Readers will know that I recently returned from Bethany Beach with the deBeers clan. It was an excellent vacation with the exception of two troubling occurrences near the end.

Firstly, Jill and I went for a run. This is not in itself a troubling occurrence, yet, after the run, Jill was sitting on the couch, cooling off and shouted, "Ew. Gross!" She had a tick on her leg. I looked at my legs and noticed that I had about 20 ticks on my legs. It was disgusting. Ticks, easily removed with tweezers - even those already latched on, are my least favorite parasite. What creeps me out so much is that they are fast, have an uncanny instinct for climbing and escape, and resist death. Mosquitoes, also an unpleasant parasite, are easy to kill and are quite content to lollygag into one's crushing palm.

Secondly, I took Ben into the ocean and got my prescription sunglasses washed off. I was holding him and went into some deeper water. Then a wave came. Unencumbered, I could have easily leaped above the crest of the wave. However, at a critical juncture I realized that I could either hold my son above the wave or lose my sunglasses. Did I make the right choice? Only time will tell.

May was playing with the girl next door, RM, and asked me. "Daddy, could you please turn on the lights in the toy room?" Then she turns with a stage whisper to RM, "If you ask him nicely, he'll do what you tell him to do." A funny story, true. Still funnier, she repeated this same routine for the baby sitter who sees her regularly. Not only has she realized this is a funny joke, she's incorporated it into her schtick and recycles it for new audiences.

May gets along well with RM, but the other day they had a quarrel. RM was using the bathroom and May came down to get me, "RM had an accident and tinkled on the floor." This is not uncommon with pets and children. I went upstairs to investigate. "OK, where did RM tinkle." "In the bathroom, on the floor."

RM is in the bathroom with the door shut and cries out, "I DIDN'T HAVE AN ACCIDENT THAT'S NOT TRUE!" Then she comes out of the bathroom and begins to rip into May as only a 4 year old can. RM is dramatic and powerful and when she yells in her house, with the windows shut, I can hear her next door. "MR. BARASCH! YOU MUST TELL MAY NOT TO TELL THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE ABOUT ME!"

"May," This is a reasonable request. Honesty is a virtue we seek to cultivate. "I'd like both of you girls to tell each other that you'll agree to only tell the truth about each other. May, I'd like you to go first. Can you please tell RM that you will only tell the truth about her from now on?"

"I'll think about it." She replies in a perfect deadpan.

My cousin Bill, his wife Sarah, and their son Ariel visited immediately after the Beach trip. The kids were playing in the backyard and Ben was hanging between the swings on the swingset like an Olympic gymnast. He wasn't wearing a shirt and his tiny baby-muscles bulged out of his back. "Good grief! He's ripped!" exclaimed my cousin-in-law.

We are at the beach this week - NOT Long Beach, NY but instead Bethany Beach, DE. We're staying in a 3 bdrm 'cottage' with Jill's parents and the kids. We went out to dinner tonight and I had the rockfish with lemon and capers. Jill and her mom each had an excellent crabcake. The kids had chicken nuggets and mac'n'cheese. Sandy, Jill's dad, had the tuna steak with wasabi sauce. Now, I'm a big fan of sushi, but the popularity of sushi has influenced more traditional western styles of fish preparation. When I desire a western fish, I always, as did Sandy tonight, ask for my fish to be at least medium.

On the way to the restaurant, Benjamin wanted to bring his blanket, AKA "Ba-ba", into the restaurant. He told me, "I'll bring in ba-ba, unless there's a sign..." Implying that if a sign forbid bringing blankets in to the restaurant, he'd be willing to cooperate. Cooperation, however, is not high on his list. After dinner we went to Walgreens to pick up some ice cream, and Sandy made the mistake of playing with a 10" rubber bouncy Spiderman ball. Ben, despite the fact that we have the same damn ball at the cottage and at home, kept screaming, "I WANT THAT SPIDERMAN BALL!" until I carried him out of the store over my shoulder. He screamed "I WANT THAT SPIDERMAN BALL!" all the way home until I was able to distract him with trivia questions about the super heroes like, "Can spiderman fly? Can superman fly? But can superman swing from a spider-rope-made-from-webs?" When we got home the kids ate some ice cream and were hard to get into bed.

