The Webster Web

Sibling Discourse

2011-09-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

Some of the most bizarre and hilarious moments of my life are spent driving my car, listening to the genius larvae in the backseat. Today's episode of "Sibling Discourse" has to do with our kids' very limited exposure to Harry Potter.

Don't get me wrong -- we really dig Harry. It's totally Christian to be fighting evil and all. I'm even the sponsor of the Harry Potter Club at Austin High! But it's just a little bit "sca-wy" for the wee one, and I refuse to let Sophie see the movie until we've had a chance to read the book together. This is all much to Sophie's chagrin -- other kids seem to know all about Harry Potter and friends, and she's falling behind on her pop culture allusions. Embarrassing.

So here's how the conversation went down today...

Jameson: In Harry Potter, the bad guys show up in a car, and it's weally FUNNY...
Sophie (annoyed and suspicious that maybe he has seen the movie): How do YOU know about
Harry Potter!?!
Jameson: A boy in my class told me...
Sophie: Oh. Well, (pause) Harry Potter is a lizard, you know.
Me: Um. Harry Potter is actually a WIZard.
Sophie: Oh.
Jameson: Yeah, he have a head.
Sophie (indignant, as usual, and a little screechy): We ALL have a head!!!!
Long pause.
Jameson (muttered below his breath): He don't have no lizard head.

And THAT's the stuff that keeps me laughing all day long, folks.

If Anything Ever Happens to Me...

2011-09-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

Driving to a birthday party the other day, just me and the kiddos, I was faced with the possibility of a future without me. As you may suspect, the world will keep on spinning.

Sophie: Mom, I dropped that thingie! Can I take off my seat belt to get it?
Me: Nope. That's not safe.
Sophie: But you do it sometimes!

(She's right. I have, at times, been known to take off my seat belt in order to contort my body such that I can retrieve a sippy cup or remove a peanut from someone's nose with my tweezers. But ONLY on really long road trips when pulling over is seen as failure, and ONLY -- well, USUALLY -- when Frank is driving.)

Me: Yes. I have taken off my seat belt before, but only when I'm trying to help you guys. I'll sacrifice myself, but not you guys. (Jewish guilt? We're not even Jewish...)
Sophie: What's sacrifice?
Me: Well, it means that sometimes I might do dangerous stuff, but I'm a mom. I don't want you guys to do that dangerous stuff yet because you might get hurt. Really, really hurt.
Sophie: Like, we could die?
Me: (debating the seriousness of seat belt safety v. freaking out my kids...) Yes. Sometimes when people don't wear their seat belts and then they have an accident, they could die.

Five seconds of silence.

Sophie: And then, if you died, Dad would marry someone else, right?
Me: (Why didn't I take off MY seat belt and just hand her back that thingie?!?!) Um, I guess. Do you think Dad should get married to someone else if I die?
Sophie: That's what your dad did, right? When Nana Jane died?

(Another aside: my dad divorced my mom when I was two. Nana Jane died when I was 36. Many amazing women have mothered me in addition to my mom, but that branch of the family tree is complicated to explain to a six-year-old.)

Me: Sort of. (This is often my answer to complicated issues. That, or "I'm not sure how that works.")
Sophie: Well, I think Dad should get married to someone else if you die.
Me: Okay...why?
Sophie: Because then I could be the FLOWER GIRL!!!!!!!

One last aside: I hope she barfs all over the new bride. (See previous status updates about Sophie's flower girl performance at my brother's wedding.)

I'm With Frank Webster

2011-06-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure you know, J. Frank Webster is a badass. So much so, that we (the Ditchdirt gang) have taken to teasing him just to make ourselves feel a little bit cool. As if.

Frank is sort of famous for getting in places (backstage, a sold-out concert, etc.). He's not a sweet-talker; he's genuinely a good guy. And people respond to that these days. (Have I told you about the time he called to tell me he'd be late, because he was taking a group of protest marchers to the Capitol? When he offered them a ride and then realized that none of them spoke English, he yelled, "Vamos a Capitol!" and then drove them, honking his horn as they waved their Mexican flag in the back of his truck. And the best part...he said, "I'll be a few minutes late. I'm going to go back and see if I can find more Mexicans who need a ride.") I can tell you dozens of stories like that. Frank is awesome. And everyone with a brain should want to be near him. (I'm super smart, and I married him.)

Last summer, Frank was regaling us all with a story about he had gotten into a concert the night before. I didn't go with him, because it started really late and we couldn't find a sitter. When he showed up at Antone's, the line was wrapped around the block. So Frank went back to the car, grabbed his guitar, and strolled into the alley and knocked on the musician's entrance. When someone opened the door, he just turned his shoulder, sidled in, and said, "Thanks, man." Then he caught a musician's eye across the room and yelled, "Hey! How's it going?" He had spoken to him before, because Frank talks to everyone, so the guy (Charlie Sexton) smiled and waved. Frank strolled over to talk to him, and the door guy thought Frank was in the band. (Had I been with him, we never would have made it in the door. I have "rule follower" stamped on my forehead.) So Frank chats it up with Charlie Sexton and Billy Gibbons and then someone approaches him and says, "Hey, do you have a VIP badge?" Again, this is when I would have hemmed and hawed and apologized, and we would have been escorted out. Frank's answer: Not yet. What are we gonna do about that? So the guy scurries off and gets him a VIP badge.

So that's the story. Frank not only got IN to the sold out concert, he got backstage and hung out with the band. It's like the time we went to ACL and he jumped up on stage to play with Robert Randolph. I'm telling you. He's a BADASS.

So our friend, Maggie, came up with this idea that we should just all brand ourselves as being "with Frank Webster," and we'd start getting in to shows, too. We would be welcome at song circles. We would be offered free food and beer at Kerrville! She even made a coozie that said "I'm with Frank Webster." A few months later, there was a little impromptu pickin' party at the Stephens house. Adam Stephens opened the door to a complete stranger, who said, "Yeah, um, I'm here to play music with Frank Webster." Adam said, "Of course you are."

And now that leads us up to our recent project: "I'm With Frank Webster" t-shirts. We made a bundle of them before Kerrville (without Frank's knowledge) and all wore them to the music fest. He first spotted them when some friends of Maggie were walking down the road towards him, wearing shirts with his name on them. A Kerrville staff person said, "Who the hell is Frank Webster?!" And he looked up and laughed and said, "That'd be me."

We think they should go viral. Go make yourself one right now. All the cool kids are wearing one. And all the cool kids are with Frank Webster.

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T18:15:00.001-07:00

Sharks and Fish and Such

2011-05-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

Just a little memory to tuck away...

At 2:30 p.m. today, we were at a birthday party in the park, making tie-dye t-shirts and eating ice cream cake. It was WARM...humid and sticky warm. The way it should be on a Mayday. The pool opened today, and I spent a fair amount of time talking to some of the other neighborhood parents, tallying up the number of Sophie's friends who will be on the swim team this summer, listening to the laughter at the nearby pool and wishing we'd brought suits.

Tomorrow is the trial: the day that 5 and 6-year-old's have to prove that they can swim across the length of the pool, unaided. I wasn't sure, earlier today, if Sophie could do it. I promised her that we would come to the pool after J's nap, to give it a try. (Why, oh why, did it not occur to me then that I have NEVER witnessed her swimming the length of the pool?)

So fast forward to 5:30 p.m., when we all wake up from a lovely nap. That's another memory I will document, because it doesn't happen all that often, but today, on May 1st, all of the Websters napped. Lovely. So we hem and haw about whether or not we should all go to the pool or not, and we finally split into two teams: the dinner gatherers and the swim-team-test pre-testers. I am on Team 2, so I don my suit. As soon as we opened up the front door, I realized that we had been snookered by the Texas weather. The temp had dropped at least 10 degrees, maybe 15, and a cool wind was blowing.

But a promise is a promise. Sophie and I braved the wind and drove down to the pool, where all the lifeguards had thrown on sweatshirts, and were busily stacking the pool furniture. "Are you closed?" I asked. "No," one of them responded, "it's just really, really cold." And then he looked at me with that what-kind-of-craptastic-parent-are-you look on his face. Oh, I'm a wily one, kid.

So we threw off our cover-ups, Sophie and I. And I triple, quadruple checked if she really wanted to go through with this. She did. I made her step into the water first, because, if she chickened out, I was NOT going in. She did not chicken out. She squealed when the water hit her belly button, but she did not chicken out. So I jumped in with her, because that is what a mom who makes a promise sometimes has to do.

And she sank. I mean, she TOTALLY sank. She spittered and spattered and swam vertically and clung onto my neck and shivered and giggled and SANK. She will not be trying out tomorrow. She will not be on the Sharks swim team this year. But we tried, baby. And then we raced home for hot showers and some pad thai take-out that the boys procured.

In other news: Jameson killed our fish. And Frank. (I mean, Frank helped kill the fish.) Only a month after putting my class pet in mortal danger by dumping in a whole jar of food (Snooki was saved, thanks be to God), and only two days after dumping in a whole jar of food into Laney's fish's tank, thus revealing to the Stephenses that George had been dead for a couple of days (there was some talk of decomposition levels, but it's possible he killed George, too), Jameson dumped a whole jar of food (what kind of IDIOTS are we, that we still had a jar of fish food within reach?) into Lillian's tank. We have had Lillian a long, long time, but Frank has never had to clean her tank. He dumped out the water and put Lillian into nice, fresh, shockingly-cold water (not unlike the pool today). And Lillian freaked out and died. Sophie handled it well.

We will get another fish. We will become a shark another day. Life goes on.

Happy Easter

2011-05-01T19:41:00.000-07:00

SNOW DAY!!!

2011-02-05T13:15:00.000-08:00

There are few things more precious than that phrase. Kids dream about it (Frank says he used to wear his pajamas inside out the night before a predicted storm...a little West Virginian folklore for bringing on the snow), and I have so many memories associated with a snow week that we had in San Antonio, Texas (no, really!) when I was in middle school. It only snows in SATX every seven years or so, but this one year we had 17 inches and the entire city shut down and we played for hours...days!.. in the snow, only going inside to drink cocoa and play Donkey Kong with my friend Becky from up the street. Even today, my thoughts of snow days have an electronic video soundtrack running in the background. Bloink. Bloink. Bloink.

As a teacher, I still love a snow day. There is the logical side of me that knows we will have to make up the day later in the year, and likely on a pretty day, like Good Friday or Memorial Day. And, really, late start or early release would be better because we would get the state attendance thing done and get credit for the day. But forget that logical side. There is NOTHING more wonderful than sitting up at 5:00 a.m. watching the scrolling text underneath my local newscasters who spend more time playing intros about their cutting edge snow disaster coverage than actually talking about the news.

And even though we have received our robo-call from the district, and even though Frank has double-checked the AISD website, I cannot go back to bed until I see the "Austin ISD -- classes canceled" message go by. Twice. Not because I don't believe it, but because I am SO EXCITED.

This particular snow day was awesome. We bundled up and went for a walk, throwing snowballs and making angels and contemplating a snowman (but it was the kind of snow that doesn't pack so well). Then Frank decided it was time for sledding in the slushy street. I know my Kansas City and D.C. relatives will get a laugh out of our ghetto craft-bin-as-sled, but it worked! (Until it didn't.)

Jameson in the street sled:

Sophie flying by:

Since we don't live on a hill, this was all Dad-powered!

After J tumbled out onto the street a few times, we
ventured out to a bigger hill, with summer pool toys!

Jameson LOVES sledding!

Hmmm. Blogger will not let me post another pic. Tune in to the next post for a great shot of Austin on a snow day.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-04T20:34:00.000-08:00

Our friends Chris and Sally hosted a Polar Bear Swim at their pool on New Year's Day. Sophie was the only Webster brave enough to jump in the cold pool.

But she mostly wanted to put on her suit so she could hot-tub with some older boys. Sigh. What happens when she's a teenager?

Heart-breaker...

Snoozer-cuts

2011-01-04T19:52:00.001-08:00

Forget super-cuts, cool-cuts, sport-cuts, scantily-clad-girls-cuts, too-cool-for-school cuts. Consider the benefits of NAPPING during your next haircut.

Jameson's hair was getting a leeeetle too long.

Okay. It was getting out of hand.

Luckily, Aunt Claudia brought her scissors when she came down for the Allen family Christmas. J had stayed up way past his nap, and his eyes started drooooping during the relaxing haircut.

And he got sleepier. And sleepiest. (And Claudia didn't have to say "sit still" or "look down" -- it was awesome!)

And then our favorite hair-dresser carried our favorite boy to bed.

Three Conversations from Tonight

2011-01-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

1) First, a little who's-on-first scene with the boy

Jameson smacked me really hard with this dumb toy that an overconfident Santa brought (a pointer stick with a plastic hand on the end of it...wtf?). I avoided cussing, but I did yelp and then sent him to time out. When I went to talk to him during the "debrief," this was our discussion.

