The Chart Pays Off

Dear Laney,

You're on Spring Break this week; I guess you and your classmates needed a vacation from the academic rigor of singing, "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" They should call it what it really is - a mental health break for your teacher.

I've been trying to think of activities for us to do every day. You earned enough stickers on your chart for a trip to the playground, so this morning, we all went to the park in Frenchtown. It was your brother's first ride in a stroller, which, like everything else, he thought was fine.

I was talking to your grandfather Philip a few weeks ago, and he said, "Hagen reminds me of that old joke about the 6 year-old boy who had never spoken, until one morning he said, 'These eggs are terrible. Fix me something else!' And his mother cried, 'It's a miracle! What made you finally decide to talk?' And the boy said, 'Well, everything's been pretty much okay 'til now."

I took along some cute bunny glasses, because I thought this might be another opportunity for me to grab an Easter picture. You hopped for me exactly once...

and then said, "Don't want to hop in da bunny glasses. Just want to ROAR."

I'm still practicing some of the things I learned in my photography class. Today, I thought I'd work on adjusting my shutter speed. I let you keep throwing rocks into the pond while I tried various settings. I thought I wasn't getting it, but now on a bigger screen, I see that the brown blotch on the left side of the picture is the rock you were throwing, and I knew what I was doing after all.

Your dad has described my recent photography habit as being, "out of control," but this is coming from a man who has stocked our basement with umpteen thousand dollars' worth of gear from REI. Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. You're black.

Besides, I've yet to hear one of the grandparents say, "For the love of Pete, can you stop taking pictures of those young'uns!?!" When that happens, I'll know I've gone round the bend.

Love,

Mom