Wherein my wife and I describe a day without meds, without sleep, and concluding with a horse tranquilizer. For AJ, that is.,

Intro

So my son has a pretty severe case of ADHD. And lest you nay-sayers pooh-pooh that notion, let me say that even when merely undermedicated both his pediatrician and psychiatrist remark that his is one of the more extreme cases of hyperactivity they’ve ever seen. Yet when properly medicated with methamphetamine salts he’s calm, collected, and controlled. (Mostly.) When completely off his meds? He’s a a wildcat on crank. But once in a while, even under meds, AJ will space out for a few seconds and lose time, lose his thread of thought, and just stare off into space. When he resumes he carries on with whatever catches his attention first. The docs thought, at first, that this would pass with time. But, really, it hasn’t.

So his doctor finally decided to prescribe an EEG for our little boy, just to check on things. But, thing is, the EEG requires that he be sleep-drived, hungry, thirsty, and completely unmedicated.

Boy, what a trip!

Here’s what my wife has to say about the day.

Jennifer’s Tale

So, Thursday I woke AJ up for school at 8:00 am. Went to school, came home, day goes on … time for bed. But I couldn’t give him his sleeping pill per Dr.’s orders. So, at 9:00 pm he’s in bed. At 4:00 am, we planned to wake him up because they wanted him sleep-deprived. But — he still wasn’t asleep!!!!

So, I took him downstairs where he ran around and goofed-off and played computer puzzles and made random noises with his mouth non-stop for the next 2 hours. Finally, I woke up Rich to take the next shift. He reports the same behaviour. Finally, around 7:30 am, they went to McDonalds where AJ had his breakfast and then ran around the playroom like a wild animal until it was time to come home at 11:00 am — still full of energy and random noise.

At 11:30 pm, we left for the hospital. Prior to driving there I was worried he’d fall asleep, but noo … Instead, I heard, “Mom why  … ” fill in the question with anything you can imagine. He talked non-stop all the way to the hospital.

12:15 pm: AJ’s now been awake for 28 hours. Is he slowing down? No. Speeding up.

Run, skip, walk backwards, somersault, hop hop hop, wiggle wiggle, run jump climb hop run — all the while explaining to anyone who wanders by how lighting strikes work, the reason people get shocks when they touch something metallic, how positive and negative electrons attract and reject each other  … and so on.

1:00 pm: 29 hours awake. … We get to his hospital room which has a bed. He quickly figures out that it has a brake to stop it from rolling, turned that off and starts jumping on the bed at an angle to get to speed across the room. Weeeeeeee! “What’s this?” “What’s that?” How why who what hop hop skip fly climb jump roll the bed hop karate jump and, of course, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

2:15 pm: 30 hours awake. Still blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Run jump hop skip. Bounce off the walls. Literally.

Finally they come in and give him the sedative. It takes 20 minutes before he starts to calm down and a little longer before he finally falls to sleep at 2:45.

They hook him up to all the wires (there was no way they could do it before with him vibrating like a Ronco bread knife) and watch him until about 3:30. “Now we’re going to wake him and he’ll be groggy, but we want to watch his brain in a wakeful state.”

So, the technician, the nurse and I start rubbing his arms. “AJ AJ AJ!” There is no response at all. All the monitors said he was fine. But he was totally and completely unconscious. We poured cold water on his head and there was no response that we could see, although his heart rate shot from 78 to 120. Yet as soon as the shock was over, it settled in the 80s.

So, we let him sleep another 30 minutes. Tried again. In order to leave the hospital, he had to eat, drink and open his eyes. But, he couldn’t talk and when he tried to, it sounded like a wounded animal screaming. Drool everywhere. Finally got a cracker in his hand and told him to eat it. Eyes still closed, his hands both shoot up toward his face, the cracker goes flying and both hands hit his forehead. It seems there was no small muscle coordination. (Yes, you may laugh — we certainly were.) We’d stand him up and walk him up and down the hallway. He’d screech with every step, and cold barely hold his own weight. The nurses named him “Our little drunken sailor.”

Now, don’t “poor AJ” yet, because they said this was mostly normal. Kids wake up hard from this stuff and he likely won’t remember any of it.

