Pandoras Box

"It's our secret Mommy. You can't tell anyone, especially the Dude what's in my box."

It's just a miniature lunch box that her Daddy brought back from one of his business trips to Chicago, but it has become the "secret" box stashed with "treasures" she has collected and put safely out of eyesight from her little brother.

The part that gets me the most.....

.....is that she trusts me to keep her secret.

-photos taken by the Dude.

The future's so bright

The Dude went shopping for a new pair of shades.

FOUND EM!

Lunch

Evil Halloween Candy that beckons me from the cabinet. I am slowly, ever so slowly casting it out from my presence...

....by way of my stomach.

A Perfect Day

Seventeen years ago I stood on the banks of Alaska looking out over the water, watching the tide ease out towards Japan, leaving the shoreline barren for over 1/4 mile. I had never seen anything like this. I have seen other beaches with tides ebb and flow, but never one that seemed to tip towards another continent.

As I stood there enjoying the magnitude of the tide flow, I looked over to my son, Kalani, running up and down the dock. We had found a common link between us that seemed to involve water and trains. We spent the day doing both of those things.

It felt like the perfect day.

That is the memory that I carry in my heart and mind of my "little" boy. Although it has been many years since I have seen him, this is always the way I picture him. I can't seem to imagine him as anything but this joyful, smiling boy. My "sweet cheeks". He used to grin from ear to ear when I would call him that. The cheeks that he sported were certainly worthy of this term of endearment.

I knew at this time that... I was his Mother. It was a title that was not easily won or earned, but at this time on the banks of Anchorage, I knew that we had formed a bond that was definable as mother and son.

Many years later that relationship was changed forever by decisions out of my control. And on a similar day that is vivid in my mind, I watched this boy walk out of my life and I was powerless to stop him. I mourned for the loss of my child because he was my SON.

Today I received a phone call from my daughter telling me that HE died.

And...

...I didn't know what to feel.

Lullaby

It's hard to tell if the kitty is happy or not. I do know that this little girl is beside herself with joy.

Miss Boo doesn't smile hugely on camera, but she glows on the inside.

As a baby, Miss Boo required a lot of our attention...especially at bedtime. She never wanted to go to bed on her own and boy could she scream. We were told to let her cry it out. I bet this person giving the advice didn't have one like our little girl. After 3 hours, we gave up. It was too hard on us, so I started dancing with her in my arms very slowly, in a rocking motion to a CD that Johnson & Johnson included in their baby wash, titled Lullaby.

I got exercise and she got sleepy and fell asleep. It was a combination that worked for years, even when I was pregnant with The Dude. I would sit in the rocking chair and rock her to sleep with lullabies playing softly in the background.

I don't know when we stopped using the CD. Probably around the time our little boy joined the family and we were so exhausted from the duties of a newborn and did the unthinkable...we put on a movie and let her fall asleep watching it. But, true to herself, she would force those little eyelids open to watch the very end of every movie. But...we were too tired to remedy the copout on our part.

We have been able to get her to go to sleep for quite some time without a movie and without a light on. And then for some reason she began to experience a reluctance to putting herself to sleep.

As I was cleaning out her tights drawer one day I happened across the CD and thought, Hey! Why not?! It worked before, why not again. I asked her if we could play her lullaby music to help her go to sleep and like the magic it was before, it once again became her soothing balm of Gilead. After 3 tracks she is out and all is quiet...

...except for the Dude talking to himself in his room. To each his own, but he puts himself to sleep with his stories and I am OK with that.

How come the Moon is following us?

My adorable little Pooh. A neighbor kept telling

him over and over again that he had "poo" all

over him. I told him that he was only 3 and he

wasn't going to get it. Didn't keep him from

saying it 3 more times. Unbelievable. I am going

to miss putting my children in this costume. The only

thing that has topped Pooh is Piglet.

Miss Boo went as a Sea Lion Princess.

Project Runway here we come.

The costume was all her idea!

I went as myself but wore makeup to a Halloween Party.

Miss Boo's 2nd costume was knight and the Dude

kept asking why the Moon was following us.

Trick or Treat sounds so sweet from little children's lips.

The rules were given in anticipation of the nights events and the natives were in agreement. At one point Mr. Finn said it cost $2.00 to have him take them out for Halloween as a joke. Miss Boo said she wasn't giving him the money Grandma and Grandpa sent for the holiday. A short time later, The Dude walks over to his Daddy and says, "Here's your $2 dollars to take me Trick or Treating tonight. Now that's a kid that wants to get some candy.

In his case, he just wanted to see the "Creepy" stuff. For a 3 year old, he is extremely thrilled by all things Halloween and spooky. There is a house the street behind us that really decorates to win a contest. Not sure what one that is, but they out do themselves every year in their "quest". This year turned out to be the "unbelievably freaky, scary, terrifying, horror, spooky house with a real haunted house done in their 3 car garage.

Our children were terrified! In the past years, it has been a coffin with a vampire in the garage, this year it was full blown terror with jumping ghouls and screaming "whatevers". Had I known, I would never have taken my little children in there. I fear we will be paying for therapy in the years to come.

Miss Boo could hardly get control of herself. I remember when I was around 10 or so and went to a haunted house in Great Falls, Mt. It was in an old factory building and honestly was very CREEPY. I was so scared they had to take me out in the middle of it because I was screaming so much. She gets her terroritis from me. Not a bad quality I might add, but I feel so bad about exposing our children to that. Especially at such a young age.

It was fun this year. A little more exhausting than I remember the previous years, but it was still a blast.