Lola's School Picture Day

The sad truth about Lola's mom is that she has no idea what to do with wavy hair. Here's Lola with typically disheveled locks on the morning of her school's picture day. (Thanks for the dress, Cousin Brooke!) When I admitted defeat by hair to the helper who took Lola to her class, she told me that she had baby hair products that she could use for the picture. Meanwhile, curly-haired Dad had finally bowed to the regime of product and gone to the store to buy Lola some one-step shampoo-and-conditioner. With typical straight-haired savvy, I said to him later that day, "Do you think we could buy Lola some de-tangler or something?" Way to pick up the dropped ball, Dad!--K

Lola's Halloween Costume

Lola was determined to purchase this skunk costume for Halloween, even though there was a bright red dragon costume that I thought she would like better. After we decided to buy the costume, we went home and and I introduced her to Pepe Le Pew cartoons on youtube. It was a wonderful sharing time for mother and daughter.--K

A Sad Discovery: Our House Smells Better

We had a new furnace installed to replace the good old 1976 version. The 1976 wasn't inherently stinky (we hope), but it had an air uptake system that used a lot of air from the basement. Those of you who have seen our basement will be appropriately horrified. The new system does not get its air from the basement, and Josh and I immediately noticed that our house smells fabulously fresh. Apologies to Rosslyn, Brandon, Brooke, Dustin and Cindy, all of whom recently visited, for our dour old furnace! We will have to package up some of our new house-air and send it to you in the mail.--K

First Ever Parent-Teacher Conference

Let's hope future conferences are also for happy reasons! We are going to meet with Lola's teacher and the director of the school to discuss advancing her into the next "grade" (to Primary from Toddler II). Josh guesses that it must be obvious that she's a little bored by the current routine. They don't have many books in the room compared to the number we have at home, and a lot of the "work projects" that they have are designed for ages 18 months to 3 years. Lola has already mastered a lot of the manual skills involved (in pouring or stacking, for instance), so she would probably benefit from moving to a room in which the ages range from 3 to 6. Most boastworthy feature of this event: we were caught by surprise when her teacher suggested it, so now I feel like we should be congratulated for being mellow, non-pushy parents. At least for this once!--K

Gustav Passes, and We Go On

Here we are with Aunt Cindy and Uncle Dustin, hoping that Hurricane Gustav would pass safely by New Orleans. Cindy and Dustin were in Atlanta with their three cats. We were glad to see them, although we wish it had been under better circumstances.



This is the Brake Pad, a cool restaurant where Lola got to look at trains and airplanes while she ate chicken fingers.



Here, Lola relaxes in her bedroom with a million stuffed friends.