Back to the room, more pouring cold water over him … After an hour, the nurses said it’s no longer normal and they called the doctor on call. He took a look at what was going on, saw that AJ had been awake for 30 hours and told us to forget trying to wake him up. Did a bunch of tests and said he was fine. Tired. Very, very tired, but he was fine and it was safe to take him home.

It’s 6:40. He’s still sleeping.

We’ll know results in a few days or weeks. Depending on when the doctor gets them and calls us. We have an appointment in the 3rd week of October, so we’ll know for sure by then.

Conclusion

This is Rich again. Finally, at 7:30 or so I finally managed to annoy AJ enough that he woke up. But it took poking, prodding, wet towels and, at last, a forced march out in the chill night air. I was certain the neighbors would call the police: at every step AJ wrenche and flailed and howled and cried like the most severely abused child in all of Chicagoland.

This, kids, is apparently what happens when you take chloral hydrate when you’re sleep deprived. What is chloral hydrate, you ask?

It’s a horse tranquilizer.

Well, among other things.

Why was AJ without sleep for over a full day? Because he has to take clonidine to counteract the effects of methamphetamine salts which counteract the hyperactivity he normally experiences. At night, when the clonidine kicks in, his normal sleepiness takes over, and he can pass out. Without it, he’ll stake awake and alert all night long. Literally. And since we were instructed by the docs to not give him any clonidine the night before. Well, we had one very hyperactive, unmedicated puppy the next day.

After getting him awake, though, he perked up for an hour, ate voraciously, then promptly passed out when we put him back to bed.

Hopefully, Saturday will get him back on track.

We are very proud.

[Blah, blah, blah — skip Rich's philosophizing,
and go straight to the podcast!]

Never having parented before, and having no memories of Kindergarten myself (I never went, scofflaw that I am), I didn’t realize there was actually liturgy for Kindergarten graduation. Maybe this is something we only do here in the Midwest. Or maybe it happens all over the world and I’ve been clueless for 39 years. Probably the latter.

I think milestones are important to celebrate — even if there’s no real par-tay and spiked beverages involved. I mean, we really don’t do these things well in America and, growing up, my family did even worse. But despite not having enjoyed a bar-mitzvah myself, or First Communion, or even Prom, I sense that making a Big Deal out of seemingly little events can be an important marker for children growing up. After all, aside from getting the keys to Dad’s car, getting a license that says you’re eligible to get legally sauced, or graduating college, there really aren’t many things in American society that really tell a child, “Hey, you’re growing up. Time to start acting like it.”

I used to think High-School graduation served that kind of function, but having worked with college students for a few years as a Chi Alpha campus pastor, I now realize that college kids are really just High School kids with more expensive text books and a lot more license to misbehave. Why? I think one reason is that upon graduating high school, society places no expectations on graduates to actually grow up. That crisis really seems to occur only on the day a boy or girl receives their BA.

But, as usual, I digress

AJ’s graduation ceremony was short, sweet, and to-the-point. The only real delaying element was a performance by the kindergartners in a typically off-key rendition of a few songs I can’t even recall the tunes to any more. I’m not sure I could identify the melody even during the performance, actually. But that’s beside the point. It was a chance for AJ and his peers to do something in front of an assembled audience that he learned in school. He’d never done that before. It was a first.

Unfortunately, AJ didn’t even notice. Wherever I went with my camera, his eyes followed me, much like my grandmother’s eyes followed me in that creepy portrait that used to hang up on the wall of the mobile home I grew up in. You know the kind. You could press yourself flat against the very wall that painting hangs on and, still, you could feel those flat gray eyes boring into your skull. And if you dared look … yep. Still staring.

I went stage-left. There’s AJ giving me a thumb’s up. I go stage right. There’s AJ looking over his shoulder to mug for the camera. I go to the far back wall. AJ’s still making faces for me. It cracked me up. Everybody’s all into the performance and watching the teacher, but AJ could care less. He wants to be in pictures, and he wants his Dad to give him a thumbs up to let him know the picture came out great. For every shot.

Afterward, we went to Cracker Barrel to celebrate (one of AJ’s favorite haunts — because of the checkerboards and toys in the lobby), and I announced I’d interview him again later that day. He got excited. And before bed-time, he was sure to remind me, “Dad, after you put Ellie to bed, how about I stay down here and you can interview me again with your little computer?”

