Snippet From Last Night's Two Hour Dinner Conversation

Sarah is home from college for spring break and is attempting to reintegrate.

Sarah: So, what is going on with the ceilings in this house? The dining room and basement ceilings are totally torn up.

Me: Yeah, we must have done something to anger the water gods- two leaking pipes in one week.

Mike: You had better watch out for the minotaur.

All of us stop and cluelessly stare at the little kid.

Me: MIke, where did that come from?

Mike: Well, you know the legend.....

All of us, shaking our heads stupidly: Uhh, no.

Mike: Well,on the island of Crete, Popseidon's domain, the sea, surrounded it and he wanted to be honored by people on Crete. Poseidon sent a bull from the sea and ordered King Minos to sacrifice it to Poseidon. King Minos' daughter thought it was to beautiful to sacrifice and she persuaded her father not to do it. Poseidon was angered and caused the king's daughter to give birth to a minotaur.

Madeline: Now that would be the icing on the cake to complete this family.

Another Day of Outdoor Fun

Lauren, Mike, Tom, Samuel and Daniel worked hard to build a fort to protect them in their snow ball fights with the older kids on the block.
A good group effort produced excellent results.

Snow Day

Today, school was let out a few hours early for the impending ice storm.
I have very happy children!

Mike and Tom have moved on from sledding in our boring yard and have headed down to the creek to more adventurous territory. They have decided that the ultimate thrill is sledding down "Deadman's Cliffs" and ending up flying over the iced- over creek at the end.

Madeline is busy baking cupcakes for her friends for Valentine's Day.


Even the dog is happy!

Math Was Never My Strength

I have spent the last week trying to get an answer from our local school system, Montgomery County Public Schools, regarding the implementaion of their grading policy. It seems to me to be a flawed system that produces invalid grades, but math was never my strong suit and I was looking for an explanation. I could not get an answer that made sense- the only answer I heard was "it's the policy". Not particularly satisfactory.
So today I emailed my concerns to Jay Mathews, education reporter of The Washington Post. He is going to ask MCPS the same questions I have been asking- perhaps he will be able to get a more satisfactory response.
I have spent hours on the phone with this issue, and John keeps shaking his head and muttering something about chasing windmills and I keep reminding him that "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". Thank you Emerson.

R & R

cliftoninn1, originally uploaded by funnkds5.

John and I settled in the this cozy carriage house cottage at the Clifton Inn in Charlottesville Virginia for 3 glorious days of rest and relaxation without kids in tow. Sarah was generous enough to spend 3 days of her vacation babysitting for her younger siblings (getting them all off to school at 7 am is no small feat for a college student on vacation).John and I are eternally grateful for the 72 hours of uninterrupted time together!

A View to the Bedroom

cliftoninn2, originally uploaded by funnkds5.

Looking up from our living room to our bedroom loft. Very romantic! Especially without 5 kids running around.

Scenes from a Williamsburg Visit

Scenes from a Williamsburg Visit

Churchill High School Incident

A troubling incident occurred yesterday at a local high school in Potomac.
Potomac is like Lake Woebegone, where all children are above average, perhaps even exceptional.
But two days ago, five kids at Churchill had a rumble on the front steps, a fist fight, that injured several of the involved kids and a security guard. Apparently, these tensions have been building over the last few months and the principal had brought in the parents, the kids, police specializing in gang activity etc. to try and work things out.
The rumble was of concern, and I have no doubt that the students will be appropriately punished. However, what is of more concern to me, is the note that was sent home from the principal, classifying this incident as "black on black violence". Since when is violence color coded? What is that meant to infer? The good white folk of Potomac can still sleep easy? If this incident had occured on the steps of a DC high school, would it even have made the news? Isn't it this "we"/"they" mentality that begets this violence? Sometimes, it seems that we have made precious little progress in the whole race relations area.

Holiday Picture

Finally, I found a holiday photo in my ridiculously overstuffed iphoto files.

Time to make my will

Teaching Madeline to drive tests the patience of a saint. She seems to have the Italian attitude that the speed limit is merely a suggestion.

Cooking, Will style

A Man, A Can, A Tailgate Plan: The cookbook for Will.

Let the fun begin

The Christmas tree decorating begins with Madeline's friends, Amy and Steffi, over to help.


and the finishing touches are added

While the cookies bake....

Madeline knits. Her natural talent in crafts astonishes me- since I can barely sew on buttons, I am in awe.

Madeline's Handiwork

Leave Madeline alone for an hour and this is what you get:

Finding Just the Right Tree

Visiting Mayne's Tree Farm on Sunday in search of our Christmas tree.


Not only did we find a beautiful tree that everyone loved, but we were graced with this spectacular sunset!

Boys In Hats

Akshay and Brendan in hats.
Madeline knitted the hat Brendan is wearing-a bit small for Brendan, but not bad for a first try.
Her knitting ability must come from some recessive gene- sure skipped me.

Wootton Swim Team Party

The party has hardly begun and already our hallway is filling up with party shoes.
What a great bunch of teenagers- polite, helpful and fun loving. And they sure can eat!
Although banned from the basement, John and I had a good time listening to them all singing at the top of their lungs while watching The Lion King.

Annual Thanksgiving Hike

the kids watching a hawk and waiting for us to catch up

my men


somehow bunny ears always end up in the picture

a spectacular view over Middletown Valley- we could almost see the house we want to move to.


This year we went up to South Mountain, hiked and talked about the civil war history that took place here. Sarah, having gone to bed at 4am, didn't awaken in time to join us- but we had a great hike- although I think the kids spent a fair amount of time waiting for us old folks to catch up.

Thanksgiving '06

another fabulous holiday feast with our friends, lisa and paul farhi and tobi and eric starin. our dinners are getting larger as the kids come home with friends and significant others. as parents, nothing makes us happier!
dan and peter were nowhere to be found, but the others actually gave me 15 seconds to take this photo:
rich, arden, will, bob, maurice in back
jessica, sarah, helena, danielle, madeline, liz in the middle
and mike and tom in front.