Call It What You Want...

"When Adam is a Dad, he can drink coffee," Mark said as Adam was reaching for Tim's coffee mug the other day at Bob Evans.
"What will you drink?" I asked.
"When I'm a dad, I'll drink Sprite!" Mark answered. "AND Dr. Pepper!"

"Head and Shoulders, knees and toes,
Knees and toes, knees and toes.
Head and shoulders, knees and toes,
My Fair La-dy!"

This morning, I heard Adam go into the kitchen, open the door to the trash can, and throw something away. He then closed it and went back to the living room, brushing off his hands in satisfaction. Later, I was putting something in the trash and wondered what he'd thrown away. I discovered that it was the flier with other Thomas the Tank Engine "stuff" that can be purchased, which they always put in the packaging for said toys. This is a cherished item Mark calls his "magazine" and takes to bed to read.
Somebody apparently decided that Mark had had it long enough.

alternately: Mark's ACTUAL Fourth Birthday

We made it to the actual birthday, and in the midst of several exciting things -- one of my very long-time friends from way back in the golden years came for a visit, and Mark and Tim went to a tailgate at church, among other things -- we did celebrate a certain boy's real fourth birthday... though the present-opening will have to continue for more days as he did not finish.

Daddy got him a Bob the Builder DUPLO block set. This was wonderful. This is what contributed to the not-wanting-to-talk-on-the-phone-even-to-accept-birthday-wishes (he threw the phone down when Grandma Sarah called -- sorry BigMama) and the unwillingness to open any more presents.

In showing his true character, he let his brother play with even the best present he got. Serious good brother points here.

Another birthday cake -- and though *I* didn't break the bottom layer OR run out of frosting (ahem!), it pretty much looked the same as last week's (except it was a yellow cake and not chocolate)... and it ate the same, too!

"Mommy, you forgot to put ICE CREAM!" Mark told me. Gulp, I thought. I don't even know if we HAVE suitable ice cream. We did. Mark was pleased, though he still chose not to eat much cake (like last week). He had TOYS to play with.

Adam, however, DID choose to eat the cake again. He was quite pleased with the frosting and all the joy that comes with attempting to pick off all the little sprinkles.

Guess since we have more presents to open, we'll have birthday again tomorrow. Wonder how long he can stretch this out?

Mark desperately wanted Grandma and Grandpa to celebrate his birthday with him, and since they were here last weekend -- and since, as the givers of the most impressive pile of gifts known to man or small boy as my mother is a true gift-giving addict (which works well for me, the picture of greed) -- we decided to let Mark have an early birthday.

He and Grandma made his birthday cake while I was at sewing, commencing the frosting of said cake the next day and living through the disaster that apparently is BigMama putting together a layer cake -- so that's why we never had layer cakes -- and madly attempting to get the remaining frosting to cover the whole thing (which ended up turning out fine. Frosting covers a multitude of accidents, doesn't it).

Then, of course, it was time for Grandma's big pile o'presents. I mean Grandma and Grandpa, of course, as he is certainly along for the ride. :)

Adam didn't want to be more than a few inches away from the man with the presents, hoping and hoping he'd get to play with some.

Mark was very good about sharing his presents with his little brother. Really impressive, since he's just turning 4. (Four! I have a four-year-old, as of tomorrow!!! GLEEPS!)

He also made the appropriate happy faces as he opened the presents and discovered the wonders that were inside. Look at the face in this one!

(Bob the Builder is a can't-lose choice!)

Then it was off to the famous cake that Mark worked so hard on:

He hardly ate any of it, owing to the keen longing he had to get back to his toys and play with them. But his little brother didn't seem to have any trouble tackling the whole cake issue.

"Yommy, Yommy CAKE!" says Adam.

We'll have more birthday this weekend on his actual birthday (tomorrow). But I have heard from some of my loyal fans that they'd appreciate a new posting since the boys started school three weeks ago and I haven't written since. (Sorry.)

This morning was the first day of school! It's hard to believe a year has passed since our first first day! It was so exciting! Of course, getting everyone ready willingly was a bit of a challenge...

We finally all got into the car...

Happily, of course. "I am not going to smile," Mark promised me. Let me assure you, he kept his word.

Okay, guys, hold hands and smile so I can get a picture of this moment.

(please note the effort Mark is putting into looking mad...)

Once in the building, they were off down the hall to their classrooms. I was concerned that Adam might cry a little the first day, but that did not end up being an issue. He was off, into the room without a look back.

And when I came to pick them up, Adam greeted me with a gleeful "Hi, Mommy!" Mark told me he wasn't ready to leave. But he didn't keep frowning.

What a happy day!

My local newspaper is forevermore denying me the joys of its errors (as I noted in this sterling entry, as well as many other times to my family and friends) as of a week ago, when it published its last edition and went out of business, an announcement that left the community "overcome with shock and sadness".

Now. While the above phrase does seem a little strong for the demise of the only local newspaper (no one died, there was no question about the survivors, there was no blood... you get the idea), I am disappointed. Granted, this is where I got most of my copy-editing kicks -- serving as an editor of the MOMCC magazine is a bit more professional and doesn't include the stupid journalistic errors like "Teen: Wreckless Driving is uncool" -- and I made a lot of cracks about the shameful errors that made it past the editors' eagle eyes.

But, at the same time, it was the local newspaper.

Yes. The big-city paper nearby took over publishing the long-time Noblesville paper (we refer to it in 1886) and includes it in its end-of-the-week papers, but that really doesn't count. Sorry, but it's true.

Having worked in a memorable small-town newspaper in my youth, I do feel some loyalty to the paper that does its level best in the face of low funds, outdated technology, and a town full of, er, characters. I subscribed to my local paper despite the glaring editing errors and in the face of occasionally substandard delivery -- from missed papers, confused vacation orders, wadded papers shoved into the box... you get the idea -- because I wanted to read the paper that was produced locally. I didn't want to have to wade through the classifieds for all of the big city nearby. I got some good stuff through the local classifieds. Gramps could use the local classifieds to locate all the best garage sales. Will he care to wade through all of the big-city ones to find the ones near enough to go to? (He's very committed, so he might. :) )

But the thing that really bugs me about this is the "oh so full of regret" column in the big-city-published tabloid included in the big-city paper last week. "A worthy competitor" had stopped publishing, and we're all the worse for it.

Yeah. Cry me a river. Never mind that we subscribed to the big-city paper for Sundays only to get the weekly ads, but perhaps a year after starting our subscription, we received word that, as they would be publishing our "local" paper as an insert three days a week, we'd be getting those papers, too. For free. Oh, and all the rest of the week, too. For free. So for the past three years (anyway), we've been receiving two papers every day. What is the average consumer going to do? They're going to stop subscribing to the one they're paying for (especially since it was sometimes laughable), and they're going to continue to get sort of local news from the big-city paper. This doesn't take an MBA to figure out.

Yet that big-city paper pretends to be sad for the end of a (five-year) era.

Yeah.

Eye thing their knot vary sory.

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