May had a special naughty trick today. After we got back from the beach, I rinsed off in the cabana and changed into my dry clothes. Unfortunately, someone had locked me into the cabana. The last few people who had been around the cabana were my daughter and my mother-in-law, so one of them must have set the hook-and-eye on the outside of the cabana door. I thought that it would be doubtful that my mother-in-law would lock me in the cabana, she wouldn't enjoy feeling guilty when I finally got out. After some cajoling, I finally got May to admit it was her who locked me into the cabana. I asked her why she did it and she told me, "I was looking upstairs and thinking about going upstairs, and at the same time my other hand was doing things with the door and then I really wanted to run upstairs and so I did."

When I was trapped in the cabana, I tried a few things. First, I kicked the door, but I didn't want to break the door or my foot, and remember, this is a cabana so I'm barefoot. Then, I tried scooting under the cabana door. This wasn't my first choice because I had just showered and changed into clean clothes. I had to lie on my back in the mud and sand at the bottom of the shower. I made it farther than I had thought possible, but got stuck on my lowest ribs - couldn't get those under the door. I heard some neighbors talking and decided to call for help. "Help! Help! I'm locked in my cabana! I'm at 33932 Monterrey Ave and I'm locked in my cabana!" Jill, who was in the shower, overheard my call for help and sent her mom to free me.

About twelve years ago, my dad, ex-step-mom, my sister, and I took a vacation in China. As I am something of a gastro-naut, I earned myself quite a few interesting stories to tell at cocktail parties. Despite my reckless eating behavior, there were a few delicacies that my sister wisely steered me away from. We referred to these eminently avoidable meals as 'wild-lunch', a phrase coined by a Japanese student who was studying with Sarah in Shanghai. Then, when something bizarre happened we prefixed our descriptor of the incident or place with 'wild-', for example, we had 'wild-toilet', 'wild-taxi', etc., etc.

El Destructo is quickly becoming the master of 'wild-toilet' as he is apt to whip out his junk and pee at any time on the slightest provocation. He went the entire day Saturday, however, without any accidents. He might have had an incident of public urination (aka 'Wild-toilet'), but if no one gets a citation and you don't have to change your clothes, I don't count it.

Today is May's last full day of school. She's made a great deal of progress this year and all the credit goes to the public school system in Collingswood. She's had great teachers who have really done a lot to help her with her hand-eye and small muscle coordination. Entering the school year, she couldn't hold a pencil in her hand. Leaving the school year, she writes, colors, and draws with pleasure and confidence.

I'm also coming to the end of a school year and am ending the year on a mixed note. I've learned a lot this year and am looking forward to next year. The year has been good for me, but I am disappointed to end the year with a performance that could have been improved upon in the Consult/Liason division of the department of psychiatry. I wish that I could say my poor performance was due to a lack of interest, but I find many of the cases fascinating. I am heartened, as always, by the memory of Dr. S's medical school evaluations and the random, subjective nature of this year of medical school.

The kids always have a hard time getting to sleep. Not anything unusual, it's just that they don't want to go to sleep because we eat ice cream and watch TV after they go to sleep. Everyone knows. So When El Destructo 'wakes up' 40 minutes after he's been 'put to bed' he stands at his door and calls, 'Mommmmmmmmaaaaaaaaa!' until Jill comes and tries to get him back into bed. Unless I am the one who tries to get him back into bed. In this case, he says, 'You're not the one I wanted!' and cries.

May has been doing some crying lately as well. When I need to leave in the morning, she stands in front of the door and cries and cries. I tell her that I'll be home for dinner but it doesn't help a lot. She just cries and cries.

Ben is doing better on the potty and tonight looked very thoughtful while he was getting his jammies on. Being in such deep thought, I assumed he had to use the potty and I was right.

As it turns out, a spot opened for me to study pathology in Milwaukee during August. Yay! That means I'll be going back to the midwest for a month this summer. I'll be studying in the pathology department at Medical College of Wisconsin during the week, but will probably have some time free on the weekends.

My dad is visiting which means we need to spend some time fixing his computer, cleaning up after him, and begging him to take us out for dinner. Jill and I wanted him to spring for some Chinese take-out, but May wanted to go to Friendly's. Grandpa Steve filled everyone's wishes.