Me: Jameson, I put you in time-out because you hurt my body. That toy is going into time-out, too. I don't think you're ready to play with it.
J: Why?
Me: Because you hurt my body with it. Can you come take care of me?
(He runs over to kiss my hurt shoulder.)
J: Why?
Me: Because you hurt me. You need to say sorry and see if I'm okay.
J: Why?
Me: I don't know why. Why did you hurt me?
J: Because I hit you with that stick.

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2) Signs of Effective Teaching

Things started to look up when Sophie offered me a surprise treat after dinner. But I had to earn it.
Sophie: Were you a good teacher today?
Me: Sure.
Sophie: Did all your kids finish their work?
Me: (thinking... "not exactly, but I want that treat") Uh-huh. They did.
And then...right before she handed me the treat, she thought of one more requirement. She pointed her finger at me, raised her eyebrows, and asked, "Recess?"

Oh, if only I could send them all out to recess, Sophie-girl!
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3) Finally...the pangs of neglect

I ignored Jameson's crying for a few minutes while I goofed around on the computer. Finally, it had gone on too long, so I got him a little cup of milk and took it to him. Normally he smiles and takes it from me -- sometimes even says "tank oo" and settles down. Tonight he told me in the most pathetic, heartbreaking voice: "Dat made me weally weally saaaaad."

Christmas Card

2010-12-21T11:58:00.001-08:00

Colorful Joy 2010 Christmas

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View the entire collection of cards.

Retro-Post: Jameson's Birthday

2010-12-20T21:38:00.000-08:00

So...I like to use this little blog as a substitute for creating actual photo albums, and I like to tell the "Adventures of Sophie and Jameson" in some semblance of order, so when I got behind this summer (around about Jameson's birthday), I just stopped blogging. Almost completely. I also blame Facebook. So, to break me out of this OCD reverie, I present to you: JUNE. Right around J's birthday, we traveled to Port A with the Ditchdirt Crew. Instead of trying to plan a party around the vacation, we decided to celebrate his 2nd birthday at the beach! The kids made peach ice cream, decorated beach buckets, and dug for buried treasure.

Click here to see more pics: BEACH_BIRTHDAY

Self Esteem

2010-12-05T11:34:00.000-08:00

Sophie doesn't want to sing in the Christmas Choir Concert today -- she told me that she's feeling "a little shy." She hates going to her after school gymnastics program on Tuesday/Thursday, in part because her friend has a new friend, and three can be a difficult number (when it's not busy being magic). Anytime we arrive at a birthday party or evening event, she sticks right by my side for a while, observing everyone before she jumps into the fun. So I worry a bit about her confidence. About her assertiveness. But I think she has a pretty good self-identity.

Proof:
When I walked by the bathroom for the fourth time today and asked Sophie why she wasn't brushing her teeth, she told me: "Oh, I'm just looking in the mirror at how beautiful I am."

Too Smart For Her Own Good

2010-10-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

Sophie has been really jazzed about buying her lunch in the cafeteria at school, but after her self-reports of only eating the "yogurt plate" and desserts, we've had lots of talks about how she needs to choose healthy food -- or maybe she's not ready to buy her own lunch yet. Apparently the cafeteria ladies don't automatically put veggies on a tray, and as soon as you touch a tray, that's your lunch. No backsies. So we practiced at home. She was supposed to ask for veggies if none were on her tray. Here's our conversation tonight:

Sophie: Mom, I asked for veggies today! I said, "I need some vegetables, please!"
Me: Good job!
Sophie: Then they gave me beans and they said, "Beans are your vegetable."
(Then she scrunched up her face.) Are beans a vegetable?!
Me: Yeah. Beans can be vegetables.
Sophie: That's weird. Because I thought beans were a protein.

And, on a totally different note, she barfed at school today. Thank goodness we had already read the Ramona book where Ramona upchucks in class and everything turns out fine. Maybe it was the beans...

R.I.P. Sally Menke

2010-09-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not the blogger in my family; Stacy is. But tonight I feel compelled to share with the universe my admiration for Sally Menke. Sally was a movie editor, and one of the best. She earned her reputation and a couple of Oscar nominations for her collaborations with Quentin Tarantino.

I've been teaching a film course for over a decade now, and for nine years I've tried to guide youngsters in creating their own short films. What surprises my students the most about filmmaking is the power of the editor. It is the editor who controls the pace of a film, the editor who pieces together numerous takes to make an actor appear to do a better job than they could ever do in real life, the editor who crafts the order and duration of every shot in the film, and the editor who repairs the numerous mistakes the director commits in shooting. In short, it is the editor who makes the film.

The damnable thing about editing is that most people don't even notice it. Usually, that's the idea. Editing is often so seamless that our minds, absorbed in narrative, fail to recognize it all. And in the rules of classical editing and the Hollywood style, one should hide the edits as carefully as possible.

But then, there's Pulp Fiction. The structure of the movie is quite possibly its most compelling element, and that it makes any sense at all is due to the labors of Ms. Menke. The film calls attention to the fact that it is assembled, not just filmed, and that there's a genius behind the assemblage. Most people assumed that genius was Tarantino, but Tarantino has always been quick to credit Menke's role.

Film editing is grueling, lonely work. The editors miss out on all the glory (what little there really is) of filmmaking; no hobnobbing with the actors, no private trailer. You get a dim room, a computer, and a deadline.

If you've ever seen Tarantino in an interview or in person, you know that he can be delightfully intense. He seems almost maniacal in his enthusiasm for film shots and sequences. I wouldn't want to be the one to say, "Quentin, it's just too long. We need to cut this." But Sally Menke was a woman of unending patience and persuasion, and the perfect foil for Tarantino's glorious mania. She, more than any other person on the film crew, spends the most time one-on-one with the director. Tarantino considered her a close collaborator, and in many ways a co-writer.

What made Menke a great editor was not just the mind-bending piecing together of initially convoluted plots, but her clear understanding of how to get the most out of a scene without losing the big picture. Consider any scene from Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill and you'll see how it works both as a complete piece (often with a complete mini-plot) and how it fits into the larger whole.

What saddens me about Sally's death is not just that we've lost one of film's greatest editors, but that we've lost a beautiful relationship between two coworkers and dear friends. Sally and Tarantino seemed to have such admiration for each other and the other's craft, and I'm sure Tarantino's grief is profound.

So condolences to Ms. Menke's husband and two children, and to Quentin Tarantino.

If you'd like to learn more about film editing and hear both Menke and Tarantino discuss their crazy collaboration, check out the documentary The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing. It will forever change the way you look at film.

And here's an interview with her: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/dec/06/sally-menke-quentin-tarantino-editing

-Frank

The Kindergarten Kid

2010-08-23T19:20:00.000-07:00

Sophie went to kindergarten today. Big school -- "real" school, where your mom drops you off and then you're in someone else's care and they don't meet your mom or dad on the playground at the end of the day to recount funny stories and talk about what you learned. It's all a mystery. That school.

She was fantastic at drop off. At one point, she leaned over to me and said, "I'm a little shy." Some of you who know her well might scoff and guffaw, because she can be quite the character. But I know what she means. She needs a few minutes to observe. To check things out. I told her not to worry, and to just start talking whenever she felt like it. "Look!" I said, "there's Riley from Abbey's birthday party. And there's Jack...he went to your Montessori school. And remember Katie? From meet-the-teacher day?"

And that's when Katie turned to look at me. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she almost shouted at me: "I am feeling SAD!" Oh. Oh, crap. My voice got high and I started talking really fast about how kindergarten was going to be so great but it's okay to be sad and please don't cry and you're going to have so much fun! She wanted her bear. I told her that he was probably waiting for her at home to hear all about how great kindergarten is.

And then we left in a hurry.
Because little Katie was going to push me over the edge.

Sophie, though, was stoic. And brave. And when she got home today, she announced: "Kindergarten was...was...it was AWESOME. Dat what it was!"

It's still all a mystery to me. She told us that she went to a man's house, and he's in a band. (Figured out that she met the music teacher...maybe he's in a portable?) And she wants to buy her lunch tomorrow, because all those kids got a "sweet fing" and I did not pack a sweet fing in her lunch box. Just an avocado. (That is not ALL I packed, friends! But she was not impressed.) And there's a lady named Pinky who helps you open your lunch box. And she met a friend. She does not know her name yet, but told me, "She's good at drawing monsters. And she thought my jokes were funny." What more could I want for her?

What We Did During Summer Vacation, Part 1

2010-08-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

You would think that since Frank and I were both "off" this summer, there would have been a steady stream of witty, thought-provoking, zany blog tales of parenting the littles. Sorry...we were at the pool. Or on vacation. Or cruisin' in the new swagger wagon. Or cowering inside our house, right next to the air conditioning vents. But here's a recap of some of our summer fun.

In June, we went to the BEACH!

We shared a big beach house with great friends:

Sophie was a little fish, as usual. She would swim across the gulf, if we didn't stop her:

Jameson loved the beach, too. What a heartbreaker!

To see more pics from the beach (including really cute shots of Lucy, Milo, Laney, Solly, and Josie!), click on the link below:

BEACH TRIP PHOTO GALLERY

Or copy this into a new window: http://www.frankandstacy.net/photos/ditchbeach2010/index.html

Remembering Mom

2010-07-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

Sophie and Jameson's great grandmother passed away on July 8th. She was 96 years old. It would take me about that long to tell you all that she meant to me and share all the stories of her life. I was honored to deliver the eulogy at her funeral, and share the memories of my cousins, as well. This is an incredibly long post to a blog, but I want to keep these words, and share them with family. So now it's out there in cyberspace (a word that my grandmother would not have known. In fact, when I said I was going to post the eulogy on a website, my father told me that Mom Allen would have thought that had something to do with a spider!) I love you, Mom.

My "Mom" and me:

She probably sewed those red bell-bottoms for me!

Eulogy for Ruth Murial Gryder Allen
Read on July 12, 2010

My name is Stacy, and I am Ruth’s sixth grandchild – the baby of the family for a long, long time. And then there were more kids and babies. More grandchildren and all their spouses, fourteen great grandchildren and even three great great grandkids. That’s what happens when you live 96 years with a gentle and loving heart – you get to do a lot of mothering. And that’s what we all called her: Mom.

My cousin Lisa set that trend for us, because that’s what she heard her mom, Joy, and Aunt Cloye and Uncle Jerry calling their parents. It might have been a little confusing to those outside the family, since we also had parents that we called Mom and Dad, but there was something in the intonation or maybe context – we always knew who we were talking about: Let’s drive out to Kerrville and go camping with Mom and Dad. See you Christmas Day at Mom and Dad’s! Mom made the red velvet cake. How’s Mom doing? Give my love to Mom.

She was an amazing mother figure to all of us. She was tiny, but she was huge to me – this little red-headed lady with a grin on her face and a twinkle in her eye. When I picture her in my mind, she is walking out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel, saying “Well, hello, Stacy” and opening up her arms to hug me. Her children will tell you, she sacrificed for them (and they have sacrificed for her), and she taught them by example. She needed a lot of patience to raise three children – two girls, Joy and Cloye, so close to each other in age, and then that Jerry Dean, who once burned down a field trying to cook the neighbor’s chicken in a pot. My grandmother didn’t smile in many photographs we have of her, but I have memories of her laughing out loud, cackling even, telling stories about my father, Jerry, when he was a little boy.

I pestered her to tell me stories about the past. Every single time that I visited her, we would pull out the photo albums and I would leaf through the pages, delighting in all of the pictures of our family: Lisa and Lori wearing matching Easter dresses that Mom had made, Scott and Jeff running around in spaceman helmets, Bradley wearing a little bow tie, family trips to Colorado, Lisa’s awesome jumpsuits from the late ‘70’s, and all the pictures of our family units – the Berry’s, the Largent’s, the Allen’s – in front of this one segment of fence. In all of the school pictures she has of me, I am wearing an outfit that she sewed for me – she was a wonderful seamstress – she made all of her daughters’ clothes until they were married. I wish I had learned more from her. I liked to rearrange the straight pins in her tomato-shaped pin cushion while she sewed, but now that I have a four-year-old, I wish I could sew jumpers with little schoolhouses on them. In one of those old albums, there are pink-tinted photos of my aunts wearing ballgowns and tiaras, for homecoming, I suppose. I used to stare at those photos and try to jump into them -- they looked like princesses to me. But my favorite photos are the black and white group photos from the late ‘20’s and ‘30’s. There are pictures of my grandfather’s first students when he was a teacher – all the children barefoot and wearing overalls. And the best picture of all, my grandmother’s basketball team. She’s wearing a uniform that goes all the way down to the ankles, and she has a short bob haircut and steely-eyed determination – they called her “Little Red,” because there was a taller redhead on the team. Mom loved basketball. Her team went on to play in a state championship one year. She loved watching basketball on t.v., even into her nineties, but she was diplomatic about it. She would cheer for the Mavericks when one side of the family was visiting, and root for the Spurs if my Dad was there watching the game with her. Football was not so nebulous – it was always the Dallas Cowboys.