So, for your listening pleasure, I present to you my interview with Alexander James Tatum, Kindergarten graduate extraordinaire. And, as a special one-time only bonus, I’m also throwing in a short little interview with Elisabeth Rose as well. And just in case you missed the first interview, upon AJ’s first day in class, be sure to check it out.

Interview with AJ: (18:37) [download]

[See post to listen to audio]

Interview with Ellie: (5:07) [download]

[See post to listen to audio]

Man, they grow up fast.

Music Credits:

Excellent music samples by James Hersch. Check out his site, listen to his excellent music, book him for engagements, and buy his music. Really, he’s that good!

• Macaroni & Cheese
• Twenty Two Little Minds
• When You Were Born

Today we sent our little boy to school for the first time. Nobody wept. There was no gnashing of teeth, wailing, or sack-cloth and ashes. On our part, anyhow. Instead, we were excited to see AJ off to a new adventure in his life, one that promises whole new rafts of friends, future sleepovers, new books to read, realms of knowledge to acquire, and numerous — I repeat … numerous — parent-teacher conferences down the road.

He’s not angry, just surprised and squinting into the Sun. Or maybe he’s just part Ferengi.

Every parent believes their child to be the brightest bulb in the firmament — with the possible exception of overachieving, insecure parents who vicariously live through their childen, ever suspecting and fearing that their child will prove to be as colossal a failure as they imagine themselves to be.

Not us. AJ is not only bright, he is certifiably bright, even if nobody believes us the first time we warn them — err — inform them. My Bride and are enomously proud of our son (when we’re not enormously vexed by his impulse-control), and I’ve already been justifiably corrected by my son on many observations I’ve made. The days are few until he truly knows more about things than I do and I become the student. Nevertheless, I hope to remain in service as his father, mentor, and guide — even through High School.

More sun. Less Ferengi

Last night we all went to AJ’s new school to meet with the principal and the teachers, to visit his classroom, and to enjoy a bit of ice-cream while dozens of other kids worked out their sugar-frenzy in the cafeteria. After listening to AJ’s teacher’s first presentation to her incoming class of kindergarteners and the milling parents, Jennifer and I hung around till we were the last ones in the class (we didn’t want to seem to brag in front of the other parents — we tend to keep that kind of outrageousness on my weblog). We introduced AJ, introduced ourselves, and got to work on sounding her out — and setting expectations.

“I know every parent says this, but AJ is very bright,” I said. “He already meets or exceeds almost every one of the goals in your curriculum except for maybe social skills and social studies.” She nodded and looked to AJ. Of course, he was tight-lipped. No showing off on cue — too bad we didn’t rehearse this. We let her know that AJ is currently on medication for ADHD and that he’s reading at the 2nd or 3rd grade level at least, and that his hyperactivity, curiosity, and intellectual development might wreak havoc in her class due to boredom. She assured us that this was no problem, and she told us her strategy for teaching exceptional students. We liked it. We liked her. We were assured. After a couple minutes small-talk, we wandered down to the cafeteria for our ice-cream, then beat a hasty retreat to put the kids in bed.

The long walk to academia.

Now, today. We take AJ to school and escort him to the cafeteria. We do the hugs and kisses thing, I remind him to be good for the teacher, and to obey everything she says to do, and we send him off.

Within seconds, we became mere background. There were kids! Kids everywhere! Soon enough, AJ is edging his way to the front of the line as Mrs. Russell marches her new brood off to the classroom, where the government does its parenting best.

Our role has now officially diminished. Or, at least, changed. It’s final. We have the paperwork (and a quieter house) to prove it.

Three hours later, we’re back to pick him up. And what do you know? First thing out of the gate: “Oh, you’re AJ’s mom! We … uh … need to talk.”

Getting a head start, already.

So it seems AJ’s first day in class was a raging success. He even got the Special Ed teacher involved. What with his interrogating the teacher (”What happens if the filament breaks?”), correcting her use of language (”It’s a ‘backpack,’ not a ‘book-bag!’”), instructing other students (”Hey, that ‘Z’ is backward!”), spilling the puzzle-pieces (”We all had to help clean it up.”), and a minor territorial skimish (”Some kid stole my seat!”), the teacher and support staff are guaranteed to already know his name. I’m not even sure we need to send him off with his name-tag tomorrow. “Oh, you have somebody bouncing off the padded walls in the gymnasium? That would be AJ Tatum.”

