That's Doon on the left, Dylan on the right!

That's Dylan on the left, Doon on the right!!

I give up. Send me the correct answer!

Name:

Happy Holloween!

Dylan learns to wave hand, Doon to tie shoes

I was so angry. Doon had tied yet another one of his "super knots" in his sneakers -- a complex series of 27 interlacings which take approximately four days to undo at bedtime. I told him that he HAD to learn how to tie his bunny knots, and he said OK, teach me now. Well whaddya whaddya, he finally nailed it that night and tied them properly four times in a row.

He's reading with me now, so it's Dutch during the day at school and English at home at night. He's keeping them separate pretty well, though his first stab at a new word will sound like Dutch until he twigs. So Hop on Pop started out as Hohp on Pohp, but he's been through the whole book along with Go Dog Go, and has now moved on to Green Eggs and Ham.

Dylan can find his mouth now with his hand, about 50% of the time anyway. He started his first smiles when Grandma Cel was here and he's cracking them regularly now. Too cute. Still haven't caught one on camera, though. (Sorry, Molly!)

Gramma Arrives

Gramma arrived yesterday and took the classic Irish cure for jet lag: Guinness. Thanks to the Muldoon kids who all pitched in to buy her a flight over here -- it's great to have her around. Here's a new batch of pictures of Dylan and his recent visitors.

More Pix

Day four, and we finally all got a good night's sleep. It's been sleepless bliss, but sleepless. Dylan had a little rash on day three that's now gone completely, he's feeding well and all systems are go, go, go, go, go... ;-) Marth is up and about, Doon is doing great. We stayed up late last night taking pictures, so here you go Molly: Slideshow of Days 0-3 Doon took an awful lot of these. I set up the tripod and taught him how to use the timer on the camera and he was instantly Mr. Film Director -- he's always had a good eye, but he really outdid himself this time.

Dylan awake

King of his blue eyes:

Well, I know I'm biologically imprinted as a parent but I could watch the above video loop for a scary amount of time and not tire of it. Dylan is spending more time awake now, lifting his head, pushing with his feet, but mostly just looking around. He'll fix on a face or a shadow or light source and just saturate it with attention.

(Since Geeks will ask: the loop above started life as Sony DV edited in Premier, saved down to a 7 meg MPEG, then imported into Flash MX using the Sorenson codecs. The Flash file is 3.7 Meg, but starts streaming very nicely well before the whole file squeezes down the pipe. Nice. If you don't see anything, you probably need to upgrade your flash player over at Macromedia's website.)

Dylan James Francis Fitzgerald

Born 11:15 pm September 5th 3.6 Kilos (7.9 pounds) everybody great.

Marth had to go in to hospital for a check at around 3pm, and in the course of the two hours of monitoring started contractions. She was worried they'd keep her there, but we finally got the all clear to go home and have the baby in the bedroom. But we nearly had the baby in a hospital because we couldn't get a cab home -- ain't that a bit backwards?

The midwife said he's the only baby that's ever bit her. He was very quiet, no big cry at all, very calm and restful and strong. Just a bit annoyed that he had to come out of his nice, warm swimming pool.

Sept 6th: Doony slept over at his friend Charlie's house next door for the birth. Sleeping over is usually a bit of a drama for Doon -- he tends to wake up and want to go home a couple times during the night. But last night, Carin and Ludo reported that he woke up just once: at 11:15. Ludo went in to quiet him, and Doon went back down after being assured that Daddy's promise that he could come see the new baby at 7am would be honored. Carin was out on the balcony and heard our whoop when Dylan was born, and figured Doon waking up just then wasn't coincidence; the brothers already had some connection going. Doony certainly was all smiles to greet the new baby this morning, even if his attention turned back to his new Yugioh cards and birthday toys fairly quickly.

Doon is 6

Doon's about to begin his first day of being 6. There'll be a party this afternoon, but this morning he's off to school in the box bicycle with Mommy at the helm and a load of birthday goodies for his school friends. Dutch tradition dictates that Doon brings treats for his classmates, rather than the other way around.