There are many “always” moments when I think about Mom. She had the same hairstyle for the entire 39 years that I knew her – done each week at the beauty parlor and sealed into place with Aquanet, and we weren’t supposed to touch it. (I don’t know why – it would have just bounced back into place, I think.) Mom always made red hot salad when she knew kids were coming for a visit – for those of you who have never heard of this southern delicacy, it’s not a salad, and it’s not really hot. But it’s definitely red. And there were other dishes that she always served: creamed corn, homemade cakes and pies, green beans that had been frozen after they were freshly picked from her garden, hot cornbread, mustang grape jellies that she had put up…even her cream of wheat had the just the right amount of lumps. Always. And when Dad was alive, he always stopped at the Golden Chick after church for our Sunday dinner.

Everything changes in life, but not Mom. And not her little house in Belton. Mom and Dad believed in clean living, and their house reflected that. Everything was always just so – everything in its place. For my entire life, I have known that the plastic alligator lives in the small drawer of the dresser in the middle bedroom, right next to the matchbox filled with wooden checkers. Mr. Bim, the stuffed monkey that every grandchild and great grandchild dragged around, lived in the bottom of the closet. There is a rattlesnake tail in Mom’s jewelry box. And there is a drawer filled to the brim with bread ties. I don’t know what anyone could possibly do with all of those breadties, but my grandmother was not a waster. She had memories of the Depression, and we have all seen her rinse off tin foil and flatten it out to re-use. If there were three bites left of a casserole, it went back into the icebox and reappeared, alongside 14 other small dishes of leftovers, at the next meal. She rinsed out milk cartons so she could fill them with water and freeze them into blocks of ice. Appliances were taken to repair shops before they were replaced. And she was more likely to buy new buttons than a brand new dress. We can still learn so much from Mom.

I learned a lot from my grandmother on our drives together. After Dad passed away, I often had the job – the blessing – of driving Mom to family events like weddings or Thanksgiving at James and Sarah’s house in Stephenville. Again, I would pester her to tell me stories of the past. She would point down one road where her family’s farm had been, and down another to where C.D. Allen – she always called him “Doc” – had lived. She told me she had had a beau before him, but he won her heart. She told me about growing up with her brothers and sisters, Austin and Spivy, James, Lucille, and Doris, fishing with cane poles and hoeing cotton in the fields. She rode a horse to school each day and always wore a bonnet because she thought freckles were ugly. When she was a young girl, she wanted to grow up and be an English teacher. And while she did not become a classroom teacher, she and Dad led so many of us to that calling. I remember her telling me, “Get your education – once you have a degree, no one can take that away from you.”

Each one of the grandkids has memories like this – and they’ve been sending them to me this week:

My brother, Jeff, wrote to me about a summer when he spent a couple of weeks in Belton. He said, “I remember waking up very early every morning to the smell of breakfast cooking in the kitchen. I spent my time helping Mom and Dad in the garden, building a bird house with Dad (this is where I got my love of wood working), playing basketball in the driveway, and going fishing at the lake. I remember that Mom would change clothes before going in to town, even if she was just running to the grocery store. One day we were fishing at the Bell County Sportsman’s club and I was bored because the fish were not biting so I went outside and was throwing some rocks or something when I heard Mom start laughing. I went back in the fishing dock and Mom had both her rod and reel and mine with fish with two fish on each line. My favorite memories of Mom are the way I would feel when she would sit next to me and hold my hand and say “I love you Jerry”. It never upset me when she would get me mixed up with my Dad.”

Lisa spent a lot of time with our grandparents each summer, too. She wrote, “Mom woke up early every morning and put on a full face of makeup before breakfast. At night I liked to lie on her bed and watch her slather her face and neck in cold cream. She always smelled so good. She moved like a house afire from the time her feet hit the floor – three full meals every day with her garden produce; we only bought necessities at the store. Our social life was church – church every Sunday and Wednesday, church socials and picnics, reading the Bible daily. One special vacation was to where else --- Glorieta Baptist Encampment where we stayed in the college's cabin! More church! Every night ! Huge services. My most vivid memory is singing in the car: "When We All Get to Heaven" was memorized by the time I was 6 years old.” They took Lisa on several outings: to the department store to buy sewing notions, to the Picadilly in Austin – even to the caverns and the Capital, with Dad telling stories of Sam Bass and the outlaws, and to the Belton library, where Lisa loved the smell of the books. She remembers Mom working around the house and singing and said, “She, and my mother, were the two more important female influences in my life.”

Brad and Scott both remembered the holidays and meals at Mom’s house, and how she always made everyone feel special. Brad said, “Mom was ALWAYS happy to see us walk into the house. Whenever we arrived she really seemed to beam. She loved to cook for her family. She never wanted to “go and get” anything. She preferred that we all sit down to a home cooked meal and enjoyed her time in the kitchen cooking for us.” And both Brad and Scott spoke of her patience. Brad reminded me, that in all her years with all these kids underfoot, we never heard her raise her voice.

And Scott wrote: Words are hard to describe about a bond/love that you have for someone. I feel very fortunate to have had Mom as a grandmother. Her patience has always been exemplified with her grandkids. Nothing can describe love like patience can, and she loved us all. I truly appreciate the Christian example that she set for us. My best memories were the holidays, particularly Christmas and Easter. The smile that she had as she looked at us and the great many meals that she cooked will always be a part of my heart. I feel very blessed to have her as a grandmother. She was the perfect grandmother.

Mom fed our hearts, and our souls. And she definitely fed our bellies.

Lori said, “One of my favorite memories of Mom is the way she instilled a love of cooking and bringing the family together. She was an excellent cook and always put so much love into every dish. She also instilled a love of cooking in all her children which has been passed down to her grandchildren and great grand children. I’m sure the Red Velvet cake, which always made each Christmas celebration so special, will be passed down to all future generations and we will always think of Mom each time we make it. We watched her cook tirelessly each holiday and every time we visited and we always felt so special and loved. I have so many special memories of our family coming together and just enjoying each others company and spending time together.”

We felt special, because Mom knew us – she knew what we loved and encouraged our gifts.

Vanessa said, “Every time we would visit, she and I would talk about our favorite sport, basketball! I can still remember the photographs she shared with me of her playing. Talking about the same basketball position we both played. Not only did we share stories about basketball, but she showed how much she cared when she would call to the house to see how my games went. Most importantly, the one thing that meant the most to me was, she always accepted us in the family like we were one of her own. She was always kind and good hearted. She always was asking about our accomplishments with school, work, and life.

And this is what Taz wrote: Mom Allen was always the sweetest most kind lady. She always saw the best in everybody and was optimistic in every way. I love how she accepted me, a random little brown boy, into her family and treated me with the utmost hospitality. She treated me like a real grandson. She cooked the best meals in the world; like most grandma's she was famous for her dishes! She never failed to ask me how my life was and always wished me the best in everything. She genuinely cared about me and in return I loved her and will always love her.

We all have so many memories of Mom that we’ll treasure in our hearts. But what she most treasured in her heart was a love for God and the teachings of Jesus Christ. And by example, she taught us. The real meaning of family is holding hands in prayer before a meal. In our family, the greatest honor was being old enough to read, because the youngest literate child was asked to read the story of Christ’s birth each year at Christmas. Often, a grandchild or great grandchild would sing a song or play an instrument they were learning. We all filled her den at Christmas, even when the grandkids were grown and married. And before we dug into the goodies under the tree, we always sang Jingle Bells and Silent Night. We always sang about this heavenly peace she’s living now.

There was only one theological question that I think she got wrong. When I was four or five years old, we came to visit Mom and Dad at the end of October. October 31st fell on a Sunday that year, and she was absolutely sure that a good Christian town like Belton would not celebrate Halloween on a Sunday evening. So I was crammed into my Tinkerbell costume and went door-to-door on a Saturday evening, before anyone had done their candy shopping. One kind soul gave me some change, but another lady scolded me for being on her doorstep on the night before Halloween. We gave up and went home, where I’m sure I was fed with Mom’s cakes and pies until I could bust.

I don’t presume to know any more about theology than she did. I don’t know what Heaven is really like. I can imagine asking Mom, and her saying, “I don’t reckon I know. What do you think it’s like?” and grinning at me. For now, as we are all saying goodbye, I’d like to imagine her tying a scarf over her hair, then walking along a path and down some steps, across stones in a river and over a long wooden plank bridge, until she reaches a fishing dock where a cane pole is waiting. And right at the edge of the fishing hole, there is a group of people sitting in lawn chairs. There is Doc, and Joy, and all of her brothers and sisters and other family members. There is the fisher of men. And they all turn to look at her and say, “Here she comes. She’s finally here.”

Holiday Ro-oh-oh-oad!

2010-06-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

Our memory "book" is a little out of order (I still have pics of Jameson's birthday and the beach trip to post), but I thought it would be easier to blog a bit from the road on this 13-day minivan adventure to the Potomac and back! So...

Day 1: We drove for about 8 hours. Only had to pull over to "run the wiggles out" one time at a rest stop near Texarkana (but we also stopped for lunch and two bathroom breaks). So far, we haven't even pulled the dvd player out! We saw a great semi-truck hauling playground equipment, and I took a picture through my window. Hours later, after driving into Arkansas and into Hot Springs and around and around Hot Springs getting our bearings and finding a hotel, we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel we'd decided upon, and there was the playground truck! A good sign. On Night 1 in Hot Springs, we ate Latin cuisine (et tu, burrito?) at Ronaldo's, checked out the spiral staircase at the Arlington Hotel, went to a city park to dip our fingers into the hot springs, and walked Bathhouse Row at night. The hot springs are NOT lukewarm...they are scalding hot. Who knew?

Day 2: We headed back to Bathhouse Row and got caught in a quick but heavy thunderstorm. While it rained, we toured the National Park Visitor Center at the Fordyce Bathhouse -- it included four stories of exhibits and artifacts from the heyday of the bathing craze. Very interesting! We drove through the park, hiked a trail (Sophie does best if she's the trailblazer), talked to people filling up jugs of water at the springs, filled up our own water bottle, ate at the Brickhouse, drove around looking at fancy schmancy houses, bought Lucas candy at a Mexican grocery store (for margaritas at the river!), then went back to the hotel to rest. For dinner, we headed back downtown to eat at the German Brau Haus -- great brats * and beer! (* and by "brats," I mean sausages. The kids are fine, too.)

Here are some hdr photos that Frank took on Bathhouse Row:

An exterior shot of the Quapaw Bathhouse Dome:

The gym at the Fordyce Bathhouse.

Interior shot of the men's bathing room:

Kickin' Things Off With Kerrville

2010-06-26T19:25:00.000-07:00

The Kerrville Folk Festival is sort of the herald of summer. Frank and I have tons of pre-kids memories of staying up all night playing music, sleeping as long as we could inside a tent during a heat wave, eating hot bagels (with friends in the posher camper section!), then escaping to Third Crossing to float in tubes and drink cold beer. (And Frank has pre-Stacy Kerrville memories, too...he's a lifetime ticket holder, you know. I mean, he doesn't have a Kerr-name or go without showering for the full 18 days, but he's close to that level of fanaticism.)

Kerrville with kids is a little different. Don't get me wrong -- it's a totally AWESOME place to take kids. They kind of run around in packs (when they're older elementary age), they gain independence and confidence, they entertain themselves for hours and hours with NO video games or television. It's nice. But changing a diaper in a tent is challenging. And these days we pack more sunscreen and healthy snacks (versus our previous meal plans of Frank "playing for food" with beef jerky as a back up plan).

So here are some highlights from this year's Kerr-perience:
1) I had to text our camping location to Maggie so she could meet up with us the next day. She laughed and laughed because we were camped between the two school buses, near the teepees. It was a great spot, really. No shade left by the time we got there, but we still had a little "real estate" in front of the tent. If you're ever visiting Kerrville, we set up shop near Camp Cuisine and, well, I guess it was Camp RRRrrrr (they dressed like pirates and sang sailor songs all night). Right in front of us was "Camp Crack," a van full of 18 and 19-year-old hippie kids. They were there for the full 18 days of festival -- 'nough said. Frank played some music over at Camp Bayou Love -- best camp name ever. Maggie recommended "Camp Kerr-mudgeon" for us for next year.

2) Jameson's birthday was three days AFTER Kerrville, so we spoiled him a bit and gave him his birthday present early: a blue guitar! He was sooo happy when he opened it, and he's been walking around strumming it and trying to tune it (good boy) ever since.

3) The Stephenses joined us the second day, and Solly brought his guitar, too. Solomon is a guitar prodigy -- no joke. He sat in the big guitar circles and strummed with perfect rhythm. So many people commented on his skills and his passion -- he already has calluses from strumming! Sophie was thrilled to have her Laney-friend join her, and they somehow talked their way into borrowing dress-up clothes from some tiny-waisted (wasted?) hippies.

