Three years ago, on the day Ian turned 17, we launched Mothers of Brothers.

Today, 48 hours before Ian turns 20, I am bowing out. The timing just happens to work out to very neatly span three years, and has absolutely nothing to do with Ian per se.

Fortunately, the blog will continue with Emily at the helm. I may tag back in once in a while, at Emily’s generous suggestion. She has not had much time to adjust to this new reality – only a few days – but was very gracious when I told her that I was burning out on our joint project, and that my inspiration was flagging as my stress over what the heck to write was rising.

In the middle of May 2011, I can look back and say this adventure with Emily has been a ton of fun. I’ve loved sharing my life and times with you – gaining new friends, reconnecting with old friends, documenting our daily life.  You’ve cheered us on through our Big Birthdays and through Emily’s Triathlon training, and sent condolences on our losses – most notably that of my dear friend Carol.

When this blog began, I was the third tallest person in the house, with the third deepest voice. Now I am in fifth place on both counts.  When the home phone rings, nobody ever says to Hugh or Malcolm anymore, “Jennifer?”

Like my sons, the blog has grown and matured as well. During one of our early planning meetings in the Helen Kate Furness Library, Emily searched online for a web designer, and found a guy in Mumbai.  Based on decent seeming credentials and a decent price and a couple of emails, we hired him.

The product he gave us worked fine, for a while. But then, disaster. Some of you might remember the great crash of 2010, just after Easter, when it became impossible to leave a comment, and all kinds of crazy things were going wrong in the MOB backroom. Something had gone kaflooey, but we had no idea what.  The site was down for days.

To the rescue came Marj, a web guru out of San Diego found by Emily. Marj migrated our site to Word Press, gave us new passwords, and sorted out the tangled mess that we had dumped in her lap. I hope it’s not tempting fate to say that the blog has operated smoothly ever since.

We have written zany posts, serious posts, things that made us laugh, things that made us cringe, things that made us cry. For a couple of writers, it’s been the ultimate joy – getting published at the push of a button! No groveling to editors. No making triplicate copies. No re-writing at the behest of another.

Also, to be brutally honest, one of the best things about this blog was its efficiency. Rather than send giant group emails, or tell each person in my life the same anecdote over and over, everyone got the same information at the same time.

I will miss that.  I will miss you.  Thanks for reading Mothers of Brothers.

Happy to have received flowers, chocolate, and best of all, a home-made card for Mother’s Day from my boys.  The cards they make and write themselves are way better than anything store-bought.

Addicted to When the Killing’s Done.  T C Boyle is so brilliant, and his writing is so dense, that I really should read his work slowly.  Instead of savoring it, however, I’m more in gobble mode.  I can’t help it.

Savoring strawberry season – and Bisquick shortcake is the best.

Glad for green lushness outside, after a long, deep winter.

Grateful, in the aftermath of a sweet Mother’s Day, for my lovely, healthy boys Ian (who comes home tomorrow from college), Hugh and Malcolm, and for my fabulous husband Chris. 

Happy Merry Merry Month of May ~ and what are you reading/cooking/doing in the garden at the moment? 

The “ask” took place months ago, when the reality was somewhere in the far-off future.  Chris and I gave Malcolm permission to go to a Pinback concert in Philadelphia, and bought the tickets for him and a handful of friends on line.

Then came the fun part  – making sure Malcolm collected money from those friends so as to pay us back.  This seemed to take an eternity.

Last Saturday afternoon, Chris took Malcolm to the train station, where he and his gang rode into the city to roam around, killing a number of hours before the show began.  They feasted in Chinatown, and walked en masse (six of them) after dark to the Starlight Ballroom for the concert.

Do not be fooled by the Doris Day-ish name.  As I discovered when I drove in to the city at midnight to fetch the boys, the Starlight Ballroom is a gritty place completely lacking in glamor.  It’s located in a hipster-ish neighborhood, which means cyclone fencing and abandoned warehouses.  The only starlight was that glinting off broken glass.

Berating myself for being a terrible, neglectful mother who had sent her baby into the belly of the beast, I envisioned horrible occurrences.  A flash fire like that nightclub disaster in Rhode Island.  A stampede.  A knife fight.  Headlines would scream “Unchaperoned 14 Year Olds Hospitalized After Melee.”  I would be skewered on The View and on Oprah.   Malcolm would enter the foster care system and not search for me when he aged out.

There was one small silver lining:  I got a parking spot right across from the band’s bus.  No way would the boys have trouble finding me when they emerged.

