Twenty-three years ago this month, we had our babies baptized. I grew up Baptist and we were taught that baptism didn’t count unless you were old enough to decide for yourself and then got immersed completely, like water-up-your-nose dunked.
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 When one has four babies at once, there are certain challenges. Some people were not afraid to point them out to us. When I was still pregnant, a friend of my parents, whom I barely knew, asked, “Are you going to breastfeed?” I said I was. Across the dinner table, he pointed to my breasts, flopping his hand back and forth several times at my chest. Incredulously he asked, “How’re you gonna do that when you only have two of those?”
 (To protect the privacy and/or safety of certain individuals, some names—well actually only one—has been changed in the following.)
I have aviophobia, a fear of flying—the kind that drives me to straighten my closet and vacuum the corners of my silverware drawer before a flight because I’m probably not coming back—so when a daughter of mine who I’ll call, um let’s say Polly, texted me from New York’s JFK airport TSA line to tell me she was coincidentally coming home on the same flight as our church rector, Fr. Jeremiah, I said Phew. That’s a good sign you’ll probably make it home, with him on the flight too.  Our yard, sigh. It’s almost never been what I wanted. I’ve planted more doomed plants than there are blades of grass in my neighbors immaculate lawn. When the plants go in, I have delusions of grandeur—and oh boy are they pretty delusions—of how they’ll turn out. But most times, nothing like I imagined ever happens. Shrivel, shrink, die. Part is because we live on a sand hill. Almost nothing grows on a sand hill. I’ve sodded, seeded, plugged, and pleaded, and it just isn’t going to happen.
Last night, I had a music rehearsal for a wedding this weekend. As a violinist, I’ve had the chance to be at a lot of weddings. And when my kids were gigging regularly with their string quartet, we saw plenty of wedding action. All these weddings take me back to my first wedding when I was seven years old. Keith, my six-year-old brother, was ring bearer to my flower girl. I think it’s many young girls’ dream to be a flower girl. You get your own “wedding dress” and special stockings, and so much primping and attention. Look at that bouffant I’m rockin’!
 You may think I was cute at two, but look at that tea party next to me. It’s a harbinger of things to come. Clearly, from the very beginning I wasn’t cut out for a career in the kitchen. I couldn’t even set up a simple child’s tea party. No wonder I’ve set the kitchen on fire.
 We had angel food cake again this week. Jason's favorite cake, and we have it once a year, every year. Sometimes we buy it already made, sometimes I attempt to make it. I'm a terrible cook and I ruin most everything. Mostly it's because I won't stay in the kitchen long enough to see something through. So I've burned a lot of things—including three stoves/ovens. (See Burning Cookies for the Kids.)
 Yesterday I read on BBC News that Kim Tucci, a woman in Australia, recently gave birth to quintuplets. Those kinds of stories grab my attention, since I had a litter of babies myself.
 That's me on the right. (I think.) Keith probably just told me he wore the helmet because he liked football. No doubt it was actually always on to protect him from any more damage by me! That football I'm holding belonged to our dad when he was a boy. He made it himself, sewing leather sections together with cord. I'm pretty sure he still has it! (He still has string and rubber bands from the Depression.)
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