The Endless Immensity

cake and a half

Sun, 06 May 2007 13:05:25 GMT

When I get older losing my hair
many years from now
will you still be sending me a valentine
birthday greeting, bottle of wine
If I'd been out till quarter to three
would you lock the door
Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four

You'll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with you

I could be handy mending a fuse
when your light have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings, go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more
Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four

Every summer we can rent a cottage on the
Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck, and Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
stating point of view
indicate precisely what you mean to say
yours sincerely wasting away
Give me your answer fill in a form
mine forever more
Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four

for you

Wed, 02 May 2007 12:41:44 GMT

for just_the_ash, of course

research of the day...

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:13:14 GMT

Here are the two things I'm trying to research between bouts of DDR Mario Mix with C...

1. Yesterday at my gyn appointment, I talked about how I've had more obvious symptoms of my pcos since my LEEP last April. The dr said that I should talk things over with my gp as well because the metabolic / insulin resistant side of things needs to be handled delicately, and any hormonal type solutions are tricky given my Factor V. (I am SUCH an interesting patient!) He did use the M-word with me (Metformin) but suggested I continue my research and see my gp first. It had only occurred to me last week that the reason I was feeling best health-wise during and shortly after my pregnancy was probably that the hormones were putting the pcos in check. I tried using the 9-month diet plan a second time, but we all know that didn't work out! Anyway, information, helpful sites, etc. especially from my fellow pcosers would be appreciated. I'm working on it.

2. Originally we'd planned to have Grandpa build C. a tree house as his main birthday present this year, but C. is now strongly obsessing about castles and knights (King Arthur in particular - he makes me play doomed 2-player games of Shadows Over Camelot with him every day!). This morning I thought perhaps we could find/design plans for a tree house that had a slightly castle-like feel to it (crenelations?). I am looking for websites, pictures, any starting points for that at all.

whedonesque

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 02:42:45 GMT

A nice four-day-weekend is drawing to a close... today is M's birthday, so he took Friday and today off and we've spent the time playing games, reading, going to C's last soccer game, visiting with friends & family, watching Angel season 5, playing more games, etc. I haven't been on the computer a lot.

Tonight is all whedonesque, though, as a visit to the Dark Knight website shows us that the Buffy comic series "Season 8" (all written by Joss) will be hitting the stands starting in two weeks, and the best youtube videos of the evening, for all you browncoats, are here and here. They may be funnier if you are not only a browncoat but also the mother of a young child... in which case, the cast will look hauntingly familiar... Enjoy.

Tampontification!

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 12:59:09 GMT

Women’s shelters in the U.S. go through thousands of tampons and pads monthly, and, while agencies generally assist with everyday necessities such as toilet paper, diapers, and clothing, this most basic need is often overlooked. You and I may take our monthly trips down the feminine care aisle for granted, but, for women in shelters, a box of tampons is five dollars they can’t spare. Here’s some good news: you can help us contribute to rectifying this situation by making a virtual donation here!
For each virtual donation, Seventh Generation will send a pack of organic cotton tampons or chlorine-free pads to a shelter in your state.

DNA Match!

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 16:36:40 GMT

The DNA match came back!

Another step down, two more big ones to go -
US Embassy pre-approval (4-6 weeks)
PGN (6-9 weeks)

So we're looking at the second half of June for travel, but we've all seen already how fast those things change!

This is the week that we can finish assembling our 1-gallon bag and send it down...

I'm giddy again!

meme 1

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 13:07:01 GMT

from queenalia

Please leave a one-word comment that you think best describes me.

It can only be one word.

No more.

Then copy & paste this in your journal so that I may leave a word about you.

they don't teach you this in high school band...

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:03:08 GMT

At YouTube they have more videos by this guy. HOW DOES HE DO THAT? Be glad you don't live close enough to listen as I head upstairs to grab my flute and try this.

Does this surprise anybody?

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:34:38 GMT

It's my color.

BLUE

You give your love and friendship unconditionally. You enjoy long, thoughtful conversations rich in philosophy and spirituality. You are very loyal and intuitive.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

Gaah.

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 03:16:42 GMT

Gaah.