He also got the traditional Italian 6 pulls on the ear as well as the American 6 spankings.

This morning he opened some of his presents, including some great ones from Chris and Abby -- the little Dutch sailing ship looks just like the real thing. It was the first toy he wanted to play with -- straight up to the bath, where he discovered that the jib unhooked and you could put the mast down for going under bridges. Coincidentally, this had been the topic of discussion last weekend as we looked at some of the tall masted ships in Amsterdam's canals.
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T he party was a hoot. We don't know where he's getting his British locution from -- it could be Tweenies on BBC, could be Jenny, Alan, Nathalie and Nathan, but the statement of the day was "Mommy, I think this is going to be a lovely birthday". It certainly was. Here's a handful of pix. We were generally too busy running races and balloon stomps to take pictures, but Doon took a few to help out... he's a little dickens with the camera, that boy.

Thanks everyone for the super cards and letters and gifts making the boy's last birthday as an only child a special one.

The Belly! (and the new floor!)

A friend says "pregnant women are great at construction projects" and he's soooo right. Marth put new floors down in the bedroom and hall and somehow that big ol' belly didn't slow her down a bit. She's moved on to the garden now while chipping away at the nursery.

How do you spell "nesting?"

I've finally caught up with getting pix of our trip to Bristol and Wales to see Duncan, Alayne, and Adam. Thomas the Tank Engine was in town and we had a great afternoon in the ruins of Tintern Abbey. Slideshow is here.

He's Riding!

31st of May, 2004: Big day for the Doonster. The training wheels came off the bike, and he didn't. We've been working on this for a while, getting the trainers up higher and higher. A couple of his friends have already been biking to school, and while he's pretty advanced in a lot of areas, bike riding for some reason has been a lagger. I figured he was ready last week, but told him he was the boss about when to take the trainers off. (And that he could have a super-big chocolate milkshake when he did.)

Well this morning we went on a mission to buy milk and he biked alongside. Halfway home he said he was ready. The fact that we were just up the street from the milkshake store is purely coincidence, I'm sure. But the fact that I actually had an adjustable wrench in my pocket is nothing short of miraculous. I'd been inadvertantly carrying it around since our last trip to the playground.

He was up and going in nothing flat. I took the video with my phone (Sony Ericsson P900, for you geeks who need to know), so the quality ain't great, but I was button-popping proud of my boy and glad we got the moment for posterity.

Easter 2004

Hmmmm, guess we're going to have to change the name of this site to "Doony and ? News" come September! Yup, for anybody we haven't told, emailed, or jumped up and down in front of, Doony's getting a little brother or sister on or around September 10th. (Guaio is trying out the new belly-shelf under construction in the picture above).

Meantime, it's total chocolate overdose day.

Charlie: The Easter Bunny doesn't wear clothes

Doon: Yes he does. I have a picture of him in a vest.

Charlie: My mommy says he doesn't wear clothes

Doon: My mommy says he does.

Pix here.

Whoo-hoo, Christmas!

It was one big yippy -- too many presents, too much food, too much eggnog: all in all, a perfect proportion of too-muchness. The only near disaster was me almost producing a green turkey for Christmas eve. See, me being a great follower of the Joy of Cooking school of turkey roasting, I cook the bird under a coarse cloth soaked in olive oil -- evens out the moistness so you can cook the dark meat to doneness without drying out the white meat. Tip: Never, never use a new cloth for this, or one that doesn't have color-fast dyes.

Now you'd expect that after years of tent-roasting turkey, I'd have encountered this particular problem before. And you'd expect the authors of the definitive idiot's guide ("How to crack an egg" gets a half page, don't forget) would warn against it, but alas, when I went to baste the bird after half an hour it looked like a goofy St. Patrick's day postcard. Fortunately, a drain of the first juice and a paper towel pat later all was well, but it was a close one.

Thanks to everyone who sent Doony presents -- he's still unpacking stuff! Some pix here.