:: sigh ::

But, don’t take my word for it. I have a 24-minute (16-megabyte) podcast interview with AJ that I recorded just this afternoon, while the events were still fresh in his memory. Sure, it’s no theological treatise, and it won’t win any Grammy awards for best audio interview, and it’s not up to NPR-snuff. But I found myself giggling like a silly dad when listening to it all over again this evening. This is totally unscripted and only lightly edited from the original.

If you’re up for that sort of thing download it here. Or you can listen online.

If you have any encouragement or words of wisdom for AJ, post ‘em here. I’ll be sure to pass it along.

Notes on the music used in this podcast:

• Intro: James Hersch, “On the Bus,” from Cow, Bugs & Aardvarks
• Outro: Gunnar Madsen, “Ants in my Pants!” from Ants in my Pants!

And I got tired of the wind, having to carry a comb everywhere, and just generally tired of managing dying hair.

So, I shaved. Not all the way, just enough to feel like I was shaved. I left a wee little bit of hair behind. I wasn’t totally serious about baldness yet—besides, it’s still cold here in Chicago. I need a little bit of warmth left.

A week later, AJ followed suit.

“Dad, I like your hair.”

“Really? Do you want me to shave your head?”

Now, notice how quickly the conversation went from AJ just generally appreciating how “crunchy” my hair feels, to me offering to lop off his mane. My wife is in the corner shaking her head.

“Sure!”

After talking it over with me, and with plenty of rounds of me saying, “But it’s just hair. It’ll grow back. He’ll be in soccer this summer, he’ll need to keep cool.” And so on. She relented. The “It’s just hair, it’ll grow back” argument helped. Mostly, she just didn’t want hair to be the battlefield she died on.

That’ll probably be bows and arrows or target pistols or something silly like that.

Click the picture to see our glorious baldness!

Ellie’s Tresses, if you’re wondering, are still intact.

Before Jennifer and I married, we discussed what we would do about Christmas, Halloween, Easter, and other childhood stories. I was adamant: no myths. No lies. No Santa.

No. Tooth. Fairy.

I would not lie to my children for the sake of entertainment or shielding them from the uncomfortable truths of life. There is no grab-bag toting, velour-sporting grandpa dumping presents under the tree. These gifts come out of the hard-earned cash in my wallet! There is no winged woman with a wand trading hapless teeth for cash. What would I say when they ask me what she does with the teeth anyhow? What is the Tooth Fairy, some benign sort of Hannibal Lecter collecting discarded body parts for fun and profit?

No. No way am I layering my children’s minds with fanciful lies and fables.

Then we had AJ. And now Elisabeth.

:: sigh ::

Now nearly every night I lay down by my son’s side and what do I do? I spin a yarn. I tell a tale. I fabricate entertaining lies that quiet my child, make his eyes widen, and maybe teach him some truths. I’m a fairy taler. I’ve told stories about flying magical beds, runaway cars with a mind of their own, boys that engineer trains, children who save the space stations from evil pirates. I’ve described little men in UFOs that talk to boys in their bedrooms, children who escape slavering Tyannosarus Rexs, children with special powers, children with handicaps, fears, and phobias.

And yes, we’ve included Santa Claus in our repertoire of fables. And now, the Tooth Fairy.

I’m a great big, fat liar.

Nevertheless, knowing my formerly trenchant opinion on the matter, my bride asked what I thought about a service a friend of hers now offers. She proposed, “How would you feel about spending $8 so a friend of mine could send AJ a customized letter from the Tooth Fairy.” What, you say? Eight bucks for a letter I could very well write myself and send on my way to work? Eight bucks to send my son a letter from a magical being that does not exist (as far as I know) and who, presumably, would not need to use US Postal Service if she did? I’m already out $0.71 for my theft of his tooth from under his pillow last night, and now I’m supposed to seal the deal with another eight Washingtons?

“It’s a new business my friend started up. Give her eight bucks and she’ll write a custom letter to AJ about losing his latest tooth and he’ll love it. She also does Santa Claus, and other characters.”

To send a letter I could send myself?

That got me The Look. You know, the one that says, “Right, like you’re going to stoop to actually writing letters from fairies and sending it in the mail when you haven’t written a letter or licked a stamp in ten years.”

Without a word, she had me there.

“Okay, sure.”

So, there you have it. Letters from Fairyland. AJ’s head is going to be so messed up. What’s next? Instant Messages from the Easter Bunny?

