A thin layer of drywall dust

There is a thin layer of drywall dust in this house. There is a thin layer of drywall dust on the kitchen counters even though the kitchen is a full floor away from where the drywall is happening. There is a thin layer of drywall dust in our linen closet even with a tightly closed door. There is probably a thin layer of drywall dust up on the roof of the house. There is a thin layer of drywall dust on my soul.

Most impossibly, there is a thin layer of drywall dust in the TV room even though Natani, the crazy desert dog, is always running around in there like a goddamn maniac so makes the settling of dust very difficult. She excels at constant breeze-making.

I think my dog broke.

She sleeps like this sometimes.
She is one crazy goddamn dog.

If it sounds like I'm complaining about the drywall dust, rest assured it is the opposite. This is my happiest of places, fixing up spaces very much in need of fixing up. If I had all the money in the world, I would buy all the houses and fix up all the rooms. I would live with a perpetual thin layer of drywall dust on my clothing and in between my teeth but I would happily show it off by twirling in circles to watch it fly and smiling with a wide open mouth.

Banister Abbey is a labor of love and six years in, we are still laboring. Most of the big decisions have been made for the master bath project and it's going to be a beauty. I am happy with the direction it is taking -- even happier I found a general contractor who doesn't mind I'm sitting on a stool next to him munching popcorn in anticipation while watching the spreading of mortar and the installation of waterproof membranes. It's a vision coming to life before my eyes, with perhaps a few unplanned popcorn kernels embedded in the grout.

I'm going to call my contractor "Peter Gabriel" because I'm listening to one of my favorite Peter Gabriel songs on KEXP right now. He's a keeper, that Peter Gabriel contractor. I've worked with many and he's the only one I would invite to Christmas dinner with my family -- and he would probably get most of the presents under the tree. He is a gentle soul with a keen eye for detail and an impeccable ability to keep it all moving along cheerfully no matter how complicated the project.

The only issue I have with Peter Gabriel is he smiles all the time. He may be delivering bad news but he's smiling and cheerful so at first I'm not sure what's going on. Wait... the electrical inspector won't approve the light fixture I love so much, the one I based the entire bathroom design around, because it's not 500 miles away from the nearest water source? That's bad news, right? But you're smiling so widely, is that actually happy news? I never know when he approaches me smiling if he's about to make my day, break my heart, or just ask me the time.

I am now fixating on the third floor bathroom. We're adding one for guests who stay up there so they don't have to walk through the kids' rooms to access a toilet in the middle of the night. It used to be that, at whatever time, guests had to walk down these steep stairs where my favorite print hangs, the dapper dudes dueling with Nintendo guns --

-- and choose which kid to wake up to use the jack-n-jill bathroom between their rooms --

Choose your door wisely.

Choosing the door means means choosing the kid

who scowls at you the next morning over breakfast

and loves you slightly less.

Third floor needed at least a toilet and a sink. The only option was the long skinny closet that houses the furnace. We can't move the furnace and can't block or cover it for air circulation purposes. We're putting a toilet in there anyway.

That's the furnace lurking

inside the bathroom/closet.

I'm considering embracing the industrial aspect of the space and making it a furnace themed bathroom. Everything gray and white, toilet made out of pipes, super hot at all times. Peter Gabriel Contractor joked he'll bring old sections of pipe and we can suspend them from the ceiling with fishing wire. Anything goes in a furnace bathroom.

I'll finish this post with some Bobo. Bobo the bearded dragon is slowing down. He's lived a happy 12 years, 4 of them with us (still Lucien's favorite birthday present ever and a happy memory, especially the escaped crickets) and that's getting close to all you can expect from a pet beardie. He doesn't move very fast anymore, and sometimes misses the dinner crickets hopping around his tank. He can't climb all the way up his log anymore either, instead sleeps like this, with his little dangly arms down at his sides --

We often assume he's died during the night when we wake up and he looks like this. We approach his tank reverently, holding hands and speaking in hushed voices. As we all cluster around, staring down at him with affection and beginning our eulogies, he wakes with a start and his eyes get super wide and he's like, "GAH!"