I thought how difficult making the pick-up would have been in the old days, before cell phones, and found myself enormously grateful for the invention of texting.  Malcolm and I could communicate effectively and instantly, even though he was in a hall full of ear-splitting music, and I was in a car outside. The clock ticked.   I checked my email.  My dad was recommending an article by Joe Queenan in the current Time magazine.  Within seconds, I was reading the article, happy for the suggestion and the diversion.  And thank you, Apple, for inventing the iPhone.  I know you did it to be charitable.

After perhaps a 10 minute wait, during which I saw that the people spilling out from the concert hall were overwhelmingly young guys in their 20s (same as it ever was, only now they are all tattooed) Malcolm and his gang finally emerged.  One sat up front with me, three squished in the back seat, and two had to ride without seat belts in the way back.  Praying that no cop would pull me over, I turned the wheel toward home.

The boys were giddy with excitement about the show.  I began to feel better about letting them run free in the city.  They explained to me how it was that a bunch of teenagers could share a venue where everyone over 21 was drinking.  “We had to show our IDs, and then they put us in an alcohol-free corral, right at the stage.”  Ironically, this put them directly into the fumes of a very drunk musician.

Several of the kids had grabbed set lists from their ring-side positions.  Malcolm noticed a spelling error.  The boys were thrilled that one of the musicians, after giving them his autograph, had demanded THEIR signatures as well.  The guys had new shirts and new memories and new stuff to post on FB.

As I chugged carefully along the highway, listening but not listening creepily hard, I found myself deciding that perhaps this example of bad parenting had, in fact, not been so bad after all.  All’s well that ends well.

And thank heavens for texting.

Our family’s plan was this.  Start the college tour week by staying in a cabin owned by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club for three nights, then move on to hotels.  However, as we drove down on Day One, it was clear that the gods were angry.  Rain lashed.  Winds howled.  Hailstones pelted.  And outside the window, we saw  freshly snapped trees, downed wires and overflowing streams.

When we finally found our remote cabin-access route, there was a huge orange sign forbidding entry:

So we pointed the car towards Charlottesville, VA, and found a lovely Best Western (the best Best Western ever), complete with snowy white fluffy duvets, “log pillows,” and spa-ish bathroom.  Also taking shelter from the storm at the BBW were Boy Scouts who had bumbled out of their cabin in search of a board game in the nearest town, only to find their access cut off, and other college-touring families (easily ID’d by the little kids wearing brand-new college T-shirts and their long-suffering teenage siblings).

On Day Two, we climbed Old Rag mountain, and found the descent to be absolutely interminable.  At one point the sign said “Parking Area 2.5 miles.”  After what seemed like 5 hours, we were still trudging towards the promised land where our Jetta was parked.   Finally back in the car and thoroughly exhausted, we nevertheless drove to the cabin road and found it open.  Frankly, I was dreading the .75 mile pack-in with heavy cooler, four sleeping bags, four pillows, and meal provisions.  As it happens, this time we were turned back by locals who pointed out that the bridge was washed away and the rushing stream was impassable. 

Back to a hotel, a different one this time.

On Day Three, after Hugh’s UVA visit, we once again attempted to take possession of John’s Rest Cabin for the third and final night.  This time the car easily splashed through the now-tamed stream, and after parking on a gravel pile, Hugh and Chris set off on a trial expedition, leaving Malcolm and me at the car.  After an hour, they returned with soaking wet boots and socks.  The stream was still roaring, they reported, and the cabin inaccessible to everyone except Bear Grills.

Off to another hotel, and from then on, the trip went as planned.  Visit colleges, check into hotels, eat at restaurants (but not the Shoney’s advertising Frog Legs in Harrisonburg.)

So it was a complete treat to return home on Friday and find a good surprise:  our friend Penny and her daughter Hollis, who were visiting PA schools from their home in Boston, had arrived at our house before us.  They had come in, turned on the heat, cleaned the fridge, gone to the grocery store, and started dinner for us…AND Penny made me a beautiful beaded yoga bracelet.

It was like being the First Family, returning home to find the household staff had been busy making everything ship-shape before Air Force One touched down.  The height of luxury, and the perfect end to a trip that had taken many twists and turns.  

Hollis & Hugh, college hunters.

We are back from Hugh’s Grand College Tour, Stage One. 

