It gives me no pleasure to announce the passing of our faithful spatula. For more than two years it’s been slobbered on, chewed on with no teeth and many teeth, and never once did it object. But tragically, just yesterday it snapped when I unwisely used it to stir chocolate chip cookie batter. In honor of it’s heroic death, I’ve posed a few photos from it’s life snapped short.
DOB: unkown.
Death: Nov 8th, 2008.
Cause of death: Very tasty chocolate chip cookies. RIP.

Many Arthur’s.

Lewis and the late spatula.

Arthur and Spatty.

I just went in to kiss my children after hearing Barack Obama give his victory speech.  There were tears in my eyes.  Obama asked what changes will his children see if they have the good fortune to live 106 years.  What changes can we, Americans, make in Art and Lew's lifetime?  Just think of it now.  I'm so proud that they get to grow up in this time.  I'm so proud of my country right now.  It feels really good.  I can't wait until tomorrow to hear what's next.

Art wanted to wear his frog costume tonight.  We putzed around the house in it, I threw him on the bed a few times in it and finally brushed his teeth while he wore it.  He said he wanted to wear it to bed.  Fine with me!  So he went to bed in it.  Then he called me back upstairs.  He wanted me to pull the flipper pockets over his hands.  "Ok," I said. "But how will you do your gackoos?" (He likes to switch them back and forth.)  "I just do it this way,"  he said, just managing to get one in his hand.  Then he paused and said, "Maybe we should take the flippers off."

This morning Art and I rode my bike over to our polling place. On the way up the stairs I tried my best to explain what voting was and who we could vote for. "You can choose John McCain or Barack Oba-mama." A few minutes later as we were walking down the hallway in the school he said, "I want to vote for John Cain." I cringed and glanced around to see if others had heard this. "Ok," I said, "It's your decision." While we were waiting in a pretty long line he changed his mind and said, "I want to vote for Barack Oba-mama. "Ok, that sounds great," I said, trying my best to make it sound like his final decision. It was.

Art and Ben went to vote this morning.

He drew this this morning on the etch-a-sketch at a little cafe we like to frequent. "They're stairs," he said.

So, it’s 5:43am and I’ve been up for almost an hour with Lewis. It’s Fall Back day but no one told my kids that they could sleep in an extra hour. Ope! Gotta change a poop…

After trick-or-treating Art got to choose one thing from his loot to eat. He picked a tiny box of Dots, probably because he liked that the box made a sound when he shook it. So he worked hard chewing each dot diligently. After bedtime he wanted a song. I barely got through the first verse when he said with a big smile, “The Dots were pretty good.”