Where the rivers meet

On a nice-ish Sunday (not 25 degrees), we had to head ... somewhere! So, it was off to the Confluence Point state park, where the Missouri River flows into the Mississippi. The "Mighty Mo" roars in on your right, and the languid ol' Miss rolls along on your left. And you can stand out on the point where they come together. It's neat. And the quarter-mile sidewalk is just right for an antsy boy who wants to walk! walk! walk!

We got lots of great pictures, too. Look at these two beautiful children! For those of you keeping track, this is what they look like right now.

Allen among the rocks Emilyn on a stump

We even saw a real-life (blurry) bald eagle! See if you can find it, too!

Confluence Point park

Under the sea

Emilyn and Daddy went to the Daddy-Daughter Girl Scout Valentine's dance tonight... The theme was "Under the sea."

Here's what Emilyn had to say: "It was the best night of my life! I played hide and seek with Sarah, and I had root beer. Daddy found a glove box in the cafeteria, and hew blew one up and tied it. At the end, I got a picture frame, a package of seashells and a SWAP with sand and seashells. Everyone looked like they were at a wedding. Every table had balloons. I had Chex mix, potato chips, a brownie, Cheetos and I think that was it. Daddy talked to Sarah's dad about trips that they took, and I think Daddy had the best night of his life also. Once when we were dancing, everyone was screaming so loud, that me and Daddy had to go into the cafeteria to dance. It was awesome!"

More scary weather

Yesterday in our driveway: 15 degrees. Today in our driveway: 55 degrees. Steve washed the cars.

Taking the plunge

What better on a 25-degree day than a trip to the ... pool? Apparently, everyone else had the same idea. Nice and steamy at the pool on Sunday. This is what it looks like when you take your cold camera to the indoor pool: (Ahoy there, Allen! It's thick as pea soup!)



Anyway, once our lens defogged, we had fun...

Sunday at the pool

Jennie's Book Chat: "A Necessary Evil"

Finally! I'm all done with the Alex Kava books. It took me a while! This one was not my favorite. It was OK, but I miss Tully. And the whole thing with Gwen seemed weird. Of all of the Kava books, I really liked "A Perfect Evil" and "The Soul Catcher."

My sister, Laurie, and I are endeavoring to read books together now, sort of our own little book club. She boiled it down this way:

"How about we pick a book and read it together and then I can talk to someone intelligent about it. AND you won't make me read stuff that will move/touch/enlighten me."

As usual, I couldn't have said it better myself!

So, anyway, if you like trashy suspense novels, you can join us. I think we're reading "Hannibal Rising" next. I'll post back as soon as I'm sure.

Spam haiku

I'm convinced: I get the best spam ever. The most poetic spam, anyway. Now, I never open it. Even I know, that would be bad. But the subject lines! Here are two I got today:

Sprightly ruffian
Flatulent somnambulist

A gas-passing sleepwalker? Come on, that's priceless.

Anyway, I'm thinking of writing a book of spam haiku. So, let me know all the amazing subject lines you see in your inboxes. Don't open your spam, though!

Snow! Just snow!

Man, I never thought I'd say that, but a couple inches of snow is nice! Compared to howling, nasty ice storms! We got out and made these excellent snowmen, using Grampy's Snowman Kit, and other stuff (including maple syrup caps). Thanks to Tara for taking a picture of all of us!

Allen at (nearly) 16 months

We went for a checkup today... Here are the particulars:
Height: 32.5 inches (67th percentile) -- up from 30.75 at 1 year
Weight: 25 pounds, 4 ounces (51st percentile) -- up from 23 at 1 year
Head circumference: 48.5 cm (78th percentile) -- up from 47 at 1 year

Dr. Cohen's exact words were: "He looks great. Keep up the good work. Don't turn your back on him for a second."

And it's true... Allen loves to dismantle things. Open things. Rip things. Dump things out. I swear, I'm going to sit him in a cardboard box of newspapers and just let him go hog wild. He's conquered the child lock on the cabinet under the sink, so we're going to have to go for the kind that latches on the inside instead.

Congratulations, Jackie and Steve!

My good friends from the paper, Jackie and Steve, are engaged! They plan to be married this year -- Jackie says whenever they find a reception venue they like, and it's available. Well, it couldn't happen to two nicer people, and we here at The Crabbe Trap are overjoyed. Congratulations!

(I just have one question: When Steve marries one of my best friends, can I start piling my papers on his desk again? Just wondering.)

Twice as ice

If you thought the last ice storm was interesting... This time we got a lot more ice, and our trees paid the price.