I'm here for a little pre-bed venting. The day went well, really well actually, right up until 4:15 when my husband suffered a new level of sudden, severe head pain and we were so scared by it that I took him into the ER.

We spent something like 4 hours there, first a lot of waiting (it was packed) and then he had a CT scan and a shot of morphine... eventually, when the CT came back clean and the morphine kicked in, they released him. The dr on call thinks cluster headaches, so we'll be calling our regular dr for a follow up this week.

Probably the biggest disruption was that at about 4:14 I was just getting ready to go in the kitchen and cook up a pot of my favorite butternut-and-ham soup for dinner. C and I shared a popsicle given to him by a very nice nurse arouind 7:00, but other than that we had nothing until in desperation we hit the McDonald's drive-thru on the way home at 9:00.

The only thing getting me through this in one piece (well, besides the fact that my husband didn't, in fact, have a stroke) was that C was not only amazingly well-behaved, but that many, many, many people noticed that. We read through half of James and the Giant Peach and colored some coloring sheets they had there, and looked at all the things going on around us. We had an interesting conversation about the shape of shoes as compared to the shape of feet; another about what the ceiling is good for and why most ceilings are so empty.

But I'm so over-tired from the stress and the worry and the not-eating that my eye is twitching. I just had to pop onto the shiny computer for five minutes before bed and try to work a little sanity back into my life. Thank you, one and all, for listening.

Crazy Day

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:44:12 GMT

I can't begin to express how weird the past 24 hours have been, but it will soothe me to try.

Last night, C had soccer practice. We got to the Y about 20 minutes early, as is our custom, because he likes to wander the building and watch swimmers and racquetball games. As we drove around the building to access the main parking lot, we were waved away. There was a car fire in the lot, still being actively attended to by fire fighters and various others. We drove around and around (this particular Y is in the most "downtown"-y area we have around here) and finally parked in a garage one block away.

One block is not such a big deal, except that we normally park in the building's lot and it happened to be about 8 degrees (with nasty winds too) at the time. I didn't have scarves or extra coats, just our normal coats and gloves. We got halfway to the building and C was really scared because he was so cold. Without thinking, I whipped off my coat and wrapped it around him... we made it into the Y just fine but it did take me half of soccer practice to warm back up!

Today, after the thrift store, we tried to stop at Target to refill a prescription. As we drove around the strip mall to access the parking lot, we were waved away. Yup. There was a small welding fire on the roof (it's being remodeled), still being actively attended to by fire fighters and various others. We drove around, parked, and watched for a while, but there seemed to be no hope of being let into the store soon, so we left.

Active fire trucks twice in 18 hours?

After lunch, I was reintroducing C to the joys of YouTube (yes, he loves Emperor Gets a Job, and was watching Sesame Street News Flash with Kermit for the first time) when I heard a funny rustling noise. I thought it was C swinging his legs, but turned my head in time to see a small mouse-y form dart out from under a bookcase, then sneak back under.

Instinctively, we ran into the playroom to see how the mouse escaped. Both of our mice were safely caged... so we're a three-mouse-house. I assume the bitter cold drove the field mouse to seek warmer, yummier housing. C and I had a long Talk about why we can not capture this mouse and put it in the tank with the others or even put it in its own tank. Then I started my search for a catch-and-release mouse trap, which seems to be widely available at all Lowe's but the one in my actual zip code. We'll call around some more tonight.

The phone rang, and it was Lynn from the agency. I'll put more information in a friends-only post...

smaller is better

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:56:14 GMT

I haven't been around much in the past week or two because our formerly quite-buggy computer was venturing into the realms of more-buggy-than-not. We splurged this week and bought a new slimline HP with a flat panel monitor - the tower and monitor together take up less space than the old monitor. So, hooray for technological bliss. We will, in the coming weeks, be slowly taking the information (photos, email addresses, etc - I left it all) off the old clunker and bringing it to the new slimline. In the meantime, anyone who sent me a very cool YouTube movie in the past four months (after our sound card died)... send it now! We can watch it now! Yahoo!