At friendly's, both kids were well behaved. They were really hungry, and when El Destructo's hot dog and macaroni-and-cheese came, Ben dumped the first spoonful, as hot as lava, into his lap. He cried and cried. Scared and in pain he had to go sit on his mom's lap. He was so upset that he lost control of his bladder. Jill, always prepared, had some dry clothes for him and whisked him off to the bathroom. She, herself was not prepared for a potty accident and had to sit in wet clothes through the rest of the meal.

Later that day, I got home and we ordered some Chinese take-out. I got mooshoo vegetable, Jill got chicken with eggplant in garlic sauce, and grandpa got pork lo-mein. I offered to bring one of the kids with me as I went to pick up the food. May wanted everyone to go, but Ben and Jill wanted to stay at home. May also wasn't willing to let me go without the whole crowd. She had a tremendous meltdown, "We MUST have everyone go to get the Chinese food!" Finally I talked her down from the emotional moment and we drove to get the food.

I negotiated two free egg rolls and two extra fortune cookies. I told the kids, "If you want a fortune cookie, you have to eat Chinese food!" They did a good job. Of course, they loved to eat the mooshoo pancakes, but they also ate some lo mein. When we ran out of pancakes, we gave them tortillas.

Yesterday, Jill and I went to pillage the remains of my cousin Jeff's Philadelphia apartment. Our prime goal was to secure his bed, a double (aka full size), and trickle May's bed down to El Destructo. Jeff left a lot of good things at his apartment for us. We got a bottle of fancy vodka and about 18 rolls of toilet paper a long with a numerous assortment of cleaning supplies. The mattress fit into the car, but the box spring had to be strapped to the roof. Everything went fairly smoothly with the transport except when crossing the Ben Franklin bridge over the Delaware river as we left Pennsylvania and entered New Jersey, the box spring began to flap and bounce on the roof of the car.

I was fine with that and put my hand out the window to support the effort of the five or six bunjee cords that were holding the box spring to the roof. Jill, who is a little more worried when we endanger the lives of innocents during interstate travel, also held the box spring. When we arrived at our house, safely, the most important bunjee cord - the one in the back - had fallen off. Nevertheless, everyone survived and all of our panic and worries are now nothing but an intro for a blog entry.

May was excited about her new be, "My new bed is gigantic!"

Ben celebrated his upgrade and May's upgrade by bouncing on the beds. No one got hurt in the bed bouncing.

Dear blog reader,

Thank you for returning to my site. I hope that I will return as well and will be posting more regularly now that I am done with the surgical portion of my medical education.

I just finished studying with the Ob/Gyn department and enjoyed it a great deal. However, this field of medicine is probably not for me. I did get to learn a few interesting things - for example, the greek root words of 'obstetrics' are equivalent to 'to stand and wait.' I did a fair amount of waiting on Labor & Delivery. I also got to deliver two babies, which was tremendously exciting, and OB/Gyn is an exciting field, but maybe a little too exciting for me. Even from my brief exposure to this field, I could see that there are many times when practitioners have to make decisions in a matter of seconds which expose or relieve a huge amount of risk to mom or baby or both. In pathology, a strong possibility for my future specialty, the most exciting decision is which textbook to read next.

My next rotation is psychiatry.

May got to go to the zoo this week on a field trip with her pre-K class. She told me that she got to feed, pet, and go into a room with baby spider monkeys. She told me that she got to feed the monkeys Fruit Loops, popcorn, and animal crackers. It seems like this is a real possibility as she is sticking to the details of her story. She also said that, no, they did not lock the kids in the room with the monkeys by themselves, and yes, the zookeeper told them they had to be gentle when petting the monkeys. I must admit, I felt a twinge of jealousy.

El Destructo is racking up the damage to our property. I was able to re-hang the curtain rods that he pulled down, but still need to repair the passenger-side rearview mirror that he swung on 'like Spiderman' and broke of the Blazer. Saturday afternoon, barring rain, is my time slot for this aggrevating and tedious task. My cousin Bill once told me that 'having a girl first does not adequately prepare you for having a boy.' More true words have never been spoken as it is exhausting to try to keep up with him and keep him out of danger.

It rained pretty much all week in the Philly metro area. I used to think it rained more in this part of the country than it does in Wisconsin, but after thinking things over, I've decided that I merely notice the rain more acutely as I no longer have a car in which to hide when the rain comes.

