a must-read author

A children’s book writer and artist, Chris Judge, lives down the street from my parents. Last year, or the year before, he gave them two of his (quite charming) books for Young Indiana, who is very fond of them. (My parents gave them fudge. When Dad arrived at their house with it, Herself answered the door and said, “Oh! Thank you! We were just discussing what to have for dinner.” :)) I saw on Friday that Chris’s new book, THE SNOW BEAST, had just come out, and I told Indy…

Continue Reading

it’s curtains for you!

Young Indiana’s room is pretty well sorted out now. I unpacked the toys a few days ago, and today went grimly to tackle the task of lining the new curtains with blackout liners. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and after about two hours I had big dramatic red curtains hung. Nana (Ted’s mom) made the terrific superheroes quilt on his bed. :) (Grandma, my mom, went forth into Dublin to find those curtains, after I totally failed to find any after checking every shop in…

Continue Reading

Free Comic Book Day

Ireland isn’t doing very well at spring this year. There was a week of warm afternoons a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been clear a lot, but quite cold. Today it seems to have moved directly into November, with wind and rain and 6°-that-feels-like-0° temperatures. On top of that, there’s a 48 hour bus strike going on in Dublin this weekend. However, it’s Free Comic Book Day, so I was determined that we were going to Get Out, and so Young Indiana and I went forth to have an…

Continue Reading

Five years old. :)

And very excited about it too. Very clear on YESTERDAY he was not yet five, even if we had a birthday party yesterday. (“My birthday celebrated!”) Definitely not five last week when I, being old, started saying he was five. “NOT YET. NOT FOR TWO WEEKS.” (We’re still a little unclear on time. :)) But today, oh my. Today the first words out of his mouth were, “NOW I’m five years old!” And indeed he is. :)

Young Indiana’s Song of Sorrow

A certain young man does not wish to go to sleep. He is serenading me from his bedroom. His song goes like this (and this is verbatim, I’m typing as he sings): We’re a mom and son Moooom and son and we have to stick together or we’ll (mumble) and that would be unnecessary and i’d be sad forever and you’d be sad too! because i’d be sad until the end! of! this! day!” Please listen to me or it will be the end of the world and we won’t…

Continue Reading