Happy Birthday to ME

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 02:58:30 GMT

Thank you just_the_ash and friends, and everyone else who wished me a happy day online, by phone, and/or in person!

It was a good one.

M took the day off and both boys said whatever I wanted to do was mine to do. So we started the day with family yoga in the living room, went to Chuck E Cheese before it got crowded (hm, I like skee ball and whac-a-mole), had lunch out, went to see Night at the Museum, had presents and quiet time at home, went out to dinner with friends, came home for more presents and quality time with said presents! And now, to bed.

Thank you, one and all. It is good being old.

Too cool... box rivets

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:54:46 GMT

Check out this site. WOW. Wouldn't you love to do this?

Our life will probably be too crazy to do this for C's 5th birthday, but certainly for #6 we could try one of these... ooh. aah.

Post-Christmas Contentment

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 21:37:49 GMT

Many, many thanks to queenalia, who told me on my day most frazzled that she thinks of me as a Martha Stewart, only real! I used it as a mantra to get me through the rest of the wrapping-cooking-hosting time.

We had a nice Christmas. My dad and his wife, as well as just_the_ash and my husband's cousin J all were here on the 24th. We had a lasagna dinner (prepared painstakingly by me of course, muttering "I am Martha Stewart, I am more REAL than Martha Stewart") and shared some good conversation. The 25th was a glory of tossed wrappings and happiness exchanged. C's top three gifts, probably, were the remote control crazy car, a back-of-the-door basketball set, and a huge, wooden, modular castle. (And the STR WORZ GIES, of course.) He was excited about everything this year and cried out several times, "That's exactly what I wanted!"

Yesterday we ventured to the mall in order to do our twisted Patty Duke photos (I'd given just_the_ash a black shirt identical to mine and we were photographed in matching outfits) and have some lunch out. Last night was a dinner out (Martha Stewart gets wined and dined) and then a relaxing trip to the bookstore.

C was very upset about our family's departure. He growled and play punched at my dad, and refused to say a nice goodbye or give any hugs or kisses. He was stand-offish as they were going. The moment the door closed behind them, he turned to me and said, "I'm very sad, Mommy."

So we read and read (the books he got for Christmas that he discounted at the time because they were unfamiliar, but turned out to be really great, especially the pirate books) and then made a chart showing how many days until Pappy returns (he's coming on the 12th to celebrate my birthday a little late).

Tonight we're heading over to T&M's to do our last Christmas with friends.

Holiday Season

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 22:00:42 GMT

It's the holiday season...

The past three days have been a blur. We finished our cards, met M for lunch so he could sign the cards, found out M hadn't really planned anything for his employees for a little holiday gift. Spent that afternoon shopping, to eventually buy nice presents for his bosses and peers, and 100 (gah, 100) cookie cutters for the employees in his section.

We printed out 100 little cards that said: I made a plate of cookies to share with you this year; / I thought it was a great way to spread some winter cheer. / They all looked really tasty, so I thought I'd eat just one. / A little while later, I noticed there were none! / So here's my season's greeting, and a cookie cutter too. / Now you can make your own cookies, and maybe share a few! - sums up M's attitude towards cookies... then we punched little star-shaped holes in each card and tied a cookie cutter on with ribbon. All while watching about 5 episodes of the Muppet Show (including the Phantom of the Muppet Show, and the Mummenschantz episode).

Right, and of course the card-making was interrupted by our usual Thursday dinner night at the parent center...

On Friday, C and I wrapped, and worked on making a few personalized presents. We made a luggage-christmas-tree - which must be seen to be believed - and went out to lunch with friends. (Hi, cricketsong1967!) After lunch we were on another shopping mission, this time because I realized I hadn't really bought anything for my dad's wife beyond stocking stuffers (yay, Staples!) then on to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for my tortellini pasta salad. When I got home, the phone started ringing off the hook - a lot of back-and-forthing in order to get just_the_ash up here for Christmas, calling the hotel for a room, calls to and from M, my dad, etc. It had a good ending but kept me on the phone from the time I got home, all through the pasta-salad-making, up until M came home from work. PHEW.

