Maybe I'm biased

But I think there's a fair amount of cute sitting on my sofa. Hudson's hair was particularly fluffy that day.
Yesterday while she was enjoying a book on the potty, Harper got contemplative for a moment and then this:

Harper: Why do all of the kids in this book have joyful hearts?
me: What do you think?
Harper: I think when I get to be a grown up, THEN I'll be nice to Hudson.
me: I wonder why it's so hard for you to be kind to Hudson right now.
Harper: I don't want him to come close to me because I don't want to SMELL him.

I refrained from pointing out the obvious irony in the timing of her proclamation.

blog malaise of summer

It's just too hot to write anything good. I realize it's only June. I realize I live in Houston. I realize the futility of complaining. But there it is. We watched "Charlie Wilson's War" a few nights ago and it got me thinking about some things. Not the actual events depicted in the movie, because I'm pretty immune to Aaron Sorkin and his agenda, though the guy is masterful with dialogue. I had read a few articles pointing out the overt creative license that had been taken. It's Shakespearean (see Henry IV and V) and biblical (see Abraham, David, Jonah, Paul..) to dramatize a man's ascent from depravity to nobility. But Sorkin seems to think it necessary-- he makes the depravity seem like an integral part of the greatness. Like if Charlie Wilson hadn't been so fond of cocaine and the company of disreputable women it wouldn't have been quite as impressive for him to be concerned about the Afghan rebels and their desperate attempts to fight off the Soviet army. So, that annoys me. Then the movie ends with Wilson, who had convinced our government to bankroll the war effort for upwards of $500 million, unable to get anyone in Congress to give him a measly million to help rebuild schools in the war torn country once the Soviets finally got out. It ANNOYS ME NO END when people romanticize Education (I capitalize it so you'll say it out loud in a dreamy voice) this way. So we're led to believe if we had JUST gotten those schools built the Taliban never would have taken root as they had and we'd all be visiting the World Trade Center this summer and Bin Laden would be teaching Business Ethics at the new NYU branch that's opening in Abu Dhabi next year. If only it were that simple. I don't honestly know how Americans can look at the (mostly) sad state of our education system and think that we have much of anything to offer there. On a less pessimistic note, the next night I caught most of a documentary about David McCullough, the historian behind John Adams and Truman and 1776. If you haven't read any of his books you just should because they will entertain you and make you smarter. It turns out, he is the opposite of Charlie Wilson. He writes and he paints and he studies and he loves his wife of 54 years and their five children. He writes his books on a typewriter in a little wooden shed sans computer and telephone. He writes about history and it is compelling and far better than anything Aaron Sorkin could write. Muck wallowing is not a prerequisite for greatness. That should be a high school debate topic: "RESOLVED. That muck wallowing is not a prerequisite for greatness. " I was on the debate team briefly my senior year. It was an extreme departure from my other activities of hair teasing and high kicks and decorating the locker of my football player, and was, not surprisingly, a dismal failure. It's depressing in so many ways that our topic was immigration. All that's new is old again.
Today Harper was doing something that Hudson thought was funny and he was giggling like crazy and she shouted, "STOP LAUGHING HUDSON! YOU MAY NOT SMILE HUDSON." He defied her and laughed even harder. I had a parallel Peanuts to show you but I don't know how to make it fit. It makes me want to go write in a shed with my typewriter.

Nomads, we

Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. We moved. And by 'we' I mean to say that the kids and I stayed at my parents' and the husband did absolutely everything. He's a wonder. We got home Friday afternoon and walked in to the new place and even the pictures had been hung. Everyone has a bedroom here and it's so massive (around 1300 square feet, I think) that we had to buy our first baby monitor so we could hear Hudson. True to his Batboy beginnings, he refused to go to sleep until we moved his crib into his closet. But at least he's out of our closet. In a few weeks we're going to move him out into the vast expanse of open space that is his room.

I went to a party a couple of weeks ago for my friend Lauren's birthday and guess what we did? That's right!! We square danced! How did you guess that? It was really, really fun even though I had to pretend to be a boy because my boy was home with my sleeping children.

I finally saw the documentary "My Kid Could Paint That" that I mentioned a few months ago. It was really compelling. And sad, really. You should watch it. Interesting questions about the nature of art and inspiration. And marriage. And parenthood. And whether or not documentary filmmakers can be impartial.

I never used to read "Peanuts" when I was a kid, but I really enjoy it now. I've decided that Harper and Hudson are like Lucy and Linus. Hudson has even taken to toting his blanket around. My favorite one was a few Sundays ago and Lucy had put together a felt story board and was entertaining Linus and he was so appreciative and complimentary right up until he realized she had cut the felt characters out of his blanket. Seriously funny. I could SO see that happening around here.

We get "free" cable at the new apartment and night before last, this actual sentence came out of my mouth as I was watching "Man vs. Wild":
"Bear has diarrhea! Do you want to watch??"
Not surprisingly, the husband politely declined. I'm also finding the Home and Garden channel particularly addictive. The one show where the couple looks at the three different houses in their price range?? That is high drama.