Anthony and his cousin Josh were playing in a light rain, so I sat out on the veranda to watch them and get some work done, but the birds would have none of it. As I wrote last year, the birds at my folks' place have trained us to feed them waxworms, so as soon as I sat down, I was accosted by nine or 10 birds swarming around, wanting a snack. Unfortunately, we were out of worms, so I had nothing but apologizes to offer. They didn't understand, so hung around sort of insistently. (My recent post about Anthony's [...]

Anthony's tooth, quite loose from a few days ago, got flippy-floppy-dangly loose this morning while eating breakfast. I thought it should be left to come out naturally, but once it was that loose and bleeding (but not at all painful), both my ER-nurse sister and mom said that I should just pluck it out.

So, under the guise of "checking" it, I had him open up and I gave a light tug, and out it came. He didn't quite realize it, but when I feigned surprise ("it just came out right in my hand!") and he saw it, he was [...]

The other day's post about all of Anthony's cousins getting together for the first time started with a photo titled "Luke's Toes". I really like it, but it's Luke's eyes that are most amazing. Like most toddlers, his eyes gaze around to whatever his mind is paying attention to at the moment (which is not, to a parent's consternation, generally what the parent wants him to pay attention to). But when Luke decides to fix his gaze on you, wow, what eyes. Arresting!

Today is Luke's birthday. Happy Birthday, little buddy!

The picture above is a fairly tight crop from [...]

While filling the kiddy pool mentioned in the previous post, two blades of grass got into the water and made interesting "shadows" on the floor of the pool a foot below.

Here are some close-ups...

Sometimes you see these in larger pools or fountains created by invisible eddies on the surface. They're always pretty and somewhat mysterious because they seem to be shadows of nothing, or at least much larger than the thing that seems to be creating them.

Of course, they aren't shadows at all. I'm sure someone's done all kind of research about them (and I'm sure the [...]

More from the Summer of Cousins as Anthony and I spend a month in Ohio at my folks' place....

My folks bought a kiddy pool in preparation for their six grandchildren all visiting for the first time, and after I blew it up and put water in, Anthony was less than impressed. Frankly, I was too, until I found out that this one was intended for the two sub-year-old grandchildren, and that a bigger pool awaited in a box nearby.

Four-year-old Grace enjoyed it right away....

The blow-up slide was intended to be installed with its base under a foot [...]