Last night was a very nice holiday open house party at a neighbor's house - they are a slightly older family, with 5 teenagers, 2 of whom are adopted. They've lived in Guatemala and Chile, attend UU, and have one son with Asperger's. Let's just say we had a lot to talk about! C had a good time playing with two of the boys from the street, 3 year old D who we know to say hello to and often see at parent centers or the playground (with his brother N who was sick yesterday), and 4 year old J who we hadn't met before.

Today I did my final grocery shopping and a little extra swing by Target for, um, can't say since just_the_ash is reading. A gift. Then we went to R&J's house to do gifts with them since they are going skiing (or just to a dry cabin, since it's 48 degrees here) tonight through Tuesday.

C was excited to get some of the STR WORZ GIES he'd been ogling in the store (the Battle of Geonosis pack), the Millennium Falcon Transformers set, and a Lite Brite (with Star Wars refill pack, of course).

This afternoon, mostly wrapping and playing the Battle of Geonosis over, and over, and over, and over.

I'm busy, but not overly stressed.

4.5

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 02:47:59 GMT

Today is C's 4 1/2th birthday... I can't believe he's getting so old.

I haven't posted much (since the big squee news of last week) because we've just been coasting and getting used to the idea of our girl.

We've been doing the usual: lots of Legos (today it was making a park scene using all our trees, flowers, shrubs, and green or brown blocks), lots of reading (he's gone back to some Dr. Seuss favorites that we hadn't been reading in a while), trying out new gadgets (we bought the Read With Me DVD system at a K-mart on clearance this week - thinking it would be too basic for C and we'd save it for J, but C was interested in it and has been enjoying it a bit - so if you have a K-mart near you, let me know so I can send you the list of 4 titles they produced for the system that I can't find here - K-mart is getting rid of them for $5 each and I can't find any more at our store) - hm, that was a bit long for a parenthetical remark, wasn't it? -

Lots of coloring, drawing, experimental writing. C is interested in how to make a heart; my stomach's a bit off tonight and he's been bringing me sheets of paper with red hearts on them to make me feel better. Also four electrostaffs made from beheaded Q-tips. His great-grandmother (called Gigi) bought him a giant dinosaur coloring book at dinner on Sunday and he won a big box art set at my choir's party, so he's been watercoloring, sharpening pencils, using colored pencils and markers and crayons like crazy.

Time spent with the mice. He's always interested in giving them new things - today, an empty granola bar box - and in having them out in their exercise balls to play in whatever room he's in. Did I mention we had to buy the mice Christmas presents too?

Everything's good, nothing further earthshattering since Wednesday...

Image Meme

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 02:48:36 GMT

Snerked from walkertxkitty... my first follow-the-crowd meme! It just looked like so much fun.

Type your answers to the questions into Google Image Search and then post one of the pictures that comes up as a result.

1. Your first car?

2. Where you grew up?

3. Where you live now?

4. Your name?

5. Your grandmother's name?

6. Favorite food?

7. Favorite drink?

8. Favorite song?

9. Favorite smell?

10. Last thing you ate?

unpopular nerds

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 23:34:57 GMT

Snerked from queenalia, read this.

Weren't you nodding your head in agreement the whole way through the article? The point he makes that popularity takes work, and nerds have more important things to do, was a new take on the situation, and it makes sense.

Of course you know my response: this is why I won't be sending C to public school.

The author also says, on his follow-up page, that homeschooling isn't the long-term answer, but that high schools have the potential to be every bit as engaging as colleges. This is absolutely true, and in many, many conversations with friends over the years, I've often talked about an Ideal School, how it would be optional and open and Holt-ish, available to all kids at all times, to have group experiences and informed mentors and expensive equipment and more, but never the drop-off, marking-time prison it is today.

So how do we do this??

Everything's fine!

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 03:10:36 GMT

Yes, I'm still here, and everything's fine. We had a long weekend visit from my dad and his wife from mid-day Friday through mid-day today. In that time we:

-played with Legos nearly to the exclusion of all else
-went out to eat four times
-I had rehearsal on Friday night; everyone else went to the bookstore
-made a treat swing for the mice from half a grapefruit skin
-saw Flushed Away
-went to my choir concert
-built a big Thomas layout
-shopped at the store at the glass museum
-got to see Keith and Ezra live in concert!

