PART FLYING MONKEY, PART 2 YR. OLD LUNATIC

So I'm just a sitting on the bottom step of our stairway leading up the 2nd floor of the house, minding my own business, happy as a clam to be sipping on a much needed cup of coffee and trading Christmas stories over the phone with my sister. When out of NOWHERE something comes flying from behind, grazes my shoulder and knocks the coffee cup, poised for drinking, into my front tooth and then tumbling onto the carpet, spraying my beloved (and, did I mention — much needed!) steaming hot coffee to kingdom come.

What in the H-E-double hockey sticks WAS IT you wonder! A flying monkey come to take me back to Oz? A stray mountain lion? A rabid squirrel? Oh, no. Just my beloved VERY, VERY, VERY jump obsessed youngest child. Who happens to be a boy. And is nothing like his sister who never attempted to jump her mother like some hoodlum. Or like I was the Grand Canyon and she was Evil Knevil. No, only my son, who ended his leap from the top of the stairs by crashing into a heap at the bottom (thank god my shoulder broke his fall) and hollering bloody murder for the next 10 minutes.

And Beth ... by the way ... sorry for screaming swear words into the phone before it went dead.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL

Clara and her partner in crime, Veronica, at their preschool holiday recital


Lu, Clara (with her trademark grin) and Santa


Lu with the photo album we made for his A'yi and the gifts we sent to his orphanage in Xi'an, China


Clara and the gifts we sent to her orphanage in Yangjiang, China


The angel ornaments Clara made (quite spectacular if I do say so myself)

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

This is what's left of an apple after Clara eats it.