Earning Her Glass of Wine

Typically my mom likes to do her babysitting duties at her own house, which makes sense because she has a great house with a deck and a pool and, well, we live in a dump. And there are now five human beings squeezed into our little dump.

But this week I talked her into coming up here for a few days and I think she may never come back. We've had some freakish weather -- in the high 90s -- and our house doesn't have any air-conditioning or a good ventilation system. On top of all that, Skip knocked out one of the screens and so now we can't open one of our biggest windows or else one of the kids will drop out of it.

So my poor mother hasn't been literally sweating every single day and sleep-deprived and putting up with our very loud and chaotic household.

She has really and truly earned her glass of wine every evening. Thanks for all the help, Mom!

Halloween 2010

Halloween 2010 was noticeably more challenging than Halloween 2009. I considered staying home with Charlie and letting Tori take the older two kids out trick-or-treating, but I really didn't want to miss the fun (and the candy) and so we met up with friends in Manhattan Beach and made it happen. It was good thing, too, because I don't think we could have managed the three of them on our own.

Before heading out to trick-or-treating, we stopped by the local Halloween fair and Zadie won third-place in the costume contest. She has now been the Tin Man two years running, so it's kind of like how my parents always dressed me up as a black cat every year (black leotard, with black stuff on my nose and cat ears -- very easy). Hopefully we'll be able to think of something new next year, but Tori really wanted to go with the Tin Man again.

And at the last minute we kind of threw together a family theme -- I was the scarecrow, Skip was the lion, Charlie was Toto (by virtue of being a small creature in a basket and for no other reason), and Tori was Dorothy (by virtue of her red shoes!).

Thank you, Grandma Linda

I think Charlie looks very royal in this picture.

Linda with 3 of her 11 grandchildren!!

Wine and cheese and crackers with Linda and her brother Mike.

Linda and Zadie made cookies for our guests and Zadie very proudly served them.

Grandma Linda came down from Washington to provide two whole weeks of help. Before she arrived we were so overwhelmed (and Charlie was just getting out of the hospital) that I told Tori I hoped that Linda wasn't having visions of rollerskating on the strand -- we needed her undivided attention!

And we certainly got it. I would come home from work and Linda somehow had miraculously taken care of the kids all day (with Hank) and also done three loads of laundry, washed the dishes, picked up the house, etc. I was pretty amazed, but she reminded me that she's a mother of five, which makes our three look like small potatoes! She was also taking every third night of "Charlie duty" and so sleep-deprived on top of it all. I think she must have overdid it because then she got a little sick for a few days, but not before completing everything on her special projects list we created for her (re-pot a few plants, help Tori put up the new blinds, etc.).

And, as always, she did all of this with her characteristic pep and energy, so we are so thankful for her time here. And now she's in India at a retreat and hopefully sending some good energy our way. Thank you, Linda!