Let’s try this as a test and take it from there.

Last night we went to a small party at a friend’s apartment where the kids did a kind of hybridized Halloween Easter-egg-style candy hunt. They had fun. On the way home, Rollo, perhaps drunk on lollipops and chocolate bars, tripped and went flying into the corner of a sharp-edged wall. His hip was bruised pretty badly, so much so that I thought it was possibly chipped and broken. I no longer think it is, but…poor guy. First he loses his blankie, then this. The swelling has gone down quite a bit today (there was a bump about the size of a walnut) but he was in a lot of pain last night. He stayed home from school today — we were worried he would get banged up in the usual rough and tumble of kiddie play.

In other hip-related news, we’re all wishing Nana well as she undergoes hip replacement surgery today. We love you, Nana!

Rollo5’s birthday party was fabulous if a bit late. Here he is just before his candles were lit up:

We made up a bunch of food – curry/pear/squash soup, lasagna, chocolate cake, Rice Krispy cakes, and more. Guests came. Rollo opened presents and shrieked with joy. We went outside and played. The weather was gorgeous. All in all it couldn’t have been more fabulous. Here’s Shuwin, Rollo’s classmate and bestest buddy, showing us her cake face:

Then bedtime came and the nightmare began. It seems in our haste to clean up the apartment this morning, I may have thrown Rollo’s beloved blue blankie away. He has a squirrel-like tendency to stuff prized possessions into secret places that only he knows about.

Yesterday I bought a large pot so we could make soup. The pot came in a box. The box sat by the door—empty, or so I thought—this morning until I threw it out along with some other garbage.

This evening Rollo kept insisting his blanket was “in the big box”.

“You mean the white box that was by the door?!”

“YES!” he said, terror creeping into his voice. After the full force of what happened hit him, the tears flowed hard.

“I’m so sad that I can’t stop crying!” he sobbed again and again, causing me to well up. I can’t remember ever having been so passionate about an object. He was inconsolable for the better part of an hour before he fell asleep with Lisa cuddling him. Blankie has been around since he was born and he’s rarely ever been without it, certainly not at night.

I asked, “How did that make you feel?”

A fat grin spread across his face. “Really happy! Then she showed me her solar system!”

The day’s theme was astronomy.

The boy who has been signing his name all year as Rollo4 is now Rollo5. He skipped school today and went to the insect museum and the aquarium with Lisa. Then we all met up at the Cafe du Monde for spaghetti and sweet, sweet, sugary beignets. Then outside for some play with his new friends from Japan. Right now he’s capping off a glorious day with a Pokemon video (in English, thanks to Grandma) with chocolate cake to follow.

I’m having some trouble loading pics right now, so we’ll hold off on those for the moment, but here’s what’s been going on:

There have been three different massive fireworks displays in Century Park this week, right across from our apartment complex. Unfortunately we don’t have a park view but we did go out front for a look-see, along with the teeming masses who pooled up at the big intersection and oohed and aahed. The boys ran around with some kids they know and didn’t pay much attention to the fireworks.

Aidan lost his second tooth in about as many weeks yesterday. The Tooth Fairy has been busy. In fact, He asked me to put in word with the Fairy that he wants more money. Sadly I have no influence with the Tooth Fairy and he’ll get what he gets. The front right incisor was the lucky one — the same one he crunched when he fell on a chair some years back in Hyattsville. We’ll see if the new one grows back in properly. As I recall, there was some doubt from our dentist.

We bought a fish tank last weekend. It’s about 48 gallons according to my metric conversion, so it’s a biggee – more than twice the size of our old tank. Lisa is rapidly populating it with tropical fish. The boys, who have shown a knack for finagling free things from Chinese shopkeepers using nothing more than charm and their surprise Chinese language skills, are also contributing to the rising aquatic population as well. They scored 10 free fish and some plants from a shop the other day when Lisa wasn’t looking.

I picked up the first and second seasons of Rome recently. It’s really good.

Here’s the Lama Temple, containing one of the biggest Buddhas I’ve ever laid eyes on.

I know when I look for a product– any product, really — I want it to be clown fresh.

Finally, Ms. Raelynn Li — cuteness personified.