More soon.

Yesterday, Jill was trying to get some cooking done. She had the cookbook open and was looking at the recipe. Ben climbed up and grabbed the cookbook. He brough it upstairs. They had an intense discussion, bordering on a quarrel, about whether or not Jill could use the cook book.

She asked him, "What recipe are you looking up, Benjamin?"

He replies, "Chicken nuggets."

"And what ingredients do you need to make chicken nuggets?"

"Chocolate Milk"

_____
May is in a talent show for her Pre-K program and will be singing, "She's a grand old flag" - probably in a group of other kids. She can count and read and do some math.
____
I went to bed last night at 7:30 with the kids - it was great.

___
It's been slow this week on the surgery service. I've only done three surgeries, and those were all on Monday. People are saying that the economy is causing people not to seek medical or surgical care. I think that's possible. Certainly, if you had an insurance with uncertain coverage and the option to delay a surgery, you probably would, at least until you felt you were less likely to pick up some of the tab.

I woke up very early today, at 3:55 AM, so I could be sure to shave and get on my first train in time to make the 5:01 connection onto my second train. It was cold, with a small amount of frost on the ground, but not enough to make it slippery. I wore my fall coat, which is lighter than my leather, and a green hat with brown diamonds that Grandma Tina gave me last year. I walk quickly in the morning to catch my first train, and am even more hurried in the mild cold of southern NJ.

The moon was out this mornign, a slender crescent of white against the night sky. The wind whipped through the thin teal scrubs that I'm obligated to wear despite the fact that they're hip. In warmer weather, I see rabbits and sometimes raccoons when I'm up that early, but all the other animals were hibernating today.

Jill is in the midst of Tax Season mayhem working for H&R Block and is tolerating re-employment very well. She has been working 8 hours a day Saturday and Sunday the last three weeks, and I have been very successful in keeping the kids from sustaining any kind of serious or permanent physical/psychological damage. Though I have been spending a lot of time with the kids, I still have done some fun things.

Friday night, I watched the documentary Helvetica, a movie about the design of that typeface and how it has been used in the last 50 years. If you're somebody who occasionally watches documentaries and thinks, "hmmmn," I'd recommend it. A lot of designers are interviewed and they get into some of the more subtle issues of typeface design and, in general, graphic design are explored.

Saturday morning I took the kids to the children's museum where they collected their share of germs and also donated germs to the general population. Saturday night we got a baby sitter and went to a cuss-word party at a friend's house. We all have kids and try not to swear in front of them, but this party was a great opportunity to leave the kids at home and say, "Gimme a glass of fuckin' Chardonnay."

On Sunday I had to teach Sunday school. May's class of 4 and 5 year olds had a lesson on work/life balance. I had planned to be very well prepared to teach, but felt grateful to make my appearance on time without a hangover. In my plan, I would have paper-clipped pages in the assigned text (The King's Stilts by Seuss), in reality when things got too academic I explained the pictures and flipped the page quickly. In my plan, I would have cut out images from magazines of people working and people playing, in reality the kids had a blast cutting up my old Coupon magazines and New Yorkers (thank you, Rakesh). It was fun and, other than reading the assigned text a few times to my kids, was only about 10 minutes of out-of-class homework for me.

This weekend I hope to try the new Thai place in town.

Let me first say that I'm very sorry I haven't posted in a long, long time. I'm on my surgery rotation and it's very difficult to find the time to do things.

Since my last post, Ben has developed an obsession with super heroes. He must wear at all times a cape, a spiderman costume (or at least clothes with spiderman on them, if the costume is soiled), a spiderman sword (not that spiderman usually carries one...), and a spiderman flashlight. The flashlight is pretty cool, actually, instead of a regular light patter, it displays a face of spiderman. I brought it to a party last weekend and kept blasting people with it. It was almost as big a hit as my story about the time I ate deep-fried scorpions.

Anyway, my friend from school picks me up yesterday to drive me to the children's hospital in Delaware for a series of lectures from the pediatric urologist and runs into my kids while I'm packing up my lunch. He asks my daughter, "So is your brother interested in superheroes?"

May replies, "Sure, he likes superman and batman."
Mike asks, "What about spiderman? Does he like spiderman?"
May answers, "Obviously, he does. He's wearing a spiderman costume, isn't he?"

