Beatrice starts growling during production week

Here's what we're up to:

• Our garden is really growing! I have been eating arugula with egg salad for lunch (when I am home). Beatrice and I go out to the garden with the pretty red colonder and pick arugula and spinach for salad. Boy, can that arugula grow. Beatrice does not eat the salad unless I trick her.
• Oh, and the strawberries. Oh man. For a little while, something was eating my strawberries, just as they got ripe. Maybe a rabbit. But now, it's Beatrice. Oh! It just kills me. We have had careful conversations about not picking strawberries until they start turning red. I thought I had really gotten through to her, but yesterday she picked a big fat, white strawberry and ran over to me saying, "Mama! It's pink!"
• We are number 4 on the waiting list for our referral. It feels so surprising that after all of this running around, that some day soon, our case worker will call us and say, "Mr. and Mrs. Faires, do you want to look at some pictures of your boys?"
• Ethiopia has the worst health care system in the world. They are dead last. The ratio of doctors to people is staggering. It's something like one to every 500,000 people. That's a big deal. I can go to Vanderbilt, and they will send my health insurance company the bill. Unreal, you know?
• I'm directing a musical this semester. It's Fiddler on the Roof, and it's full of really nice songs and dances. It's satisfying to be able to use some of the skills I sort of touched on in college to work on the lighting design and sound. It's satisfying work, but it's just so much work! I do it because it's so great to see a project begin at nothing and turn into a magical night at the theater. It's also great to be able to watch the actors progress. I feel like a proud mama when I see them start getting their characters, and letting go of their embarassment to enjoy their performance.
• My secret nerdy pleasure: I get to play the flute in the orchestra pit. No one ever asks me to be in their orchestra, so I asked myself to be in my own orchestra. The music seemed so wonderfully hard when I first started playing it. I just sat down with it idly, not thinking that I could ever play it. But I can! Seriously, it's so much fun to play the flute again. And it's great to get to play with other musicians. I still remember the incredible feeling of playing in a symphony--all you have to do is play your one little part, but you are a part of creating this fantastic music. I have really missed it. I also get to play the piccolo, which is like playing a toy.
• Beatrice is lately loving puzzles. It's her superpower. She has a puzzle of the US, and she can put in all the pieces. Where's South Dakota? Just ask Beatrice.

There. That's blogsy.

Photography Fundraiser for our Adoption

If you live in Michigan, today is your lucky day.


Mattson photography is donating:

"Name your own Price" Photography Sessions

March 30-April 2, 2009

Yes please. Here are the details:

During those days 100% of the money you spend on photography helps bring 2 little guys finally home to Mom & Dad. And you get to set your own price for the session. Portrait sessions are usually $200, but we're asking folks to just give what they can.

The session includes 1 hour of photography, a disk of high-res images, and copyrights to the pictures so you can make your own prints.

E-mail karen@mattsonpictures.com to set up your appointment and please feel free to spread the word!!

Ok. This is serious, because her work is breathtaking. Karen is one of my dearest friends from high school and then we both moved to Franklin to attend a college that turned out to be some of the most fun you can have south of the Mason-Dixon. Karen moved back to the land of the north and married her true love, but I fell in love with the bearded wonder and just had to stay in Tennessee.

If you live in Michigan, go get a great photography session! If you live in Tennessee, enjoy the 70 degree weather this week. (I'm not saying it's cold in Michigan. I'm just saying there's no place like the central time zone.)

Spring Break in Alabama

We went to visit our good friends, the Caucutts, this week. We just can't resist when they send us an invitation to visit because we always come away with a new appreciation for the joys of a quiet home life.

I took this picture through the kitchen window, hence the screen, but this is what things look like when Caleb is around his best friend. They just dig in. I think they talked about all the things Caleb has been saving up for the last year. The Caucutts also have really good books. I always find myself reading when I visit.


While in Birmingham, we naturally went to Dreamland. And naturally Amy and Joanna were there too.



Beatrice and Hector Caucutt. It's so much fun to see Beatrice around little boys. I can't hardly believe the differences between boys and girls. It's so interesting to see my careful, orderly little girl confronted with little boys who really know how to celebrate life by engaging with grass, and rocks, and water, and food. I'm just facinated by how much sex matters, even as a toddler, and how much personality shows already.

At the Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Beatrice putting rocks in my pockets, so we could be sure to have them later.

She's been telling folks lately that it's dark in their nose. She just looks up your nose and declares it dark. Yes.

Here we are, on the road again, singing along to Johnny Cash. Beatrice sings, "Me babe, no, no, no!" with gusto.

The greatest adventure is being born...

We planted a wonderful garden in our front yard. Everyone else in our neighborhood has flowers and other reasonable things like shrubbery. But we have red onions and arugula and broccoli and spinach and strawberries. We are so dirty. My fingernails are still not clean. We are having a great time digging in the dirt. Caleb built a little brick bridge to keep the weeds out, and to keep Beatrice out of the garden. She walks back and forth on her bridge with serious intensity.


Oliver came over to spend the afternoon and he and Bea just couldn't find a way to fall asleep in the same room. But as soon as I brought him downstairs and put him in the nest of brown bear, he fell sweetly asleep. He stayed that way until after Caleb came home and we just quietly went about our business.



Beatrice and I took a walk on a cold day and she got tired towards the end of the walk and began to suck her fingers for comfort. Ew. The glove was soaked when I took it off her little hand.

They are doing just exactly what it looks like they are doing. Oliver came over and right after breakfast he ran into the living room, climbed on the couch and said, "Bea, come and watch the show!" I have no idea why he would say that. I'm sure no one lets him watch tv at home. Anyway, I felt like I suddenly needed to make a show happen for my little guest. So I scrounged around and found this. Ten points for Tim Gunn if you can name the movie.

We dress Beatrice in Titans paraphernalia. Because we do care about sports.