By the way, if you’re interested in sending your kid (or some other impressionable minor) a similar character letter, head on over to Donna Rushing’s new enterprise: Duckels Designs Kid’s Mail. You can order custom letters to suit every theological and mythological persuasion including Santa, Frosty, Rudolph, Cupid, the Easter Bunny, a “friendly” Ghost (no poltergeists were harmed in the making of these letters, though, I’m sure), the Tooth Fairy, and a “Friendship Letter.”

Stick around for another 10 years or so and I’ll tell you what effect this has on AJ.

Boy, was it cold. Ice had already started forming on the lighthouse and the pier leading up to it. We couldn’t get any closer than what you see in this picture because the concrete was far too icy and slippery. There were three hardy fishermen out there with us and AJ stopped and inquired of each one if they’d caught any fishies. Nobody had.

I was glad we happened to have Jen’s digital camera handy, so I could catch a couple snapshots. Enjoy the coldness.

Oh, and on the way back we stopped by a church with some of the most unusual architecture I’ve ever seen. St. Francis de Sales church is a monumental concrete structure that is simultaneously imposing and inviting, disturbing and refreshing. It is a favorite for foto bugs in town—but photos simply cannot do it justice.

(The “Unprocessed” link below each image will lead you to the original, out-of-the-camera, unprocessed shot, if you’re interested in seeing what a little work in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro will do. I generally just played with the histogram and made slight cropping corrections. However, the lighthouse required a little extra work to preserve the red color, AJ’s pants required rescuing from becoming black holes, and the church photos were turned to grayscale before I made histogram adjustments.)

(Click the  button if you’re interested in seeing the original, raw photo.)

I had a great Thanksgiving, by the way!

But it’s not the cooking that draws AJ there. It’s two simple things. No, make that three: First, an endlessly fascinating commercial enterprise with toys easily accessible to his grubby fingers. Second, a checker-board with rocking chairs right by the fireplace. (Our Cracker Barrel ritual requires a game while the drinks are coming.) Third, rocking chairs. After dinner, we tour the store, with a stop at the toy section. We pay our bill, and AJ gets to help with the transaction. We admire the pretty music boxes, and then traipse or tow each other outside for a 10–15 minute rest in the rocking chairs. Even Elisabeth is into it now, picking the pint-sized chairs for herself to enjoy. Usually, there’s nobody out there except for a random smoker or two, so we have the “front porch” all to ourselves. A Cracker Barrel jaunt is at least a two-hour affair, if not longer.

Why these three ingredients pull on AJ’s attraction I’ll never fully know, but I suspect it has to do with this: shared ritual.

Healthy families, I think, hum with numerous shared rituals—even if they’re small and not even recognized as such. From initiation into the joys of properly dunking Oreos (unlike the tragic experience mentioned in my previous post), to Christmas rituals, birthday rituals, dinner rituals, and on and on and on; these formalized ways of doing things (that differ from family to family) give a sense of identity, facilitate bonding, and provide a touchstone of familiarity for kids with brains and bodies in constant flux.

(Mom and Dad need rituals, too. The night-time greeting with a quick kiss on the lips, repeated affirmations of love and affection, and the warm hand on the hip as we fall asleep at night, keep us centered and tighten the bonds even when and despite inconstant emotional states from day to day.)

I think all this, and yet I was a coward Friday night when our most-excellent server shared with me her personal approach to nighttime rituals with her kids:

“Give me a kiss and go to bed.”

Elisabeth has been on an emotional, whining, crying kick lately. She’s wanting to stay up later and later, and her naps are being cut shorter and shorter. So, Friday night, while Jennifer escorted AJ to the restroom, Elisabeth started bawling, and there was nothing I could to to settle her down. Our excellent server (I’ll call her Dee, which is not what her name-tag advertised, to keep her anonymous) came by and talked to Elisabeth in the affectionately cooing way all moms have with babies. I appreciated it. But Elisabeth couldn’t have cared less.

Dee, a mother of three, ages 5, 7, and 12, astutely remarked, “She’s tired.” Yes. She is. But, I mentioned, even though she was going straight to bed the moment we got home, she’s been resisting sleeping lately. So it was going to be a fight.