So I didn't have much time on the computer.

Everything is good, though. Tonight was the holiday party for my choir, so we were out again.

What we're exploring

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 03:19:03 GMT

From my 4 year old Egyptologist.

From my 30 year old astronomer.

We all braved the snow tonight (really it was just a matter of very slick roads at rush hour, not much actual snow) and went to a family resource center for spaghetti and meatballs, basketball, and card-making.

One week down, 1-3 to go. I'm deep into more parenting / adoption / nature vs. nurture readings.

Laundry List

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 01:44:50 GMT

I was upset last night - because of the crab, and a million other little things that had gone wrong yesterday. So today I was prepared for things to be hard, and somehow, facing the day with that grim determination, we actually made it through happy.

Here's our laundry list of happy things we did today:

-C made a Perler bead decoration for someone for Christmas. It was the first time he'd copied a pattern instead of making up his own or doing the beads randomly. He counted rows of beads of certain colors and copied the image perfectly! I sat with him and helped him find the colors he needed, and just chatted as he worked.

-We had breakfast together (but only after the Perler beads) and C spread the peanut butter on all the toast by himself. He was very proud to do so, and was interested in the way the peanut butter melted on the hot toast. I continued eating Cheerios. They're doing the free-book-in-the-box promotion again and I don't have Mom around anymore to help me eat enough boxes to collect the whole set. So far, I've unearthed Horace and Morris Join the Chorus (But What About Dolores?), Olivia... and the Missing Toy and Little Quack's Bedtime. I'm halfway through the box for Wiggle and have the box for The Tiny Seed sitting on the fridge. Sigh. I'm a little sick of Cheerios!

-We created an enrichment activity for the mice. We took a (natural, untreated) old-style clothespin and smushed carrot shavings into the slit. Then we used cotton thread to dangle it from the screen lid of the cage. Our activity woke up the girls and they immediately came out to see what was going on. We had a hilariously entertaining half hour watching them (Brookie, mostly, but Robin every once in a while) work out how to get some of the carrot out. The best method involved climbing to the top of the plastic crate and batting at the clothespin, then grabbing it on the return swing and balancing it for a moment on the top of the crate. C and I had so much fun watching and encouraging the girls. We also took several movies and tons of photos.

-C took some time to play with Legos, Turtles, his safari truck from South Africa, and a coloring book while I checked my email and did some dusting in the other room. He has only recently (the past week?) been interested again in coloring books, and this time he colors very carefully and with definite purpose, creating interesting rainbow creatures and staying much closer to the printed shapes. I'm not a huge fan of coloring books because I think too often they're provided as an easy alternative to messy, open-ended art, but I do see how his current interest in them is really honing his fine motor skills. And C is provided with seemingly endless open-ended art experiences (seemingly endless only to the one who cleans up afterward, of course). It's also important for me to acknowledge that some of my anti-coloring book feelings may stem from a certain incident involving just_the_ash and some improperly colored Smurfs.

-I got out our recently acquired wooden Cuisenaire rods and the alphabet book that came with them (yay eBay!). C and I had fun on Monday doing the A pages - first building an A in several ways, counting the rods we used, then making some A objects: alligator, airplane, apple tree. On Monday, he decided he was a paleontologist unearthing a dinosaur-alligator, and the rods were the bones he was trying to fit into the skeleton. I thought that was a very cool take on the activity. Today we did B and one object was a building, so we talked about the difference between an architect and a construction worker, and he decided to be the architect. Each time he figured out a neat way to make the building, he'd go give instructions to the construction workers (who were apparently hanging out in our bathroom).

-I sorted some paperwork and C jumped on his trampoline while choosing our musical selections (nearly an infinite loop between "Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer").

