Flickr

I have been quite unhappy lately with how cumbersome Shutterfly has become – the new version is so frustrating I don’t even want to attempt to upload photos and email them out! So I am trying something new. As I take photos, I am going to upload them to Flickr, and they will show up in the column on the right of my blog. If you click on a photo, it will take you to Flickr and the photostream. I don’t really expect this to replace Shutterfly for me entirely – Flickr has a monthly upload limit, and I take a LOT of photos, so I am uploading them as pretty small files. Not sure how they will print, or what Flickr’s print quality is like. This is all pretty new, but I figured it was worth a try. Let me know what you think!

The newest photos were taken this afternoon on the front porch while enjoying homemade watermelon popsicles. The mosquitos were fierce, and both Fletcher and Lola Gray got eaten alive before I realized it. I am soooooo ready for cool weather to come along and send these bugs packing!

How do I explain?

It seems the children and I have been having a lot of conversations lately on topics a little bigger than I expected to be covering with a 2 year old and a 4 year old. And they always leave me at a little bit of a loss – it is a pretty confusing world we live in!

Yesterday the children were playing “family” with the baby dolls, Fletcher’s new favorite game. (Lola Gray would rather play Dora & Diego.) I was listening from the other room when an argument broke out and Fletcher came running into the room crying because Lola Gray wouldn’t play right. Apparently, she wanted to be married to Aunt Boo instead of to Fletcher. He was VERY upset because girls have to marry boys so Lola could NOT marry Aunt Boo. “Tell her Mommy, girls have to marry boys!!”

Hmmm . . . how do I handle this without giving them more information than they really need at this stage? I mean, girls don’t always marry boys any more, do they? And Lola Gray absolutely can NOT marry her brother. I told him that Lola can marry anyone she wants (other than her brother or her aunt) and that he should probably marry someone from outside our family. He said ok, he will marry Grace instead. Whew. Crisis averted.

Today in the grocery store I had to explain to Fletcher that nothing was WRONG with Grandaddy for supporting McCain for president instead of Obama, and that yes indeed Grandaddy is still an American even though he doesn’t like Obama. And, by the way, Grace’s Daddy doesn’t like Obama either but we can still like him too. (And no, we can not pull the McCain sticker off his car and put on an Obama one – though it might be fun!) So, I started trying to explain to Fletcher that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and everyone gets to decide who they think will be the best president, and here are the reasons Daddy and I think Barack Obama should be president. I was trying to put everything in a context that a 4 year old can understand, so I told him that we think Obama will take good care of our country and our planet so that this will be a wonderful place for him to live. I didn’t say it quite that concisely, in fact I was probably rambling. I started talking about becoming energy independent and using solar power and wind power, at which point Fletcher interrupted me and said, in an adorable stage whisper, “He can do it because he has OBAMA POWER!”

OK. Presidential candidate as super hero. I’ll buy that.