One of my daughter's stuffed animals, a beanie babie rhooster, is named Gloria. This silly toy has caused Laura Brannigan's song, "Gloria," to be running through my head for days. I think they've got your number, Gloria, I think they've got your alias, Gloria, that you've been living under.

Ben hurt his wrist last week and we finally got him in for an xray last night. It turns out he has a 'buckle fracture' of his forearm. He goes tomorrow for his cast. Even thought he favors and protects that arm a lot, he's still a lot of fun. We had a good time at the radiologists office. As I was waiting for them to finish the paperwork, he climbed up chairs and peeped over dividers while screeching and slobbering. Finally, we got put in a tiny waiting room with an accordion door - great for a wild, hollering peek-a-boo game. Having gotten it out of his system, he was very good about holding his arm still for the Xray.

May has had the stomach flu lately, but has developed a morally questionable behavior of borrowing without asking (a fine line from theft). We're not too sure what to do about this, but I think we're going to institute a few punishments that involve the donation of some of her toys to charity.

It's been cold in the Philly area lately, yesterday was a high of 18 degrees - coldest day of the year I think. It's snowing right now; big, soft flakes like torn cotton balls.

I'll try to post a little bit more often, but the boards are on the horizon and....

This morning, May woke us up and came into our bedroom. She does this most mornings, but today she told me, "It was dark when I came into your room, I saw a scary shadow, which turned out to be a pile of clothes. But I knew I would be OK because you were here."

My presence may be reassuring to her, but not to our toilet. I broke the toilet yesterday, but was pleased to find that Jill and Ben fixed it while I was at school. I felt so bad about breaking the toilet that I fixed the screen door. The spring that slows the closing of the screen door was cracking the frame. I inched the spring over to cover the crack and reattached the mounting of the spring to the door frame in such a way as to avoid a further splitting of the door frame and a reinforcement of the cracked surface. I was very proud of myself as it only took me about 15 minutes (with Jill's help at some critical junctures) and I didn't have to go to the hardware store.

Benjamin was kind of naughty tonight. He kept turning off the water as I was trying to fill the bathtub. Finally, I warned him that if he turned off the water again, I would have to put him in his crib while the tub was filling. He wasn't angry about going into his crib. He made some noises, "mama mama mama." Then, when I got him out, he was willing to let the tub fill.