Hold On Spider Monkey

I turn my back on the Internets for, like, a couple of months, and now my pictures are all downloading to some strange dimension I fear I may never access, my e-mail has spontaneously arranged itself into special folders like an overly helpful secretary, and this new blogging interface feels foreign and unwholesome.  It's creepy.

So ... let me explain.  No, there is too much.  Let me sum up. The summer was great except for Phil losing his job and, as a result, Bethany making us inactive in the adoption process.  Boo.

Now on to more fun things!  (Oh, good ... I found my pictures.)

Andrew is absolutely loving second grade in Mrs. Endara's class.  She plays the guitar and teaches the kids wonderful hymns.  She does awesome things like lighting her oil lamp as she reads a story about a lighthouse.  Andrew's first big project is building a mouse-sized schooner in honor of Stuart Little.  PCS is just the sweetest, most dear little place.

The Precious also just lost his first tooth.  Most of his friends have a mouth full of adult teeth at this point, but I was still kind of sad to see that first wee tooth wiggle it's way free. But it was pretty fun and exciting, too.  Andrew's tooth fairy (Marigold) left glitter kisses on his forehead and a silver dollar and letter under his pillow. Thanks to my awesome and quirky friends who gave me fun fairy ideas.  

Fortunately my little Nibblet wasn't too sad to have another year at home with old mom, though she is eagerly awaiting her turn in Mrs. Funk's kindergarten class next year.  We learned that, long ago, children were deemed big enough to start school when they could reach around their head with their arm and touch the top of the opposite ear.  Els has been working on this and recently discovered with great joy that she has arrived.
 

She was content to do "Mommy School" where we colored things starting with the letter "P" and had recess doing puzzles in the living room.  After about a week, she decided studying letters was kind of lame and she's rather pretend to be a pirate all morning, and I was like, "Awesome."  Perhaps I didn't miss my calling as a home schooling mom after all.

So other than the whole "no money" thing, having Daddy home all the time is mighty fabulous.  He and Andrew have made a couple trips to hang with Nannie and Papa and watch the Gamecocks play live, and Phil just got back from a jaunt to Pawley's Island beach with Elsbeth where they swam and frolicked and ate pizza and ice cream.  Look at the amazing fish Phil sculpted!  If anyone's interested, Phil will come and personally sculpt marine life in your back yard for only one million dollars.  Or maybe a hundred.  Um, just call.  We're willing to negotiate.

We've also gone apple-picking for the first time ever.  Kind of a lot of driving for 15 minutes of actual apple picking, but it was magical none-the-less.

And Daddy has been right here to help with the no-training-wheels learning curve.  Sweet, sweet times.

It is now past my bedtime and this blasted computer just turned off out of nowhere in an amazingly effective effort to be spiteful.  It's like it knew it was sucking my withered soul out through my face the whole time I sat frozen in it's ghostly glow, and it powered down just as it leached the last traces of my humanity, it's mission complete. I shall now attempt to drag my empty shell to bed where we can all hope that my soul will return to me come the first rays of dawn. And that perhaps I will awaken in a less dramatic mood.