Some Henrys

Yes, I’ve decided to start writing a little bit again.

The other day I (Jon) was having a dad time with Sammy. Sammy saw the sausage on my pizza and asked what it was.

“It’s sausage. Do you know where sausage comes from?”

He thought for a while, then said, “Horses.”

“No, not lions. Try again.”

This time he was sure he knew where sausage came from, “Lions!”

We know . . . we need to put more stuff up here on a regular basis. It’s just that we’ve been busy actually playing with the kids. Plus, it’s so easy to upload photos to Facebook from our mobile phones.

Miss Sandy, the Sandwich.

This started as an accident when the crust-removing tool left “lips.” All I had to do was add chocolate chip eyes and a cupcake hat.

by Belinda

I don’t remember how it got started, but the kids call a leaf pile “leaf college.” It was sometime last year, and that’s all I remember. We say, “It’s time to go to leaf college!”

Anyway, there are a ton of dry leaves around, since this is an Indian Summer. The kids relish a chance to run around in madness without wearing coats and gloves. Come to think of it, we all do.

Here’s what Sammy draws most of the time. He draws them on white boards, chalk boards, and anywhere else he can find. It’s crazy. But it’s really cute to see him sitting there, intently doing his job of balloon representation.

What brief posts we’ve had, and far between too. It’s been a busy season, but hopefully things will even out fairly soon. Either way, we’re busy doing things that need to be done, and that are beneficial.

We do have some birthdays coming up. We do have pumpkins and giant wildflowers outside the door. We do have spiced chai, apple cider, and ginger snaps. Fall is here, and we enjoy some of the simple pleasures of the season.

Of course, the kids know that a lot of candy is supposed to be coming their way, and they keep asking how many days. Don’t they know it’ll rot their teeth out? That’s the other part of the season — job security for the dentist. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but could dentists be behind the whole Halloween thing? And dentists are indeed the most frightening force in the universe, as most of us are aware. It would be appropriate. This reminds us of the Dr. Au story (pronounced “Dr. Ow”) which really happened to Leigh; but we’ll save that for another day.

That Belinda and Leigh can draw is a well-known fact. But now Sam has started drawing faces and balloons. He’s been drawing a lot of them. They’re actually starting to get pretty good, sometimes in a scarry way. Like this picture that I found on Leigh’s desk, which is sort of cute, but also looks eerily like an Oompa Loompa. Note the careful addition of a hairline, and the puzzling mouth.

Is it just my imagination?

Design time. She doesn’t play-act with Barbies. Instead, she creates these little 3-d still lifes.

These days, doll time is being taken up with school time…continents…phonics…music class…gymnastics…

Can you tell that he is happy to have a big-boy bed, with vintage Dukes sheets? We were a little sad to see the crib go. After all, we brought it home before we brought Belinda home in 2002. But that’s about as long as we need a crib, and Sammy was ready for something different.