Tell You [a] Little Story

We went to a movie as a family this afternoon. Calvin lasted  -2 minutes, which is to say I left with the wiggly squiggly child before the opening credits rolled. Had been meaning to get some maintenance done on the van, so pulled up to BigO: Hi, I think I ought to get the 120,000 mile service done on my van. It has 133,000 miles and I've never done that before. What does that entail? Please infer: I'm willing to spend a lot of money, and I don't really know what the car needs because I'm a girl, so please take advantage of my gullibility. Not sure, I'd have to look up your specific model. Let me pull it around back and take a look at everything. Everything looks great. You seemed to have maintained your car really well. You don't need anything done. Wow. I appreciate your honesty. But are you sure you don't want to sell me some service that's really expensive? The front end shakes... I can fix that. It's just the tires that need to be rebalanc...

Note: While I hesitate to post this photo for fear that the possibility of a child getting his head stuck in the rails might give my mother a bad case of the ND, I just can't resist. Sorry, AG. We call him: Calver, Calvino, Cal, Calvie, Little Dude, Pumpkin Nose His latest tricks: picking his nose, shaking his head fervently when anyone asks him a question, going up and down the stairs with great finesse, lifting up the toilet seat and splashing around We love his: irresistible toothy grins, sweet sweet hugs, goodbye waves, open-mouthed kisses He likes to eat: crackers, rice cereal, fruits, pasta, olives, beans, whatever we are eating He promptly deposits on the floor: Cheerios He is getting better at: letting people hold him, not crying for the babysitter The cake that we made for his family birthday gathering which ultimately had to be canceled due to vomitous children in the house was: maybe the best cake I've ever made, really delicious and we're sorry we couldn...