Keeping Up With the Joneses

Actually, the title might best be "Falling Behind with the Joneses." Since Spring 2010, the quick summary of our lives sounds a bit too soap opera for comfort: family member in coma, frightening pregnancy, rare pregnancy complication, emergency birth peril, NICU, preemie, newborn sleeplessness, birth defects, medical appointments, friend in coma, parent having surgery, and the deaths of (different) friend and (different) family member.

My mind was simply too muddled to write. Since Ranger started Kindergarten and Scout started preschool this Fall, I've been trying to tackle a year and half of neglected housework and family business. As the dark tide of laundry recedes to reveal the laundry room floor and the downstairs sofa sheds it heavy coat of clean laundry, unwritten sentences rise to the surface.

So, with a slight flutter of Apple II-era remembrance* (thank you, Mr. Jobs), may I repeat the first phrase I ever made a computer monitor to display:

HELLO WORLD!

We've missed you.

*The electric thrill I felt seeing those words appear on the screen of my grade school's only computer still resonates when I consider how words written in my living room instantly travel worldwide.

***Baby Toolkit is the periodic commentary of two geek parents from the Midwest. When we're not telling our kids things like "Don't eat the toilet paper," we read, play games, explore, and generally struggle with parenting and household management.