The saddest loss was Steve's birch tree (below), a gift from Mom and Dad when we moved in 7 years ago. Emilyn heard it crash outside her window Saturday morning. What a shame! We're hoping, though, that the bottom half can recover and make a go of it this spring. We'll see!



Meanwhile, there are branches down everywhere. The good news is, the threatened second half of the storm has been called off. It got too warm, and it looks like all we'll get tonight and tomorrow is rain.

Ice storm 2007

Toilet paper? What toilet paper?

The child virtually refuses to play with his own toys... He must have only what he mustn't have! And that includes the TP we keep in the linen closet...

Allen rides a dolphin!

It was the closest thing we could find to a shark...

Jennie's Book Chat: "At the Stroke of Madness"

This one by Alex Kava was a pretty good tale of a killer who digs out physical imperfections from his victims and keeps them in a variety of nice jars in his house. What wasn't explored very thoroughly was the killer himself, who was poisoned by his mother gradually over several years to keep him sickly -- Munchausen-by-proxy.

A good character, though, was Luc Racine, father of fiery Detective Julia Racine... He's a nice retired letter carrier suffering from the early onset of Alzheimer's disease... Kava captures the very frightening, poignant aspects of slowly losing one's mind... It's sad, and very real.

It's on to the last Maggie O'Dell novel! Hope it's a good one!

"Quack! Quack! I'm naked!"

I bet that got your attention... Well, Allen got our attention today too... When Steve and I went in to get him this morning, he was clad in diaper only! I just bought him three new sets of pajamas with space aliens on them... and they're all kind of big. Well, I guess Allen just felt the need to shed them sometime during the night! Strange, because it's actually pretty cold now! (I guess we're really lucky he kept the diaper on...)

Also, he's surprised us with his new animal noise... He's excellent at "quack-quack." He even brought a very old ducky toy out of his room today to show us how it goes "quack."

Anyway, he's just as cute as cute can be, and really expressive. What he can't say he makes up for with a panoply of hand gestures. He's so eager to get us to understand. It's (mostly) fun trying to decipher what he's after!

Shoe success!

Thanks to the fine people at Laurie's Shoes/Stride Rite in Chesterfield, our little boy is indeed striding right in a snazzy new pair of sneaks. White and navy, with nifty neon green accents.

As I may have mentioned, I have never been able to fit Allen's foot into any commercially prepared, mass produced shoe. Turns out, his feet aren't medium. They aren't wide. They're XW. Extra wide. We're blaming Daddy, who has always had feet kind of like pancakes. The ladies at Laurie's Shoes could relate. "It's like trying to squeeze a tennis ball into a matchbox," one said. Exactly!

So, we spent 49 big ones on size 6 XW sneakers. That he'll grow out of before you read the end of this message. But, we're happy "clients" of Laurie's Shoes for life. The first people who could actually get shoes on Allen's feet.

Jennie's Book Chat: "The Soul Catcher"

I think I liked this one the best so far! No. 3 in Alex Kava's Maggie O'Dell series is all about a crazy-mad cult preacher and an obsessed photographer. Maggie's drunk mother takes center stage, and we begin to learn something, anything about partner R.J. Tully! (Again, very little Nick Morelli! What's up with that?)

The St. Louis County Library will be happy to know that I just have two more to go... And then I start my Christmas stack!

New Year's Eve dinner at Simon's

After his haircut, Allen was too fancy to just sit home on New Year's Eve. So, we decided to break the bank and head to Simon's for dinner. Simon's is a fancy Middle Eastern place just up Highway 141 from us. When we pulled into the parking lot, fireworks were going off at Creve Coeur Lake! Cool! The downside: Allen kept chirping about them pretty much all the way through dinner. Right up until, that is, Mommy let him chew on her lamb bones. (Simon's follows the "ambience through darkness" rule of fancy restaurants, so these pictures are very grainy. Best viewed very small.)

Ringing out 2006 with lamb and hummus

Haircut time!

Daddy just couldn't take those swirling, golden locks any longer... OK, OK. I give. Off to the haircut place we went.

We went to the same Fantastic Sams where Emilyn had her first haircut... Conveniently located next door to Smoothie King. That's the secret for the baby haircut: First you get a smoothie. Then, you eat it, spoon by spoon, while you get your hair cut! Much less traumatic that way!

Allen was very good. He actually didn't cry until after the lady was done cutting his hair! He's kind of that way. The trauma is slow to sink in.

Emilyn was good, too. But then, she always is!