Running. Yesterday I went for a run down by cooper river. Toward the end of my run, I turn around in a park that is at the intersection of hwy 130 and S. Park Ave. It's an area where the ground is probably at or below sea level, so it floods a lot. There were about 75 Canadian geese in the park crowding around the path I run on my return. They parted quietly, waddling to the side and looking at me out of the corner of their eyes. I expected them to run or fly away, but they continued watching me silently.

Restraints. Restraints, when used in the hospital, are a problem. People who are violent need to be restrained for staff safety. However, if you are restrained for too long, your muscles atrophy and you need to go for inpatient physical therapy after you're medically stable. But, if you've been in restraints anytime in the last 48 hours, no inpatient physical therapy location will accept your transfer. Furthermore, without moving, you're more inclined to develop blood clots, and if a blood clot breaks up and goes to the lungs you develop a condition known as a pulmonary embolism (potentially life threatening and no easy treatment). Finally, it sucks to be in restraints. You can't sleep and being in restraints makes you crazier. This week, I heard a woman in restraints crying out, "OhGod PleaseHelpMe! Get Me Out of Here! Pleasepleaseplease! OhGod! Why are youdoingthis to meeeee!"

The Kids. My dad is visiting and we took the kids to the children museum. My dad followed May around and I followed Ben. Ben spent most of his time at a play construction site where you bring planks up a long winding ramp to a play house and can either hang the planks on the walls or slide them down a chute where they return to a storage bin. Ben chose to send all his planks down the chute. Then he carried them up the ramp to the house, then down the chute again. etc., etc. for 30 minutes.

My sister. When I was 8 or 9 and my sister was 2 years and nine months younger, my grandma bought us some Chinese food for my birthday. Sarah ate all the meat out of the Chinese food but nothing else. I remember being incredibly angry, "It's *my* birthday! And you ate all the meat, but nothing else! And it's *my* birthday!" Grandma Tina tried to settle me down, "ssshhh Samuel, Ssshhh. Don't make such a big deal out of it.

I'm going to come back to my blog little by little hitting the topics that have worked well for me in the past. Readers interested in politics or sports should read my friend Mike's blog (see link below).

News of the kids:
Last night, I put the kids to bed and May was upset because it was me, and not Jill, who was putting her to bed. She was crying.

"Why are you crying, honey?" I asked.
"Because Mommy isn't putting me to bed."
"Is mommy that much better at this than me?"
"Yes she is."
"Why?"
"Because she never yells at me."
"Well, I'm not yelling at you now am I?"
"No, but you do yell at me when I do something dangerous."
"Yes, that's true. But, no one is yelling now, we're just listening to poems and singing rock-a-bye-baby. OK?"
"OK, Di-di."

After I got her in bed, she ran out of her room crying and woke up her brother. This usually makes me angry. I put on a decent scowl and put her back into bed. Then I went to take care of El Destructo.

Ben had turned on his light and was putting on some clothes. He had both feet into the legs of some additional pajama pants and had put on a t-shirt such that one of his arms was sticking through the neck of the t-shirt along with his head.

"Benjamin, " I asked him, "Are you putting on your clothes and getting ready for the day?"
"Uh-huh."
"It's still night time, Ben. You need to go back to sleep."
"Oh."

He went back to sleep with no struggle.

I have been hunting mice lately, or rather, I have been catching mice with a trap lately. We purchased, several months ago, a TomCat-Live-Catch-Mouse-Trap. I rarely shill products on my blog, but let me tell you, this is a great invention. It does not kill the mice, so there is no gore to clean afterwards. No poison is needed, and no children can smash their fingers in the trap. It is a long tube balanced on a fulcrum. The mouse enters to tube to get the bait, the tube teeters to one side and the trap door shuts.

The only bad part of the trap is that it does not kill the mouse. You must either free the foul beast or dispose of it yourself.

The first mouse we caught was weeks ago. He had been coming onto the kitchen counter, scratching and gnawing the fruit. It was as if Jill got up in the middle of the night and took a bite out of each of the bananas and then ran a fine toothed comb across the peels. Jill denied doing this, so we got the Tomcat mousetrap.

After we caught the first mouse, we were having some kind of party, so I didn't get a chance to deal with it right away. He sat in the trap for over a day. Finally, I had a plan to deal with the live-trapped mouse.

