Toys in the Attic

So where was I?? Yeah, yeah...it's been a few weeks (*hides head sheepishly). But dude, things are crazy here in our little world. There's the whole summer dragging itself on tired legs to what I pray will be a swift (and less freaking humid) end. There's the endless number of medical tests I'll be undergoing in the next few weeks. There's the start of classes in September. There's the wife's busy projects. There's my parents visiting for a month (hey they're here now). There's Gracie turning ONE WHOLE YEAR soon. So much to juggle and I've only got two hands. Last time I promised to tell you a bit about my baby sister. Now to some of you, the term 'baby sister' might be strange considering you know her as my one and only sister...but see I had another sister- Christina Marie- who died when she was 6 days old back in 1970. So Essie is in reality my baby sister. When she was really small she loved watching The Incredible Hulk. It was her favorite show. There was a particular episode where David (hey his name was BRUCE in the comic books) Banner gets mistaken for a guy who's stolen money from the mob and he gets beaten up by the bad guys in a parking garage. The guy is pounding on him and shouting "Where's the money, Jack". To which our mild mannered, slightly radioactive scientist in hiding replies "My name's not Jack" though between muffled 'oofs' and 'ughs'. Eventually, of course, the bad guy hits David/Bruce/Jack one too many times and cue the music and the green skin. Well my sister LOVED this episode and wanted to play Incredible Hulk all the time with me. So I had this ripped up shirt and she'd come in my room and hit me with her little six year old fists and say 'whurrs da mubby Jack' and I'd play along until the time was right and I'm jump up, grab her and start making 'Hulk' growls which would send her into screams of laughter...then the whole thing would start all over again. When she got a little older, one of my favorite things to do was take her to the movies. There's no doubt that one movie stole her attention beyond all others- Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I took her to see it at least 10 times. I think I was her hero...for a year or so at least. In other news we were able to spend some time with Shelley's parents at their house. It's like a mini-vacation when we can get away, plus we love their house...its so comfy. While we were there Gracie decided she had learned to climb stairs and was going to practice every possible second. She's pretty fearless and ambitious (just like her mommy). She's starting to take to Gramps too. It helps that she saw him 4 days out of 7 I think. She loves her Grammy who has been watching her while I have Thursday night games, and of course she adores Tashy and laughs when Tashy rolls over to have her belly rubbed. I can't believe Ginny Grace will be a year old in just under 3 weeks. If you are new to the TGIF you can visit the birth post by clicking here and relive the terror, the madness, and the magic. I've become addicted to Flickr and have loaded lots of old and new photos there. So I've changed, the way I'm adding photos to the TGIF..it's so much faster for me than writing lots of code for the javascript pop-up.