And then we're like, "GAH!"
And he's like "OMG!"

And we're like, "YOU'RE ALIVE!"
And he's like, "OF COURSE I AM."

Then we feel happy and walk away as Bobo's eyes go back to normal size and his body relaxes a bit. You can tell he's thinking, "Jesus, there's something wrong with these people."

Sorry, dude. Live on, majestic lizard. 

Insult to injury,
there is also a thin layer of drywall dust on Bobo.
MJ

We live!

I didn't intend to take the summer off from the blog but I seem to be doing exactly that.  I don't have any good excuses for doing so.  I haven't jetted off to some remote vacation locale nor have I become Supermom and spent every precious summer moment doing arts and crafts with my kids.  Trust it, I have not come close to doing either of those things.

No, there's just something about this summer that's made me lose the desire to do anything. Part of the issue is our relaxed summer schedule, up an hour later than usual and moseying to the car instead of sprinting because who the hell cares if the kids are late to summer camp.

Part of it is the ever-changing nature of that same relaxed summer schedule.  Every week looks different; there are no more constants. I'm a creature who craves predictability so the shifting schedule has given me an off-balance paranoid vibe. I stare at my calendar often and give myself pep talks. I know I'm about to let something fall through the ever changing cracks and I'm rarely wrong -- so far we've missed speech therapy twice, t-ball practice once, drove to the wrong camp once and left lunches in the fridge at home dozens of times.

The other issue is our new back deck.  I install myself out there in the shade of the morning with a cup of coffee.  My intent is to read the newspaper then stand back up and go about my day.  But once the sun peeks up over the top of the house, it begins to bake me to an uncomfortable degree and I go limpy, newspaper discarded, arms dangling off the sides of the chair, sweat pooling in various places on my body. The sun saps me of energy and strength.  It's a good thing I live in Seattle and only have to deal with that damn thing a handful of months out of the year.

Coco is playing t-ball now.  Four-year-olds playing t-ball is an exercise in confusion and chaos coupled with unbridled joy and random enthusiasm. Parents must be stationed at all bases and must constantly wave their arms and direct the children where to run; otherwise the vast majority skip first base entirely and charge straight ahead to second or what the hell, some direction where there is no base at all.

there are three kids on first base and no one can explain why

My personal favorite is when our entire team runs after a ball hit by the other team and fights over it in a writhing wrestling heap in the middle of the field.  The victor eventually holds the ball high over his/her head with a beaming face, yells, "Look! I got it!"  then inexplicably walks over and hands the ball to the nearest grown-up.  Meanwhile the other team is lapping the bases, usually out of order.

Four-year-old t-ball is a good show all day long yet we parents dread the practices and games.  I can't explain that.

Lucien and Coco both took swimming lessons this summer.  We enrolled in lessons with "The Swim Whisperer," a woman who holds small lessons in private residential pools around the city.  She's a treasure but takes no prisoners.  One kid in Coco's class refused to get in the pool so The Swim Whisperer walked over and just chucked him in.  The message was clear -- The Swim Whisperer doesn't f*ck around.

Good luck my darling

The biggest news of the summer is my sister got married.  Actually she was already married -- that happened months ago in the shotgun chapel saloon girl costume incident -- but this was the official version with friends and family.  I was her "special person" (best I can tell, that's Seattle lesbian wedding code for Maid of Honor) and therefore I had many important duties such as picking up the "gaybies" the morning of the ceremony.  I didn't know what a gaybie was but I was happy to be of assistance.

These are adorable gaybies being rapidly consumed by children  

(They're rainbow-colored mini cupcakes and they're delicious)

It was a beautiful ceremony by the lake.  Raba and Zee are so happy.  We love them both and we love them together.  There can be no other way.