During Spring Break, we pointed the car south and visited schools in Virginia and Maryland.  Having signed up for info sessions and gone on forced marches around 7 different colleges (each tour lasting an average of 90 minutes) we picked up some pointers, which I will now share with you.

1.  Do not wear flip-flops.  You’ll be in a huge pack of people, and someone (inevitably male) is going to clumsily step on the back of your flop.

2.  Do not sport merchandise from the school you are currently visiting.  “It looks desperate,” muttered Hugh.  “Or cocky,” said one of his friends, who had returned from a New England college swing.  And as we all agreed, it’s not going to help you get into that college.  Unless I’m mistaken, the tour guide is not going to go rushing over to the admissions office after you leave, shouting “Make a note of the blonde kid who was just on my tour!  Definitely admit him when his application comes in – he and his parents just spent $110 in our bookstore and he’s already WEARING OUR SCHOOL LOGO!”  Conversely, do not wear anything touting ANOTHER school.  That’s basically saying, “I really want to go to the college on my shirt, and you are my safety school.”

3.  Be aware that if you are at the front of the tour pack and you open a door to a building, you will be the doorman for everyone behind you.  Think of a clever line to say in response to the muttered “thank yous” that you will hear, mostly from the parents, such as “Haha, it’ll be your turn next!”  This door-holding will put you in the back of the pack, which means you won’t hear what the guide is saying – but if you’re like me and you’re out in the hallway, you will be able to hear what some of the actual college students are saying.  Example – undergrad boy to undergrad girl:  “So yeah…finals are coming up and I figure this is my last chance to get really drunk.”  Girl:  “True.”  Boy:  “What did you say your name was again?”

4.  Try not to ask stupid questions, i.e. “Is there much drinking or drug use on this campus?”  Don’t be the dweeb who does that.  A.  You’re not going to get an honest answer, and B:  Cast your mind back to your own college days, and C:  See 3.

5.  Be prepared to visit “mock” dorm rooms.  Some schools have clearly gotten sick of trying to find relatively tidy, unoccupied, unlocked, and un-beer-can-filled rooms to showcase on their tours and have just given up.  Instead, they have turned one valuable room into a stage-set that is always camera-ready.  The fake rooms are immediately obvious from their sterility and from the prominent stickers on the closet doors touting “Bed Bath and Beyond Has All Your College Dorm Needs Covered!”  Product placement is everywhere.

5A.  Also, junk food has infiltrated colleges in a huge way.  Many of the schools we saw were very proud of their Chick-Fil-A, Au Bon Pain, McDonald’s, Arby’s, Pizza Huts, and other fast fooderies at which the students can use their meal plan credits.  Yes, our halls of learning  are now malls of learning, complete with food courts.  Chris and I were appalled, but we we did not embarrass Hugh by shouting “Objection!” when the tour guide raved about this fabulous new wrinkle in higher education.  Although as Chris rightly pointed out later, “The college administrators are the grown-ups here, and they should not be adding junk food – which is easily obtained just by going off campus – to the dining halls.  Hasn’t anyone seen SuperSize Me?”

6.  You will be staring at feet during the tour.  Mostly the feet of your guide, who is likely to walk backwards the entire time, projecting her voice directly at her flock.  As a parent, you will feel nervous and protective of this kind young person, who is headed directly for a broken-up section of sidewalk.  Miraculously, she will not fall. 

7.  Staring at feet will lead you to realize that college girls have expanded their footwear options on beyond the Huge Two:  flip-flops and Uggs.  I can report that in the South, there is clearly a fad for these TOMS shoes:    Also,  Topsiders, mocassins, and canvas boat shoes are back.

8.  Try to pick a college with a distinctive name that people will remember.  While its universities are very fine and very beautiful, the state of Virginia has not excelled at college naming.  William and Mary. Mary Washington. Washington and Lee. University of Virginia.  Virginia Commonwealth.  Virginia Tech.  James Madison.  George Mason.  My suggestion?  Just merge the whole mess of them together and call the extended web of campii James Mason, after the Hollywood actor.  Much easier.

9.  Make sure your kid has his/her driver’s license before starting out on your voyage.  You will need another driver.  A permit may not help – if you’re going out of state, your child may not be allowed to drive there.  (Chris didn’t know this when he and Ian went to New England.  Turns out Ian got a crash course in highway driving during rush hours in New York and Boston, all illegally.  Thankfully, there were no mishaps.)  Trust me, after extensive college touring, your eyes will glaze over and your legs will be too tired to press the accelerator.  We were very grateful to have a rotation of 3 drivers in our car of 4.

