Chuck

Jude turns 18 months, officially, tomorrow. He had his checkup with the doctor today. Doctor say everything good! Jude big boy. Grow lot. Eat well. Ok, enough cave man talk. Here's the stats:

Weight 25 lb (sorry, mom, he's too big to lift now.) 45th percentile.

Height 35". The nurse said this is over 97%, so that means he's off the charts, I guess.

Words Judes says that we clearly understand: mama, dada, Sadie, baby, ball (ball ball), baba and pretty.

He also says: poo poo, Jesus (geezee) and today he said "fish" while we were at the doctor's office.

He's also developed an attitude that says "I'll do it the way I want to do it, and you won't help. If you do, I'll throw a big rock at you." As is clearly demonstrated by the above picture. This was taken right before he chucked the big rock at my camera. Luckily, the camera survived. He has an excellent throwing arm.

Scary thoughts

As I huddled under my desk at work last Monday night after they informed us we were under a tornado warning, I was reminded of the irony. Early that day I was working on the revision for a story involving a little girl and a tornado. (I'm submitting this story to a fiction contest in a couple months.) I was also researching on the web and came across this website titled "The (Real) Night of the Twisters". It is all about the 7 tornados that ripped through Grand Island, NE (my hometown) on June 3, 1980. I wrote my story a year ago. On the night I was finishing the first draft, we had tornado warnings. Are you seeing a pattern here?

Anyway, I was both fascinated and horrified by the stories I read and pictures I saw on this website. The most frightening part about it was that the strongest tornado (F4 strength, tornado number 5 in the graphs), out of the 7 that hit, went right through my back yard. This is the first time I had ever seen the charts that depict the paths the tornados took. I'm amazed at how 27 years later my stomach still gets tied in knots when I think about it.

I've included a picture with a star marking where my house was (it's marked with the bluish-green star. Sorry, it changes the colors every time I upload.). I'm also including the link to the website. It can be found on the left side of the page with my other links. You can view other pictures of the destruction there.

The kindergartner and his apprentice

At long last the day arrived and Eli is now a "school kid." Never was an event so looked-forward to! I took him to school. We left promptly at 7:20 for our I-80 commute. We found our way to his classroom and his teacher, Mrs Sumpter. I almost had to beg him for a kiss goodbye. He doesn't need his mommy that much. I almost cried, but remembered I had the commute back on I-80 and those morning drivers don't like cry babies. I sucked it up.

As his first day as the new "big boy" in the house, Jude tried on big boy shoes. He's excited about the opportunity to play in Eli's room without Eli's permission. He smiled a lot and giggled and was generally happy to have mommy's undivided attention all day.

When Sadie decided it was time, we all waited by the front door for daddy and Eli to arrive home. The good news is, they said Eli could return on Tuesday. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

License to write?

It's official. I now have a diploma. I've been taking this course for the last year and just completed it. Ironically, I received my diploma and my very first rejection slip (for a short story I submitted to a magazine) on the same day. Should I be happy or sad? I'm confused. My instructor has recommended me for their advanced course, which involves writing longer stories. Perhaps a short children's novel is on the horizon? I'll know in the next couple months if I got accepted to this course.