I'm up to my neck in nieces and nephews and loving it. Anna just rode me like a horse all the way to California(her orders.) We didn't actually get to California--we only got as far as the Rockies when the horse pooped out.

Theo is doing a biography of Dr. Seuss as his third grade school project. He has compiled a bunch of sources and now knows everything worth knowing about the author.

Yesterday I was with my sister and her three in Western Mass--Noah, Eli, and Lucy. My sister Emily has been helping a Mexican farmworker family. The furnace at the house where they are renting has been broken, the landlord won't oir can't get it fixed, and four adults and two tiny children livwe there shivering, wearing snowsuits indoors. The mother, Rosie, is 25 years old but looks fifteen. She's tiny, wearing child-sized clothes and doesn't speak much English, but communicates what she needs with her smiling eyes. She told Emily, "Tell me when your sister is coming again and I will make her chicken mole."

The fat baby toddles around, falls down, laughs. The little girl sat on my lap, a warm weight, and flirted. Their daycare provider, who hardly earns any money herself, had taken it upon herself to help them out and came over to babysit so the parents could go out and look for housing. Another apartment had been found in town, and we all trooped over to see it. My sister translated for the landlord who was a bit dubious, but ultimately agreed. The family is ecstatic!

The kitchen of the new apartment slopes in one of those A-framed, gabled New England roof ways--too short for me, but just right for Rosie, who is only as big as a doll herself--a doll-house.

My nephew Noah, almost 13, can trap one of his farts in a glass, a dubious talent which I hope will stand him well in later life. He has shot up so tall since I last saw him six months ago. His hands and feet are mammoth. His voice has deepened to a baritone. It's all happeniong so fast--one minute he's a goofball child, the next a semi-responsible semi-adult who can intelligently discuss the candidates for the upcoming '08 election. Eli, age seven, has a loose tooth and lives to annoy his brother. And Lucy, little Lucy, is a goofy princess of pure light.