would place ex...

right now it is thursday morning, 6am. the last meal i had was monday night, 5pm. since then i've consumed less than 500 calories. and i feel great. i think nicole richie used a diet like this. i say this not because i'm losing weight like nicole richie but because i'm starting to look like nicole richie. and just in time for the holidays! lucky break.

i gotta tell ya. whatever this funk i have is, it's weird. not only can you not eat, you don't even want to eat. and (once you clear out your digestive tract) you feel and function fine. someone ought to look into canning this bad-boy. and speaking of cannable-goods. alexander naturally has about 5% body fat (3% since getting this illness) and can wear nothing but underwear in a freezing-cold room and feel like a white-hot charcoal briquet. it's bizarre. and it's spooky. and, it's wonderfully marvelous, especially in the night when he is close and one of the house-comforters is not.

alex puked at 11pm. then again at 12:30am. bella woke up coughing at 12:45. marty rushed to her side, choke-up bowl in hand. she asked bella if she was ok. she said she was but just had a dream she was about to throw-up.

this does not bode well for my night's sleep or my 30-year record of a puke-free troy.

on very cold nights, our home has one less blanket than it needs. which bed comes up light is about as predictable as who will be resting in any of the various sleeping spots our house has to offer.

obviously, you'd think the adults would carry the advantage being bigger and smarter and all. but, little people move quietly and have more to fear if caught. so blankets get tugged back and forth across a bed and even drug from room to room in the night's silent hours. but that's not all that gets transported. i once saw alex pushing a miniature baby stroller down the hallway at 3am. i looked just long enough to verify my blanket wasn't in it before flopping my head back on the pillow, tightening my grip on the corner of my linen and going back to sleep.

three nights ago i drew the short straw. while sleeping in alex's bed (which is pushed up against bella's bed), i got bested by bella who wound herself up so tight in my comforter, my fatigued arm couldn't work her out of it. so i spent the night in and out of sleep, curled up and shivering. i gave up on sleep around 5am and headed towards the bath for a steamy shower. in passing my nemesis, i cast a scornful look at the blissfully warm and sleeping girl. i swear i saw a contented smile form on her rosy face as i stumbled by tightly hugging my naked chest. while i stood waiting for the shower's water to get hot, i noticed something about my body; it felt lean and my skin was super-taut. it was almost as though my body's futile attempt to generate warmth caused me to loose three pounds in the night. then my mind recalled a suggestion from a health magazine where it said drinking ice cold water, instead of tepid, burns forty extra calories per glass because your body has to heat the liquid once in the stomach.

it seemed to make sense. at least to my un-rested and slightly bella-jealous mind. instead of gyms having saunas they should have seat-lined deep-freezes where old rich guys could go in with their buddies and sit around naked debating last weekend's games while chattering and rubbing the tops of their thighs for warmth. granted if these did exist, i wouldn't actually get a membership, because between having a wife who doesn't like to turn the heat up past 60 degrees and a daughter who outfoxes me with frustrating regularity, i'm already paying a mortgage on my very own seat-lined, bed-scattered deep freeze.

and as clarifying note, marty is the exception to this rule. she (a) always sleeps in the same spot and (b) never goes without covers. everyone living here knows not to lie on mom's clean patch of sheets and to never slide a blanket off her sleeping frame. even bella won't tangle with that sleeping lioness. and that's saying something.

i was in the breakfast room reading the paper. bella was in the living room pretend-reading a nancy drew. she called from the couch asking if i would bring her a glass of water. i walked a plastic cup into her, she took it, raised it and then paused before drinking:

BELLA
dad, did you get this water from the sink or the fridge?

TROY
i got it from the sink.

BELLA
oh good. that means i won't get diarrhea.

it was at this precise moment that i stopped asking questions about things in my home. questions like why is our brita pitcher disassembled on the kitchen counter in more pieces than i even knew it had. or why did my daughter just say that our purified water supply would induce diarrhea? i didn't ask because i've learned, slowly and finally, that i'm simply not prepared for the answers that will come.

one week ago was my six month anniversary at the new job. the biggest factor of this milestone is i can now take vacation time (i can also get sick). coincidentally, bella had yesterday off school so i cashed in my first official vacation day. marty had invited bella's entire kindergarten class to join us for the day at a pumpkin farm. she had several takers and it was shaping up to be a lively day in the country. then monday morning we woke up to this ...

so what does any sane, hookey-playing family do with a free day, no plans and torrential rain. we go to the zoo! the saint louis zoo is a real city gem, one of our finest. we spend quite a bit of time there. you could say it is our family's amusement park, and it doesn't hurt that it is in biking distance, although, we left the bikes at home on this wet day.

the moment we walk through the zoo's gates, alex starts; "train daddy. i want to ride the train. where's the train daddy? is the train sleeping? are we walking to the train daddy? do i hear the train?" if you hadn't guessed yet, the zoo has a train. it can carry something like 50-75 people on its nearly two mile run and has four stations along the way. alex personally thinks a zoo is more about this miniature locomotive than about exotic wildlife.

given the weather i was not confident the train would be in operation. as we approached the desolate station i saw a man in a conductor's hat sitting behind a fogged ticket window. i asked if the train was running. with a sigh, he said it was. he picked up the phone and said into the receiver, "i got a family of five at the living world station". he then hung up. it was here i realized the train was scheduled to run but was sitting warmly in the garage because of the few patrons at the zoo, none were requesting a ride on the outdoor steed. and then there's alex looking up from my hip, "train coming daddy?". yes alex, train coming. i could only imagine the startled expressions and gravelly curses exchanged between the two mason-like men who got the call. after our attendant had summoned the train, we learned there was a problem with our membership tickets. given the engine was en route, the ticketeer gave us a free pass. when the train pulled into the station a few minutes later marty and i expressed our gratitude to the two rain-slickered engineers who were extra-gracious about the task.

our family then shared in a personal tour of our city's zoo with bella and alex smiling widely in the very front seat. the conductor gave us the real-deal announcing the animals and amenities over the train-speaker just as he would for a sunny-saturday crowd. little did he know i, or even alex, could have probably done the same spiel straight from memory. although, at one stop he did say "we're coming up on the river's edge station, please have your tickets ready, but since you don't have any tickets, don't worry about it."

by the time we got home, we were collectively drenched and starving. we all stripped in the foyer and headed to the kitchen for soup, left over manicotti and oven toast. we capped the late-lunch with stove-top coco garnished with bella-cut mini-marshmallows and headed up for a viewing of monsters inc. while crowded on the couch, sharing a fleece blanket.

it has been too many month's since our family has enjoyed such a private and focused day. here's to remembering to slow the ride down every now again, even if you end up with wet underwear while on it.

not only is this the first photo of our new family, en masse, it is also the first picture ever taken of me and anthony in the same frame (this is the suck-part of being the family photographer).

and for the record, i would never hold baby antonio that way which also goes quite far in explaining his anguished expression. the last time someone held me like that i almost ... oh wait a minute ... it was actually a good thing, but never you mind that, little anthony isn't yet ready for those sorts of shenanigans.