Changing of the Guard

J: Do you want Mr. Chocolate for bedtime?
C: No, just my nighttime lobster
J: Okay, hop in bed
C: hops in bed, lays down, then frantically pops his head up
C: Mommy! Mommy! I forgot my bedtime penguin! I forgot! I forgot the bedtime penguin!

Will Mr. Chocolate stay permanently relegated to the foot of the bed? Or *gasp* be moved to the closet? Just who will win the snuggle-buddy battle: bedtime-penguin or nighttime-lobster? All these questions and more will be answered in the next episode of Bedtime for Bonzo...

Saying Goodbye to Karl

We took a bonzai trip to Detroit last weekend because our friend Karl died of skin cancer the week before. He was a remarkable man, and it was a heart breaking weekend. But, in the bizarre way of funerals, it was also fun. We got to hug stocky, and experience the loving insanity that is the stockhausen family. Ty spent a while (attempting to) help Stocky get Karl's bike running, which is the cause of the blue cloud in the above photo. We got to cry and laugh and witness. The one good that comes out of these experiences is the renewed perspective shift . Which is my long winded way of telling you, our friends and family, we love you all.

Chocolate on the move

Quote of the Day

C: Mommy I want a different song
J: Do you want some Ella Fitzgerald
C: Yeah
J: launches into "Black Coffee"
C: less than 20 seconds later: Mommy where did the elephant go?

The Boo-Boo Kitty

Our dear friend Kendra once told me about the Boo-Boo Bear, a magical bear-shaped ice pack that can comfort children's wounds and stem the tide of bandaid requests for barely bumped body parts. We have been looking for a similar item for a while, and at target this weekend we found this:

Astonishingly Cayden bumped his knee that very afternoon. I gave him the boo-boo kitty, and it was love at first sight. He spent 5 minutes fixing Percy's hurt wheel and Emily's sore tender. I was running around the downstairs getting us ready to go to the Great Allentown Fair when Cayden comes into the kitchen holding his boo-boo kitty and looks at me with a confused/ anxious expression. "Mommy, I just, I need....... gets down on all fours and whacks his head on the floor....Mommy I bumped my head!....proceeds to apply ice pack to own forehead"

I'll be honest, I doubt breaking into hysterical laughter was the ideal parenting move, but there was nothing else I could do.