Our Bold Adventure Continues

A friend here is a photographer trying to make inroads with the Boulder-based Crocs company. She planned to shoot some spring images for their internet department on spec and needed models. She was oh so flattering about M+O's cuteness, they'd be darling, would I let her shoot them? Though there was a very good chance the photos would amount to nothing, they could keep the shoes. I would have agreed even if she hadn't buttered me up and been so nice, but add her kindness to the mix and the whole thing was a no-brainer. We were off to promote Boulder's success story shoes, of which I might add we owned exactly zero pairs for the four of us. She wanted them dressed twin-y. Alike or similar. Sounds good except as I examined their nearly-end-of-the-season wardrobe I found nothing unstained and coordinating, certainly nothing matching for them to wear. I could only conclude that I let my children wear rags and that I must be the laughingstock of their preschool for letting

I've been flying solo here for eight days now while Funnydad flies around Asia on business. After more than a week of single parenthood, I've hit a bit of a wall. The tag team of fatigue and loneliness visits every time he travels, and this time it tracked me down a little later than it has in the past -- a delay that lulled me into a false belief that perhaps I was getting better at managing this travel thing, or maybe having a job tempers the stress. Yeah, not so much. While cooking dinner this evening, the laughter of baby cows and penguins (their game tonight, don't ask, I don't understand it either) turned to silence. Every parent knows silence is bad news, and after a couple of minutes when I peered out from the kitchen I found them playing with the paper towels I'd bought today (but had foolishly not yet put away). Instead of yelling which a) was my first instinct and b) would have made all three of us upset, I had them help me collect the un-rolled rolls and

The next day M wrote her name, too, perhaps motivated by the fanfare we made of O's efforts. She insists on starting in the middle of the page and then adding to the beginning when she runs out of room making the whole thing kind of incomprehensible, but it's there. She's low key about pretty much everything, including, apparently, the proper order of letters. Anyway, we have a fence around our house. I think it was put up when the place was built twenty some-odd years ago. It's the same fence many of our neighbors have, a wooden picket fence about four or five feet tall, and it's in decent shape. Needs a little TLC and seriously needs a paint job, but it's a good fence (see the above picture taken at the end of last summer). I figure if I'm going to do anything I should do it before my garden goes gangbusters on it, which means as soon as the weather is consistently above 50 or so (I think). Also, that way, we get to enjoy the freshly-painted fence for the

Of all the cool things that happened today, the coolest is that O WROTE HER NAME, in its entirety ALL BY HERSELF, twice! I don't know where this came from since we haven't been practicing it at home, though she could certainly spell it out loud when prompted. I thought the only letter in her name that she knew how to write was the O, but, no, there she goes spelling the whole thing in little preschooler block letters. It's unbelievable how proud an adult can be of their child, it's as if my heart wants to burst! Another cool thing about today was that Funnydad and I attended the Colorado caucuses. I'm not sure where to begin -- it was a little like a cross between a high school class election and a Woody Allen movie. We'd never caucused before and weren't sure what to expect, but really it was the most inane system you've ever seen. I don't think there was anything improper going on, but everyone just kept whispering to their neighbor, "really?

Boulder has a reputation. Think of Boulder and you most likely picture of a big ol' box of granola. If you know people who live here you might expand that notion to include words like hippy, green, liberal, easy-going, and sporty. We've been here for almost six months now (really! I can't believe it either) and I can tell you that Boulder's reputation is well-deserved. Aside from loose-fitting, natural-fabric fashion, dreds for white folks, prayer flags in every neighborhood, and other visual cues that this is a non-conformist place (in a the way that non-conformists tend to look alike), here are a smattering of observations: • The other day in a coffee shop I overheard some people talking about a "gypsy dance" party that was going to have live music, dancing, a feminine altar, and a masculine altar. • Some of the busstops here have solar panels to fuel the lights that illuminate the shelters at night. • When people bump into one another or have a problem, the