Raba and Zee's joy is palpable; it radiated throughout their wedding, rippled through their guests, and touched us all right in the hearts.  Except for Lucien, that is, because he was too busy.  Unbeknownst to me, Lucien stood behind me -- ME!  THE SPECIAL PERSON! -- at the ceremony and did stuff like this --

 

Oh my God, this child

Lucien read his quote from Maya Angelou at the ceremony with perfect speed, diction and projection.  He was also 100% himself as usual.  Bravo all around, son, you're an original and a keeper even if you gave me these permanent circles under my eyes.

Here's a picture of one of our more disastrous happenings this summer --

(don't worry, he lives...)

We put Bobo the Bearded Dragon on a leash and took him outside for a walk.  We thought he would enjoy soaking up the hot sun rays because his previous owners assured us he did indeed enjoy this but he didn't appear to enjoy himself at all.  He froze. If anyone came near him, or made a noise, or a breeze blew across his back, he puffed his beard and emitted a low steady hissing sound.  Our docile little animal had gone native and we were terrified of the little f*cker for a minute there.

I moved very slowly towards the end of the leash, planning to gently lead him back inside where I could put him back in his tank and mark the outing a colossal failure.  Bobo had his own plan, though.  He wasn't going back inside.  He was going to escape from the bastards who tied a piece of string attached to a leather harness around him, which by the way made him look like a lizard who enjoys light bondage.

The second I pulled on the leash to lead him inside, he bolted in the opposite direction towards the street.  He struggled so valiantly against the leash he managed to wiggle his legs out of the leather harness. I watched the harness slip down his body and thought, "Holy hell, if he wiggles all the way out of the thing he's going to make a run for it and when I go after him he's going to bite me."  I panicked and pulled the leash tighter which resulted in the harness portion tightening around Bobo's back legs and tripping him.  He fell on his lizard face.

A few tense moments later, I had a dazed and confused Bobo in my arms and was running him up the stairs.  I dumped him back into the safety of his tank.  Lucien and I took a few deep breaths and looked at each other with wide eyes.  It's unlikely we'll ever take Bobo into the great outdoors again.

Coco has the best view at the Bite of Seattle

Our friends who live in Sweden visited this summer.  They came over for a "quick dinner" because that's all their busy visiting schedule allowed. Our "quick dinner" turned into a very long dinner with a lot of wine and ultimately led to this --

-- inflating bright blue air mattresses on the stair landing and finding clean sheets for the guest room for our friends and their three sons at 11:30 pm.  At this point the kids were maniacally hyper overtired and the adults were even worse behaved.  Impromptu sleepovers are the best; they're the kinds of events where you stumble into your kitchen the morning after, survey the wreckage of plates caked with food and warm glasses of beer still on the table and say sleepily, "Whoa..."  followed by high fives and "Thank God we're still fun."

Then you brew strong coffee and fry up some bacon and eggs before saying goodbye for what will likely be a very long stretch of time.  No matter, we'll still be good friends on the flipside.

As an aside -- all three of those little Swedish boys speak fluent English.  Our friends said that in Sweden, if a child has a parent that speaks another language they have a right to a private language tutor.  Their kids get private English lessons because their dad is a Seattle native, courtesy of the Swedish government.  Damn it, Sweden, why must you do everything so awesome?

Our Swedish friends emailed us upon returning to Sweden and said their middle son has been talking a lot about Lucien.  He said, "Lucien is so lucky.  He has three pets:  a dog, a bird, and a dinosaur."  I didn't mention in my response the "dinosaur" may enjoy light bondage and may hate my guts at the moment.

We had some friends over for dinner on the deck for Alex's birthday.  Alex made it clear he didn't want a birthday cake because he's low-carb these days.  He instead requested a cheese plate for dessert.  Like we used to do in Paris.  I stuck a candle in a delicious French blue and we called it a day.

birthday cheese plate: a new tradition or something dumb that should never be repeated?

I'll be back here before school starts to post some more happenings of the summer.  Unless I don't get around to it.  Thanks to those who emailed to make sure we were OK --that's a glaring sign you've let your blog go a bit, isn't it -- we're all alive and well, just lazy and confused.

I just know I'm supposed to be somewhere right now.
MJ

Happy Birthday to me

Spring is arriving in Seattle and we're excited to spend some time on our new back deck. When we first moved into the house, the back deck was a rickety little thing made of plywood that moved back and forth and up and down when you walked on it. 

