My new sign.

Never in my whole life had I ever wanted to own a neon sign. But then, one day, I did. True story. Isn't it cute, tho? And how it sits in the fireplace as though it's a fire, isn't that cute, too? It's a bike. I love that it's a bike. So, this is my new sign.

And this was my contribution to Show 'n Tell Club. I have been thinking for awhile about the separate but similar lives my wife and I spent growing up on different sides of southern and northern Michigan. Did you know that we both have memories of the same marionette troupe that came to our elementary schools and that featured a dragon named "Applesauce"? No, how could you have--but, nevertheless, it is true. So this is the beginning of an imagined story of those lives.

This is me, and I think the look on his face captures the little me pretty well.

And this is C, holding still for a quick portrait. This is all I have so far, two pages. I'll probably do a few more and leave the rest in my imagination.

Show 'n' Tell Club, Valentine's Edition

Eric and Clare hosted the Show 'n' Tell Club on Valentine's Day this past weekend, and that means it was a good weekend. And it was romantic, too, from Eric telling us about how much he "loves" the movie Man on Wire, to Catherine reading the embarrassing bits from her journal the summer we met to Sarah Jane's embroidered highlights of life with Wes. Our little b recited something, even. Sometimes he refers to it as his "notes" but lately it has been his "poem." It is about dinosaurs, one of the most profound kinds of love little boys know how to express: Dinosaurs eat other dinosaurs/Dinosaurs stomp their feet/ Dinosaurs eat meat/ Some dinosaurs eat plants.

For their wedding, Marie and David collaborated on this incredible puzzle--the guests found the pieces and then put it together as a group. So we reenacted the assembly part of the wedding ceremony. All of the "guests" in the image, from "Idea Bear" to "the Invisible Man" (not pictured), reside with David and Marie in their home.

b walked up just as we finished putting it together and pronounced "that's a pretty cool puzzle." At 4, he is already a man with an aesthetic sense.

Yes, reading is, of course, awesome, but reading at the same time that you are parenting is something on a different level. It just does not happen that often. This is me finishing A Passage to India, and parenting.

I can't believe I'd never read an E.M. Forster novel, though I did see the movie for this one back in high school. At the time I thought that I would impress the girl I was seeing by choosing this video at the store--demonstrating my sophisticated taste or something. I can't remember if it worked, and I don't remember the movie, either, except that I think it was kind of slow, slower than the original.

But the novel is pretty wonderful. Long live the intrusive narrator.

And here is a valentine-themed comic for our chalkboard wall, the first episode in the adventures of "mouse."

One good thing about having chalkboard paint is that I have finally been able to hang some of the old pictures of my ancestors on the walls. They are sour and surly looking lot, but they're all I have. This guy's eyes follow me all around the room and I can't help feeling like he's trying to get me to pour him a drink.

This picture here is of an old spinster great-aunt of mine who always claimed to have posed for Edward Gorey's book The Gashlycrumb Tinies, or so family lore has it. I wish I knew which letter she was.