I just got back from JohnnyDeeps birthday party and let me just say,

Dang Johnny. You have A LOT of friends!

We all met at the Des Moines Yacht Club and at your wife’s behest I brought a flier discussing the LiveStrong Challenge, to show how anyone can donate to the Lance Armstrong Foundation to help fight cancer in your honor.

I didn’t have any preconceptions about how that flier would be receieved but I certainly didn’t expect to receive any cash. In fact I even forgot my wallet.

Well, it didn’t take long, just a few short hours, and the fact of the matter is your friends just donated $210 to the Lance Armstrong Foundation in your honor. I was able to do this because they spontaneously started a donation pot that went around the room and landed in my lap at the end of the night.

So I reckoned; your friends put the money in the pot now, tonight, without delay, for action. So the best course of action was to turn it over to the foundation without delay, where it can be used ASAP to fight cancer.

Happy birthday Johnny! Keep on fighting and enjoy The Tides tomorrow.

By request we have the only shot together of the girls in their Easter finery.

So Emma, at about 3AM the other night, woke up with another bad dream…

Mommy! I had a bad dweeem! (sobbing quietly)
Oh honey, It’s okay, it was just a dream.
The Daddy was twying to fwow me into a bit! (sup-sup)
Oh sweetie, that wasn’t real honey it was just a dream.

ah hah

Would our Daddy throw you into a pit? No. He wouldn’t do that would he?

No (sup) the Weel Daddy wouldn’t do that.
(a little perkier now)
Weel Daddies do Up-High, and Buttup-High, and Hipsup-High, and Towwewr.
(thinking of her favorite games)
THAT what Weel Daddies do!
…
Wheh is the Weel Daddy?

He is sleeping.

Oh. Ok, I want him.

Being 3AM I was sleeping like a runaway train; oblivious yet focused.

As it turns out, this was the third bad dweem she has had about me in the past couple weeks. In the other two I was withholding access to her Bibbit pillow and pulling the fuzz off of her Bibbit pillow respectively. Pulling the fuzz off her Bibbit could be construed as nightmarish under almost any circumstances.

So tonight at bedtime she brought it up again:

You the Weel Daddy.
Yes, I am the Real Daddy.
What do Pwetend Daddies do?
Well, that is a good question. But, if they are pretend Daddies can’t they pretty much do anything you want ‘em to?
Uh huh…like twy to fwow me into a bit.

Yikes, kid! Knock it off with the Pwetend Daddy fwowing you into a bit already?
I didn’t do it and, frankly, I don’t even know what IT is?

As it turns out, “fwow me into a bit” has been further explained at some length and seems to be her way of saying something related to me (I mean Pwetend Daddy) trying to bite (bit) her big toe. That is really kind of a focus for a lot of things lately. It is where the really big coughs come from and the place that the last scrap of food goes at dinner…I suppose it’s really just ‘land’s end’ on her body.

Anyway, I haven’t exactly gotten to the bottom of “fwow me into a bit” yet and even Abby gave me a quizzical shrug when I looked to her for much needed help.

I guess there is no direct translation.