4) Sophie snoozed through the loud music, the campfire chatter, the "Camp Crackwhores" whooping and hollering on the top of their van while they flashed lasers in the trees. Jameson woke up grumping several times. Frank wandered around and played music. I stayed with the kids and read a trashy vampire novel by flashlight, late into the night. The next day, EVERYONE was exhausted. Except Sophie. She woke up at 7:15 ready to take on the world. The teenagers across from us were still awake, and Sophie wanted to take all her books and Barbies over to them so "Jaffy" and "Clementine" could read to her. I told her to go ahead. Serves 'em right for being so obnoxious at 4 a.m. The Camp Crack Kids LOVED Sophie. They let her decorate their van with chalk. Frank and I were in our tent listening to her chatter away, and Clementine told Sophie, "You are so fucking cute!!" Great. So far, we haven't heard her repeat the word, but it's probably going to slip out on Day 1 of kindergarten: "I f'ing LOVE kindergarten! Pass me the f'ing crayons!"

5) The best thing about Kerrville was watching Sophie lead Laney through the tents and campsites. She really did show amazing independence that weekend. Or maybe the best thing was watching the boys strum their guitars in their matching guitar shirts. Or maybe the best thing was watching our friends, Stuart and Hilary, play on the mainstage. No, definitely the best thing was when Bob Saget (feral kitten, claimed and named by the crack-kids) ran into our tent and landed on the highly allergic Frank. And they all started calling out, "Saget! Saget!" You can't dream that stuff up.

Click on KERRVILLE to see the best parts of our campin' and pickin' weekend!

All Pomp for this Circumstance

2010-06-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we've had a dearth of posts for the past month and a half due to 1) crazy, hectic schedules and 2) a computer virus that makes exporting and uploading pics a real pain in the arse. But I'm determined to post a few momentous occasions before we head off on our mini-van adventure and take hundreds of pics.

BIG THINGS are afoot at the Webster household. First, Sophie graduated from pre-school. Quick story: When I went to register her for kindergarten, she was missing a Hep B booster

shot, so they stamped her file with a big red stamp that said "DELINQUENT." That's the way to start a permanent record, kiddo!

So, this first album shows you some sweet pics from Sophie's graduation from Primavera Montessori School. I cannot say enough schmoopy things about this magical, hippie-dippie (cloth napkins only, tie-dye shirts for graduation) place. It really is a community, and we will miss it next year. But Jameson will be there when he is three! Lookout, Rachel and Marianne, there's another Webster headed your way!

Click on GRADUATION or the picture below to see a few shots from Sophie's last day at Primavera:

What a GENIUS Says

2010-05-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

So, the truth is, Sophie still wears pull-ups to bed. We went through months of waking her up at varying times of night, limiting liquid-intake past dinner time, sticker charts, promises of sleepovers when she could go a whole week without wetting the bed...and then it occurred to me (loading the washing machine AGAIN) that maybe her body is just not ready to make it through the night. So we bought some night-time pull-ups and put off the issue for a while. A long while. Tonight, Sophie said she wanted to wear panties to bed. Hooray! Twenty minutes later, she climbed out of bed and came to tell me:

Sophie: Mom, I think should wear a pull-up tonight, because I don't really like to wake up at night.
Me: Well, I could wake you up and help you get to the bathroom.
Sophie: But I don't want you to have to wake up. I'll just wear a pull-up.
Me: You know...I get up every night to go to the bathroom. I don't mind getting you up, too. A lot of people wake up every night to go to the bathroom.
Sophie: Not if they're a genius.

I got nuthin. No comeback. She IS a genius.

OZ

2010-05-04T05:38:00.001-07:00

From flying monkey to the dog. Is that an upgrade?

The Leader of the Plaque

2010-04-23T05:21:00.000-07:00

This blogging moment brought to you courtesy of: things I should write down so they are documented and I don't forget. Tune in some other time for: cute and sassy things the Webster kids are doing lately.

Sophie took her first trip to the De-ehntiiiiiist! (You have a knack for causing people pain. Oh!) All the child rearing websites recommend the first visit happen sometime after the first few teeth appear. Well, four years is certainly AFTER (I could launch into a pathetic story about missing the deadline for paperwork when she was three and having to wait an entire year to add her on to our policy because teacher insurance is sooo lowbid with so many inane regulations, but...oh, I just did).

Anywho...we finally got her added and I did a zip code search for a dentist that mentioned pediatric or family dental care. When we pulled up to the office, it looked a bit sketch. Lots of bars and gates -- perhaps people have burgled this office searching for good drugs? The waiting room was painted with an ocean mural -- a deep, dark ocean scene that made it a little hard to breathe, actually. Someone had added a wharf or dock or something, but it just looked like a structure about to topple over. The good news -- despite the weird smell and dark green carpet and black pleather waiting room furniture, the office staff and assistants were SUPER nice and efficient and sweet to Sophie and I told myself to stop being so judgmental -- maybe I would LOVE this dentist.

Punchline: Sophie sat very still for her x-rays, which showed three teeeeny tiny "spots" (new word for cavities?) between her molars. They are going to fill them at her next appointment, $200 please. And then they flashed me their straight, white teethy smiles. Sophie now thinks that "going to the dentist" means wearing a heavy vest, getting pictures made, and getting a new toothbrush and a sparkly pencil. I think it means a Target hiatus for Momma. Dumb dentist.

Moonrise Over Bluebonnets

2010-04-04T14:13:00.000-07:00

In Central Texas, the "babies in bluebonnets" picture carries the same charm (and cheese) of a pumpkin patch. And we couldn't resist. This is a field of bluebonnets where we used to take Callie for a walk (back when we took pictures of our dog) (back when we took our dog for walks). Some combination of weather and rain has resulted in an explosion of our state flower this year. Almost looks like an ocean if you squint your eyes and drink a Lone Star at the same time.

Just before we headed off for home, a gorgeous moon came up over the field. And we all stayed up past our bedtimes to see it.

See more romping and frolicking here: BLUEBONNETS

The Last Hurrah

2010-03-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

Like so many hung-over and punch-drunk festival attendees, J could barely keep his eyes open for the final concert we saw this week. Even when the band passed out pots and pans for everyone to bang and demonstrated human bowling, he snoozed.

Sophie got to see Peelander-Z play, but she was not nearly as giddy as Frank. I guess this outfit isn't all that weird if you're a four-year-old.

And then the wind blew through his hair and J. was up and at 'em again. "I'm up! I'm up!"

I think this is a glimpse into the teenage Sophie's face. Angsty? Dreamy?

I love the sign right next to her -- hands off the net, kid!

What an awesome Spring Break. Bring on the summer!

Little Rocker Kids

2010-03-20T06:49:00.001-07:00

SXSW Music Fest, 2010
(My apologies for posting these on FB and the blog, but my grandma only checks the blog. And these are keepers.)

Kite Fest

2010-03-17T08:32:00.000-07:00

Spring Break SXsofar: it's the third day of our break, and we have enjoyed a jam session with fiddlin' friends at Pie's house, running around like crazies at the Zilker Kite Fest, drinking "smoovies" in the afternoon, and then yesterday we saw a monkey riding a dog herding some sheep at the rodeo fairgrounds. Sophie's favorite thing so far: "eatin' a hot corn dog on a rainy bench."

Here are some pics from the Kite Fest:

Nothin' better than being barefoot in a field of grass (oh, yeah...the green butterfly kite in the background is ours!):

When we tired of flying kites, I decided to "fly" the kids:

Kids, kites, and the skyline...maybe my favorite picture ever:

More kitefest pics (including the kite-eating tree and some cool HDR pics that Frank took) are here: KITE FEST PICTURES

Crushed Bug Flakes

2010-03-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

Lugubrious lamentations around our house: "Shrek," the cicada carcass that Sophie kept in her jewelry box and petted often, disintegrated tonight. Godspeed, Shrek. You were a nice, albeit dead, pet. shell.

Thank god we still have "other Josh," who is the other cicada shell. Who is also dead, but still pettable. Pet-able?

Sunday Funday

2010-03-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

Family and friends and chilango margaritas...these are a few of my favorite things! Last Sunday we met up with some friends to celebrate my final 30-something birthday. Jameson was a charmer. The girls tried Pop Rocks for the first time (we're listening to the crackle in Pic #2). And I sipped on my favorite margarita -- an orange-infused spicy margarita with a top secret crushing on the rim. My guess? Chili powder and Mexican Lucas candy (rumored to contain lead). Yum. Say...why don't they make a margarita with pop rocks lining the rim? On the rocks with rocks? I digress.

Check out some of the party pics by clicking here: StacyDay

There's a monster IN my bed.

2010-03-03T05:02:00.001-08:00

Last night Sophie poked me on the arm (I was slumbering peacefully) to tell me that she had had a bad dream. I pulled her up into the bed with me..."just for a few minutes, Soph...then you're going back to your bed." A few minutes later, she peed on me. Sometimes, THAT is parenthood.

I didn't cry or spank her or beat her with the wire hangers. I'll be checking my mailbox for the mother of the year certificate.

Happy Chinese New Year!

2010-02-26T05:12:00.001-08:00

Sleeptalkin'

2010-02-15T21:11:00.000-08:00

So, this blogpost has nothing to do with how funny and wise Sophie is or how cute and rascally Jameson is; this is how tired and crazy Stacy is. Frank keeps a list of conversations I have with him in my sleep. Apparently I'm prepping for big things in the near future. And I think my husband, totally awake and sober, is pretty funny, too.

Stacy: What happens if there's a miracle?
Frank: What do you mean?
S: If there's a miracle. Then what?
F: I guess we shout "Hallelujah"
S: No. I mean in general.
F: Like a garden-variety miracle?
S: No, not that kind of miracle. Like what happens?
F: I guess you say "Thanks God. Good one."
S: Not like that. Like a miracle. Like a thing thing. Miracle.
F: Amen.
S: My toes need to be covered.

The Golden(plated) Rule

2010-02-01T17:38:00.000-08:00

Sophie told us this great story at dinner tonight:

"At school the other day, Rhea was singing and then Arden interrupted her and Rhea got upset and then Miss Rachel asked did anybody know the golden rule. And I raised my hand and I was the only one and Rachel said, 'Yes, Sophie?' and I knew it!"

(I was so proud at this moment, I think I even had a tear in my eye. "So, what is the golden rule, Sophie?")

"The golden rule is when you treat someone the way they treat you. So if someone is mean to you, you be mean to them."

Oh, well. She's got eye-for-an-eye down pat.

And now, the HOLIDAYS

2010-01-31T06:10:00.000-08:00

We've been busy, busy bees around here. Yesterday, though, Frank sat down at the computer and finally created a photo spread for Thanksgiving. Christmas is coming soon.

This may seem REALLY outdated to most of you, but the Websters still have Christmas cards taped to our windows and the tree just exited the house last weekend. We like to cling to that holiday feeling, you know? (Truth: lousy housekeeper meets lazy housekeeper and they fall in love. You were all at our wedding.)

So. Thanksgiving. This year we split time between my Dad's side of the family (out at my aunt's house in Clyde, TX -- near Abilene) and then back to the farm in Weatherford (my stepdad's side of the family) for the traditional Thanksgiving bonfire at my Gram's house.

Click on the turkey pic (or here: THANKSGIVING_2009) to see the album.

Sweet Sophie

2010-01-10T13:31:00.001-08:00

Just a few moments ago, Sophie was wrapping up Jameson in a soft blanket, no SWADDLING, I should say. Then she announced, "This is the Baby Jesus, and I am Mary!" Then she patted Frank and said, "You can be Joseph." I asked who I was. She said, "Oh, you're the donkey!" Indeed.

Pageant Babies

2009-12-24T19:20:00.000-08:00

At our Christmas Eve church service, kids dress up as any nativity character (or animal) that strikes their fancy -- some years we have three Mary's and nine Joseph's and thirteen wise guys. You know, whoever shows up. And at the end, all of the babies get plopped on the stage, too. Sophie was an angel for the third year in a row. Jameson was a shepherd (but Sophie and Laney herded him in and out of the manger). The Stephenses joined us and I wish I had pictures from the church -- Laney was a gorgeous pink and purple fairy angel. Jameson said UH-OH! really loudly when his headpiece fell off. Sophie smashed it back on his head, he pulled off, she put it back, he pulled it off, then a wise man shushed them. It was AWESOME. I took a few pics when we got home:

WASTED!

2009-12-18T20:16:00.000-08:00

This is what happens when you stay up past your bedtime (drinking cocoa and looking at Christmas lights with Brian Uncle and Kavita Auntie). When we got home, I told Sophie to go pick out some books and wait for me in her room while I put Jameson to bed. When I went in to read to her, she was already crashed out in the rocking chair.

Walking on the Wild Side

2009-12-11T05:05:00.000-08:00

We're reading short stories from a Christmas book each night this month. We've been reading three of them each night, but last night one of the stories was really, really short. I asked Sophie, "Do you want to read one more?"