And Hey Mr Big, the Dooooood sez THANKS.

Tonsils out!

Doon recovers with pals after having his tonsils and adenoids out. He was a total trooper. A few more pix here. He's just coming off the popsicle diet now, and doing fine.

We celebrated Sinter Klaas on 5th December with ex-pat friends in the Dutch style: everyone draws a name a few weeks before and has to craft a present and a poem for them. The wrappings are a little unusual -- our party featured presents wrapped in a paper maché cat and fish, a computer made of boxes (guess who that was for ;-) and Marth's Giant Thumb, Amphora and Dracula:

Then the doorbell rings, and mysteriously a bag of toys is left on the porch by the Sint. Doony was nearly hitting the ceiling he was so excited. Lucky kid, he gets that (preceded by presents in his shoe every so often the week before) AND Santa Claus on the 25th.

5th Birthday

Travelin'

Doon's getting ready to go to Grandma's House for his annual accent-flattening vacation. It will be interesting to see how he adjusts to people his size who don't speak Dutch. Duncan Currie and his boy Adam were here visiting last weekend, and Doon's natural presumption is that if he can look it in the eye, it speaks Dutch instead of English.

From the obvious statements department: nobody back in the States will recognise this child from a year ago. We just got his report card back from school and he's doing great. Mixing his languages a bit, but getting on really well with the other kids, emotionally stronger, and fascinated by the magic of letters and words. He can read some simple words not like "on" and "off" (hey, start 'em off binary, that's my motto!), knows most of his letters most of the time, and can sound out simple words phonetically, when coaxed.

He's long ago exceeded his parents' ability in Dutch, and for the first time a couple weeks ago he translated for me unprompted. We were getting roses for Mother's Day, and the guy in the flower kiosk said something I didn't catch as we were walking away. I presumed it was just a pleasantry. Doony must have known I didn't get it, and decided I needed to, so he tugged on my sleeve and said "he told you to look out for the prickers!"

We're all looking forward to vacation. The big feature is the wedding of Martha's brother Tim and soon-to-be sister-in-law Leslie. Doon gets to be in the wedding party, so we'll be seeing pix of him here in a penguin suit before too long.

Here's a short video clip I snagged with my digital camera from a trip out to our friend Jenny's house out in Muidenberg a couple weeks back.

Hoppy Easter!

Winter Vacation!

The first weekend of Doon's Winter Break we went out to Carin and Ludo's farm in Limberg, in the south of The Netherlands near the German border. Carin and Ludo used to be our upstairs neighbors in Amsterdam, and their four year old, Charlie, is Doony's "Girlfriend." Jos and Rini joined us with their two kids, Ludo and Kees. We had an outstanding time -- great weather, great company, and the kids entertaining each other. Have a look at the slideshow.

Oh, and, Uncle Jim? You better be ready for our little card shark:

Open House at Doony's School

Snow in Amsterdam!

It's pretty unusual for us to get snow here. I can hear the Seneca Falls contingent saying "You call THAT snow?" But hey, if there's enough to make a snowball, Doon's getting his snowsuit on and headin' out the door.

Even when he's got CHICKENPOX!!!

Merry Christmas AND Congratulations Mikey and Holly!

Counting down to Santa Claus' arrival, Mikey and Holly got their big present when baby Carly was born on the 22nd. Wahoooooo Doray! (Dr. Seuss-speak for yippeee!)

Santa Claus ran into a little problem late last night when it came time to set up Doony's Radio Flyer Bicycle all the way from America. Now, Santa's a pretty well traveled guy, and he knows that there's different standards and sizes in the US for video and DVDs and electricity and milk and just about everything. But when it came time to pump up the tires on Doony's new bike, he discovered there are also: Different valve and pump fitting standards! (Hey, Lisa, you work in pumps -- can't you write a memo and fix this????) Santa stayed a long, long, long time trying to improvise a solution, but in addition to all the bizillions of presents under the tree, Doony got two flat tires for Christmas.

