Unsupervised

This is what happens when you hand Reilly a Mr. Potato Head and then turn your back:

Unsupervised

This is what happens when you hand Reilly a Mr. Potato Head and then turn your back:

Eskimo Kisses, Dancing, and the Naked Chef

You're picture of the week:

For more, click here.

BFF

Yesterday afternoon I was walking down our back alley, following Reilly as she rode her tricycle down the street to the playground. We had already had our big reunion an hour earlier when I picked her up at school. When she saw me come in the door to her classroom, she had smiled in her coy little way and then hugged me like a piece of velcro.

Despite that homecoming, I had some doubts if we had really connected yet, if my the hole my absence opened had been filled. As if to put these doubts to rest, Reilly paused her pedaling, looked up at me, and apropos of nothing, said, "Daddy, you're my best friend."

What could I say except "thank you."

Cold-lanta

I've been in Atlanta since Sunday evening, specifically downtown Atlanta. My room has a balcony that overlooks the covered-over pool of the hotel and the vista is of a number of multi-story office buildings.

There is something to be said about staying or living in a city. The city, without speaking, seems to speak of a quiet yet urgent sense of purpose that the suburbs can't quite match.

Cities make me depressed. And maybe this is a mixture of listening to Ingrid Michaelson while also missing my family back in Florida, but with the sense of purpose mentioned above, also comes a rawness. I'm referring less to the icy weather outside and more the exposure to other people and the varied expressions of so many different faces.

Living in suburban Florida has again turned my attitude for the homeless toward the negative, and this is surely fed by the panhandlers I encounter on a daily basis. And yet when we were riding a bus back from an opulent, $50 per person conference reception, I saw from the window a young woman hurry past an open vestibule on the side of a building, a vestibule that was occupied by an aged man with grey hair who was at that moment gingerly pulling his sockless foot from a worn tennis shoe; his feet I imagine were sore and perhaps cracked from a winter season spent outdoors in the elements of the city.

Week 134 Pictures

Here we are, in Week 134-ish, (I think I lost a few along the way) with a new camera in hand. We had fun taking photos of Reilly this week. For the full week, click here.

Time for your picture of the week:

In her den

Our house has a few anomolies left over from its creation in the 1930s. One of them is a little firewood closet to the right of the fireplace, in the living room. I imagine that the firewood closet can hold about a cord of wood.

It also fits a two-and-a-half-year-old quite nicely.

One fish, two fish

One of the staples in Reilly's diet is Goldfish Crackers. To keep things interesting, we will rotate through the flavors, from parmesan to pretzel, and even mix in the multicolored ones from time to time.

Reilly's most recent flavor was the baby-size original cheddar Goldfish. For some reason, she just loves the baby ones.

The other day, we drove Reilly over to her Grandpa's house, and on the way, she finished off her stash of baby Goldfish. When we drove Reilly back from her Grandpa's house, we opened a new bag of the regular-size Goldfish and handed some back to her.

Reilly took one look at them and then exclaimed, "Mommy! The Goldfish growed up!"

What have you been up to?

When someone asks me how my weekend was, or wants to know how I've been spending my time, I invariably will talk about our Big Project in the backyard.

When we first moved into our new house, the front, back, and side yards were all very overgrown, a sure sign of neglect combined with the fact that plants in Florida are capable of explosive growth in the year-long Florida growing season.

One of the most overgrown areas was in our back yard, of which twenty feet or so were taken up by a large concrete pond. We decided to remove the pond for three reasons, the most pressing of which was the fact that we have a two-year-old and couldn't take the risk of her drowning.

I decided to do the work myself, and so went out and bought a 10 pound sledgehammer and a crowbar. One month later, after quite a bit of sweat equity and some help from Shawn and my dad, I had completed the job.

With a box of tissues at her side...

This morning, Reilly wasn't quite acting like herself. By that I mean, she was weepy and clingy. It was certainly not a Thumbs Up day. Still, we pressed on, getting her dressed and fed and in the car. It was about halfway between home and school that I had to pull over to the side and ask myself a few har questions in regards to the two-and-a-half year old child in the back seat that had not stopped crying since we left the house. The questions basically revolved around the responsibilities of being a parent versus the responsibilites that go along with the rest of my life.

I did a U-turn and headed back home.

It is clear that Reilly is not feeling well, she is certainly developing a cold, but more than that, I could sense her anxiety about life in general, and so, we are taking a sick day.

I took this picture of her moments ago with our new camera.

Week 133 Photos

The camera is still down, and Shawn and I are considering upgrading to a newer model. In the meantime, our friends Kelly and Georgina took some photos from a birthday party thrown in their daughter's honor this weekend. Click here to view.

Bounce House!