My crew walking to the cemetary on Memorial day

Asher planting a flag

Hila

Gabe looking pained

Hannah being a cutie.

All the kids at the zoo.

Tali-Ho!

Fun sea lioin playing with us.

Me and Hannie on the tram.

Hannie saying “Cheese!” in her easter dress

Easter Dresses

Easter Basket discovery

Handsome Gabe

Kids in their Easter clothes

Hannie will tell your fortune!

Hannie hunting eggs in her princess dress

Me and Hannie hunting eggs

Hila’s favorite thing from her basket–a rat.

The kids after hunting eggs at Mema’s

Wandering down the isles of the supermarket, I was multi-tasking.  Waiting for an oil change, and a perscription to be filled while also doing my grocery shopping for the week.  My mind was whirring and chaotic, flashing from products to sale tags and vaguely entertaining questions from my 3 year old.  Children are adept at getting one’s attention when they want it.  Even when they have it.  My son has me to himself today and I enjoy lavishing him with my affection, but when I’m shopping, its business.  Gabe has this way of breaking down barriers.  He has darling, expressive brown eyes and he has a way of lighting up his whole face when he wants you to look at him.  When that doesn’t work, he uses his body movements, quick and jerky to get the job done.  Sometimes he dances a little jig, sometimes he starts running while shifting his shoulders from side to side.  Today he’s trapped in the shopping cart.  Its nearing lunchtime and so all food looks interesting.  Gabe points at everything in the isle, the end-cap and since I am only vaguely aware of his show, he amps it up a bit.  Instead of pointing, he extends his entire arm with his whole hand outstretched at items over his head and out of reach.

“It looks like I have a friend here.”  Says an old voice in a familiar foreign accent.

I registered the comment after I had looked up in the man’s direction.  His rippled old skin is shining and soft looking.  Almost like cookie dough.  There was something mis-shapen about something around his mouth.  Possibly a faded old scar.  I tried not to stare.  His eyes search mine while I glance down at my son, still frozen like a statue with his arm outstretched like a tiny little Nazi giving a Hal Hitler.  I didn’t put it together just then, I tried to remember my manners.

“Gabe, say hello.”  I urge my son to notice the man and be polite.  That is what I do when I’m not sure what to say.  The children are the only reason older people ever talk to me.

The man seems a little arrogant or something, most people just want to smile and talk to my children.  Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t find it and he pushed on.  I was half-way down the isle when I noticed Gabe doing his arm thing again and I placed the old man’s accent, decidedly German.  Something went  cold and I stopped right in front of the hot chocolate.  What the?  No.  Is it possible I actually just met…no.

It seems like a hallucination or an apparition that spontaneously appeared in public.  Or maybe that actually happened.  I’m reading a book written by a Jewish psychologist on the Nazi doctors.  So maybe that is why my mind put that scenerio together the way it did.  But the thing is, I wasn’t even thinking about that book.  It had been days since I’d picked it up.  I know the mind is complex and in a way our memory can change to fit whatever we want it to.  I’m just wondering if it is possible to have met either an actual Nazi or some old Nazi sympathiser in Wal-mart?  I think any that survived would have way to much shame associated with their past to bring it up casually to a stranger in the grocery isle??  Or was that some kind of psychotic break from reality?  I’ll know if that guy shows up somewhere else to head to the shrink.  Or the neurologist.  Or maybe I’m reading too much into this…

Yesterday, St Patrick’s day my baby turned 18 months old.  She is my first kid to take a bottle, so I set 18 months as the cut off for bottles. Here she is, clinging to her last bottle.

This was more traumatic for me than it was for her, maybe.  I took a tip from Suppernanny and got a treasure box from Ikea

Before bedtime, I had Hannie help me collect all the bottles and put them in the treasure box.  I told her the bottle fairy was coming to get all the bottles to give to little babies because she was too big for them.

Then, I went out with the girls and BJay dealt with a sad, sad little girl.  He said she whined about “Ba-ba” for 3 hours before zonking out at 10:00

When I got back I replaced all the bottles with these prizes

I got 2 packs of those tummy tickler things because I’m going to recycle them as our permanent sippy’s.  And then I got her big girl things, like tiny water goblets from Ikea and little silverware, a purse, keys, and a cell phone.

She loved the cell phone

She carried her purse, keys and phone around all day.

And I am going to be okay, eventually.   I just wish they didn’t have to grow up so fast.

My sister’s ex-boyfriend found this picture of Asher on his computer and posted it on my wall. Without the miracle of facebook my kids and I never would have spent 3 1/2 solid minutes laughing at this picture

Hannah is a snuggler. This is how she fell asleep the other day.

Hila has been out of school with pneumonia all week. One of her classmates sent this note with the work her teacher sent home:

Yesterday Hila asked if she could go draw on the driveway with some chalk. That evening I discovered her reply, written for all the world to see:

Kindergarten. I am in big trouble in about 10 years…