-C asked to go out to lunch and I indulged him. We went to Wendy's, where the kids' meal bag has a neat I Spy picture on it, and the "toy" is a DVD game. We shared our lunches and looked at the I Spy picture. We had a funny moment where he said, "I spy with my little eye... a bat." I searched and searched and searched but could not find it. It was the first time he stumped me, but I saw nothing that looked vaguely like a little flying mammal. Finally, I had to give up and ask him to show me. Naturally, he pointed to a tiny baseball bat. I started laughing, explained my mistake to him, and we carried on in hysterics for a few minutes.

-We went "pink clothes shopping" at two local thrift stores. We did get a couple small bags of clothes, but our major find was actually for C. We found a set of four books for 25 cents each: Walt Disney's How It Works series from the early 1980's. We bought How It Works in the Home, How It Works in the Country, How It Works in the City, and How It Works in Industry. I'd never seen these before and they are so cool! They are each about 160 pages, hardcover, and have two-page spreads explaining how all kinds of things work, with neat cutout diagrams and scenes that include all kinds of Disney characters - Mickey and crew, the Three Little Pigs, Pooh and friends, etc. For example, "In the City" includes a section called "Cars and Bikes." C has long had a fascination with books that have a diagram showing pistons, so I flipped to this to see if they had one. One! Ha! The pages include: The Engine, Providing the Fuel (includes the carburetor and fuel pump), Making Sparks Fly (includes the battery and spark plugs), Piston Power (a whole two-page spread just on pistons!), Keeping Cool (the engine's thermostat), Keeping Well Oiled, Changing Gear, Final Drive (includes the differential and constant-velocity joint), Braking Hard (disc brakes and drum brakes), Steering, and On Two Wheels (a motorcycle). WOW. Now, I have no functional scanner at the moment, so I picked up one poor image from a seller on eBay, since I couldn't find a good web page for these books anywhere. This is just to give you an idea of what a two-page spread looks like. C loves these books already!

Nothing could top that.

We looked at the books until dinner, and now the boys are alternating between doing a few nominally helpful chores (picking up Legos, changing light bulbs, flipping the laundry into the dryer) and playing Zelda. I'm just typing away, thinking about the many ways in which a bound-to-be-terrible day can turn good.

Goodbye Elf

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 03:05:09 GMT

One of our newly acquired hermit crabs has died... it was the larger crab, Elf, and we found him during tonight's checks, several legs detached, lying in the large water dish.

We brought C to show him, and asked what he thought we should do.

His first response was leave him in the bathroom until he gets moldy. Oddly enough, we didn't go with that course of action. We put him in a baggie, in a yogurt cup, until he can be interred in the yard near Sport tomorrow.

C is sad but not overwrought. He was one of my best new crabs! Poor him. Poor Elf.

Is it only Tuesday?

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 01:50:56 GMT

I'm back to whine again! Did you miss me?

This is just a long week, singing-wise especially, for me. Tonight the choir performed for a Ladies' Tea which meant eating a quick dinner, leaving home at 6:00 and getting home about 8:20. And you know that old saying back from marching band days that a bad rehearsal means a good concert? Well. This was our pre-concert concert and it was atrocious... bleh. Tomorrow night we sing at the tree-lighting, Friday is dress rehearsal and Saturday's the concert.

We did have a good day, though, before my tiring evening. H called and said her boys were bored and wanted to go out, so we met at the mall, had lunch and let the boys play. C and E played a long time with those flippy remote control cars from one of the kiosks, so H and I decided to pick up 3 of them (one for 2 year old B too) for xmas presents. It was good to be with them, and to hold the baby of course. (6 days down, 8 to 22 to go) The three boys had their pictures taken in one of the photo booths...

C is wearing his belt, of course.

He's on the phone right now with our friend R, explaining something about his dad's video games to her...

Happy Party, Tired Momma

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 03:15:17 GMT

In short, C really enjoyed the party with his new/old friends N and R... I enjoyed seeing them again too and was sad that I had to rush off just as M arrived from work - I had an emergency board meeting for choir too utterly weird to detail this late at night.

I was in the choir room from 6:00-9:40... too long for me and too long away from my boys. By the time I got home, they were already almost asleep, reading in the rocker in the nursery. I had to get a little something to eat but I'm heading up there now, at least one boy may still be awake... no guarantees which one, though!