Here's some pix. Molly was on the phone already early this morning our time, (half past ridiculous in the morning, US time) wanting more. Sheesh, she got Doony to sing her the kitty-kat jingle bells song on the phone, what more does she want?

Doony says: Hi Julia!!! Happy Christmas! I have a cuddly puppy, a cuddly horse, and a cuddly kitty and I want you to come to my house next week on Saturday to play with them.

The Zoo: October 2002

The Zoo is one of Doony's favorite places. He likes the playgrounds there a lot, and sometimes it's a struggle to get him to actually go see the animals.

On our last trip, Doony rattled a cage housing a ring-tailed lemur (a "Zaboomafoo" to Doony, after the hero of a PBS kids nature program). What a surprise. The lemur was NOT pleased. He let out a roar like a lion, sending Doony running behind me for cover. But he was giggling when he got over the fright. "Daddy, there's a lion in that monkey!"

Last weekend we had a sunny Sunday on Janet Dalziel's sailboat.

Nothin like messin around in a boat, and doing some fishin'

Didn't catch a thing, but ain't he handsome?

Queen's Day 2002 

Well, it took a while to file the latest Amsterdam Confidential! Between tryin to keep up with our wild and craaaaaaaaazy guests AND Doony, the webpage didn't have much of a chance. Especially after those late night Gin games where Brian kept getting whomped...

So here they are: Pics of the trip, the Anniversary Cruise, and Queen's day 2002.

We had a great time playing host to these two. Marth took them out to see the Lord of the Dance and Brian and Jim had a great day out up on the North Sea island of Texel. Man, you've heard about fish that got away? On this trip, the entire Fishing Boat got away. So we had an excellent time talking over beers in various locations around the island about the fish we've caught in the past, the fish we would have caught if the boat had gone, and the fish we'll catch in the future. And the ones we'll land for Uncle George.

March 2002

Wengen Winter Ski Holiday 

Our Winter holiday in Wengen, Switzerland rocked. We went with friends Alan & Jenny, their kids Natalie and Nathan, their friends Mirthe, Reinier, and Martijn, and Lisa and Jake Fitzgerald hooked up with us for a couple days as well. Wengen is in the Jungfrau region of Switzerland, where the ski scenes and bad guys' lair from the James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" were filmed.  It's also the place where a handful of crazy British gentry claim to have "invented" downhill skiing around the turn of the century when they convinced the cog train driver to keep his train going in winter so they could ride up and ski down.

It was Doony's first time on skis, though the little red sled with the green steering wheel was much more to his liking. It was the first time he'd really had significant snowfall to play in, and he tried it all: from the rollicking snowball fights through the town (he was great at charging and flushing out snipers) to snow angels to sledding to skating to snowforts and snowmen he was a laughing happy snow puppy.

He had great company. Dutch kids are incredible with little ones. Part of their schooling involves them having to look after kids in lower grades, so they actually get an education in child care. Doon was what Martha calls "a love sponge" all week. Natalie and Mirthe were giving him treats and cuddles and heaps of attention. The boys --Nathan, Martijn, Reinier -- gave him lots of snowball target practice and rough and tumble fun as well -- he didn't want to be left out of anything, and at every turn he'd be yelling "Hey, GUYS! Wait up!" And I think he thinks Alan is his personal punching bag -- the two of them matched superpowers all week.

The snow was fabulous. The visibility wasn't so great at times, but when you're skiing on pillows, who cares?

Natalie and Mirthe celebrated their 16th birthdays during the trip, which meant Doon got to give (and open) presents. There were balloons and candles and cake too. How great can a trip get?

Click here for a bunch of pix.

January 2002:

Merrry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Well, we're finally catching up on some of the photos from our trip to Italy, Halloween, and few more christmas snaps. You can see them all here.

At right is Doon in front of a Christmas tree we planted in Paciano in 1993. (Yes, we're guilty of introducing non-native species into the Italian countryside, but don't it look happy!!!)

Doon's third Christmas! Having too much fun! Here's a quick slideshow of the big morning, and here's the boy and his Buzz, and from all of us a very Merry Merry Christmas!

