Link of the Day: A Restaurant in Santa Fe. I found Kate's URL in my referrer logs, which of course shows she has excellent taste for someone so young. (I felt like a withered crone when I realized that I was between my junior and senior year in college the summer she was born. Ack.) Kate observes her family and herself with an unflinching eye. Her birthday entry from July 9 is particularly poignant.

Watching: Another hour of Touching Evil. I'm hooked on this miniseries. Robson Green is compelling as David Creegan, the brilliant but flawed serial crimes investigator. Background courtesy of
Ace of Space

Family Resemblances

When I look at my boys sometimes it is like looking at Tab in miniature. They have most of the same facial features, the same body type, even the same way of cocking their heads to the side. Daniel and Matthew, in particular, bear a striking resemblance to photographs of Tab when he was little. According to my mother-in-law, the resemblance goes beyond physical appearance. In fact she attributes everything about the boys to someone in either her or Tab's father's family. Her continued co-opting of every one of my sons' facial features and characteristics sometimes exasperates me.

Stephanie stopped by unexpectedly this weekend, as she often does. It was just after dinner, and she helped me dry and dress the twins after their bath, while Tab was bathing Daniel. Combing Stephen's hair, she told him, "Oh, you look exactly like my brother Stanley."

Now, as I've said, I admit that the boys do take after Tab. Stephen, Matthew's twin, is the only one of my sons who bears even a slight resemblance to me beyond that of hair color. Stephen has round eyes that crinkle into a smile when he's happy, much as my eyes do, whereas Tab, Daniel, and Matthew have smaller, Harrison Ford-like hooded eyes. Stephen's eyes are just about the only indication that I provided any genetic material at all to my sons. That and the space between his top two teeth that I also have and that runs in my mother's side of the family.

So when Stephanie crooned to Stephen, "You just look just like my brother Stanley: you have big, round eyes, just like him," I finally snapped and said to her, "A lot of the kids in my family have eyes just like that. In fact, Stephen looks exactly my nephew Isaac." Actually, Isaac doesn't look that much like Stephen, but I thought I would beat her at her own game. After all, a first cousin is a closer relation than a great uncle, isn't it?

Stephanie didn't get it, of course. In another week or so I'll be hearing (again) that Stephen inherited the space between his teeth from Stephanie's mother's brothers who had teeth "just like that."

Conversation in the Car

On the way to pick up Tab yesterday, Daniel was closing his eyes and trying to rest, Stephen was being uncharacteristically quiet, and Matthew was singing the African chant from the beginning of The Lion King.

"Stop it, Matthew," Daniel said. "I'm trying to sleep."

"Daniel, you're a cranky guy," Matthew answered.

"I'm not cranky, you are!" yelled Daniel

"No you're the cranky guy."

"OK, Matthew, you're not allowed in my room for ten days!"

"Mama, is Daniel a cranky guy?"

I sighed. "I'm going to be cranky if the two of you keep it up."

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