Exciting but not inviting

We tore down Danger Deck and started over.  Now we're looking more like this --

 it's not finished but at least we're not scared of it

Yesterday was a gorgeous day and an exciting one because our new outdoor dining set was to be delivered.  It arrived while I was running the kids to school.  I was less enthusiastic about the delivery when I returned home and found this mess on the front porch --

It was not a box. It was a very loose interpretation of a box.

The carnage was so bad, the furniture had begun unpacking itself in a desperate attempt to flee the structural collapse of its home.  I pulled the pieces out slowly, assuming damage.  And of course they were damaged.  I think it's fairly obvious this deliveryman hates his job.

So we still don't have an outdoor dining set, just an email sent to customer service filled with impotent rage and a ton of cardboard clogging the entryway.  The good news is the kids love playing on it and we've begun referring to it affectionately as "Mount Mangle."

So I turned 39 over the weekend.  It was one of my better birthdays because it began in total silence.  Alex woke up long before me and took the kids out all morning.  I slept in, drank coffee in my bathrobe and read my Facebook birthday greetings.  Sometimes Alex gets it just right.

Things got exciting later that day when we all clustered around Bobo the bearded dragon's tank and stared at him with concern.  Lucien was convinced Bobo was dying and it didn't seem an overreaction -- Bobo hadn't moved in four days, hadn't eaten in two, hadn't pooed in over six weeks.  It was an alarming combo and drove me to the internet where I deduced Bobo was suffering from "impaction."  In blunt terms, Bobo the bearded dragon was hella constipated.

Impaction can kill a bearded dragon.  Lucien was growing frantic, there wasn't a moment to lose. "Bobo, you ain't dying on my birthday," I said, and strapped on the latex gloves. 

The internet told me the best home remedy for bearded dragon impaction was a warm bath with accompanying abdominal massage. Bobo flattened his body in the bath and closed his eyes.  I wrapped my hands around his scaly little body and massaged what I assumed to be his abdomen. I guess I did something right because half an hour later BLAMMO, Bobo sh*t all over the place.

 Thanks, lady, and happy birthday

and you might want to bleach the bathtub

A group of friends met us later for my birthday dinner.  Look, I got a plant!

The strange thing about dinner was our server kept bringing us more bread even though we hadn't finished our other bread.  We finally had to shake him by his slight shoulders, smack him around a little -- "No more bread, man, you've gone mad!"

 it's too much bread

bread

bread

bread

must give more bread

After our dinner we walked to Neumos where Dum Dum Girls were playing.  As I've mentioned, I have an intense love for live music.  It feeds my soul.  My friends do not all share this fervent love but they still agreed (enthusiastically, even!) to stay up way past their bedtimes and go with me to see a band they'd never heard of.  I love them for that.

 

Dum Dum Girls played a good show.  The men enjoyed it, especially, because the lead singer wore a sheer shirt with nothing but pasties for coverage.  She can wear whatever she wants, she's a badass in a girl band, but it may have been too distracting.  Afterward Alex asked, "Wait...did they play music?"

Alex stepped outside for a cigar midway through the show.  He struck up a conversation with a guy in the band that played earlier.  The band guy told Alex his shoes were rad and asked where he got them.  Al is still glowing from that one and occasionally puffs out his chest, pounds it, and yells, "I STILL GOT IT I'M STILL COOL" at various times throughout the day.   

It was a late night but worth it

because we got to hang out with this Macklemore-ish guy wearing a white fur coat

 

Anne, Angelo, Anna, Kristin, Alex, Kate, Eden, Rhonda, Matt, Raba and Zee -- thanks to you, I turned 39 just right, and don't wish to be in any other place or at any other age.

MJ

Spaghetti Tail

Super Bowl Sunday began with a morning visit to the grocery store.  I needed to buy a bag of Doritos because I'd already eaten the bag of Doritos I'd purchased two days earlier to avoid a day-of-game trip to the grocery store.  I'm pretty good at planning ahead but also pretty good at sabotaging my own planning.