November 2001:

Jenny, Doon with twahbehwee popsicle, and Jenny's daughter Nathalie.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

We had our Turkey Day a couple weeks ago, so that we could share a feast with our friend Kieran. He set off yesterday on a four month voyage to save the whales in the Southern Pacific Ocean, so we moved the calendar a little bit. Over here, of course, Thanksgiving can slip by pretty much unnoticed. Art Buchwald's "Jour de Merci" column appears in the Herald Tribune, but beyond that it's other harvest festivals that are marked: the fate of the pilgrims and their first harvest isn't holiday material. So Jenny was our reason for thanks this year. She put on THE FEAST -- complete from a turkey that Norman Rockwell would have painted smaller to make it believable, through cranberry sauce, squash, stuffing, every vegetable in Holland, all in amounts that would have fed Plymouth Colony twice over. As I leaned back fit to burst I said "the only thing missing is the pumpkin pie." At which point, natch, appeared not only a glorious home-baked pumpkin pie, but a rhubarb crumble as well. I had no choice: the only eloquent response was to fall out of my chair.

Marth and I were the only Americans at the table -- we ate with Uschi, a German who lives in Amsterdam, Leslie, a Brit who lived most of her life in Surinam, Jenny who was born British but studied and lived in Canada and, like her British-born husband Alan, has spent most of the last decade in Holland. Kieran is Irish-born British-raised and now lives in Alaska where he's become so Americanized he has a favorite pitcher (Mussina) and was agonizing throughout dinner about the fate of the Yanks. (Ok, Kellerman, cut it out: I can HEAR you gloating!)

My point? We were all homeless persons, or at least stateless persons, celebrating what's usually billed as an American holiday. But it's also a harvest holiday -- the celebration of the hard work of gathering coming to an end, the year's work put away in the cellar, and the chances of surviving the coming winter greatly improved. Marth and I can remember from Olive picking in Italy how much can depend on those few weeks in autumn when the crop comes in. Everything -- an entire year's labor -- is riding on those last moments when it can all be lost, when you work from sunup to sundown in a race against the weather, so tired you go to sleep feeling the ladder round in your feet, still picking in your twilight dreams, and hearing the sounds of olives falling all night, until the sun gets you up to do it all again. We got a glimpse of the weight of harvest times of old, and when we reminded ourselves that it was only a year's production of olive oil that stood in the balance, we could only imagine the weight of knowing that it was your survival on the line.

That first Thanksgiving must have been a heck of a party, but I bet there were a lot of tired Pilgrims falling asleep before the pumpkin pie rolled out.

For us, we could be thankful this year for good friends, and for the great good luck of living among people who've lived all over the world and who can still sit down to table across the strangeness of our differences and celebrate the same human experience no matter what national stamp we put on it. We're all just working to survive the winter, to put as much food in the cellar as we can, to outrun death and sorrow, get over the setbacks, and to savor the harvest.

Our thoughts are with all of you today, and especially Mike and Holly.

October 2001:

Doony's First Platform Game...

About a month after Doon turned three came the moment every dad looks forward to in his son's march to manhood. I may have marked the calendar when he took his first step, when he ate his first solid food, when he uttered something that, if you listened to it with your head sideways and repeated fifteen times, just might have been his first word.

But nothing can bring a tear to my eye like the memory of watching Doon slowly grasping the concept of holding down the right arrow and THEN pressing jump.

It happened like this.

By the time Doon was two and half, he was beginning to get the rudiments of mouse movement down. At first I'd position the mouse for him and he'd do the click, ("Diz buhtun?" "yes, THAT button"). Whoosh, the paint brush on the screen would turn Thomas the Tank Engine from coloring-book-blank-white to blue.

That was fun for a while, but pretty soon he just had to be in the driver's seat. At first he wasn't doing any clicking or dragging, but he'd soon gotten past having to look at his hand and was moving the mouse and watching the screen. I was coaching his movements toward an icon, and said: "Almost, now move the mouse *up*!"