Her response, "Do you think we can handle it?"

Status Update

2009-12-03T16:38:00.000-08:00

You know the not-so-great thing about Facebook? I post quick snippets of our lives on FB and then just send them out in a little binary data packet -- never to be revisited. And because I put something out there, because I had my Doogie Howser reflective moment with my computer screen, I don't necessarily pop over here to the blog to update. But it occurred to me today that this blog IS my baby book, our story of life-as-we-know-it when our kids are so little and changing every time I blink. This is the record I check when someone asks me when Sophie first had teeth. And when Jameson finally utters a sentence, I will capture it here.

So, sorry I've been neglecting you, Blog. Here's a status update on the kiddos:

SOPHIE IS more challenging than ever, and funnier than ever. She can be a total turkey lip (whining, stomping, manipulating her way around the house), but she still loves to cuddle and she says stuff every day that makes me laugh. If you ask her how old she is, she'll say "four and one quarter," her favorite food right now is edamame, she prefers "twirl up" dresses to pants, we have started reading chapter books at night and she really listens (even with no pictures!) and can repeat the detailed story to someone else, and her favorite play, movie, book, and CD are all Annie. She wants nothing more than to be an orphan. For record-keeping purposes, I will note that she still wets the bed at night, unless I wake her up at midnight. When she does make it through the night, she demands two jellybeans: one pink one and one green one.

JAMESON IS a man of few words. The typical word count for an 18 month old is 10-20 words. He says:
Momma
Dada
JJ (when he looks in the mirror)
Bah (ball)
Bah-bah (bottle)
Mi (milk)
Ruff ruff (dog)

He's got about ten days to learn at least 3-13 more words before his 18 month milestone. He said "light" a long, long time ago (his first intelligible and totally parroted word), but he doesn't say it now. He has said Uh-oh a few times, but not consistently. He understands EVERYTHING, though. If I tell him, "Carry your plate to the kitchen, put this wrapper in the trash, and then go into the bathroom for your bath," he can follow ALL of those instructions. When we look at books and I say, "Point to the dog, point to the giraffe, point to whatever...he knows all of them. He waves bye-bye, he makes smacking kissy noises when he's saying night-night to Sophie, he says "Awwww" after we kiss. He has 12 teeth, a head full of wispy Linus-like hair, and a cowlick that makes everyone laugh. He loves the bath and banging anything hard against anything loud. He is a bit of a bruiser, smacking his sister to hear her squeal, then immediately leaning against her for hugs and kisses when we tell him "Say sorry!" His favorite food is fruit, especially berries. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. He can open the fridge, pull open the crisper, find the berries, hand them to you, then run to his high chair.

He is a BOY. He grabs our pole light and shakes it. He bangs the strings on Frank's guitars like a little punk rocker. He likes to play in toilets, and on three different occasions I have interrupted a game we call, "Chunk the glass jars of spices onto the hard tile floor." It took me 45 minutes to write this post because 1) It got too quiet so I went to find him...he was unloading knives from the dishwasher, and 2) He stole two potatoes from our tater bin and was running with them through the living room, then he crashed and bonked his head on the corner of a hutch. That said, anyone who spends any amount of time with Jameson says, "He's really laid back, isn't he?" Yeah, actually. He really is laid back. In a lumbering, crashing, cackling bruiser-boy kind of way.

And the rest of us? Oh, Frank, Callie and I are just fine. Trying to take it all in, and write a little bit down every now and then so we can pour over these sweet memories when the kids turn into teenagers and we're ready to sell them to the circus.

The Pumpkin Bash

2009-11-20T08:57:00.000-08:00

A few of our favorite Halloween moments, including Sophie's school party, the neighborhood Halloween picnic, and the traditional (SO MUCH FUN!) Lamer/Tamer Pumpkin Bash with all our Ditchdirt breeder friends.

(Click on the photo or on this link: HALLOWEEN 2009)

The World According to Sophie

2009-11-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

A couple of conversations I've had with Sophie lately...(I posted these on Facebook, but I wanted to be able to go back and re-read these later. Four year old's are brilliant, I think. And really funny.)

1) Eating Thai noodles together...
Sophie: These noodles look like worms.
Me: Sophie, don't talk about that at the table.
Sophie: Why? It will make the noodles upset?

2) A Science Joke
Sophie: What makes salt? Me: Um...the ocean. Actually, I know this! It's a compound of two elements: sodium chloride. Can you say that? Sophie: sodium chloride (a few seconds pass) Sophie: Mom, do you know what salt makes? Me: No, what? Sophie: Salt makes edamame taste good!

3) More About Salt (another hypothesis, a couple of days later)
Sophie: Do you know why the ocean is salty?
Me: Does it have something to do with edamame?
Sophie: No.
Me: Okay...I think it's because of salt deposits in the water.
Sophie: Actually, no. It's because the whales suck up all the water and then spit it back out again. And it's salty inside a whale's tummy.

Into the Woods

2009-10-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it had to be attempted. Frank and Sophie would camp again in a heartbeat. Jameson had a middle-of-the-night, cold-as-an-icesickle seizure-esque moment during which I know he doubted our parenting skills. I have flashbacks to changing a nasty diaper on the floor of the tent, trying to rationalize with a toddler about why he cannot leap into the campfire, and I retain a slight scent of smokiness in my hair. The final verdict? It was actually really fun -- we had a great time with good friends -- I'd do it again. Red wine would have helped a bit.

Click here to see the pictures of Sophie, Jameson, Eva, and Ellis: CAMPOUT PICS

The State of Health Care

2009-10-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

Tonight, Sophie was playing in our little breakfast room and I got invited into her imaginary world for a moment.

Sophie: And what is your name, sweetie?
Me: Mrs. Lollycolly.
Sophie: Okay, Pollypolly...and what do you need today, honey?
Me: Um...I don't know. What are we playing? (If it's restaurant, I typically ask for eggplant parmesan. If we're playing airplane, I definitely want more peanuts, honey roasted, please. If it's school...well, I don't wanna play that one. I'm thinking of dropping out.)
Sophie: I'll fix your nose, Mrs. Cauliflower. Bing! You're fixed!

And then she started "typing" into the cash register. And then she demanded money from me. Ten dollars.

Turns out we were playing doctor's office. Or, more accurately, billing department. That's okay -- I prefer her copay and the bedside manner was quite nice, too.

Belated Birthday Post

2009-10-14T05:17:00.000-07:00

There are good and bad things about being born on August 19th.

The PRO's: great (albeit hot) weather for outdoor parties; no obligation to invite every kid in the class, especially since class has just started and your mom doesn't have everyone's address yet; no other holiday in the month of August -- so you don't have to share your day

The CON's: if your parents are teachers, Aug. 19 falls in the middle of a very hectic beginning-of-school week; you'll always be the youngest kid in the class; you don't get the full birthday hooplah at school because the teachers are still figuring out what the plan is for the new year (and your mom is a rule-follower, so you get to bring birthday watermelon even though October kids' moms bring cupcakes); it takes your mom almost TWO MONTHS to post the pictures from the party!

But one more PRO: Because your parents feel slightly guilty about making you postpone your party for a week, you get to have a special adventure on your real birthday, and then a big party 10 days later!

Click on the photo (or this link: BIRTHDAY BASH) to see the party pics!

The Scott Saga

2009-10-04T19:52:00.001-07:00

So, we bought Sophie a fishtank for her birthday. She got to go to Petsmart to pick out her fish, and while I tried to point her in the direction of this $5.99 puffy-looking fish, she was particularly drawn to the 27 cent variety goldfish. And she had her eye on a CERTAIN goldfish, which the nice Petsmart employee dutifully caught for her. As soon as he was plopped into the bag, Sophie named him SCOTT. Petsmart Guy lifted the bag and looked at the...I dunno...fishy parts, and told her that it was a girl. She said, "That's okay, his name can be Mrs. Scott." And we took him (her) home. And we loved him/her very much. About three weeks later, he (perhaps she) died.

Hello, my name is Scott. Mrs. Scott. And I am dead...caught in an endless sidestroke beneath my crappy filter that was not strong enough to siphon out my bacteria but seems to enjoy the deathsuck it has on me now.

Not ready to launch into the Circle of Life lecture, Frank and I negotiated the details of the great fish-switch caper, and I returned to Petsmart to search out a Scott look-alike while Frank cleaned out Scott's tank (Scott, of course, was "napping" in the cup waiting for his water to be clean.) And Scott 2.0 became a beloved member of our family. By the way, I asked the Petsmart Girl if the new Scott was male or female (just out of curiosity) and she told me it was very difficult to tell. I agreed, and I did not tell her that Petsmart Guy was a far superior ichthyologist.

Scott 2.0

On Thursday, Scott 2 started swimming diagonally, which seemed like a bad sign to me. By Friday, Scott was skimming the surface, and we decided to tell Sophie that he was dead so that we could get a heartier fish without having to concoct some bizarre story about how Scott had changed color and shape overnight. Apparently, 27 cent goldfish are just not meant to live very long, AND they are very dirty little fish.

Sophie took the news well. I talked about how fish don't live very long, and then told her that Scott had died. Her response: ALREADY??? (If only you knew, Soph....)

We performed the traditional toilet "burial at sea," and she seemed pretty strong about it all. She said a little prayer for him, and told him he had been a good fish. A few minutes later, she asked, "Are we going to die?" Ugh. Why, oh, why did I buy her a stupid fish instead of a Barbie castle or something that would last forever?!? So we had a long talk about how people do die, but they live a lot longer than fish. And when we die, we go to this place called Heaven (and she chimed in with information about God and Jesus, thank you very much Sunday School). We volleyed paradise back and forth -- Sophie prophesies rainbows and purple butterflies everywhere, and she could be right. I told her that the best thing about heaven is that you meet up with everyone you loved on earth, so she would see Scott again, and Gary the Cat (who died before she was two but with whom she is obsessed), and her Nana Jane, and the grandmother she never met. And then, in true Sophie style, she delivered the punchline of our morning mourning.

"But we won't see Scott. Because he is in TOILET HEAVEN." And then she cracked up.

I Always Suspected

2009-09-19T13:06:00.001-07:00

Driving all the rugrats to school yesterday, I glanced over at the pile-o-crap on the passenger seat and said, "Oh, shoot!"

Sophie: What's wrong?
Me: I forgot MY lunch. I see the puppy-dog lunch box and the kitty-cat lunch box, but I don't see Momma's lunch.
Sophie: That's okay. You don't matter.

(But just in case you think she is a heartless little four-year-old, I think she meant "It doesn't matter." Because she followed it up with, "Just get a plate and walk around to all your friends and ask them to give you something from their lunch. You do have friends at work, don't you?" Okay...she might be a little bit heartless.)

Your Royal Highness

2009-09-09T19:31:00.000-07:00

When Frank picks up Sophie from school each day, part of the routine is to go potty before she's in the car and they're on the drive home or running errands or whatever. Yesterday, Frank had to "go" too, so he went into the bathroom with her at school and closed and locked the door.

Sophie (top volume): WHY ARE YOU LOCKING THE DOOR? WE DON'T LOCK THE DOOR!
Frank: You don't lock the door when friends are coming in to go potty, but when a mom or dad comes in here to go potty, it's okay to lock the door.
Sophie: Why? Because you don't want them to see your hiness? *
Frank: Um, yeah. What's a hiness, Sophie?
Sophie: You know...it's your girl parts!

* The author is unsure how to spell this word that sounds like "highness" but may be a contraction of the words hiney and penis. All the author knows, for sure, is that she intends to call Frank "Your Highness" often. If I can stop laughing.

Fish tale

2009-09-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

I was shoving stuffed animals in the closet tonight while Sophie got ready for bed, so I overheard the bedtime story she told to Scott. Her fish. It was a really creative tale about Lava-girl. I stepped out to throw some laundry in the machine and came back in for the tale tail end -- Sophie telling her pet: Good one, huh, Scott?

How I love that girl.

The Naming of Fish

2009-08-28T20:27:00.000-07:00

Sophie got a fish yesterday. To put in the aquarium that she got for her birthday. She named the fish "Scott." When the fish guy at Petsmart told her it was a girl, she said, "That's okay. His name is Mrs. Scott."

Back to School!

2009-08-17T21:03:00.001-07:00

It was a big day in the Webster household. Frank and I had to report to duty for titillating sessions on tardiness versus truancy, calibration of short-skirtedness -- oh my, a thigh! -- and how to deal with said insubordination, the "love your students but don't LOVE your students" speech, and other such standards -- all accompanied by awesome powerpoint presentations. Handbooks and dirty looks were passed out to the teachers for immediate use in the classroom. Frank created bingo cards for his colleagues featuring acronyms of the trade: IFL, IPG, TEA, TEKS, IEP, ARD, PLC, TAKS, PBS, CAC, CIP and eveything else that helps us teachers take care of TCB. How many can you identify, dear reader?

