The kids are wearing their complimentary Carter's sleepers. They're also modeling booties Aunt Cyndi's friend crocheted for them. They were not amused.

​By day as I lay on our couch when I was pregnant, trying to keep my contractions to a minimum and to put off being admitted to the hospital as long as possible, I watched the show Live with Regis and Kathie Lee (my one hour of TV I allotted myself in the daytime so I wouldn’t get incredibly depressed or fry my brain). They were giving away mini-vans. I really, really wanted to win one of their mini-vans. We only had one car and it was a small sedan. Many times each week without fail, I mailed in their requisite postcard so that I could be entered into their drawing. 

Third Grade: The kids in their uniforms ready to go to school.

This week we remembered what happened seventeen years ago on another Tuesday, on September 11. Every year when that date comes around, it is a somber day. We all remember where we were when the planes struck. It changed our lives irrevocably.
 
This past Tuesday, a friend on Facebook asked for memories of 9/11 and it was a solemn task, yet part of the ongoing healing, to go back and reflect on the day, its impact, and how it changed our lives. 

Not long ago, Pierce called to ask me details about applying a butterfly bandage to his roommate’s leg. The two young men had been biking home from the liquor store with a six-pack of beer and his roommate hit some gravel and the bike flew out from beneath him. He landed on the bottles, which broke, and a shard of glass cut a nice gash down his thigh. Pierce was wondering if they could avoid going to the ER and do like I’d so often done when Pierce was growing up and just tape the thing shut.