She's doing the Lagos Jump

In no particular order, some recent photos, partly to explain why I haven't been blogging much lately.

Flying A, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

This is the big happy Baby A flying through the sky at the pool. I think maybe some airline should adopt this picture as their logo.



My men at the pool.



How much does this seven-year-old love reading? This summer he has charged through almost a book a day. He's reading books that I call Second Chapter Books - the ones you read after Magic Tree House is too easy and before you start reading morbid 300 page novels. Secrets of Dripping Fang, An Awfully Beastly Business, How to Train Your Dragon, and Dragonbreathare his favorites this summer.



I have nothing to say about this picture except my god, how beautiful is this child? It's kind of frightening.



Here's Rabbit reading to his friends Zee, Legolas, Mao and Zhou. In case you're interested, that's The Dunderheads by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by my secret husband David Roberts.



Quality parenting. Kid has a boo-boo, apply a cold National Boh to injured area and rub his back. Well done, me.



This is my husband casting a suspicious eye on, I believe, our older son, who may or may not be antagonizing children who wish to pass in front of the swingset. Lest you think my husband is being unduly vigilant (as parents can get sometimes, usually due to years of bitter experience), you can see that, behind him, Joel's Spider-sense has also been activated.



I'm going to come up with my own version of the game Clue. And in it, one possible solution will be: BODY LOTION JOHN, in the ALLEY, with the MARGARITA PITCHER.



Last but not least, I finally got my children inked onto my body. This was a drawing that Zhou did of himself and his brother when he was four. I saved it because I loved the stick figures with their GIANT hands. I was explaining it to a friend the other day, saying, "Don't you love it? With GIANT hands, you could do ANYTHING!" when Zhou piped up from the corner of the room, where he had been quietly using LEGO to build Bucky balls or design new viruses or whatever: "Except sew!"

"Ok, yes, sewing would be difficult with GIANT hands."
Mao looks up from his book, "And dialing a cell phone."
"Granted, darling, you'd have to get a special cell phone."
"Also knitting!"
"Guys! It was a metaphor, ok? Plus, besides, you could totally knit with giant hands."

Hope your summer is just as grand as ours has been. Now I'm off to the doc in the box so they can look at a suspicious rash on a kid. Whee!