Unfiltered

Hey y'all - 

Every once in a while, I remember that I have a phone with pictures on it...pictures like these that are a pretty good representation of our day-to-day life:

1) You guys are great buddies, even when Hagen is forced to cuddle against his will. He attends Laney's mandatory dance classes and her mandatory school lessons and her mandatory screenings of "Scooby Doo." Every once in a while, he'll push her away and say, "No, Yaynee!" Then we let him have a time out, not because he's in trouble, but because we understand he might enjoy some silence.

2) "This is a picture of me and Hagen and we're surprising you with a card and you're so excited and surprised, you have to cover your mouth."

3) So, here's everything that's wrong with your parents in one story:

When we moved into this house, we discovered that the freezer didn't freeze. We put a deep-freeze in the garage and treated the fridge's freezer like a fancy beer cooler and made do. Then, your dad called me while I was out running errands a few weeks ago and said, "You should stop by Home Depot! They have fridges on crazy clearance and we can get one for 70% off!" I asked your dad how wide the fridge could be. "36 inches." Now, your dad is the smartest dude I know, so I don't bother to ask him silly follow-up questions like, "36 inches? Are you sure?" Instead, I went to Home Depot and bought a fridge that was 36" wide and sent your dad to fetch it.

He came home with the fridge, and we realized that while he had measured from wall to wall, he hadn't taken into account the 2" of overhanging wood trim. This is when more reasonable people would have said, "That trim is really nice and the fridge is obviously a little too wide, and we should take it back." But we are not reasonable people. We are the kind of people who go into the garage and come back with a saw and start whacking off trim. We are also not the kind of people who cover the area surrounding our working power tools, because we are the kind of people who like the taste of sawdust in our coffee. Apparently.

When your dad was done removing the trim, he was just able to squeeeak the fridge into its new home. But since it was next to a wall, the door would only open at around a 43 degree angle.  I lived with this for a week before it made me near-homicidal.

So your dad and Hagen got to ciphering and decided that the only solution (besides going back in time and returning the fridge to the store) would be to remove the lower kitchen cabinet and instead make two teensy 7" wide cabinets, one for each side of the fridge.

So that's what they did.

Even Hagen thought the whole thing was nuts. Get used to it, kid. We're Team Burbach, and when we make a mistake, we don't walk away from the table; we double down. 

4) Laney had the only bike in the elementary school bike rack that still had its training wheels on, so she asked her dad to take them off. She got ready for her first grown-up ride by putting on a dress, sparkle shoes and plastic pearls. he helped her down to the end of the street and back. She cried. It hasn't been attempted since. 

5) For years, my grandmother Granny Jack has been sending y'all an envelope every week with stickers and two dollars - one for Laney and one for Hagen. And for years, Laney has been pocketing Hagen's dollar. Granny Jack has started sending separate stickers for Hagen, which he seems to appreciate. He still hasn't seen a dollar, though Laney tells him one day they'll buy something nice...together.

6) Papa John's Pizza has a flash-based website where you can design your own pizza, dropping pictures of pepperoni or pineapple onto your virtual pizza. Then, they will deliver the pizza to the address you have on file, charging it to your saved credit card number. It's so easy, a five year old could do it. Let's not discuss how I know that.

7) Your dad and I competed in a scavenger hunt a few weekends ago with another Navy family we love. We raced around town in funny hats. We won, because the weird, competitive hard-headedness that leads people to destroy and rebuild their kitchen in the name of a clearance refrigerator is the same kind of can't-fail spirit that wins scavenger hunts.

8) We finally found something Hagen thinks is not cool: when his dad steals one of his french fries.

9) When Laney was in preschool, there was almost nothing we needed to do or remember - get her to school mostly dressed, and the school fed her lunch and snacks and kept up with her gloves and hats and scarves and every day was like the others. Not so with elementary school; we almost need an intern around here to keep up with special dress-up days and show and tell days and days when the school gets out early or late. If she earns enough "Bobcat Bucks" for being safe, responsible, kind, and respectful, she gets to wear her pajamas to school.

There was a "Red Ribbon" week, encouraging kids to say no to drugs (Laney: "What are drugs?" Me: Sigh...) and kids had to dress up in a different theme every day. This was Crazy Hair and Socks Day, where we went for a sort of  Pat Benetar-meets-Punky Brewster look:

...and that's your behind-the-scenes look at the last few weeks at our house. 

Love,

Mom