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Pearl had a wonderful time playing with her cousins in Arkansas. Since our last visit, the number of cousins has doubled. Twins Tillie and Louis are five weeks older than Pearl. They are now joined by twins Hannah and Miriam, who are three weeks old. Notice how their mother, Pearl's Aunt K, is still smiling? That's what I call amazing!
We got home last night. I will update the blog soon.
Photo Caption: Pearl and her friend Elmo assess the parks of Arkansas.
With Hurricane Rita bearing down, we drove to Arkansas and are staying with my mom and dad. The pets are with us too. We left Houston at 7 p.m. Wednesday and drove all night long, mostly because there was no way to get a room anywhere. After 11 hours, we made it to Lufkin, TX. Normally this drive takes 2.5 hours. It was stop-and-go most of the way. At 6 a.m. we got a room at a Holiday Inn and "regrouped" until noon. From Lufkin the rest of the 8 hour trip was not significantly different from our other trips to Wynne. At the Arkansas Welcome Center just past Texarkana, Marcia was interviewed and photographed in a story about evacuees. I'll have to check and see if she made the paper today. I must say that Pearl, Jake, and Moriah travelled like pros, and we are happy to be here to wait out the storm. Without a single toy or DVD player, we sang songs and talked a lot. It's certainly a birthday I won't forget any time soon.
Rita is heading our way. And on my birthday, no less! We're trying to figure out what to do. Thousands are already evacuating the city. Houston may be a ghost town by tomorrow. Cross your fingers for us.
Pearl is adding new words to her vocabulary each day. Here are a few of her personalized versions of words that I find especially fun:
Jack Yak
Long Yawn
Christeen Ess - een
Flower Flou - wah
Sorry Saw - wee
Milk Nick
Marcia said she was eating an apple in the car this morning, and when she got to the core, she said, "Birds eat seeds." Sentences like this one are very exciting to writer-parents like us.
Here are a few random thoughts.
Your turn!
How do we encourage more independent play? We are struggling with this question.
We still don't have DSL in the new house which has completely cramped by style so to speak in the blogging department. I submitted a formal complaint to SBC today. They have no record of my order and ask that I call another toll free number.
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Our big news this week is that Pearl has made the transition from crib to "big girl bed." We didn't plan on doing this so soon after our move, but that's the way it worked out.
Marcia's parents wanted to buy us a second crib for the new baby. We said we really didn't want a second crib because we thought Pearl would want to sleep in a regular bed by the spring, and the new baby would sleep in her former crib. We had been thinking we would get a bassinet until we were ready to make the change. So Marcia's parents bought the "big girl bed" instead and set it up in Pearl's room, opposite the crib. We thought we'd read books there, and she could adjust to the reality of the bed on her own terms.
On the third night of the bed being in her room, she would not go to sleep. She did not want to sleep in a crib any more. We did not have sheets for the twin bed nor did we have the safety railing yet. We hadn't read her those story books that help kids adjust to the idea of a different kind of bed. But Pearl was adamant!
In despair an hour or two after her regular bed time, we placed her in the regular bed with the crib mattress along the bedside, in case she rolled out. She went right to sleep, and she has slept there ever since.
If only potty training could go this smoothly!
So that you get a sense of what "Life with Pearl" is really like, here's the inventory of what I found inside my shoes this morning:
My first thought was this--that the song by Elvis Costello is true: the angels really do want to wear my red shoes.
Okay--some days I have very limited self-restraint. Good for a laugh, perhaps?
Here in Houston many of us are involved in the relief efforts assisting the 
survivors of Hurrican Katrina. I felt very happy that today Terrance at The Republic of T. reminds us of Jane Siberry's song, "Calling All Angels." I hadn't thought of the song in a long time, and like Terrance, I once loved it very much.
Apparently many of the relief workers have had that song on their minds, and now Jane Siberry has made the song available as a free download on her web site, Sheeba.
HURRICANE
HURRY CANE
WORLD SHAKING
WORLD SHOCK
WORLD COMPASSION
WORLD SLEEVES
WORLD PRAYER
WORLD HOE ROW
WORLD FAMILY
small things with great care
WORLD STRENGTH COMING IN
EYE
Yesterday I ran a whole bunch of errands. At one point, driving down Allen Parkway, I was 
following behind a 15-year-old Volvo station wagon. On the left side of the bumper, I saw a peace sign filled in with a rainbow flag. On the right side, there was a black and white "W" sticker. Could you please help me understand this?
Ask “What’s possible?” not “What’s wrong?” 
Hide & Seek is "in" at the new house. Boxes (empty and full) create the perfect hiding places where wide open spaces should be.
Once Pearl has found a hiding place, she hides in that spot for the rest of the day. She's at the developmental phase in which she thinks that if she can't see you, then you surely can not see her. Then when you finally "find" her, she squeals with excitement, runs to you, and gives you a most enthusiastic hug. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
The transition into the new house is going well for us. The staircase is definitely a major point of interest for Pearl. We still don't have DSL in the new house which is one reason why I haven't posted much for the past week. I will add pictures as I have time today so you can check out the new abode. Thanks for your patience!
You may have read this letter already. I've received it from several friends already. But just in case, I wanted to share this first-person account of the situation in New Orleans.
By JORDAN FLAHERTY
I just left New Orleans a couple hours ago. I traveled from the apartment I was staying in by boat to a helicopter to a refugee camp. If anyone wants to examine the attitude of federal and state officials towards the victims of hurricane Katrina, I advise you to visit one of the refugee camps.
In the refugee camp I just left, on the I-10 freeway near Causeway, thousands of people (at least 90% black and poor) stood and squatted in mud and trash behind metal barricades, under an unforgiving sun, with heavily armed soldiers standing guard over them. When a bus would come through, it would stop at a random spot, state police would open a gap in one of the barricades, and people would rush for the bus, with no information given about where the bus was going. Once inside (we were told) evacuees would be told where the bus was taking them - Baton Rouge, Houston, Arkansas, Dallas, or other locations. I was told that if you boarded a bus bound for Arkansas (for example), even people with family and a place to stay in Baton Rouge would not be allowed to get out of the bus as it passed through Baton Rouge. You had no choice but to go to the shelter in Arkansas. If you had people willing to come to New Orleans to pick you up, they could not come within 17 miles of the camp.
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