It was a good idea to try to avoid the grocery store on Super Bowl Sunday.  It was crowded with people jostling to buy ingredients for guacamole and spicy chicken wings.  The fun part was seeing everyone decked out in the unofficial Seattle uniform for the day.  I've never seen the grocery store so color-coordinated.

Our friends came over and we did a little shadow boxing, some stretches, got pumped.  And then, in what has since been called "the most boring Super Bowl ever," the Seahawks pummeled the Broncos 43-8.  Our ragtag band of fifth-round draft picks, a yoga-loving coach who'd been fired by another NFL team and a "tiny" quarterback proved all the doubters wrong.

We're the Bad News Bears of football

The city held a Seahawks victory parade yesterday to celebrate our very first Super Bowl win.  Over 700,000 people showed up which, when you consider only 600,000 people live within the city limits of Seattle, is a very impressive number.

People skipped out on all other commitments to be there and many parents, including me, called schools to report their kids were sick -- let's call it "Seahawk Fever" -- and wouldn't make it to school that day.  Lucien's school later decided all absences due to Seahawk Fever would be excused because it was evident by the number of absences this was a very important event for the community.  Some moments in a city's history are so epic and unifying, it feels necessary to put other things on hold for a minute to be a part of them.

It was a sub-freezing day so Lucien and I put on all the clothes we own and waddled downtown with some friends.  Our group wasn't alone; streams of people walked alongside us and once they got downtown stood 50-60 people deep at every intersection, cheering, stomping, laughing.  The steep hills of downtown came in handy and acted as bleachers, giving the people in the 60th row a birds-eye view of the action below.

It was a loud and proud giant frigid football party

There was a palpable sense of joy radiating from 699,999 spectators.  The one person not feeling the love was Lucien because after an hour and a half of waiting, he could no longer feel his fingers.  I took my miserable and tear-stained son into the library to warm up.  As I pulled him through the crowd to the library doors, he yelled, "Why are you torturing me like this?  I don't want to be here, I WISH I WAS IN SCHOOL!" to which all other kids within earshot gasped audibly.

 The Loosh is not convinced this is a good time 

Lucien and I lucked out; while waiting in the library, we scored prime space at the front window, a head above everybody outside yet toasty warm inside. We even stood next to a couple of women who volunteered to help me lift The Loosh up so he could see even better.  The only downside was none of the spectators crowded inside the library were allowed to cheer because it's a library.  We instead cheered softly into our cupped hands and silently high-fived each other as players rolled by outside in amphibious vehicles and military pick-up trucks.

Here comes the Legion of Boom 

(ridiculous yet truthful nickname for the Seahawks defense)

including my personal favorite, 

the mouthy and brilliant Richard Sherman.

It's not a super important thing, winning the Super Bowl.  It's insignificant in the grand scheme of living.  It's not going to make the world a better place and it's not going to save lives.  But damn, it sure was fun. 

Coco has become very attached to one of her preschool teachers.  If you ask Coco who her favorite person in the world is, she won't name me.  It's that damn Teacher Heather.

Coco wanted to buy a Valentine's Day card for Teacher Heather so we went looking for one at the store.  She immediately picked out a pretty card with a bright red glittery heart on the front.  I agreed it was beautiful and opened it to read the inscription, which unfortunately said, "Oh my darling, the time the two of us spend together, just the two of us, away from the rest of the world, are the most cherished moments of my life."

I then attempted to explain to my excited, shiny-faced daughter clutching her "pretty card" that perhaps it wasn't the most... platonic... card to give a preschool teacher.  Coco stuck her lip out and clutched the card harder, resulting in a tense tug-a-war between me, Coco, and a glittery card in the middle of a grocery store aisle.  I finally relented, threw the card in the shopping basket and made a mental note to include a mixtape of Barry White slow jams for Teacher Heather.  If we're going in, we're going all in. 

