Feb
24
Picasso Is Home
by Leslie
We picked her up Monday night. And we’ve been doing a lot of this.

And this.

(Please ignore my bedhead. Showering isn’t a priority when you get your should-be-dead cat back.)
And it’s doing some good, I think, because she’s now drinking on her own and eating with help. This morning, she rolled on her back to let Dave rub her tummy. Later, she played with Lucy and explored the house a bit, despite her coordination and balance issues.
She’s timid and tired, but she’s still Picasso. I am so grateful.
Feb
10
I always tell myself that if I just had one day off to catch up on things, my house would be clean. It turns out, that’s not true. We’ve been pretty much snowed in since Friday and it’s still a wreck. I manage to find just about anything else to do but clean.
Here’s how I avoided the dishes yesterday.
Feb
6
The Big Snow Storm
by Leslie



Feb
2
Three’s A Crowd?
by Leslie

on his back for one more kid?
Well, there better be.
Jan
28

food never looks quite so good
as when it’s not hers
Jan
23
A Night Out
by Leslie

we go anywhere sans kids
we took a picture
Jan
14
Letting You In On An Inside Joke. Because We Actually Really Like Germans. Especially Small Ones.
by Leslie
The whole family was around the table and dinner was winding down. Lucy was dropping the last of her peas onto the floor one by one, Julia was negotiating how many more bites she had to take before I’d let her go play Petville, and Dave and I were jotting down calories when my Dad rose and said, “Well, if you’ll excuse me I think I’m going to go upstairs and play around with a little German,” as he had been working diligently to master the language.
“Where do you keep it?” Dave inquired. “In the closet?”
My father looked confused. I raised an eyebrow at my husband, who was looking very pleased with himself.
“The Little German,” Dave said. “Where do you keep The Little German? And does your wife know about it?”
A smile crept across my father’s face. “Alright,” he said with a chuckle, “you got me.”
A beat later, the joke dawned upon me. “Ahhh, I get it.”
By then, Dave could no longer contain his mirth and began laughing and slapping the table.
That night, as we settled in to bed, he was still giggling at his joke. He relived the moment where he made my dad laugh with a pun, when it’s usually the other way around, and we imagined a tiny man popping out of the closet in his lederhosen to eat Goldfish crackers and play a game of chess with my father.
Now, we have a lot of fun joking about The Little German. When I complain that my cell phone is missing, Dave suggests that The Little German has taken it. And when I complain that I don’t feel like cleaning, we discuss the benefits of having The Little German help out with the chores. Rather than fearing The Boogey Man, the kids wake up screaming about The Little German in the closet. Okay, so maybe it isn’t so fun for everyone, but these are the kind of things that make a family. At least one like ours.
Jan
13

Dave says, “I look angelic.”
“When you sing, you are.”
Jan
7
I Laugh A Lot More Since I Met Him
by Leslie

that I don’t realize I’m
lucky he is mine

Jan
4
All Good Things Must Come To An End
by Leslie
Christmas vacation is over.
Today we returned to our normal life of school, work, alarm clocks and bathing. My braless-pajama-party-sleep-in-til-noon festival of lazy had to end sometime, I guess. It turned out well considering I had done everything I could to ensure a misery-filled Monday including but not limited to: 1) declaring Saturday night THE LAST NIGHT OF FUN EVER and allowing the girls to stay up as late as they wanted (1 a.m.) and subsequently 2) letting them sleep waaaaay in on Sunday so that 3) I couldn’t get them to sleep until 11 p.m. last night and so when 4) I set the alarm and it went off at 6:30 a.m. so I could work out before breakfast during which 5) I watched the school closings for 45 minutes just to be thwarted in hope every time our county didn’t appear on the screen, everyone was already tired and disappointed.
But!
I worked out. Julia made it to school on time with only minor injury and mental anguish. (Apparently the pants I had laid out for her were both treacherous and insulting.) Lucy woke up so sing-songy and smiling, her crazy untamable bed-head hair was barely noticeable. And Dave? Well. Dave was there. Given his work schedule, that’s enough for me.
It was almost refreshing to get back to the routine.

Almost.