Inspired by my revelation, Dee confided that in her house, bedrooms were for sleeping and changing clothes. Nothing else. All the toys were in the playroom in the basement. So, her kids’ rooms are sparse. (I imagined a gray monastic cell with a cot on the floor, for some reason.) And she doesn’t believe in none of this night-time ritual business. No playing, no stories, no prayers, no “ni-nights” and giggles. It’s all give-mamma-a-kiss-and-get-to-bed. “Now!”

I said nothing, but agreed that I could see her point. After all, she’s working the night shift to help make ends meet. Who am I to tell her that sounds heartless? She really didn’t seem heartless. Her “system” works for her. Plus, I avoid arguing with anybody with the power to covertly add phlegm to my food. I just nodded and smiled.

Coward.

But since that conversation, I’ve been thinking about this off and on.

Nighttime rituals are taxing sometimes. It’s late, I’m sleepy, I still have many things I want to do before I, myself, go to bed (like ego-surf my paltry blog stats). Life would be easier if I could get back the 30–to-60 minutes I lose each night once we start putting the kids to bed. But, you know, you don’t have kids to make life easier. If I had hoped to be a lazy parent, I should have gotten a cat or a guppie instead and spared my children the agony.

Elisabeth hasn’t been around long enough yet to grow her own set of rituals, but it won’t be long, now. With her, it’s mostly warm the bottle, entice her to climb the stairs, change her diaper and clothes while tickling her, sing her the ABC song, and after she’s inhaled her bottle of milk, repeatedly command her to lay down while she cries out the next half-hour.

AJ is now fully able to commence his nightly prep-work by himself, which gives us all a nice half-hour break at the end of the night. After he’s gotten his PJ’s on, pottied, and brushed his teeth, he usually waits in his bed, reading a book, while he waits for me. (How cool is it that my 4–1/2–year-old boy reads books in bed?)

Over the last couple years our bedtime rituals have evolved from simple, repeated “I love you’s” to: turn the lights down, close the door, tuck him in under his blankets, lay down with him, invent a story featuring a little boy or a little girl, go through a Q-and-A session about the story (AJ asks most of the questions), listen to his just-invented story (remixing several elements from the story I just gave him), review the events of the day, say our prayers (he prays first, and I follow suit), kiss, hug, say “I love you” (multiple times), cuddle for a few moments while he starts to get drowsy, and as I leave the room, we exchange a set of hand signals that feature blown kisses–the “I love you” hand sign, and a “sparkly heart” thing AJ invented.

Skip a step, and I’m courting emotional disaster.

Interestingly, Jen’s rituals with him are completely different. And he’s okay with that.

Some, reading this, may think I’m totally coddling and spoiling my kids. Maybe I am. But I work long hours with a long commute, and we keep the kids up late so I can maximize my time with them. These nightly rituals are a hugely important bonding time for us. Without them, I’m sure my son wouldn’t feel as close to me as I think he does; and my affirmations of love would sound more hollow in my ears—especially after he disobeys and I am forced to discipline him. No matter what mayhem AJ caused during the day, he still gets his daily dose of dad at night.

I look forward to experiencing our rituals as they evolve and mutate. They should never be writ in stone, because families’ needs change, and kids and parents need new and changing rituals to cope with the changes. Echoes of older rituals will provide the connective tissue into the future, and can always be reinvigorated with new meaning.

About a year-and-a-half ago, AJ took nightly walks with me, and he still talks about the nights we walked to the water tower to lay beneath it and look at the stars. We’ll be doing that again, soon, I think.

I’m interested in hearing about your rituals. Feel free to post a comment and share them.

So what happens when one is simultaneously relaxing his posterior, reading a good book in the best-lit room in the house, and dunking cream-filled discs of manna? Odds are, something will fall into the porcelain catch-all which supporting that tired derierre.

Hear why AJ was found brushing his teeth after experiencing an Oreo baptism I only shudder to imagine.

(Or download the file, here.)

While AJ is distracting us with legerdemain, Elisabeth quietly follows AJ’s lead with her very first somersault. Wow! I almost didn’t catch it. Jen missed it, so I grabbed the camera and we encouraged a few more rolls. We proudly caught snapshots on digital media for your own childlike vicarious thrills.

Next week: Tae-Kwon-Do classes for Elisabeth. She’ll need ‘em.

I don’t know what I’m going to do when boys start taking an interest in her.

Relocate to Montana.