10.  Pray that your tour guide will say something he/she is not supposed to say.  The best parts are when they go off-script.   True example:  “This is our student health clinic.  They manage all of our health issues right away, like if we have strep throat and need antibiotics or if we have a cold or something.  A couple of years ago they took care of the lice outbreak really well.”  (Murmur runs over the crowd.)  “Don’t worry, it’s all cleared up now!”

As a follow-up to last week’s post about driving Hugh to school all too often, I’m happy to announce that yesterday I entered his room at 6:30 and said “Time to get up, Hugh, since you’re WALKING to school today.”  And he did – he got up and he walked to school – cheerfully.  And Malcolm caught the bus – on time.  Thank you, guys, for making me look like a successful mom!  Let’s expand this beyond a one-time event.

This whole discussion set me to thinking about the areas in which we succeed and fail as parents. 

Almost nobody is entirely great or entirely terrible at parenting.  Most of us, I would wager, are a unique admixture of both (I’ve always wanted to use the word “admixture” in a sentence).  (I assume it means the same thing as “mixture.”)

We know families whose children ski like angels but hold their forks like savages.  Parents who dress their children beautifully but feed them horrible chemical-laced junk.  Moms who profess to care only about their own families but are constantly criticizing others.  I repeat:  nobody is perfect – or perfectly consistent.

I first had this ephiphany when a neighbor, who had had too much to drink, said to me “You and Chris are the CHEAPEST people I know!”  He didn’t seem to mean it as a compliment.

Since my husband and I had just returned from a two-week trip to England with all our sons plus my mother in law, I found this statement puzzling.  Especially since the guy who said it was the father of  many children, and when he and his wife would go on vacation, they tended to take one child at a time for long weekends within driving distance.  It was a lovely tradition that gave their kids a chance to be an only child for a while.  But it was also, I couldn’t help noting, far cheaper than moving a small army, plus car seats and strollers, across the ocean and back.

Mulling over his outrageous statement,  I came to a realization.  We are all cheap – and we are all extravagant – in different ways.  No doubt our neighbor was failing to factor in that because Chris and I are self-employed, we pay for our own health insurance.  We don’t have a cushy benefits package.  Our vacations are not paid holidays.  We are self-sufficient, and therefore, yes, less inclined to throw money around.  Some might view us as cheap.  But only in some areas. 

We have always viewed travel as a worthy expenditure.  Our kids have been to Yellowstone and Yosemite, to Prince Edward Island and the British Isles, to San Gimignano and St. Louis and San Francisco, to Kansas City, Columbia, Missouri, Quebec, and Key West.

Other expenses have had to wait.  The restoration of our 1901 house has been a long, slow process.  We paint, update, and renovate as funds permit.  After living with only one full bathroom for five people for 10 years, we finally added a master bath – and we did it (mostly) right, without cutting corners.  It pays daily dividends. 

Three years after the bathroom addition, we gutted and rebuilt our kitchen/dining room – which also makes daily life much more of  a joy.  Now, the neighborhood waits with bated breath to see when we will knock down our ancient shabby stable/garage and rebuild a far swankier two car garage with man cave above.   

Most of our neighbors did similar big improvements when their kids were much younger, but they have more conventional jobs, and steadier benefits. 

On the other hand, we value our independence and our simple, 30 second commute, greatly. 

So yes,  it’s fair to say that we are cheap, but it’s not as if we’re misers, hoarding money for the sake of being Ebenezer Scrooge, or Scrooge McDuck.  We’re not diving into a warehouse full of coins.

As a final semi-non sequitur,  let me just say that Chris and I long ago stopped going to BJ’s or any similar supermegasavingsstore.  Why?  Because we find such places to be utterly soul-destroying.  So hey, we’re extravagant in that we refuse to belong to a buying club.

All of which leads me to ask you to complete the following statements:

As the American system of public education has grown and evolved, it has developed some monstrous problems.  Violence in inner city schools, unionized teachers who can’t be fired, falling test scores, funding cuts from the states, bullying in the hallways and in cyberspace, aging buildings that need constant renovation or replacement - the list of problems is overwhelming.

I suggest that we make one small fix in all the madness.  Have the littlest kids start school at the earliest hour of the day, and let the big kids have the latest start time.  In other words, flip the schedule.  As the high school nurse explained to a group of parents, “Teenagers don’t even feel sleepy until 11 PM or even midnight – the melatonin in their brains just doesn’t start flowing until then.  They literally cannot fall asleep early.  And because they’re exhausted when they get to school,  many of them fall asleep during class.”  Ian can attest to this, he was apparently a big desk sleeper in his day.