Teacher Heather opened the card at school today.  Coco beamed as Teacher Heather laughed in a whole-bellied kind of way.  Then she grabbed Coco and hugged her so hard, laughter tears still running down her face, and winked at me over Coco's exuberantly happy shoulder.  I'm glad Teacher Heather is in on the joke and doesn't think my daughter is trying to muscle in on her marriage.

As for our pets, Stella's tail feathers are now dyed orange because she dive-bombed the sink when I was doing dishes and landed in a bowl of spaghetti sauce.  I tried to grab her and wash it off but she squawked and gnawed on my hand.  Fine, Stella, go ahead and look ridiculous.

Don't you touch my spaghetti tail

Bobo the bearded dragon got all stressed out recently because I removed the paper covering on one side of his tank.  It was torn and I didn't think it was important so I ripped it off.  What I didn't know at the time is bearded dragons DO NOT LIKE CHANGE -- and they like seeing their own reflections in the glass even less.  In response to my careless action, Bobo's beard turned black and he began "glass surfing," which means he frantically tried to crawl up the sides of his tank but of course failed because glass is too slippery for his little reptile feet.

A few frantic Google searches later -- "My bearded dragon seems upset" did the trick -- I now know "glass surfing" and turning their beards black are common behaviors amongst "beardies" and are signs of stress.

To summarize, my bearded dragon is stressed out and my bird is orange.  At least the dog seems OK, although he seems to be losing his hearing and wears a diaper at night because he's reached the age where he can no longer hold it all night and our floors are paying the price. Other than that, he's fine.

And we won the Super Bowl.
Seattle out,
MJ

Lizard Disco

Lucien just turned eight.  It's a number that makes me say "wow" but not yet a number that freaks me out.  My guess is that will come around 10.

Lucien wanted to take a birthday treat to school to share with his classmates.  His teacher said, due to all the food allergies in the class this year, the only "treat" allowed was fruit.  So I sent him to school with a bag of bananas.  Happy Birthday, son, get buckwild.

I'm confused about my own school days, back when our parents were free to send in piles of gluten-filled gut bombs for classroom birthday celebrations.  Were there fewer allergies when I was a kid?  Or were there a bunch of miserable moaning kids on the ground out in the hallway I just didn't notice? 

I'm not making light of food allergies.  I know kids with severe food allergies; if they come into contact with the wrong thing, it could kill them.  It's scary as hell.  I'm just trying to understand how food allergies got so omnipresent that kids now have to blow out birthday candles stuck into browned pieces of pear.

Lucien has wanted a lizard for a long time. Whenever we went to Petco to get something for one of our other animals, Lucien stood transfixed in front of the lizards.  He especially liked the baby bearded dragons because they would always come check him out, pressing their tiny bearded dragon faces against the glass with their heads cocked to the side.

Then the begging would begin and I'd have to remind him of the cold hard truth -- no way we're getting a bearded dragon, those things can live up to 15 years and that's more of a commitment than I'm willing to make to a lizard.

But lizard fate is funny.  A middle-aged bearded dragon dropped into our laps last week when a woman posted on a local parenting listserve that her son was headed to college in the fall and was leaving behind his beloved pet bearded dragon named Bobo.  She wanted Bobo to go to a good home, preferably a home with a kid who would love Bobo as much as her son had.

We went to meet Bobo the next day after school.  The woman who welcomed us was visibly moved; Lucien reminded her so very much of her son at the age of almost-eight.  There were other people interested in Bobo, too, but the woman and her family discussed and decided to tell them to BUZZ OFF.  As soon as they met, it was obvious Bobo belonged with The Loosh.

When Lucien met Bobo

I wanted Bobo to be a surprise for Lucien on his birthday so had to stall for a week.  I hemmed and hawwed and made up all sorts of reasons why we couldn't get Bobo, at least not yet.  It made Lucien crazy to the brink of disowning me as a mother.  He pulled his hair out and cried, "What?? His eyes are too blinky for your liking?  How is that even a thing!?"

The crisis was solved by telling Lucien he had to "earn" Bobo.  He had to take exclusive care of our other pets for one week to prove he was up to the responsibility of caring for Bobo.  It was a pretty brilliant idea; Lucien stopped pestering me AND I no longer had to clean the bird cage. 

