Okay then. I switched hosting services and apparently my blog is propogating, so you may want to avert your eyes.  I don’t even know what that means. 

Not everything is in place yet – comments don’t work and the archives and categories links don’t work either.

Stay tuned.

Hi y’all. Just want to thank you for your sweet words and kind comments and all those prayers you have lifted on Sean’s behalf this past month.  You might expect your mom or your grannny to pray for you, but people you’ve never seen before? Amazing.  And it fills my heart up to the very brim. 

My blog is still not completely on the rails.  Comments are not coming through to my email right now, so the only way I know if you’ve left a comment is if I check in on my blog and then as many of you know, I like to respond to what you’ve said and chat you up and bug you and that’s harder to do as it stands. Just wanted you to know that.  I will resume bugging y’all when the email is fixed. 

I currently have five large bottles of ketchup in my pantry and I’ll tell you why on Monday. Oh I know.  The suspense is probably killing you, but try to carry on.

Since we learned last month that our child is peeing pancake syrup, we have made heroic efforts to cut the sugar out of our diets.  And the person who has been most compliant and most faithful to this lifestyle change is Sean.  He has simply accepted it and goes along with little complaint. 

The other day, his teacher told me that when he was offered candy at school, he politely declined.  He pointed to his arm where his blood was drawn and said the doctor told him no candy until his blood was better.  It kind of breaks my heart that he is so mature about it because I personally want to throw myself down on the ground and pound my fists and rail about the unfairness of it all.

Not being able to have candy or sweets is really hard on kids because every occasion is a candy occasion and every holiday is candy-centric — and Easter is perhaps the worst of all.

To make matters worse, when it came time to fill the Easter eggs last week, not only did I not fill them with candy, but I filled them with money from his own piggy bank.  Why not just fill them with broccoli or tofu?  What kind of mother would do such a thing?  He didn’t seem to notice.  After he found all the eggs, he simply wanted to hide them and hunt them again because unlike the adults, he gets that it’s not about the candy. 

So then, earlier this week we visited with a pediatric nephrologist, a doctor who deals with all things kidney to see if we could figure out once and for all why Sean has so much sugar in his urine and if we should continue with our regimen of no candy, obsessive hand wringing and asking him 30 times a day if he feels okay and is he sure he feels okay. 

After reviewing the bloodwork, the doctor said his best guess is that Sean has inherited a genetic mutation which causes his kidneys not to filter out the sugar properly.  The doctor said in his 20 years of practice, this is only the second case of this he has come across.  Two in 20 years.  See? My child is super special, it’s not just me saying that now, it’s been medically proven.

The good doctor assured us that we have no cause to worry — Sean’s condition is totally benign.  Unlike those dimples of his that are lethal and cause his mother’s heart to beat apace. 

My blog was down all day.  It was not a fun day what with all the hand wringing and brow mopping and rending of garments.  But I probably had more fun than the folks who were trying to fix things.  I fix broken things by jiggling them and then jiggling harder and if that doesn’t work then I slam the lid several times.  It makes my rational and methodical husband cry.  

One of the things we’ve had to do to make things work is remove all the photos.  Once we figure out what’s going and get it fixed, maybe I will put some of them back up.

But (crossing fingers) – I’m back!  But not with a new post.  Read the one I put up yesterday and pretend that yesterday is today.  Unless you are reading today, then today would still be today and not tomorrow. In which case you don’t need to pretend.  Think of it as a blonde version of daylight savings time, but with reading material.

The other day I spent about 40 minutes in my den standing in front of the wall of windows that look out onto my backyard.

I was not standing there in amazement watching agile squirrels with spring fever jump from branch to branch like acrobats.  I was not taking in the beauty of budding trees or the glory of the changing seasons. No, I was untangling six tightly wound little clumps of nylon cord to six ventian blinds that cover six windows.

The knotting was not the accidental tangling that sometimes occurs with ventian blind cords. The knotting was the work of an evil sailor with wicked boy scout knotting skills. 

Later that day I asked Sean how the ventian blind cords had gotten tangled up so badly.  “Regan?” he quickly suggested.

“I don’t think it was Regan,” I said. “Besides, she hasn’t been here since last week.”

“Um… Kendall? I think it was Kendall.”

“Kendall is only two.  She’s too short.  Besides, this is an inside job. It would have been done by someone who has the time and the means.”

At that point, he shrugged his shoulders and ran away.

When you are an only child you have to oursource the blame.