I brought the trap upstairs to the bathroom and held it open over the yawning mouth of the toilet. First the mouse's thin, black, spaghetti tail whipped around the outside of the trap, and then (all the while scrabbling) he slid into the toilet. I held the plunger over his head while flushing the toilet and he was gone. Afterward, my heart thumping wildly, I urinated (also into the toilet) and flushed one more time for good measure.

The trap smelled terribly and had mouse shit in it so I had to wash it out.

**************

The second mouse trapping went much as the first, only the second mouse preferred graham crackers and Rolos.

The second mouse also had the gall to cling to the inside of the plunger while I was trying to flush him away.

I got the 2nd mouse almost right after he got into the trap, so he didn't have enough time even to finish the bait, let alone stink up the trap with his shit. I still rinsed out the trap, though. Now it is clean for its next use.

Please forgive me as I deviate from the standard spiel about taking the train to school and what my kids are doing and belabor you with politics and policies. I've been thinking about the health care system (or lack thereof) in America lately, and, though no one but my friends will read this, will write briefly about it.

I want to begin by pointing out that the corporations that sell health insurance have the sweetest plum in the health care business. Who gets sick? The people who usually get sick are the young (insured by SCHIP - a government program), the old (insured by Medicare - a government program), and the poor (insured by Medicaid - a government program). Furthermore, if you happen to get so sick that you can't work, and you lose your job, you lose your insurance and the government has to pick up the tab. See a pattern here? If it's not profitable to sell you insurance, because you might get sick, the government has to provide for you.

Many people are afraid of 'the government' telling them what kind of health care they can access. "I don't want some bureaucrat in Washington...." Instead, what people have are the actuaries in the insurance companies authorizing and denying access to care. If you happen to want a really expensive procedure that might save your life, you better check the spreadsheet first.

The term 'Health Insurance' is a misnomer anyway. People with health insurance aren't insured against catastrophic medical costs. In fact, if you have catastrophic medical costs, it's in the corporations best interest to make sure you bear as much of those costs as possible. The corporations that are good at sticking you with the bill grow and thrive, those corporations that aren't get bought out.

Given the epidemic of under-insured people, and the obvious lack of insurance provided by the insurance corporations, we need to change the nomenclature. We should begin calling these corporations Health Care Distribution Companies.

Because that's what they are. You can get the procedures, visits with specialists, and medicine that your Health Care Distribution Company authorizes.

Last night I rode my excercycle in the basement, while doing laundry, while the robot was washing the kitchen floor, and at the same time I was watching a recorded lecture. I felt productive.

Today I went out for lunch and got myself a falafel sandwich from Maoz.

We have been visiting my grandmother Bettina since Sunday and it's been very pleasant. The week before my last exam, Grandma was in a car accident and totaled her car. She had to be pulled out by the jaws of life. She thinks that she blacked out and then ran off the road. Good fortune and a graceful diety guided her car so that no one else was hurt. She told her hearing aid technician that she's decided to give up driving.

She has not yet decided to give up being driven, however, and we've been running a lot of errands with her.

Grandma has had some limited nursing care since we've been visiting, but is feeling a lot better. Apparently she cracked a few ribs during the accident and is quite sore. She's been complaining about her chest being sore the entire visit. I said to her, "Well it ought to be sore; you cracked a few ribs didn't you?"

Grandma replied, "Yes I did, but they're down here." She pointed at her hips.

Yesterday May got to watch an Animal Planet show hosted by the late Steve Irwin's ten-year-old daughter. She thought it was utterly fascinating and is the only non-cartoon television show in which she's ever really been interested. This morning May was eating her breakfast and she pointed at Jill, Grandma, the nursing aide, and her self and said "We are all females. They," pointing at Benjamin and I, "are males."

We had a terrifying moment in the bathtub a few nights ago. Grandma's bathtub is very slippery and has a slope at one end. El Destructo was scrambling around the tub and slipped, landing teeth first on the side of the tub. There was a little bit of blood on the gumline and the tooth was chipped. Jill and I were totally freaking out. I wouldn't have felt so guilty but had had a few glasses of wine and my reflexes and consequence-prediction-ability were both impaired. We took him to Grandma's dentist who said that his adult teeth would not be harmed, nothing further needed to be done, though there was a possibility that Ben's tooth would change color. Grandma's dentist didn't charge us for the visit.