The kiddos had a big day, too. Thankfully, they are both returning to the same classrooms and teachers they had last year, but we did have a new wake-up time, new clothes, and new lunchboxes. And new attitude -- have we mentioned that?

"Mister J," as his teacher calls him, slept on a mat. On the floor. With the big kids. Well, he slept during his morning naptime. Apparently he flirted with the staff during afternoon nap and played peekaboo instead of sleeping. When I went to pick him up from school, he was flopping around the floor like a grumpus and Miss Lillian told me he was "having himself a drop down." I love her.

Here's Jameson on his first day of toddler class, 2009:

Sophie has been super excited about school and went with me to pick out some new clothes and new shoes. Today she reported that her new shoes were too tight. (Bullcrap, and you're wearing them.) Yesterday she loved her new skirt. This morning she hated it. She proclaimed it "disgusting." I made her wear it anyway. Poor little bowlegged baby.

She did seem to like her new lunchbox. Score one measly point for mom.

Summer Nights

2009-08-12T19:19:00.000-07:00

Sophie wanted to help make dinner, so we made a pizza and decorated it with veggies and such. "Frank" got a little bit over-cooked, but was still yummy. Broccoli-headed clown came out a bit better.

Dance party for dessert:

Don't judge him for his tutu. J-man also plays with soccer balls and matchbox cars. (And he really likes the way Strawberry Shortcake smells, but who doesn't?!?)

Well, I'M looking at the camera!

2009-08-12T08:58:00.000-07:00

And if I look cute, the picture gets posted, people.

Not Really a Baby J

2009-08-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

We've been visiting Baby Will this week -- who is tiny and sleepy and beautiful and snorty and wonderful -- and when I see this tiny baby sitting next to MY tiny baby, well, Jameson looks like a giant pretending to be a baby. I've also been watching "Baby" Bennett, who is about four months older than her cousin, and she has this huge vocabulary and does all of these amazing things (she knows what the animals say and she can point to and name family members in photographs!). And it's occuring to me that Jameson is changing faster and faster and faster. He's still my baby, but he's not really...a baby.

Here are a few things I want to remember about "Baby J" when he was 13 and a 1/2 months old:

He says "mama," "dada," "dadoo" (with thank you infection and context), "light," and...he JUST started saying "tickle, tickle, tickle."

He nods his head. All the time. Yes, yes, yes.

He does NOT put up with diaper changes. Squirms around and escapes almost every time.

He puts his head on my shoulder when I lift him out of his crib in the morning.

He kisses me with a wide-mouth-frog-style open mouth.

He cracks up when I sing the roll 'em up, roll 'em up part of Pattycake; he also cracks up whenever his sister makes funny faces at him.

He walks (sometimes at a fast lumbering pace) any where he wants to go, but he's not a fan of shoes. He shakes his feet when we put them on, like a dog wearing sneakers.

He is VERY ticklish. Especially the ticky-tocks.

He has the best smile. I hope he keeps on smiling.

Miss Sophie Goes to Washington

2009-07-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

We had some pretty amazing adventures on our trip to see the cousins! The first few days were spent at Aunt Laura and Uncle Hazen's new river house on the Potomac. Sophie rode on an airplane (pulled her own luggage through the airport, too!), rode on a boat, went fishing with Granddad, saw dolphins swimming in the Potomac, caught and ate some crabs, picked buckets full of blackberries and raspberries, swam in a hot tub, and followed Max around for days. (Thanks, Max.) When we drove back into Washington D.C. so I could go to a conference, Sophie, Jameson and Frank stayed at Aunt Laura's everyday house. She played with a new friend, Sawyer, played "Pretty, pretty Princess" with Cousin Madeline, explored Old Town, met panda bears and orangutans at the zoo, rode on the metro, visited the Smithsonian and went bonkers over the ruby slippers, caught fireflies in a jar with Carson and Lucy (kids of my dear friend from high school, Lisa!), explored the gardens at Max's school, threw the frisbee for Daisy dog, and basically had the time of her life.

Jameson had fun, too -- he traded chew toys with Daisy and got lots of hugs and kisses from Granddad and Mamaw and the rest of the fam.

To see all the great pictures Frank took of the trip, please click here: WASHINGTON D.C. PICTURES

Why We're Not Vegetarians

2009-07-17T14:27:00.001-07:00

We tried a new place for lunch today -- Bonzai on Lamar. Ate bento boxes and drank bubble tea and shared a couple of sushi rolls. Sophie found something interesting in her miso soup.

Sophie: Oh! There's some cheese in here!
Me: That's called tofu. Try it, it's good.
She slurps for a while.
Sophie: Hey! I found some more toe-cheese in here!

And, sidenote, I had a little epiphany about globalization and the experiences our kids have that we did not. Frank and I talked about how we NEVER ate anything all that international growing up. The Websters do love the Japanese Steakhouse, but that's not exactly Japanese, is it? Sophie eats sushi and tabouli and edamame and hummus on a fairly regular basis. I remember taking my mom to this Greek food place a few years ago, and she proclaimed it interesting. Until she said that, it hadn't even occurred to me that I was taking her out of her comfort zone. This generation's comfort zone casts a wider net, I think. Interesting.

He might have punk tendencies

2009-07-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

Raindance

2009-07-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

If you need some dance moves to chase away the heat wave, Sophie has worked up a routine. This was shot on that ONE DAY a couple of weeks ago that we had rain in Austin. It lasted for ten minutes. Remember? And if you're not an Austinite relishing in the sounds of rain, just focus in on Frank's undies with the red heart pattern. Cracks me up every time.

Farm Life

2009-07-03T07:10:00.001-07:00

We took a quick trip to the farm a couple of weeks ago. Sorry it took so long to post the pictures, Papa Joel -- I know you've been anxiously awaiting them. Check out our pictures -- I think Sophie looks so old in some of them. Not like a three year old (or even a four year old). Kind of a glimpse of eight-year-old Sophie, I think.

Click here: WEATHERFORD FARM and then click on the individual pics to see captions.

One Year Old Stats

2009-06-24T17:16:00.000-07:00

Mister J went to the Doc today.

31" tall = 90th percentile
25.2 lbs = 80th percentile

Three shots, fewer than three seconds of crying.

He was pronounced happy and healthy. And brilliant. And compassionate. And handsome. And loving. And interesting. And interested. And willing. And able.

On the standard checklist, we could check off MOST boxes. He can stand assisted (he can stand unassisted, in fact). He can pull himself up to standing. He can say three meaningful words and/or phrases. (I don't know how meaningful "uh-oh" is when it's not used in context, but I'm counting it.) He can pincher grab with his thumb and finger. The only box we could NOT check off was pointing at people and/or objects, but I don't think we've ever asked him to do that. It's not polite, you know. It's not Southern. What if we teach him to say y'all and ma'am and to wave when people let him cut in traffic -- can we substitute those skills?

Dr. Geoff asked how the breastfeeding was going. Sigh. I gave him the "HOA don't allow no chickin in ma yard" line and explained that we had already transitioned to milk. It's (self-imposed) high pressure to be an Austin Mama sometimes. We shop at the farmer's market and expose our children to live music and cook with a heck of a lotta cilantro. We're a long way from gathering or own eggs (damn HOA), drinking goat's milk, and breastfeeding until kindergarten, but I think the kids are going to turn out just fine. Look at his percentiles, people -- already an A/B student. :)

And Then He Was One

2009-06-15T22:15:00.000-07:00

June 14, 2009
Happy Birthday, Sweet Baby Jameson.

Happy Baptism Day.

And, yes, Happy Flag Day, too.

When we realized that Jameson's first birthday was going to fall on a Sunday, we thought it would be a perfect day for another kind of birthday -- his baptism. I had warned the Suganahoes and the Stephenses that I was going to pull them up on stage with us as his Austin family -- the Methodist version of godparents -- and that they would all be touching him during the baptism. Then Pastor Lynn Barton called up the ENTIRE congregation to surround Jameson, and it ended up being this gigantic mob of hands and laughter and Jameson grinning and splashing. Wonderful. Frank and Brent sang "Listen to Our Hearts" -- one of the songs we had during our wedding. Another wonderful moment.

Then we headed home and filled up the balloons, filled up the table with goodies (candy apple licorice, chocolate-covered cherry sour balls, and okra chips were the favorites), filled up the new kiddie pool, and filled up a pitcher with boxed wine and orangina (tinto de verano -- beach sangria) for our party guests. The house was all abuzz for a few hours, then it was just us Websters, all tuckered out.

Check out the PHOTO PAGE of JAMESON'S DOUBLE DIP BIRTHDAY.

The Many Faces of Jameson

2009-06-15T22:07:00.001-07:00

My beautiful, blue-eyed boy:

Adventurous: Jameson has been motoring around by holding on to walls and coffee tables. Here he is playing with some "big kids" on a playscape bridge.

Anxious: yee-ikes...I'm up pretty high, you guys.

Elated: Woo-hoo! I'm the king of the world!

Coy: No, thank you, miss. I think I'll skip the nap and keep on playing right here.

Mayfest

2009-06-15T22:02:00.001-07:00

Slide, slide, slippity slide...

Summer, Here We Come!

2009-06-15T21:47:00.000-07:00

The end of the school year was super hectic, as always, so I'm behind on my posting. Sophie had a grand end-of-year celebration at her Montessori school. Her class song was Bob Marley's "Don't Worry About a Thing" and she ended up singing it to my sixty tenth graders when she came as a guest lecturer to Austin High. (Did I mention? Her school ended the week before our school ended? Arrrggghh!)
Here she is with some Primavera pals:

Sophie, Rhea, Arden, and Berkeley

She ran calling Wiiiiilllldddfire!

Gypsy Girl (Rhea's birthday party makeover)

Last Day of School -- with Emilia (from Guacamala)

Taking pictures with her own disposable camera (lots of shoes and grass):

Sophie's Guides: Marianne and Rachel

Annie Get Your Wig

2009-06-15T21:43:00.000-07:00

Annie update: Sophie loved the play. There was a real dog on stage. And Molly was the cutest (as always). I thought Sophie would be disappointed that Annie had flat, red hair instead of the traditional curls, but then it occurred to me that Sophie had zero expectations. In the final act, though, Annie came out on stage wearing a curly wig (she was "gussied up" for the adoption party). Sophie asked me if she was wearing a hat. I told her it was curly hair -- Annie was fancy! Sophie whispered in my ear that she was gonna go tell Annie to take that curly hair off, and got down off my lap. I grabbed her in time. She's been singing "Tomorrow" in the bathtub, and every single time it reminds me of the time my Gram took us all to see the Annie movie.

All the World's a Stage

2009-06-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

We're about to go see Annie -- Sophie might be a little young for this, but I'm going to give it a try. I was just explaining what a musical is like.

Sophie: Will I be singing and dancing?
Me: Well, no. We'll be in the audience watching. It's like going to a movie but the people up front are real.
Sophie: Is I a real person?
Me: Yes. You're real.
Sophie: Then I'm going to sing, too.

And she probably will. She has actually been to a play before (a high school musical version of High School Musical), and every time a character on stage screamed, Sophie screamed back. She also went to a high school version of the jungle book, and some of my students took her on stage to dance at the end of the play. She has high expectations of being involved.

I'll let you know if she takes the stage by storm.

Ditchdirt Beachtrip 2009

2009-05-31T20:20:00.000-07:00

More fun photos: http://www.frankandstacy.net/photos/ditchbeach2009/

Fumbelina

2009-05-31T09:36:00.000-07:00

Sophie was talking to me about her fumb today. She has a boo-boo.
"Oh, no...does your thumb hurt?"
"No, my fumb."
"Go like this...thhhh" (and I make my tongue do the th thing).
"Thfumb. Thfumb. Thfumb."
"Good, but don't put your teeth on your lip, just put your tongue between your teeth. Th. th. th."
"Thfumb. Thfumb. You say it your way and I'll say it my way."
"That's cool...I was just trying to show you the th sound so you can say things like Thumper and Thunder and Thumbelina and Thistle!"
"And whistle?"
"Sure."
"And pine tree. And piss."

I have no comeback for that one.

My Little Garden Gnome

2009-05-17T17:37:00.001-07:00

Look what I found in our front yard...

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-10T05:44:00.001-07:00

Sophie created a Mother's Day book for me at school. Here's what she dictated to her teachers:

My mom always plays with me on the playground.
My mom looks pretty when she wears lipstick.
When it's nighttime, my mom goes to the bookstore.
My mom goes to H.E.B. and buys enchiladas.
My mom works with her kids in her class at Austin High.

Sweetest book I've ever seen. And I spend every night at the bookstore, you know. (?!?)

Happy Mother's Day!