In keeping with my quest to provide Sean with a perfect Norman Rockwell childhood, we stopped by Taco Bueno on the way home from church after Easter services and picked up some party burritos for lunch.

Who wants a ham and all the fixin’s served on the family china when you can have a burrito on paper? I figure if I keep his expectations low, it will make it easier on his future wife.

Anyway, as our little tribe of three sat around the kitchen table quietly eating our pathetic Easter dinner of burritos off paper, without warning Sean turns to his father and says, “Daddy, I love you more than all the stripes on your shirt!”

“Why thank you Sean,” Antique Daddy says looking down at his shirt.

“In fact, I love you more than all the stripes on all the shirts in the world.”

“Wow,” Antique Daddy says, “That is a lot.”

Sean sets his burrito down and looks up at the ceiling. In little boy fashion, he has shifted his brain into overdrive thinking how he can escalate this unquantifiable quantity of love he wants to describe into the realm of the absurd.

“All the shirts in the word – plus all the stripes on all the zebras in the world!”

He grins wildly at his daddy and then returns to his burrito.

When I am an old and brittle and I look back on the Easter that Sean was four, I won’t remember a big fancy dinner or a noisy table full of chattering people dressed in fancy clothes or overflowing Easter baskets. I won’t even remember burritos.

I’ll remember that unquantifiable, unimaginable, unrestrained love is best described in stripes.

Marie who writes the blog PractiGal! Yay Marie! 

Olivia chose Marie’s suggested title “Make A Wish” as the winning entry in the Fabulous Photo contest.  Congratulations Marie, your book is on the way!

There were so many great entries, it was really hard to pick just one which is why I handed that task over to Olivia.  Thank you everyone for playing along!

I’m going on spring break and will be back another day.

Mommy can I have some more grapes?

No, you’ve had plenty of grapes.

Oh. (long pause for dramatic effect)  I thought you loved me.

No.  Not really. I never really liked you that much.

Are you teasin’?

Yup. Just kidding.

So.  Can I have more grapes?

Still no.

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

I had to take my photos down because they were causing problems with the site. When those issues are resolved, I’ll try to put some of the photos back up.

Is this not a fabulous photo? I wish I had taken it.

It was taken by my friend, Olivia.  I interviewed her recently and here’s what she had to say:

AM:  How old are you Olivia?

Olivia:  I am ten.  I was still nine when I took the picture.

AM:  This is really an amazing picture that you took of your sister.  Did you realize that when you were capturing the image?

Olivia:  Thank you! No, I didn’t realize it would be so great.

AM:  Did you plan this photograph or was it one of those happy accidents that all artists enjoy every once in a while?

Olivia:  It was sort of both.  I planned out what she would be holding and where she would sit, but everything else just kind of fell into place, like the light shined on her face the right way, and the wind was perfect for the picure. That was a happy accident!

AM:  What are your favorite things to photograph?

Olivia:  Hmmm…. Anything!  If I see something funny or if I just want to remember the moment, I take a picture of it. I carry my camera everywhere!

AM: Carry your camera everywhere! That’s great advice.  Thank you Olivia for sharing your beautiful photograph with my readers!

* * * *

So then dear readers, what shall we name Olivia’s fabulous photo?

Leave your suggestion in comments through noon tomorrow (3/19) and we’ll pick the one that we think best captures the essence of the image.

I’ll send the winner a copy of Joel Sartore’s new book Photographing Your Family — And All The Kids And Friends And Animals Who Wander Through Too.  

Sartore, a National Geographic photographer for more than 14 years, has put together a wonderful book on how ordinary people can take extraordinary photos.  Even if you are not into photography, it is just a beautiful book to browse through.  What I loved about this book is that it is more about how to capture images and moments rather than how to operate a camera.  In fact, I liked the book so much that after I reviewed it, I asked the good people at National Geographic to send me one for you too and they graciously obliged.

So then, put your thinking caps on and let’s name that fabulous photo!

This weekend we celebrated Aunt Jean’s 90th birthday.  Don’t even try to keep up with this woman unless you’ve got rollers skates — she’s on the computer, she’s up on all the news, she’s on comittees, she’s on the go all the time. 

Someone at the party commented that if they make it to 90, they just hoped they could get around as well she does.  I said I didn’t care if I could get around at all, I just wanted to be that stylish. 

I asked her to what she owed her longevity and she said good genetics, good attitude and good diet.  And by good diet, she means plenty of Diet Cherry 7-Up and Snickers.  And the occasional Braum’s ice cream cone.

Happy Birthday Aunt Jean!