Life Lessons

I've received a lot of important lessons during the past several weeks. Some I learned just from observations - others came to light after some rather tragic mistakes, mostly involving food. I'd hate for anyone to be deprived of these valuable tidbits, so I figured I'd share them with you.

First Lesson: If you plan to cook a party-sized frozen vegetable lasagna, please check first how long it takes to cook. It might not take 45 minutes. In fact, it might need a full 2 hours to bake. Yours truly probably should have checked the box BEFORE dozens of people arrived at Jennifer's dad's home on the night of the visitation for Jennifer's mother. So, the lasagna had to wait for another night. Fortunately we had beer and Chex mix, and plenty of dollar-menu salads to fix the situation.

Second Lesson: If you plan to cook a party-sized frozen vegetable lasagna, make sure you put it in the oven. The day after the timing snafu, we went to church with the oven going, thinking we'd have that cheesy delight ready when we came home... only to realize then that the lasagna itself was still in the freezer. Thank goodness we had more beer. The frozen lasagna ended up becoming a nice doorstop.

Third Lesson: An airline boarding pass with a poop stain on it is still a legitimate boarding pass. It's true. I'm not sure about spit-up on a boarding pass, but I suppose we'll test that next time.

Fourth Lesson: Cows are a lot like children...



... they're often the source of foul odors.

Fifth Lesson: A child's cow costume does not guarantee Halloween candy for the child's dad... though a little begging helps.

Okay - enough of the lessons. I'm late with getting out some important pictures, so here they are, images from Kyle's fourth month:

Kyle's Fourth Month

I hope you enjoy them.

And one more thought, this one concerning what happened yesterday: Kyle will now grow up taking for granted that an African American was President of the United States. By the time he votes, he likely will have also seen the first (or second) female president. Kyle will grow up believing everything in this country is possible, and that any person - regardless of race or gender - can be President of the United States. For real.

It's such a great time to be an American.