Allen's first haircut

Up, down: Reflections on a lunatic year

2006. What a ride it's been.

You hear people say "emotional roller coaster," and you think, boy, what a stupid cliche. But the year started out with us riding high, me blissfully off work, taking care of our brand new baby boy. Figuring out his wants and needs. Watching him learn to smile.

Then, we lost Mom, and it call came crashing down. Soon after, we heard Dad was sick and wasn't going to get better. What a winter.

It took us months to hit our stride again. March brought our trip to the beach, and our little boy blossomed! Bottles were a blessing, and Allen found out that in bed with Grammy Shark was one of his very-favorite places to be. Suddenly, everything was beautiful, him most of all. We were soaring again.

Emilyn was shining in first grade. She donned whiskers and a crazy hat for her Dr. Seuss performance, and we busted with pride. She got Daddy up and dancing in Indiana Jones gear. Is that miraculous, or what?

Allen sat up, then stood up. He did some crawling. Got some teeth. Emilyn learned to pedal to wherever her two wheels could carry her. "The world is our scallop!" Another moment in the clouds.

Then, back to Earth. We three flew to say goodbye to Grampy. He was not the man we knew. Blessedly, he found his peace a few weeks later.

Emilyn conquered her fear of the water and learned to swim like a fish. Up, up, up! Daddy got bad news from the doctor and was suddenly afraid for his health. Down, down, down. (He got serious about it, cut out the cookies and dropped 25 pounds. And 100 points off his total cholesterol! How's that for a death-defying plunge?)

Allen shocked us, by telling us "hat." We hit the road for home, our most ambitious road trip yet. Cleaning out Mom and Dad's house. Two weeks of ups and downs. Going through two lifetimes of stuff, we felt so close to them, and it was so hard. But all the while, we Crabbes were together. (Sometimes very close together. Like in Cabin 10.)

Emilyn started second grade... Loved it! Allen painted himself with poop. Hated that! He grabbed handfuls of birthday cake, and blew a big raspberry. Up, up, up we went. To the stratosphere!

The leaves turned. And fell. Allen got up and tottered, then toddled. He sprouted more teeth. Emilyn shed some. The Cardinals took a desperate dive... down, down, down. Then... what!? CHAMPS! "We shocked the world!" Couldn't be a better metaphor for this messed-up year. Betty Lou would have whooped with joy.

Emilyn got down (and up) at SkyZone with her pals. Turning 8 was never so much fun. A shark and a cheetah went trick-or-treetah. The temperature soared... 70-plus! Then crashed. 20, 10...

Then the ice blew in, and the trees came down. Power lines, too. But the Crabbes stayed warm, with luck and love.

Which is how we get through all the ups and downs: With luck and love. Thanks to all who came along for the ride. May 2007 bring peace and joy for us all.

Downloading pictures

Since I upgraded to the "new" Blogger, I've been having some trouble displaying photos on here... It keeps cutting off the right edge on all my horizontal images, which just drives me nuts. I may be scaling them down a little bit to fit, and that does occasionally affect the quality of the image. SO, if you plan to save any of these shots to your computer, go ahead and download from DropShots instead. Click on the photos here, and it'll take you right there.

Jennie's Book Chat: "Split Second"

The second in the Maggie O'Dell series by Alex Kava was a pretty good one, with Maggie tracking down her nemesis, the serial killer Albert Stucky. She's driven pretty much to the edge because he chooses his victims based on who she comes in contact with: The lady who helps her buy a bottle of wine at the liquor store; the waitress who takes her order at the hotel bar; a woman she says "hi" to in her new neighborhood... That type of thing.

She's falling apart throughout the book, which I have to admit is kind of getting old. She's constantly falling apart. Not in a hysterical way, but in a sick, sad, neurotic way that would make me scared if she were real and armed and walking around with FBI creds. Hunky Nick makes another appearance, but this time he's a DA in Boston. Again, he's in for a chapter and gone again, and I've heard of other Kava fans complaining about this... Maggie has a deeper relationship with her dog!

Anyway, it's on to the third Maggie book, "The Soul Catcher." (The library is getting tired of my auto renewals, I think...)

Thanks to my loving family, I've got a big backlog of books to get through! Happy reading in the new year!

Santa's Magical Kingdom

I took lots and lots of blurry, streaky, smeary photos tonight on our drive through Santa's Magical Kingdom... It's a Christmas light display that the local Jellystone Park puts up every year. And normally, I'm not one for artsy photos, but this is by far the best one I took: Me, taking a photo, in the mirror, with the lights above and behind us reflected, too.

The place is really gaudy, and something to see. So I included a few more of the pictures that came out so-so. Enjoy this last shot of Christmas!

Santa's Magical Kingdom