El Destructo has also learned how to climb out of his pack-and-play. He climbed out during his 'nap' yesterday, ran around his room screaming, and locked the door so Jill couldn't get into the room. Jill finally picked the lock with a paper clip and took him and his sister to the park.

Last weekend (or was it the weekend before last?), the Forrest family took us out to the Academy of Natural Sciences for the morning. The kids had a great time.

Ben is a *huge* fan of Josh Forrest, the second eldest of the Forrest children. Most of the time El Destructo babbles and screeches all his communications, but I've noticed that whenever Ben thinks something is really important, he enunciates his demands or comments much better than usual. For example, when we parked at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Ben said quite clearly, "Mom, there's Josh! Mom, that's Josh! Mom, that's Josh!" He also has been none to speak quite clearly the names of other kids on the block when he wants to go play with them. When he's hungry, he let's us know, "French fries."

At the top of the Academy of Natural Sciences is an interactive display where you can look more closely at animals. May really liked this part and got to pet a guinea pig, a snake, a tortoise, and a box turtle. She really wanted to pet the legless lizard, but I didn't ask the museum lady to get that one out.

May has also been obsessed, for the last few months, with an ancient grouchy cat who lives two doors down. Frida, the ancient cat, is missing most of her teeth and mostly just sits around on the couch or the radiator. May likes to pet Frida and swaddle her gently in blankets. All the attention May gives to Frida attracts the other kids who are not quite so gentle with Frida. Everytime I see the kids flinging that old, arthritic cat around the house, I become the "Frida-Avenger."

"Put Frida down!" I shout.

Yesterday, I worked on the bathroom sink, which has been draining slowly. I got the plunger and plunged and plunged. Large greasy, gray-black, blobs of soap scum came swirling into the sink. Some were as big as a large marble. Jill was grossed out by this, and quickly came to clean the sink after I was done. We are both happier about the sink draining better after the eviction of the soap scum.

Jill fixed the doorknob on our bedroom yesterday too. It was a little loose, leading us both to fear that one day you would try to turn it and it would fall off in your hand. Anticipation of this event lends to oneself an unnecessary anxiety. After all, if it does happen, one simply picks up the pieces and sticks them into the apparatus, convincing the gears and latches to fulfill their ambitions. I suppose we have a little more anxiety about doorknobs falling apart because the kids are around and they could destroy or lose a doorknob propelling a despondent father to make yet another trip to Home Depot.

Our neighbors had us over for fondue last night. We had bread and cheese for one course then swordfish and chicken in broth for the next. Dessert was chocolate and fruit. It was fun and the kids had a great time. Ben found some Toxic Avenger dolls (action figures - sorry) and enjoyed playing with them and thinking about them. May always had a good time visiting with their friendly, ancient (17 yrs old) cat, Frida. She wraps Frida in blankets and kisses her everytime they meet.

News Of The Kids

This morning, as I was getting ready to leave for school, May came downstairs and said to me, "Di, I have a surprise present for you."

"Oh, what is it?"

"Here you go!" She said, as she gave me two pennies.

"Oh, two pieces of money!" I replied. "Do you know what Daddy likes to do with money?"

"Give it to the bank." She told me.

Benjamin came downstairs to see me off to school, too. After I put my backpack on, he put his on too. Then, he pointed at the door and asked me, "Eh?" When it became clear to him that he was not going to go to school with me, he got pouty and sulky. He was angry enough to refuse me a goodbye kiss this morning.

News Of The Weekend

On Friday, we went to the Asian Students group Lunar Banquet. It was a lot of fun. I drank a lot and there was a ton of really good food. My favorite dishes were a creamy sweet broccoli and shrimp dish and a really sour pork dish. Also the eggplant in garlic sauce was to-die-for.

Saturday we went to the grocery store and then in the afternoon I went for a run. I took May in the joggin stroller (rather than Ben0 and she seemed to enjoy it. She fell asleep near the end of the run.

Sunday, we made a roast beef and watched some TV. Then Jill and I had a fight about whether or not we would fly to wisconsin for a fundraising party my dad is having for his chamber orchestra. The jury is still out on who won the fight.

Despite having a fight on the tail end of the weekend, it was very relaxing and fun.