Little kids, on the other hand, go to bed early and wake up, bright eyed and bushy tailed, at sunrise.  They are the perfect candidates to catch the dawn bus, but this doesn’t happen – because it’s still dark at that hour, and therefore too dangerous for the little kids.  Or so it’s been explained to me.

However, as someone who must wake up two teenagers on alternate weekday mornings, I can attest that this process is anything but fun. 

ME:  It’s 6:30, guys.  First warning.  The good news is, it’s Friday!

THEM:  Silence.

ME:  OK, it’s 6:45.  You have to get up NOW.

THEM:  Mmmmfff.

ME:  Don’t make me come up here again.

THEM:  Groan.

ME (clomping as loudly and threateningly up uncarpeted stairs as possible in slippers):  I’m not kidding, now it’s 7 AM.  GET UP AND GET DRESSED, I WANT TO HEAR YOUR FEET ON THE FLOOR.

Hugh gets up first, showers, and comes downstairs to eat cereal and watch sports recaps from the night before, pre-empting my choice of Matt and Meredith, unless I have a strong objection. 

Malcolm makes us sweat the most, cutting it as close as possible.  Though he must leave the house at 7:25 to catch the bus, he often doesn’t appear downstairs until 7:22.  And despite our constant nagging, he almost never packs his backpack the night before, so there’s that frenzied task to accomplish, in addition to feeding him something and finding shoes and hoodie.

In theory, Hugh is supposed to walk to school.  His bus comes at 6:50, and that is just crazy early for a school day that begins at 7:35.  When the weather is nice, Hugh will indeed walk to school quite cheerfully, especially if it is Chris’s morning to supervise.

This week, on Monday, Wednesday and today, Hugh informed me that he needed a ride to school.  I have taken to reponding sarcastically, “Why am I not surprised?  It’s my morning to get up with you!”

Today he responded that Dad is better at waking him up.  I suggested that he was adding insult to injury, and perhaps he just fears Dad’s irritation more than he fears mine.  And then I drove him to school, and he thanked me and apologized – because he is Hugh, and his EQ is extremely high.

Our hope is that Hugh will win a parking space in the school senior lottery, and drive himself and his little freshman brother to school every single day next year.  We have a dream.

I actually have not seen that Bette Midler movie all the way through, but I believe it also involves Barbara Hershey and one other actress, plus various revelations and sundry earthy jokes.

This past weekend, I experienced my own version of Beaches.  Three women, one gorgeous beach house, dozens of conversations, three restuarant meals, one new book read almost in its entirety (Started Early, Took My Dog – gorgeous prose from Kate Atkinson, as always), and two long walks along the coastline.  Although the shore in question was in New Jersey, our experience had nothing in common with Jersey Shore.  No Snooki.  No gym, no tanning salon, no bars. 

The following points were stipulated and ratified:

Barfing scenes in movies are disgusting and gratuitous.  And really, WHY?  I suggested that the vomiting scenes from the Jeff Bridges country music movie Crazy Heart were the worst (come on, fishing his glasses out of the garbage can and putting them BACK ON??) but was informed that no, the worst was actually from a  recent Michael Cera movie, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.  And when the details were described to me, I had to gaggingly agree.

We all buy candy and hide it from our husbands and children.  Long may we reign.

Many children who appear feral and/or hopeless as pre-teens actually grow up to be lovely and charming teeangers and young adults.  It’s a small, everyday miracle.

With these scenes from two long walks on the beach, I wish you all a wonderful week.

Hastily chosen and historically inaccurate photo illustrating ”British admiral.”

In 2011, OMG was added to the Oxford English Dictionary Online.

The first recorded usage of OMG was in a 1917 letter written by a British Admiral.

Reported by The New York Times, March 27, 2011

Email

From:   Roderick

TO:      Abigail

DT:      March 30, 1917

RE:      Random

So when I told the boys to man the torpedos, my darling, OMG, you should’ve seen them running around!  They were totally freaking out!!!  Helter skelter around here!  Yes, we’re really going to aim an explosive device at that other vessel – it contains, like, our enemies?  Hallo! 

After the naval battle that ensued, my peeps were all exhausted!!!  Very little merriment that night – zero LOLing!!! The men just wanted to crash in their hammocks.  Catch some Z’s, have some sweet dreams, before the bloody dawn of the next day. 

