The Dennis cartoon in this morning's paper reminded me of a similar situation when Vic was about 4. I have no idea how it happened that he was able to make the mess he did while I was still sleeping. He had decided to fix breakfast in bed for me & I'm just glad he couldn't reach the knobs to turn the stove on. He was making pancakes; mixed flour & milk in a big bowl; had the griddle on the stove, completely covered with his "pancake mix." He had also managed to have quite a bit of flour scattered around the kitchen. You can't get mad when you've got someone fixing your breakfast while you're sleeping in; just clean up the mess & go on with the day. Vic was probably about 3 when this picture was taken.

Most of you know that Jackie's mother, Shelby, died when Nicole was a baby; she was a wonderful person & friend, but she made berry pies without sugar and that's the way Jackie likes them! Saturday as I was making pies to take to Blair & Jackies's for dinner, I thought Jackie is going to think I emptied my sugar canister into the berry pie filling. Not the case--it was extremely sour! After Gene, Jackie's dad, told about Blair eating his first piece of pie at their house, and he couldn't spit it out because he & Jackie weren't married yet so he had to be on good behavior, Blair surprised me by eating a piece of the pie I had made. Gene took just a bite of it and thanked me for giving him a "Shelby memory."

We also laughed about the time I had been asked to feed Blair & Jackie's dog when they were at the hospital with Michael who was a very sick baby at the time. You think I'm computer illiterate now--I was totally illiterate then! I knew how to use the keypad to get into the garage, but as far as I knew, "enter" meant to go in, which I did. Well, when it was time to go out, I couldn't find a word for "leave" or "go out" or anything similar. I spent several minutes trying to step over the electric eye. Finally I called Stan & asked him what to do. I had no more than hung up the phone when I said, "damn," "enter" means to put in data. Well, it was too late--Stan had told me he didn't know, but would call Blair. Blair, Jackie, Gene & Kathi were all at the hospital, so you know they had a good laugh! I was just grateful that none of their neighbor's had a camcorder pointed in my direction!

Timm didn't start talking until he was about 2 1/2 and Uncle Steve used to tease him about it every time we were together. He said things like, "Timm, you talk too much," and of course Timm didn't talk at all. One day, however he'd decided it was time, so when Uncle Steve made his usual remark, Timm looked up at him and said: "Unco teeb, you puwwing my weg." That's as close as I can translate.

Once he started talking, Timm's always been pretty quick with a quip. One day when he was about 3, he was very angry about something while I was buttoning his shirt--yes, little boys really did wear button shirts, not t-shirts all the time. After I finished with his shirt, he stepped back 2 or 3 steps, enough to make sure he was out of arm's reach and said: "God's going to go potty on you!"  He also took off as fast as his little legs would take him! The pic of Timm was taken about that time.

BTW Nicole is a good teacher--she had my PowerPoint ready for me to finish in about 2 1/2 minutes.

I can't think of any "historical" facts to share this time so will close for now.