because i don't want to forget...

Samuel is getting bigger.  Well, he is getting taller.  I love this shirt.  It isn't going to fit much longer so I took a photo.

 On the couch, later that night...

 

And maybe we should pull Eva out of boxing lessons:

(just kidding.  But two more teeth in one day was pretty funny.)

 

And you know how I complain about my ghetto-esque surroundings?  Well, look at this.  Two pit-bulls next door.  Maybe I do want to forget this part.

 

And so I don't forget (and in case I need stories to tell Samuel one day when he is exasperated with his own kids):

We went and visited Erma, my elderly friend that lives nearby.  She was wearing a help alert button on a string around her neck.  You know, in case she falls, she pushes it and someone will come help her.  So Samuel sees it and asks what it was.  Erma and I are talking and all of the sudden, quick as he is, he reaches over and pushes the button.  Luckily, he didn't push hard enough and no one came to our rescue.  

Oh, and when we first got there, Erma and I sit on the couch to talk.  Two seconds later Samuel shows up with a handful of Chex mix.  He had walked in the kitchen and opened the cupboard and helped himself.

and another one:

I got a cute little orange cat when I was 18.  He was orange and his name was Kitty.  Pretty original.  My mom ended up involuntarily taking care of Kitty because I went to school in a city 90 minutes away, traveled a lot, and ended up marrying someone with (suspiciously selective) allergies.  So, when we were in China, Kitty died.   Sad, but it was time.

We were kind of nervous to tell the kids.  Samuel loves cats.  He loved that cat.  I imagined he would be heart broken.  I imagined this is when we would explain death.  I imagined there would be tears.  I imagined there would consoling.  We waited several days for the appropriate time (okay, okay, for a time that we could remember to tell him) and this is how the conversation went:

Samuel, you know Kitty?

No.

You know, the orange cat that lives at Grandma's?

Un-uh.

Come on, Sam, THAT CAT that you used to play with when we would go there.  

No.

The one that would go in the house when we would open the door.

No.

Well, he died.

And that was it.  I kind of think he is just messing with us.  Like he saw that we thought it was funny that he couldn't remember at first and then just kept it up.  Whatever the case, the conversation went a little easier than I expected.