So it was like, silent in the mess.  Morale hit rock bottom!!! A subaltern came up to me and was all “Sir, we have a situation on our hands, yo.”   And that was the lightbulb moment.    Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. The answer to our doldrums. 

When we broke out the keg and red plastic cups, everyone got wasted and sh*t.  Did the men put on striped shirts, beribboned tams and dance on barrels?  Check VisageTome.

I have repeatedly told them not to put up anything that may hurt their chances of someday being promoted up through the ranks, but do they listen?  Do they have the ability to see into the future, the big picture, long-term?  They do not.  They don’t realize that everything on a computer is there forever, on someone’s hard drive, in the War Offices or at Scotland Yard.  Everything on VT can and will come back to haunt them.

Some of the men receive naughty pictures from their sweethearts in Cornwall or Dover or wherever.  On their telephone screens.  The racy eyelet chemises, the whale-bone girdles, the pigeon-breasted silhouettes!  OMG, you know?  This sextant-messaging has got to stop.  It’s indecent, and the men should really not be thinking of carnal matters while at sea.

Yeah, right, who’m I kidding? They’re gents.  It doesn’t matter where they are, they’re thinking about sex 24/7.   I just made up that abbreviation.  Do you think it will catch on?  If so, I want credit!!  That’s one of mine!!   Jk.

Well, wish us luck, my darling.  More battles await.  Don’t stop reading my blog (shout out again for suggesting the name Naval Gazing), keep putting links to it on yours (how on earth did you come up with Ahab’s Wife for the title, you clever little poppet?), continue to send me cheerful texts, and tend those home fires, keep them burning.  Oh, and please don’t bother opening my sock drawer, nothing to see there. 

Remember this.  TKU 4 all U do 4 me, ILY 4evah. 

Rod

Hugh got his driver’s license yesterday!  Third time’s a charm.

I will spare you the details of the long, tedious wait next to the litter-filled scrubby hillside behind a grocery store, which is where cars line up for the test drive.  The wait is usually an hour, so bring entertainment.

I will also spare you the details of the long, tedious wait inside the building for the photo and documentation.  Let’s just say that I have renewed sympathy for all Kafka characters caught up in nightmarish Russian bureaucracy.

Instead, today’s post features three short stories about driving.

1.  My brother Tom called me in early January from his Colorado cabin.  He reported on his family’s outing to the ski slopes, in which his wife and teenage daughters had gone off on one ski lift, and Tom and his kindegarten son Griffin had gone in another direction.  “We got to the top of the slope and started down, but then Griffin’s boots hurt, so I readjusted them.  We got a little farther down when he realized he was hungry.  Then he had to go to the bathroom and started crying, so I ended up taking his skis off, putting him under one arm, the skis under the other, and skiing us both back down to the lodge.”

My response was “Hey, my son went skiing today too.  His friend drove over early in the morning, Hugh ran out with all his gear, and the two of them headed off for a fun day trip with no pesky parents involved.  You see, you won’t always have to play nursemaid to Griffin!”

There was silence.  Then Tom said in a small voice, “Tell me that story again.”

2.  Before Ian got his license, my friend Helen (mother of 5 boys!) shared her experience.  “When my eldest got his license, I was so nervous about him driving his little brothers around that I wouldn’t let him take them anywhere.  This lasted for a week or so.  After that, I was completely over it.  ”Drive your brother to soccer practice!  Then pick up milk, come home, and take another brother to his lesson!”  So true.  It’s wonderful to have another driver in the family, and very quickly, the convenience trumps the anxiety.

3.  As we walked to the car yesterday, I handed the keys to Hugh and said “I’ll be your co-pilot.”  “No,” he responded “Malcolm is my co-pilot.”  The backstory:  Chris’s brother Ken called me in December to report that he had seen a car on I-95 with a bumper sticker reading “Malcolm Reynolds is my co-pilot.”  Since that is exactly the name of our kid, he did a double-take.  I told Ken that, having seen some inappropriate Facebook fan pages for a Malcolm Reynolds while looking up my own Malcolm’s page, I knew the name belonged to a character in a sci-fi TV show called Firefly – and the car he saw must have belonged to a Firefly fan.  Ken immediately went online and ordered the product for Malcolm’s birthday.  What could be a more perfect gift from an uncle?

And hey, seeing how grubby our auto is at the end of a long and messy winter gives me an idea.  Maybe Hugh can take it to the carwash!