Mama and me.

A couple weeks ago Mama joined me in a weekend trip to Indiannapolis to photograph a Vikings football game. Got her a press pass and everything. It was pretty funny. At one point some fans asked my mother, who was wearing a fancy photographer’s vest and credentials, if she would take their photo. She handed my mom her camera and said something like, “well, I’m sure this camera isn’t anything as good as you’re used to, but…” Mama got the biggest kick out of that.

After the game in Indy we went to Wabash, her hometown, for a couple days to visit aunts and uncles. Here we are in the plane together:

A tragic loss.

Goodbye to giant diaper butts.  I loved you.  It’s so hard to let go of all the “baby” things since I know the girls are the last babies.  Boo hoo.  
From: <Jessica Parker Garvin>
Date: October 1, 2012 7:57:56 AM CDT
To: Do Good Diapers <dogooddiapers@gmail.com>
Subject: Service cancellation
We had a great run of it, diapering our twins with your nice, clean dipes.  Almost two years!  You run a great business.  You are accommodating, efficient, reliable, considerate and also just have a great product.  We are using less and less cloth lately so just to be cost efficient we are going to cancel our cloth service.  Would it go into effect this week, tomorrow?  Or do we have as few more weeks on this paid cycle?  Let me know and I’ll plan to send back all clean and dirty dipes, covers and wet bags when service is officially over.
– Jessica Parker Garvin

Our neighbors Hailey and Junior

Hailey and Junior live across the alley from us. Or they used to (they moved but still take the bus to their grandma’s house after school). Anyway, they’re wonderful kids and often end up in our backyard pushing girls on the swing or making obstacle courses. And more often than not they stay for dinner. This is a good and bad thing but they’re always wonderful company. And Hailey is totally at ease with taking care of Netta and Bailey. I’m excited when she’s a little older and can sit them on her own! Here she is reading books to the girls tonight:

and Junior working on a marble toy with Arthur:

and Hailey learning from the best of them:

Jessica surprise NYC trip.

I posted this on facebook a couple days ago but forgot to post here.
————
I just surprised my incredibly hard working, David-Byrne-loving wife Jessica with an airline ticket to New York City to see Byrne’s sold-out show tmro night at the Beacon Theater. This falls in line with my desire to be a heroic husband, but the tr

uth is she totally deserves it and it’s the sort of thing she’d do for herself is she had time to think about herself amid caring for our kids. She was stunned and is now super excited. When lining this up a week ago I called her good friend Isabel in Brooklyn who I learned LOVES David Byrne. So they’re going to the show together, staying in her apartment and spending the day Wednesday seeing museums or whatever else.

My mother, who’s been in town a few weeks and had planned to return Wednesday, agreed to stay an extra day to help make this super fun thing possible (thanks, Ma!).

And, if you haven’t heard it, here’s a track from Byrne’s new album with St. Vincent that’s pretty amazing. As we were talking the other night, this song has staying power. It’s the kind of thing I think will be played on the oldies but goodies station in 2050.

—–


and this photo and update from today: Jessica says concert was great. Today she plans to visit the museum of natural history, primarily to see the massive blue whale that was being renovated last time she was there. Then to central park to read something and at night, meet with Janet Lemanski, the woman who introduced us and is responsible for our marriage and all these children. I told Jessica to tell Janet i said hi and thanks for this life I’m living.