Things She Says

2009-04-27T15:06:00.001-07:00

She's babbling in Spanish lately. It goes something like this: Comomos eestos sunsuelos? Mimos buenos? Sometimes she answers you this way when you have just asked her a question. It can be pretty cute or pretty annoying, given the other circumstances of the day. The other day a flustered Frank told her, "Sophie, you're not even saying anything in Spanish!" She put her hands on her hips, glared at him, and hissed, "seis."

Her English vocabulary is flourishing, and it's fun to listen to her progression with grammar. We hear a lot of double presentations with past tense these days: "He waveded at me!" When we try to casually "correct" with a question, "Oh yeah? Spongebob waved at you?" she looks at us like we're senile: "Yes! I just told you that he waveded at me!"

She brings homes little expressions from school, of course. Like, she says "for real life?" instead of "really?" Now that I think about it, for the OTHER use of "really" she typically says "very." We might hear: "I very like ketchup. For real life!" Other things she MUST have picked up from school: "I need my space," "na na na na boo boo," and "doo doo." I really hate the word "doo doo." I prefer poop. As a word, anyway.

She still says "actually" all the time. Ackshly, ackshly, ackshly. Got that one from me.

And what does HE say? Jameson delivers amazing monologues in gobbledygook. We have been able to discern the words, "Light," "mamamamamama," and one very clear "uh oh" right after a crashing noise in the kitchen.

Hard-boiled, plastic, and snake

2009-04-20T05:20:00.000-07:00

Torrential downpour on Easter morning subsided, and the blazing sun came out in time for our easter egg hunt last weekend. Jameson looked so collegiate in his little sweater vest...I could hardly keep from biting him every time I saw him:

When the "bunny" hid the eggs, he found an Eassssster vissssitor:

I would have screamed my fool head off if a snake wriggled out of the monkey grass right in front of me, but my husband picked him up and gave him a tickle:

Speaking of eggs, here are a couple o' good ones:

Classy Easter shot. Some Websters wrangle snakes; others wrangle babies:

Triple Fiesta Saturday

2009-04-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

Two birthday parties and an egg dying party. No naps (for Thing 1, anyway...Thing 2 still naps whenever the car is running so he dozed between events.)

Jameson was super excited to try the slide at Party #1:

Hurry up, Sis! I need a co-pilot!

On to Party #2: bouncy castle and a girl jumping out of a cake. Okay, a Barbie jumping out of a cake.

His hair is fading to blonde, but it does look a little on the RED side, here:

Mother and Child:

On to Party #3: Coloring Easter Eggs at Pie's house. Has Sophie selected the perfect color for a hard-boiled or the perfect shade for the Stephenses' dining room?

This one is called, "Little Girls and Eggs...Big Girls and Beets."

Eggcelent!

Ugh

2009-04-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

Quick note for the record. I'm going on a four night field trip starting tomorrow. I know that Sophie is old enough that she does not always need me around (especially if she's got her dad around). And I know that Jameson is too young to remember that I abandoned him for three days and four nights. But I am experiencing an involuntary irrational physiological reaction. Cannot breathe.

Safety Goggles Advised

2009-03-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

He gouges out of love.

Kuh-nuffle Cow?

2009-03-24T06:10:00.000-07:00

Sophie REALIZED something. She marched into my room and said, "THIS IS NOT MY COW!"

Albert Cowmoo is Sophie's first love. When we realized that Cowmoo was going to be Sophie's nighttime/naptime lovey when she was just a little over a year old, we rushed out to find a spare. The REAL Cowmoo was a gift from Aunt Laura, but it was a seasonal item -- sold along with the book Click Clack Moo, and nowhere to be found. Except Ebay. So that's how we got CowTwo. But until a few days ago, Sophie did not know about the stunt double. We dutifully rotated the cows so that they got a relatively equal amount of wear (great trick of hiding cleaner cow in the washing machine, then inserting dirty cow right in front of Sophie's eyes, closing the lid, then opening the lid and removing clean cow -- cooking show style). We never left two cows grazing at the same time. We never mentioned the name CowTwo in front of the girl. But we're tired, now. Corners got cut. And, somehow, Cowmoo became two. In true Knuffle Bunny style (great book if you haven't read it), Sophie was having NONE of it. She was not amused that there were two cows. She did not think that a cow visitor had decided to come play. She announced that one of them was NOT her cow, and that it probably belonged to Berkely (a kid at her school). I promised I would return it to him, and shoved it back in its corner behind Frank's hiking boots when she wasn't looking. Here's a shot of Sophie and Cow from September, 2006:

Let there be KITE

2009-03-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

We went to the kite festival, oh...about twenty days ago. I'm just now getting around to posting some pics. They look better when larger, so click on these...

An idea sprung from Jameson's head:

Look out, boy! That kite's gonna land on yer nose...

Let there be (L)ight

2009-03-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

Jameson said his first word! It's not dada (although he does say duh duh duh duh all the time). It's not mama (he grins/laughs/cackles when I say mama, but he doesn't say it). It's not Sophie or Sissy or So-so, despite her many efforts to get him to say her name first. It's not "Callie, No!" which I'm sure is imprinted on his brain. It's not uh-oh (that was Sophie's first word, and continues to be a testament to her balance).

It's LIGHT.

At dinner the other night, he reached up with both hands for the light above the table, jutting out his bottom jaw (and his bottom teeth) and started babbling. I said "light" and he said "ight." Just like that. Frank said "light?" and Jameson parroted "light?" And now he says it whenever he's referring to things he likes or wants. Light, light, light. I think it's a good first word. Light is knowledge and truth and God (and the glowing ball above J's head at dinnertime).

Sophie's Dictionary

2009-03-03T08:28:00.000-08:00

to·la·ter /tə-lāˈ-tər/ adverb
1. an indication of when things might occur, esp. in reference to candy eating
2. an unspecified extension of the time continuum, as in "today," "tomorrow," and "tolater"
Ex. I'm not eating any more Spongebob gummis now, but can I have some tolater?

blur·ry /ˈblər-ē/ adjective
1. unknown, unfathomable, but probably yucky
2. lacking that je ne sais quoi
Example 1: As we're driving the principal from Cheongwon High School from the airport to his host family's house, Sophie asks, "Are you from Korea?" He answers, "Yes. Do you know where Korea is? She answers, "Yes, it's very blurry there." He wonders what she means. We change the subject.
Example 2: Sophie emerges from her cardboard house with my purse on her arm and brown stuff all over her cheeks. I ask, "What's that on your face?" She answers, "Make-up. My face was looking a little blurry." (Fashion tip: eyeshadow does not clear up blurry cheeks)

Footnote: Sophie likes to make up new words and new usages for existing words, but she does not always appreciate new vocabulary. When Frank told her to stop being so obsequious, she screamed, "That's not even a word to me!" and then crumpled in a little heap of Sophie onto the floor.

Snoozefest

2009-03-03T08:10:00.001-08:00

Jameson thinks Pinkalicious is sooooo boring. Where's the dinosaurliscious book? Or truckaluscious?

He Was a Hairy Bear

2009-02-16T20:18:00.001-08:00

When Jameson was born, we called him our hobbit. He was such a fuzzy little guy, with dark spiky hair. Now his hair can be twisted into a tower of power, and the color becomes lighter with every shampoo, as if we're washing the dirt out:
Usually he sports a fancy comb-over, but with a little "product," (egg whites...quite organic), he morphs into full-on mohawk: (Note the two bottom teeth, too!)

Profile of a mad man:

His Chris Gaines impression, including pout:

Just jokin'! I'm still the smiliest boy around:

Think I'm joking when I say comb-over? Check it out:

Jameson's first haircut in the dining room (times is tough):

All done! And the hobbit became a real boy.

Pop Goes the Elbow

2009-02-08T20:49:00.001-08:00

Well, we broke her. Or rather, we dislocated her. But it wasn't "we," it was the sweet gymnastics coach who pulled her up off the mat after a crooked tumble, and it wasn't really "her," it was her elbow. Here's what happened:

When I picked her up from gymastics Saturday morning, she was being held by her coach and she was crying. The coach said she had a "boo boo" and that she was missing Mommy. Sounded about right. When I tried to put on her sweatshirt, though, she started crying even harder. I went back into the gym and got a better description of the injury. When I got her calmed down, she could lift her arm up, she could bend it at the elbow, she could squeeze my finger. All good signs. We headed home for ice and Tylenol. When I noticed that she wasn't using her left arm, I suggested that we might need to stay home and rest instead of going to the princess birthday party she was supposed to attend. MAJOR TEARS. A full-on princess hissy fit. Had Frank been home, he would have called it a "jihad." But Frank wasn't home and Mom wasn't sure what to do, so I helped her slip into her trashiest princess dress, some hot pink high-top Converse, and her Halloween costume crown. She still had her crooked pigtails from gymnastics and a tearstained face and her arm hanging limply beneath crushed purple taffeta and pink netting. In a word: pitiful.

We arrived at the party about an hour late, but just in time to eat cake and watch the hired Cinderella tying flower and wand balloons (I kept thinking of you, Aunt La-la, and your life on the birthday party circuit!). Fast-forward to dance party time, and Cinderella surrounded by twelve adorable little princesses, some with flowers in their hair, some with sparkly blue eyeshadow, some with glitter lotion on the skins, some with perfectly hair-sprayed ringlets, none looking quite so thrown together as my little Princess Ragamuffin. Cindy turned on the Hokey-pokey and I watched my little gimpy daughter shuffle and gyrate, but she just could not put her left arm in. Should I take her to the emergency room? Urgent care center? Call up my brother, the former nurse? Before I could decide, a horse-drawn carriage arrived at the party and Sophie's jaw dropped. She took two rides on the carriage before I convinced her it was time to leave.

I finally called Uncle Jeff, who listened to all the details, including the fact that she has had a hurt arm twice before (once when she was a toddler and sat down while I was holding her hand, another time after a friend was swinging her around by the arms). Both times it dangled by her side and healed after a few hours. Jeff decided it was probably muscular, and told me that the ER would charge me $50 and give her acetaminophen. Give it three days, and she'll be back to normal. He also advised that I give her a makeshift sling, which I did, and that seemed to help.

Then I went to the oracle. Google-style. Turns out that kids between the ages of 1 and 3 often get "nursemaid's elbow." (Called that after caregivers who inadvertently yank the arm of an uncooperative child.) If it's happened before, it's likely to happen again. And it occurs more frequently in girls than boys. And more often on the left arm than the right. Guess what?!? She's three, she's a girl, and it was the left arm. The internet tried to teach me how to reduce the injury, but it didn't seem to work. The internet also said that ice, Tylenol, and a few days would do the trick, if the reduction didn't work.

Finally, my rock, my love, my Frank came home. And I showed him my research. He called up our doc, Dr. Geoff, who concurred with the google diagnosis. He gave Frank a few more tips over the phone, and told him that it's a really easy procedure that's hard for parents to do (screaming is involved), but easy for doctors. Then he gave Frank directions to his house. (Did I mention that we're friends with our doctor?) We tried. Twice. Then Frank loaded Sophie up in the car and drove her to the doc. A house call, in reverse. He tried the maneuver once. No dice. He frowned, tried it again, and POP. She was cured. (We'll be billed through the mail, thank you very much.) I would have paid a $500 co-pay to have her fixed yesterday morning.

Tonight we are thankful for sweet gymnastics coaches who cuddle you when you fall, for Cinderellas who distract you from your pain, for cherry-flavored Tylenol, for horse-drawn carriages, for Nurse Jeff, for Dad who tried really hard but didn't want to hurt his little girl, and most especially, Dr. Geoff. He even gave her a sticker when she was done! And thanks to you, too, Google. And you? If you read this whole dang post, you should get a sticker, too.

Things Heard 'Round the Webster House Lately

2009-02-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

If you were a fly on the wall in our house this week, this is what you might have heard:

"I'm all done pooping and I'm touching my toes!" I blame Frank for this one...he thinks it's a good post-pottying stance. For some reason, I much prefer changing a diaper to the process of helping a three-year-old wipe her bum.

When Sophie came home with a pile of art from school, I spotted a beautiful rainbow-colored picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. I asked, "Who's this guy?" Her response? "OOOOOoooo-BAMA!"

In response to "Why do we have to listen to the mommies and daddies?" Because if you don't, there will be chaos and anarchy and little kids running around on an island with a pig's head on a stick and everyone will be looking for a little boy named Simon. And she said, "Oh. Simon."

"A little bitty CUPcake, a little bitty CUPcake!" This is Sophie's favorite song right now. It's "Hotel Room" by Regina Spektor and the line is actually "a little bag of cocaine," but we changed it by screaming out our new lyrics everytime Regina talks about drugs. It's working for us, but it makes me hungry.

And, finally, in response to something I may or may not have said to her when she was requesting a certain breakfast menu: "I am NOT DELUSIONAL!"