His eyes remained glued to the screen while he lifted the mouse into the air *up* off the mouse mat. Well, yep, that IS what I said, but not what I meant.

We downloaded a "Concentration"-like matching game and pretty soon he was swooping the mouse across the screen and every now and then by sheer luck actually clicking something that reacted. Now we're talking. I left him alone with the game one day, to find when I came back that he'd not only mastered the game, he'd figured out the reset button. In an effort to help out, I kept trying to suggest completely wrong moves and talk him out of perfectly good ones, till I accepted that he probably has a better visual memory than I do ("It's just one of those skills that are stronger in pre-literates" I sniffed to Martha).

From there, of course, it was off to the web. We'd been going to various sites for a while with games or cartoons, me doing all the keyboarding and mousing and clicking, Doon just pointing at the screen (and leaving a bright prismatic smudge of droolly scum), but suddenly it was all "Me want to do it."

So I put together a page of his favourite sites with nice big pictures to navigate, and in that age old ritual passed on from Father to son, stayed up late one night learning how to hack my browser's interface so that I could add a lovingly crafted custom button for my boy, a nice big "D" for Doony's Links. (Someday, years from now, I'll drag out an old screenshot and he'll punch my shoulder and say, hey, Dad, remember when you made that? My first personalized icon).

He was off. "Wanna go...there!" he'd hover his mouse in indecision, then expertly zoom in and click as if he'd been doing it since he was three.

Mostly we were going to the same old places we'd been when I was navigating, but now he was behind the mousewheel. I was beginning to suffer a bit from the repetitions of the Pooh Balloon game, the Dora the Explorer in the spooky forest, Blues Clues Musical Instruments, and TeleTubby hide-and-seek.

But before long, he was going places I hadn't set up in advance. And that's how he found the Buzz Lightyear platform game. "Whatzz dis?" "This is a *platform* game.

Your Uncle Paddy in Italy is a veteran of some of the best of these, and someday maybe he'll tell you the story of how he found Kuribo's shoe in Super Mario Brothers 3"

"Game?"

"Yep. Look. This key makes Buzz run this way... and this key makes Buzz run this way... and this key makes him jump."

"JUMP!"

He didn't care about collecting points, he didn't care about clearing obstacles. He just wanted to jump. So we rearranged the chairs, I took the right hand side of the keyboard with the arrow keys, Doony took the Left Shift button for the jump. We each did a quick simultaneous stretch and knuckle crack, and hit the play button. I ran right and told Doony when to JUMP! which he basically was doing all the time, leading to some tense moments when we needed to have our feet on the ground. I found myself barking a little bit with the intensity of the moment, bit my lip, and looked to see if he was going to go into his sad pout and run for the corner, but he was all focus -- he understood we were fighting for our three lives (plus an additional life if we captured two badges) and old dad was just a little less than cool in combat. We ran, we got hit by deadly bouncing balls, we didn't get further than a few screens before we were wiped out. But we got up again, we got farther, and then we found... the battery.

"Whutz daht?"

"I don't know. JUMP!"

And as Doony executed a perfect jump and Buzz's arc landed him square on the battery, the "Laser Activated" light came on.

"Whutz daht?"

"Laser. For blasting obstacles. See that ball? Hit this key here."

And as Doony's hand slapped down on the spacebar, Buzz crouched, pointed one arm at the oncoming lethal globe and with his other hand activated the laser in his space suit. A double red pulse of light streaked out in front of him and knocked the obstacle out of his way. Doon's face lit up in a giant laughing smile as he proceeded to just keep slapping that spacebar to watch the laser fire.

We kept going. We kept falling into the same darn hole again and again after that, Doony now so into firing the laser that he'd get confused and fire rather than jump whenever the gap was coming at us. I broke a sweat when suddenly we found ourselves clear of the obstacle with two Buzz lives left, a fully charged laser, and, suddenly, gleaming there in front of us, impossibly beautiful, the exit to the next layer. "Jump, Doony, Jump!" I screamed, forgetting all voice control as we teamed up to make Buzz fly from his high platform, bounce once to a lower, and then, smooooooooth, rightinto the exit panel.

