Co-parenting Caterpillars.

I am the proud grandmother of four darling little caterpillars, raised by a single father, Henry. 

Actually, the little caterpillars started their journey to adulthood with two parents... Jamie and Henry, but the co-parenting gig didn't work out very well and Henry felt that he deserved full custody. 

He won the mostly non-debated custody battle (based on the fact that he was the only parent who squirted water on their plant diet) and since only one out of four caterpillars died in childhood, I think he turned out to be a pretty good caterpillar dad. 

This cute little spikey fellow is a Common Buckeye Butterfly. 

He was adorable as a caterpillar kid, but had a very awkward pupae stage.

 I know…right?

These two rowdy guys chowed down on their milkweed plants and got really fat and sassy almost overnight. They were really cute but super committed to eating every last scrap of that poor pitiful milkweed.

 In this photo you can really see the feigned innocence but don't let him fool you…he totally inhaled the entire plant in just a few hours. 

Little stinker.

Ok I admit I play favorites…Stripey is totally my most beloved grand caterpillar. 

Here he is eating while upside down! Gorgeous and talented!

And check out his beautiful  pupae stage...

 Like a dew drop of precious.

Sigh…

And then the time came when the little guys burst out of their pupaes and into a big bright world of nectar and flight. 

Here is my favorite grandson, Stripey rocking his new look. 

And awkward no more, Common Buckeye is ready to fly off into the great beyond with his equally cute sibling butterflies. 

Fair thee well sweet butterflies n`ee caterpillars… thanks for the happy memories!

Letters to Camp.

Last week, Karl said his goodbyes to Jamie as he dropped him off at camp in Northern Minnesota. Actually I don't think that there were any goodbyes, as I understand it there was more of a "see ya" before he ran off to play dodgeball with another first year camper. 

Jamie will have a fantastic time, we are sure of it. 

At first he was excited to go to camp, then he got nervous, and when he and Karl left, he was both very excited and very nervous-which I believe is  the feeling before all big adventures. He will be spending a good chunk of the summer with other guys… some a little younger, some a bit older and the really old guy counselors who are in their early 20's. 

He will be doing lots of adventurous things... even going on a week long hiking and canoeing trip through the boundary waters and into Canada. 

I am very happy that he has cool counselors that will take him on these wilderness-y adventures...  if he was waiting for his mom to hike to Canada with him, he would be waiting a very long time.  

The camp is old school… no computers or electronics and all communication is done by old fashioned snail mail letter writing. 

This is the mail cubby that has replaced his emails and telephone conversations….Jamie's name on a mail square.

(I really love this) 

Jamie will be away until the middle of July. If you would like to write him a letter or send a post card, he would be thrilled to receive it.

Please let me know and I will happily forward his camp address to you. 

Happy Father's Day to the Men in my Life.

I am absolutely the luckiest person ever to have had the good fortune to share my life with three of the best fathers to ever to walk the planet. 

Mom and Dad at Anna's graduation ceremony…a happy day.

My dad is honest and generous and understands people better than anyone I've every known. 

He is fair. Very, very fair about everything.

He is the opposite of a snob and believes that everyone is equally important. He is absolutely crazy about all of his 11 grandchildren and loves all of them as only a Grandpa could. He is 100% supportive of everything that's important to me. He didn't think it strange at all when I told him that we wanted to adopt boys from Guatemala and opened his heart to Jamie and Henry. And then, years later, when I told him that we were hoping to adopt a 6th child, a little girl from Ethiopia, he stood behind our decision and welcomed Rosie home.  

In short, he is more than awesome and I am very proud to be his daughter.

Jim telling Rosie about one of the many times Karl got hurt and needed stitches when he was little. She was appropriately horrified.

I don't know if Karl's father Jim was ever worried about Karl marrying me, and I truly appreciate that it's a mystery to me. Instead he trusted Karl and thoroughly welcomed me, Anna and Mary into his life so many years ago. 

I will be forever grateful for kindness that he showed to me and the kids then and now. Jim is the best father in law I could have ever hoped for.  I love him for being such a great father to my husband, but also I really LIKE him for the wonderful person that he is to all of us. 

Karl and the boys on a helicopter ride… the boys all agreed that if I took them,  I would have definitely been airsick.
So happy not to be included on that adventure.

My kids are blessed to have the best dad ever and they absolutely know it.

 He knows each kid better then they know themselves and

can predict how they will behave in any given situation…bratty, sweet or a somewhere in the middle. His dad instinct is uncanny, he knows when things are a big deal and when they aren't, when to be tough and when to take it easy. 

I don't know how he does it, but I do know that I am very lucky to share this parenting gig with a man of such incredible dad skills.

And so in honor of the three wonderful dads in my world… I thank each of them for being there for both me and our six very fortunate kiddos.  