One snooze forward, half a snooze back

2009-02-01T05:58:00.000-08:00

Friday night, Frank put Jameson to sleep around 8:30 (I was at the hospital meeting Nini and Adam's new baby, Carter!) -- Jameson fell asleep after drinking about 3 ounces. That's a light snack for him. He slept past the midnight mark and woke up at 2:30. Since that was about six hours, and since he had missed the midnight feeding, I went ahead and nursed him back to sleep. When he woke up again at 3:40, I let him cry and fuss himself back to sleep (about 20 minutes).

Last night was similar. He went to bed a little later than usual -- around 9 p.m. -- and slept past the midnight mark. He woke up around 2:20 and I fed him. At 4:00 a.m. he cried and I gave him a pacifier and left the room -- not sure how long he fussed because I went back to bed and fell asleep. Hooray! He woke up around 7:30 a.m.

We're getting there. I know he can probably sleep through the night, but one feeding a night is okay with me for a week or so. Then we'll try to get past that hurdle, too.

Morning Report

2009-01-30T09:25:00.000-08:00

The little booger slept until 7 a.m. That means he went seven hours without needing to nurse. The good mother thinks: Woohoo, little Jameson! You did it! Good boy!

The seven months sleep-deprived mother thinks: I feel so manipulated. So used. How could I have fallen for big, blue eyes and a bad comb-over?

Sleep Log

2009-01-30T00:06:00.000-08:00

It's 2:06 a.m. Night #1 of the something's-gotta-change-palooza at the Webster household.

For 7 and a half months I've survived on less than a full night's sleep. Most nights, I nurse Jameson to sleep around 8 p.m., fall asleep on the couch watching "The Daily Show" or "Colbert," wake up when the baby cries around midnight and feed him again, "fall asleep" with him in the daybed in his room -- but not a deep sleep because he's nursing off and on, making little piggy noises, and alternating between snuggling and kicking me, wake up at some point next to a sleeping baby and move him to his crib, go to bed in my own room -- but Frank's already asleep and snoring so it takes a while for me to fall asleep, wake up to Jameson crying around 4 a.m., return to his room to rock or nurse him, fall asleep in the rocking chair or daybed again, wake up around 6:30 and return him to his crib, go back to my room for my final thirty minutes of sleep before Sophie wakes up and needs breakfast. It's crazy, I know. I sleep in three different places most nights. I don't think I've hit REM cycle in ages. A glance in the mirror tells me I am NOT getting my beauty rest. But in a weird way, it's been working for us. I don't want him to wake up Sophie or Frank and it's just easy to nurse him down to sleep than to let him cry. It also assuages my guilt of not being with him all day -- I tell myself that he's a little night crawler that needs to feed all night. But the truth is...it's time. He's old enough, fat enough, happy enough.

So here's the report for tonight: he went to bed at 8 p.m. I nursed him again around midnight. He woke up at 1:33 crying and I let him fuss until about 1:55 before going in to pat him and give him a pacifier. That really ticked him off, so I left and came in to the computer room. At 2:06, when I started writing, he was still fussing. Now it's 2:20 and he's quiet. Back to bed for me.

Postscript: When Jameson was born, Melanie (our good friend and Sophie's "nini" nanny for two years) visited us in the hospital. While she held Jameson for the first time, she told us that she was pregnant. And now, these many months later, Baby Carter has finally arrived! So I pass the up-all-night torch to you, my friend. Welcome to the world, Carter. And welcome to the night life, Mel.

Pillow talk

2009-01-23T05:16:00.000-08:00

I talk in my sleep. A lot, apparently. Frank likes to prompt me and have long ridiculous conversations that he then records in a journal and endlessly teases me about. According to the journal, I have recurring nightmares about scrubbing bubbles. You know, the Dow chemical cartoon kind.

The other night I was rocking Jameson in his room about an hour after Sophie had gone to sleep, and I heard her kicking the wall between us. Light at first, then like an elephant dancing on the wall, then it stopped. After I settled Jameson in his crib, I snuck into her room. She was deep asleep, but her head was at the foot of the bed, one of her feet was on her pillow, and the other one was kicked up against the wall. I did a quick ninja move to flip her around and her eyes popped open. In a very distressed voice, she asked, "Are we out of eggs?!" "No, honey, we have a fridge full of eggs." "Oh...(smile breaks across her face), I'm a silly woo." And then she was out again.

Little Man Update

2009-01-13T05:31:00.000-08:00

You know what Santa brought Jameson? His two front teeth. Front and bottom, anyway. The first one was peeking through the gums right before Christmas. He grew a whole new tooth sitting in the Charlotte airport. There was nothing else to do.

Other things to note: His hair is turning blonder. It gets lighter in color every time we wash it -- it's like we're washing the dirt out. (Which, I know, we are...and the smashed nanner and the sweet potato and the rice cereal, but the kid was born with dark brown hair and it's getting closer and closer to Sophie's color every day.)

He makes noises. His first intelligible sound was "AGUA." He said it four times in a row. Frank was very excited because now we can list his first language as Spanish when we're filling out college scholarship applications. He also says "ba" and "da" and "nanananananananananana." He skipped the "ma" but whenever I say it he grins really big. My theory is that he knows how to say Momma and he's messing with me.

And he MOVES. It's not a get-up-on-your-knees-and-go kind of crawl -- more of a military crawl. And every move involves a might YAWP. See for yourself:

Fake it 'til you make it, Part 2

2009-01-13T05:22:00.000-08:00

See that crazed look on her face? I know, you're fixated on his crazy hair, but check out the girl. This is Sophie's "and if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you" look.

Last night it occurred to me that we have a school holiday coming up. When we visited her school last year around this time, the kids were singing about brotherhood. Very touching. So I asked her, "Sophie, do you know who Martin Luther King, Jr. is?" (Her head nods.) "What did Martin Luther King do?"

Her response: He danced around a lot. With the princesses. And he sat on the Easter Bunny's lap.

Sigh. I want my January tuition money back.

When you don't know, make it up

2009-01-12T04:16:00.000-08:00

Maybe we shouldn't have spent the first three years of Sophie's life just making crap up when we didn't know an answer (or didn't want to deal with a meltdown). Like the many, many times when we pointed at store signs and said things like, "That says no kids allowed -- we have to wait here for Daddy," or "Look -- that sign says NO YELLOW PILLOWS" when we wanted her to leave the pillow in the car.

We were talking about school the other day and I asked her about a new girl.
Me: What's your new friend's name?
Sophie: The one with brown hair?
Me: Uh-huh.
Sophie: That's curly? And she has glasses? Red ones?
(Yes, yes, and yes. She definitely knows the kid.)
Sophie: Ummm. I think her name is Sausage.
(No. It's NOT Sausage. I found out when I dropped her off that the new girl is Emilia from Guatemala.)

The next day driving to school:
Sophie: Did you know that my friend Arden also flew on an airplane?
Me: Really? Where did she go?
Sophie: To Guacamala.
Me: Oh, I think it was Emilia. She's from Gua-te-ma-la.
Sophie: Say "Gua." (Gua.) Say "Ca." (Ca.) Say "Mala." (Mala.) Good job, Mom. Arden went to Guacamala.

Christmas Morning Mayhem

2009-01-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

Santa delivered the requested bear.
And the child was happy.

Baby J was most thrilled with the wrapping paper.

And just a little concerned about the jack-in-a-box his sister gave him. Watch out, Soph! This crazy gnome keeps popping out of there!

Santa Did His Best

2009-01-04T21:02:00.000-08:00

Sophie dictated a letter to Santa a few weeks back. Here it is:

Dear Santa,
My name is Sophie. And I want you to bring me a present today. Tomorrow. I want a teddy bear. My name is Sophie and I'm really good. I feed my brother. Jameson wants to get a present, too. He wants a hippopotamus. I love my momma. I love my daddy. I love my baby. I love my friends. And I love my Callie Dog. She wants a bone, like (bone-crunching sound). I would also like a flower toy and a remote control that you can push buttons and race cars. And I want a new book. Santa can choose. Love,

And then she wrote an S. And she drew her little alien versions of Sophie, Daddy, Mommy, Jameson (a dot on the page), Callie, GramKat, Granddad, Mamaw, Leroy (that's our lizard that lives outside on the porch, but on the picture he looks a lot like Mommy), Laney, Lucy, Papa, Papa Joe, and a few more S's.

I figured Santa would have no problem with the bear and the book. Easy peasy. We decided that the remote control car might be a good thing for Santa to bring next year. I had already bought a flower wreath for dress-up, so I figured that would count for a "flower toy." And to help out Santa even more, I went online and located a wooden hippopotamus for Jameson. Done.

Until the day before Christmas. I finally sat down and looked through her school folder of artwork, and found a Dear Santa letter that she had dictated to her teacher, Miss Rachel (and then she traced over about half of the letters).

Dear Santa,
I would like a teddy bear for Christmas. I also want a CD of witch songs and a toy hamster. Love, Sophie

Yee-ikes. Do you know how hard it is for Santa to find Halloweeny music at Christmas time? And the toy hamster? She is almost assuredly referring to these dancing hamsters at Laney's house that play the banjo song from Deliverance. Not exactly Toys R Us merchandise. But Santa came through on the bear request. Good ol' Santa. And I think he's checking for some ebay hamsters for Valentine's Day.

Angel Babies

2009-01-04T20:43:00.000-08:00

So, on Christmas Eve at our church we have a "live nativity" of sorts. Not the kind where you pet camels, but the kind where kids dress up as anyone they want to be and act out the Christmas story. One year you might end up with seven Mary's, two Joseph's and twelve donkeys...the next year you might have an outbreak of shepherds. I asked Sophie who she wanted to be a couple of days before the "play." Mary? A shepherd? A fuzzy lamb? A wise guy? She wanted to be the star. Not like "the star of the play," which I'm thinking would be Jesus, in this case. No, she wanted to be the STAR. The one that appeared in the field. I thought that was AWESOME and started dreaming up ways to make a golden star costume, but ten minutes later she changed her mind and wanted to be an angel. I tried to convince her how unique and amazing the star idea was, but glittery wings had more appeal. Jameson joined his sister on stage as little brother angel. Guess he's still trying to earn his wings.

And to the world a child was born

2008-12-25T05:22:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Annual Ditchdirt Lights Party

2008-12-24T10:27:00.000-08:00

One of my FAVORITE Christmas traditions is heading to the Stephenses for cookies, tamales, and nog before we walk over to the 37th street lights. Here's the traditional group shot:

And the just-as-traditional silly shot:

My favorite pose is Matthew's. And all the open-mouthed screams. I wish this one came with audio.

The TRUTH about Christmas Cards

2008-12-24T10:05:00.000-08:00

We tried. We put them in cute outfits and headed down to the pond one evening. We took tons of pictures (307, to be exact...Frank just put the camera is sports mode and fired it like a machine gun). Do you know how hard it is to get a good picture of a three year old and a six month old together? Maggie wrote a funny post about it (click HERE to read it), which inspired me to create a page of our outtakes. You can see the REAL Webster children by clicking here: Christmas Outtakes.

We did end up with a few cute ones, too. Once Shutterfly delivers them, you might get a card in the mail. Rough arrival estimate? Sometime before Valentine's Day. Since they're wearing green, maybe I'll hold off until Saint Patty's Day.

Merry Christmas, friends.

Things Inside her Head

2008-12-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

Our conversation from the other day:

Sophie: What's that thing called? A rattastrater?
Momma: Hmmm? A cash register?
Sophie: No. What's that word? A strater makes pictures.
Me: Oh. ILLUSTRATOR. (The morning's episode of Super Why introduced authors and illustrators.) A person who draws things is an illustrator. You're really good at drawing! When you're big, do you want to be an illustrator?
Sophie: No, Momma! (Hands on hips.) When I'm big I'm going to be a grown up.
Me: Well, sure. But you could also draw pictures for stories and be an illustrator. Or draw whatever's inside your head and be an artist. What's inside your head right now?
Sophie: A skeleton.
Me: See? You could draw a skeleton.
Sophie: No. That's what's in my head. And a brain. But I can open up my head and squeeze my brain and then out pops a piece of paper. Is that a good idea?

Fanksgiving Songfest

2008-12-03T19:54:00.000-08:00

I love how Sophie says "fank the Loward" for giving us the "fings" we need. Hope you all had a Fantastic Fanksgiving.

Song #2: Happy Burpsgiving

And finally...a song that Momma made up to help Sophie with some things she sometimes struggles with at school. (Sometimes she wets her pants. Sometimes she won't eat her lunch. Sometimes she refused to take a nap.) So here's how it goes:

You gotta put your pee pee in the potty, Eat your lunch to help your body, Take a nap so you can rest, and That's how to make your day the best!

Kilroy was here.

2008-11-28T15:43:00.001-08:00

Expecting turkey shots? We still gots punkins...

2008-11-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

Turkey day has come and gone, and we're just now posting pictures from Halloween. Oh, well. We'll get caught up one of these days. Click on the first pic (or the link below) to jump to our picture pages from Halloween Pumpkin Bash Number 10!

A link to the party pics: http://www.frankandstacy.net/photos/october/