Make it Go

Very Few Pictures

Don't have many pictures this week--unless you wanted some spiders and bugs... :)

One of the front yard after dark... recently.

From a crazy party with 20+ children at it.

This is Claire's new teapot--she got it for Mother's Day.

A Ron Paul Quote:

I continue to be amazed by this man. This quote is from "The Revolution: A Manifesto" and is in the context of a comment about why Bin Laden has found an audience for his anti-western Jihad, where the Ayatollah Khomeini did not.

"Few people are moved to leave behind their worldly possessions and their families to carry out violence on behalf of a disembodied ideology; it is practical grievances, perhaps combined with an underlying ideology, that motivate large numbers to action."

Ron Paul on the ineffectiveness of disembodied ideology.... I love it!

Fishing While Sleeping, We Don't Expect Much of Older Brothers, and New Ways to Occupy Oneself on the Toilet

Here, a little collection of anecdotes from the last couple of days:

So, I go into the girls' bedroom to see that everyone is lying still, no-one has smuggled toys into bed, and all that parental night-time stuff. Everyone is lying still, but I notice among the chaos that is Nelly's bed (she being our chief smuggler), a robe tie sort of trailing over the edge and onto the floor. Well, that's easy enough to fix. I pick it up, but that rouses the sleeper. "Hey!" she hisses. "I'm fishing."

***

One day at lunch:

Nelly: Knock-knock!
Lewis: Who's there?
Nelly, dismayed, disgruntled, and obviously a victim of her own expectations: Nooooooo, Lewis!

Of course, it didn't help that Lewis picked it right back up and asked, "Nooo, who?"

***

And just a little while ago, I realized I hadn't seen Lewis for several minutes--I mean, several, like fifteen, and the last time right before he disappeared into the bathroom. Simultaneously with this thought, I heard a sharp cry from that very place. Turns out Lewis had been practicing counting to ten in Japanese (ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyu, ju). The loud yell had been his kya--the concentration yell that finishes out everything you do in karate, and accompanies all your punches and kicks. Good enough. I suppose it's one way to fill up the time.

Two Weeks' Worth

I love the expression on her face in this image.

I think this may be a flash of what Lewis is going to look like when he gets older.

Nelly loves peanut butter...

The two Claires at the park

Inge climbing a tree

Nelly wearing two different sizes of croc--one is hers, the other is Inge's.

Another great expression

Flying fighter jets is complicated.

"Want a drink, Dad?"

And you can see what keeps us busy these days.

Happy Mother's Day

Full Length Easter Dresses

Namma with a lap full of grandchildren

Aunt Rose and the nieces

And full length Easter dresses

Domino Effect

Sometimes when you're a Mommy, you'll try one evening to put away the Parmesan, but the freezer will be too full, and just as you're about to finagle a spot you notice over your shoulder that your youngest child, the one with the toothbrush, is thinking about getting involved with the dishwasher--the dishwasher into which you earlier put a knife or a fork or something, you can't remember what, but that was covered in raw chicken. So you throw the Parmesan hard at the unyielding wall of food before you and hastily slam the door, taking a small divot off the back of your hand. The cheese falls back out again, but you do nab the baby before she actually climbs in. Her small magnetic hand, however, sticks to the silverware and a knife and a spoon come with her for a distance, ultimately falling onto the floor as you try to balance her on your hip and pry her arm open enough to wash her hand in the water that turns out to be too hot. The toothbrush falls onto the dishwasher and thence onto the floor where you notice that the cat is now sniffing it.

And then later as you sit with children on your lap for prayers, someone notices the scrape from the freezer door ("What's this, Mommy?") and tries to pick it off with their fingernail.

Fun With Glasses