Happy Father's Day!

Stuck in the Bath with Mac.

Cincinnati Public Library partnered with a whole bunch of really great independent bookstores to sell 500 copies of the now Cincinnati best seller…

President Taft Got Stuck in the Bath 

in order to bring it's author, Mac Barnett for a visit.

The book selling goal was reached and true to his word, Mac paid a visit to President Taft's hometown.  

And because he came to Wordplay, where kids love to read, Mac got to read his story about Presidents and Bathtubs in the presence of several claw foot bath tubs. 

(Because kids love to curl up and read in a tub and Wordplay gets that.)

So of course, I had to ask Mac if he would get in a bath with my kids, and of course he did, because he is awesome. 

The terrific Mac Barnett sharing his books with young fans at Wordplay.

And then we kicked all of my kids out and Mac got back in the tub and did some pretend reading of the book that he wrote.
"I'm laughing because its really, really, funny!"
And I agree with him.
It's a great book… super funny with just enough tasteful presidential Taft-y nudity.
Enjoy!
http://wordplaycincy.org 

Toilet Water Wig.

On this happy mothers day my youngest and spunkiest daughter hit me with this…

"I forgot to tell you that yesterday I accidentally got my wig too close to the toilet and it got wet. 

But don't worry, because I dried it off with a roll of paper towels."

Wishing all daughters, and mothers too, the grace to keep your wigs far away from the toilet and a roll a paper towels on hand for life's unavoidable mishaps. 

Happy Mothers Day Friends. 

It's Coronation Day!!!

Anna graduated from Queens University on Saturday morning and we were all there to cheer her on. 

Rosie thought that Anna's graduation was her coronation and insisted on calling it so...it was fitting for the occasion so we stopped correcting her, just went with it, and all began calling it Anna's Coronation Day!

And absolutely,  the day of our oldest daughter's coronation was a wonderful morning, full of hugs and happiness. 

 

Before the ceremony I found our girl (in her coronation gown) in the line up of graduates and was able to grab this picture of my girl smiling through her last few college moments. 

And then immediately after the ceremony with an even larger smile… woo hoo!

Here is the whole Coronation Gang… mom and dad, every single brother and sister, Grandma and Grandpa, cousin CJ, sweetheart Nate, and Nate's sister and friend, Kathleen. 

We were quite a crew and I do believe this photo took about an hour to coordinate… we kept losing people before we could all assemble.

I am very glad to have a pic of the entire team together…it was well worth the effort.    

The sassy sister subset photo was much easier to orchestrate. 

Anna looking very brainy outside of the library that she won't be visiting anymore… I think she is really ok with that.

With Nate the Great...

I insisted that she throw her mortar board in the air as a sign of graduate happiness and fresh new beginnings.

She humored me, and although the happy hat toss photo wasn't exactly as I imagined, the idea and intention was right there.

Congratulations Anna!
Your graduation speaker, Jay Bilas (who gave a most excellent talk) said that those who love you most have never been more proud of you than we were on Saturday morning... which is true. 

So very proud of you Anna for so many reasons!!!

Short and Sweet and Skipping Class.

Until a week ago, my Mary had perfect college class attendance…she made it all the way through a snowpocalyptic winter to the end of April, without missing a day of class.  

And then I showed up, and her regular academic Tuesday turned into one of delicious paellas and shopping instead of studying and classes.

(I have fallen in love with Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba…yummy)

I paid a quick Chicago visit to my girl to go see the play that she is working on. 

It's called Jackie and Me… based on a Dan Gutman book about Jackie Robinson.

It is a production for a young audience which is what Mary enjoys doing the most, and the performance was a part of her classwork and completely school sanctioned. 

(unlike the paella)

My very biased review of Jackie and Me is that it was most excellent. 

I was the only mom who wasn't a teacher in an audience filled with school kids who loved it as much as I did. The kids were very engaged in the story, with a lot of cheering for young Jackie at bat and groaning when he faced trouble and diversity…which was a lot, poor Jackie. 

I loved being a part of a loud and rowdy house.

("house" as in the theater...after a day of skipping class with my theater major, I'm full of hip lingo)

Afterwards Mary gave me a backstage tour and was proud of me for not getting into trouble of breaking anything on the set.

Because Mary did have to go to school, I walked her to her class, met some of her  friends and of course, made her pose in the stairwell. 

The brand new theater building at Depaul is fantastic and I got to peek into some of the rooms where I found a whole lot of yoga happening. Mary told me that one of her classes starts off each time with a sun salutation... my yogi pals would get a kick out of that :-)

 We had a very lovely, but short visit...we both enjoyed every minute of our time together. 

Chicago is a wonderful and exciting place full of fantastic opportunity…but 

the thing that I love the most about it is how much my girl loves being there.