04.10.13 (Wednesday night) - Superman.





04.10.13 (Wednesday afternoon) - Tantrum.



04.09.13 (Tuesday night) - "Painting" the deck, T can spend hours this way. HOURS.





04.09.13 (Tuesday morning Part II) - Porch.





04.09.13 (Tuesday morning) - Morning.





04.08.13 (Monday morning) - Best friends.



04.07.13 (Sunday afternoon) - Superman in cowboy boots at the playground. Wow, just writing that sentence sounded crazy enough.







04.04.13 (Thursday afternoon) - Wedding photos. Personally, I think they are both WAY to young for such a big commitment. But then again, there's the baby to consider . . . T felt nervous about "not being fancy enough" so he requested that we all imagine more elegant clothing.





04.04.13 (Thursday morning) - Superheros and stuffed animals.





04.03.13 (Wednesday afternoon) - Swordfight.





04.01.13 (Monday morning) - Pink sheet is still a member of our family. Despite the smell. Oh the smell.

03.31.13 (Sunday mid-morning) - The Easter egg hunt was vicious this year.





03.31.13 (Sunday morning, round 2) - Dog walk. Wow, isn't she amazing?







03.31.13 (Sunday morning) - Easter. Wrong holiday, T.





03.30.13 (Saturday afternoon) - Spring break, day 6. Arting with grandma T.



03.29.13 (Friday noon) - Spring break, day 5. The Morris Arboretum (Philadelphia).





03.28.13 (Thursday noon) - The Magic Gardens (Philadelphia).





03.28.13 (Thursday morning) - Spring break, day 4. Our hotel in Philly had builders outside the window. BUILDERS!! And for the girls - a spinny chair.



03.26.13 (Tuesday afternoon) - Spring break, day 2. Another afternoon at the playground.





03.26.13 (Tuesday morning) - Apologies.



03.25.13 (Monday noon) - Um, this appears to be how we're rolling today.







03.25.13 (Monday morning) - The first day of spring break. The third day of Dan's recovery. And there's snow.







03.24.13 (late Sunday afternoon) - Some days we just end up at the playground for lack of anything else to do. And that's okay.

The so-called discovery of childhood:

"Stages of life are artifacts, ideas with histories; the unborn, as a stage of life anyone could picture, dates only to the 1960s; adolescence is a useful contrivance; midlife is a moving target . . . . There have always been children, of course, but in other times and places, people have thought about them differently. The idea that children are born innocent and need protection from the world of adults is a product of the Enlightenment

. . . .

[Eventually] the amusing and precious and Lilliputian world of children had become a mainstay of Victorian middle-class culture: there were children's books, children's clothes, children's toys, and children's furniture . . . In the age of progress, with all of its machines, the world of adults was thought to be ruthless: cold, industrial, and grinding. Reformers wanted childhood, a world of little women and little men, to be a place apart, a paradise: the last mansion of happiness."

- Jill Lepore, The Mansion of Happiness

03.24.13 (Sunday afternoon) - Dan made T newspaper headphones, so they could take conference calls together.





03.24.13 (Sunday morning) - Balance bike.



03.23.13 (Saturday morning) - Surgery and bed rest.



















03.22.13 (Friday) - Recent artwork; F's on top, P's in the middle. Dan read somewhere that when children draw family pictures, everyone size reflects their importance to the child. Maybe that's why F is so huge in P's artwork.







03.21.13 (Thursday afternoon) - Sneeches.



03.20.13 (Wednesday night) - Box.







03.20.13 (Wednesday night) - Dog walk.



03.20.13 (Wednesday after school) - Superheros.



03.19.13 (Tuesday after school) - Things that make Dan crabby.

"Freedom or community, community or freedom. One must decide the way one wants to live." - Aracadia (Lauren Groff)

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"It was either: (A) I was a terrible guy who was knowingly doing this rotten thing over and over, or (B) I wasn't so rotten, really, just normal, and the way to confirm it was normal was to keep doing it, over and over." - The Tenth of December (George Saunders)

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"The dead are celebrated. The dead are loved. They give something to the living. Once you put something in the ground, Doctor, you always know where to find it." - The Tiger's Wife (Tea Obreht)