Mondays

It's Birthday Monday for Curtis. Born in 1967, the Summer of Love (all of you under 35, look it up).

Middle-aged now. Wow. In my seemingly endless pursuit of career nirvana, it's easy to miss the moments in between. But in between may be the most important moments of all. Philosopher/theologian Martin Buber suggested that God is found between people. In other words, “When people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.”

Loving, understanding, patient wife, two healthy gorgeous kids, nice house, strong career(s), good friends. Life is good. Heck, life is great!

Gotta take time to remember that.

Two years

This August was the two year anniversary of Dad's passing. Still hard to believe.

I miss him so much.

Milestone!

Danielle made her first deposit into her potty tonight. Well, actually, she peed into it two nights ago, so that was probably the first milestone; this is the second. And it was just an ink drop-sized pooplet. Whatever. I like the trendline.

As you can see, Danielle is a sophisticated young lady now.

Now how smart do you feel?

Smart Car before:

Smart Car after:

This is tragic and scary.

It's the trade-off that American car buyers face: safety versus economy. The short-sighted strategy of Amercian auto makers to focus on SUVs has had another side-effect, besides running an inconic U.S. industry into the ground. Flooding the market with monsterously large vehicles in suburban areas (what was wrong with station wagons?) has made car buyers feel that they need to go equally big to be safe.

I know this was a strong concern when my folks bought a car for Lizzy, my 16-year old sister. "Just wait until you have a kid, and you'll understand," said my Mom India. She was right! Now, with two girls, I totally understand wanting them to be safe, which is why we used Informed for Life to check the safety of several models, and settled on a 2005 Honda Odyssey to transport by girls around.

Until the current crop of SUVs ages into the junkyard and Detroit starts producing, and Americans start buying, smaller vehicles, early adopters of light, "smart" cars will continue to feel very vulnerable in urban traffic. If they're lucky enough to feel anything at all.

Welcome, Madeleine!

Mostly we post family news and updates over on Facebook, because, well... it's the law. Actually, FB kind of annoys me, but it's also kind of handy, so whatcha gonna do?

For those of you who are not yet on Facebook (Nancy, I'm looking at you!), here are a couple of photos of our new baby Madeleine Marie, born Sunday, July 19, 2009, at 4:30 p.m. Both her and Mom are doing great!

Mary and I are truly blessed with two beautiful, and above all, healthy girls, and with the wonderful help and support we've had from family, friends, and neighbors. Stepmom India (Grandma Cita) came to our house on a moment's notice (after a 5:30 a.m. wakeup call from us!) to babysit Danielle when Mary went into labor. Mary's mother, Grandma Janie drove up from Wharton, and took over later that day, then stayed with us for two weeks (!), to help with the baby, and let Daddy get some rest and go back to work. Grandma Baba (as Danielle calls her) and her friend Peggy, plus my sister Lizzy, came to visit the grils. Aunt Diana (Nonny) came over lots of times, bearing gifts, and to play with Danielle, and help out Mary. Our neighbors the Serios have pitched in, even bringing Danielle some toys from Cassidy's old stash (which she loved!). And the kind folks at the TWIA office (like Eduaro and Gloria Mena) bought some lovely baby gifts for both Madeleine and Danielle, as did our friends Joe and Tracy (and, of course, all the Grandmas!). We and the girls are so blessed to have so many people who love and care about us. Life is good.

Gotta go get some sleep. Y'all come back now, y'hear?