The moment's mental sound-track was the crescendo of 'Thus Spake Zarathustra', the camera of memory zooming in for a close up, slowmo, of Doon's three year old hand going up and slapping against mine in our victory high five. He was jumping up and and down yelling "again! again!"

You might be wondering about a possible ethical conflict I might be feeling about Doony exploring ritualized violence at this age, and with the world doing what it's doing right now? Strangely, some of the most peaceable people I've ever met have been known to stay up into the wee hours playing Duke Nukem or similar mayhem scenarios. I hope this little world of toy lasers and bonus lives is as close as Doon will ever have to get to real combat --and would that it were so for everybody sleeping tonight in fear.

--Brian

September 2001:

Doon's third Birthday was a great event. We went camping with the neighbors way up in the North of the Netherlands, at a farm near the sea. Doon's first night in a tent, and his first Dutch Birthday party. Lots of fun! Birthday pix here.

SUMMERTIME!!!!!!!!!!

Doon is back in Amsterdam now but he had a grrrrrrreat time this summer. He's having fun with Charlie and his other friends here, but he asks about and misses Grandma and Uncle Jim and Molly and Max and the Three Ks and Julia. Yesterday he thought he saw Christina walking by the house and yelled for Mom to come see.

There's no sandbar here -- but we've taken him swimming at two local pools to try and keep his love of the water alive. And there's no Roseland Waterpark but there's a nearby outdoor wading pool with a very cool octopus slide. Roseland was the big hit of the summer. When I was putting together the webpage Doony was looking at pictures from the two days he spent there and he wanted to "go back now pwease pwease pwease." It was about ten o'clock at night, and I had to remind him that Roseland, like everything else from the summer, was "two cars and two planes way way far away."

You can see summer pics here.

May 2001: The Haircut

Martha writes: oh my god. my baby isn't a baby anymore. I just cut his hair. what a cutie. He looks like a little man now....with a bad haircut, instead of my fluffy puppy. I'm near to tears. He's growing too fast. and to top it off he has his father's extremely straight hair so it is impossible to cut. every line shows. No more curls on his neck. I'm going to pout all day....all month maybe.

Brian writes: Every day a new milestone. Doon's bedtime story begins "Once upon a time, in the hundred acre woods, there lived a little bear named Pooh, and his best friend Tigger. Every Thursday, Pooh and Tigger would take a nice long walk. On this par-ti-cu-lar Thursday, Pooh said to Tigger..." Doon says the bits in green. Sometimes it's a Pooh story, sometimes it's a Buzz Lightyear story, sometimes it's some other character that's on his mind. But the adventure is always something about Doon's day, which he picks out before hand: Pooh and Tigger riding their bicylces to the playground and going 'round round round', Buzz Lightyear taking a Thomas Train to visit a Very Big Boat, Tigger riding on Daddy's bicylce into town to get a Pokemon ball.

The haircut, despite its heavy significance to his mom and dad, looks great.

Queen's Day 2001

Steve Kellerman writes: WHAT?!?!? Whoooooaaaaa, this is BIG...REAL BIG!!!! Hey, are they, er... I mean, Hey Mimmy & Lizzy, R U-2 headin' over for Queen's Day??? DAMN STRAIGHT, I'm jealous...infact, I'm so jealous I've even forgot about how pissed I am about that Stinky Stanky game yesterday!!! Marph, I want pix!!!! Bri, I want "Confidentials"!!!! Timmy, I wanna swizzle in every beer you order!!!!! ( I promise not to chug!!!) Seriously tho, that's great...y'all are gonna have a blast...and yes, please,pleeze,PAH-LEEZE...SWIZZLE ME TILL THE COWS COME HOME!!!!!!!!

OK, Swizzle-man: See the work in progress Queens Day 2001 Page

Easter 2001