The plan may have backfired on our pets, though.  Lucien was so excited to be working towards Bobo he arose early every morning and completed the entire pet care checklist by 6:00 a.m.  Oscar was groggy and confused as Lucien dragged him outside to go to the bathroom and gave him a bath before dawn.  Stella no doubt grew concerned when the kid with the crazed eyes and shaky excited hands changed her water every five minutes.

On Lucien's birthday, while he was at school eating his celebratory banana, my sister Raba met me at Bobo's house to help carry his 50 gallon tank to my car.  Carrying that tank was similar to carrying a Volkswagen -- as in, you know it's going to be heavy in theory but you have no idea what "heavy" means until you're up under the thing.

Bobo's owner had to jump in and help as we descended the steep and uneven concrete stairs outside her house.  All three of us felt it necessary to holler "Careful! Careful!" every few seconds just in case the other two had suffered sudden mental impairment and were about to go all gangbusters with the thing.

It was slow treacherous going made more exciting by the fact we all decided to wear stylish heeled boots that day.  Not the most practical footwear for what we were doing but dang we looked good doing it.

Raba and I were on our own once we got back to our house but after a pep talk, some stretches and some heeled shoe removal, we successfully installed Bobo in the newly redesigned kid room.  I rushed to finish the room last week because I was concerned about the possible effects of paint fumes on bearded dragons.

Kid room before --

 

Kid and lizard room after --

The look on Lucien's face when he came home from school that day and saw Bobo in the middle of his room was worth all the effort it took to get him there. Even my severely bruised thighs, which had been used several times as a tank resting place until feeling returned to my arms, ached a little less because of all of the happiness.

Bobo is the coolest animal.  He's docile and likes to be picked up and held.  He loves basking under his basking lamp.  He enjoys being outside in the grass in warmer months.

 He also likes piña coladas and getting caught in the rain

We've never had a reptile before so there were some things to get used to.  For instance, as soon as Bobo's basking light turns off (it's on a timer), Bobo immediately flattens himself against the floor and falls into a deep, impenetrable sleep as his body temperature drops.  We thought we'd killed him the first time he did that.

Bobo was fine again the next morning but Oscar the schnauzer was a jittery mess.  He sniffed and pawed and whined all over the kids' room in an attempt to understand what kind of creature had just invaded his territory.  In a spastic fit of nerves, Oscar knocked over Bobo's cricket container.  Dozens of crickets poured out and hopped every which way in joyful freedom.  The Great Cricket Escape of 2014 was unfortunately timed given we were supposed to be in the car headed to school at that very moment.

I screamed for Lucien to help me and he came running.  We grabbed crickets as fast as we could, stuffed them back into their cage and held Oscar at bay with our feet because he was intent on capturing ALL THE CRICKETS NOM NOM NOM with his mouth.  Alex stood in the doorway and laughed until he doubled over. That man's worthless sometimes.

We're pretty sure we got all the crickets back into their cage except the two who hopped under Coco's bed never to be seen again.  God I hope they aren't a male and a female and, if they are, don't find each other irresistibly attractive.

Later that morning, the men working on our house showed up and started messing around with some exterior electrical work.  This involved a few crossed wires and a few tripped fuses.  Bobo's heat lamp was on one of the affected circuits.  When the circuit blew, his lamp turned off so Bobo would flatten himself down and go to sleep.  Then I, worried about the lizard, would re-set the fuse and he'd get back up again.  A few minutes later the circuit would trip again so he would lie down again.  I would run and re-set.  Repeat. 

His first full day of life with us and he was living in some kind of surreal lizard disco.

So Happy Birthday to you, Lucien, our sweet, funny, loud animal-loving boy.  You are a unique individual and a wonderful son and a source of great joy and amusement in our lives.  I never could have imagined all the ways you'd change my life for the better in just eight years. 

 For starters, I never thought I'd see a big lizard in a bed

GO SEAHAWKS!
MJ