eyes without a face

Grant went on a scout camping trip on Friday night. Technically John was supposed to go with him since he's just eleven, but you know how we love stomping on social norms. John had to coach two soccer games on Saturday, so we put Grant in the capable hands of our neighbor and sent him off with much pomp and ceremony. They went to a topaz mine and he brought home some nice ones. I'm going to see if he'll get one of them made into a cool old lady ring for me. He ate garbage almost exclusively, to the extent that he didn't even open the trail mix and pick out the M&Ms, because he was too busy devouring TEN DOLLARS worth of the hard stuff like pop and Skittles. Part of growing up, to see how much candy you can eat before you vomit, I guess.

I can't believe how quickly Emmett is progressing on the piano. He doesn't really sit down and do official practice, but I bet he spends about an hour on the piano most days, because he plunks out three or four songs every time he walks past.

I almost murdered Ike last week because he will not learn the number twelve. He calls it twenty-one all the time, even when I've barely told him it's twelve. Like, "What number is this?"
"Twenty-one?"
"No, twelve. What number is this?"
"Twenty-one?"
"No, twelve! What number is this?"
"Uhh . . . I don't know."
"TWELVE!"

Twelve is a funny word. It looks weird.

Willa keeps telling me that I'm the best mom in the world, and her favorite mom. It is very sweet of her, and I'm going to look back fondly on this time when she learns about other moms and issues a retraction.