Merry Knishmas!

This has been an eventful and painful year. So much has happened. Tommy, Uncle Mike, and Dorothy died. Mrs. Knab died. Mrs. Givens died. Pop had his appendix out. Very little work for Mikey because of rain. Jarrett lost his glasses at camp. God bless his counselor because she checked every child left to see if they had his glasses. Matt's car has given him hell this year. Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Frank McCourt,Brittany Murphy and Kim Peek (he was the inspiration for Rainman) also died this year. Michelle has had a tough time this year, losing Tommy and having to raise the boys alone and dealing with everything that goes with is just hard. The truly hardest part of this year didn't really hit until Mom saw a pulmonologist and had her follow-up visit for her test results. Mom has emphesyma and he wants her on the lung transplant list. We went thru this with Dad, knowing there is limited time left and yet not knowing how much. Don't get me wrong good things happened this year too: middle school is going great for Jarrett, Max started pre-k, Alyssa was born. I have my family and for the most part we will be together for Christmas and that's all we need.

Little Pitchers Need Earplugs

For awhile now, Max has been visiting us in our room during the wee hours annoucing "I heard a sound in my room!" The other night he tried this right after I put him to bed. Not even 2 minutes later, our door opens and there's Max. Back to bed we go. Sometimes in the night, he just climbs in the bed, lays down and starts snoring. A couple nights ago, Mikey woke up at about 2 am to discover small, loudly snoring boy on my side of the bed. (I have been told by several doctors that he has rather large tonsils). My personal favorite was when I came in from putting Jarrett on the bus and Max's door opened and he announced "I heard a sound!" to which I responded "It was Jarrett's bus!". Sometimes he has moment of honesty and says "I waked up!" but not too often.