A Friday Night Dinner, Chez Martin

I am so proud.

Could You Be a Little More Specific?

"Mommy, guess what I'm drawing!"

"What?"

"Conifers!"

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

I can hear the boys in the family room. I know they are each sitting in a clear plastic storage tub, because they just asked me if they could dump out both the dinosaurs and the Legos. Apparently, these tubs are to be used as conveyences.

"Let's go to Paris," says Nels. "Let's go to Mexico and get some tacos."

Love: I'm For It

Happy Valentine's Day!

Poetry Break

Of Metaphor in Heaven

No intimations, fables, puppet shows;
No need for parables: up there one sees
Reality; good books stay on the shelf.

But am I ready for this loss? God knows
How often I prefer the memories
Of love--those things like love--to love itself.

-Robert W. Crawford

Frosty the Stricken Snowman

Shaun made a great snowman with the boys the other day. Then the weather warmed up considerably. The next time I checked in on our little friend, he had assumed a very different pose. From across the yard, it looked like he was having an ecstatic religious experience. Or maybe doing the limbo:

I took a closer look. Laughing at a good joke? Trying to make a snow angel?

Ah, no. The prescient snowman was begging for mercy:

For, after Nels failed to wrench the snowman's head from its body with his bare hands, he methodically decapitated it with a child-size garden shovel.

Nels At Four

Nels inherited the Lego gene from his dad. Here's a typical creation, which he made without any help. It's a submarine, I'm told. That folded-over flap in the front is a ramp for easy boarding.

Willem At Two

Willem was drawing on his deluxe MagnaDoodle today. He chose a large square magnet and used it to draw a thick, straight line across the board.

"That's a word," he declared.

He drew another line just below it. "That's another word."

Then he quickly and carefully filled the rest of the space with perfectly straight, evenly spaced lines.

"What does it say?"

"Happy New Year."