Dear A,

Ha! I remember a time that you wouldn't want a French guy to deliver furniture to your place because you couldn't properly yell at them in French when he scratched your stuff. Now, I bet you could yell profanities pretty well (or at least the same level of a really mean 5th grader), but I suppose it is easier to be able to yell at F, since you can opt for French or English. Hm, Spanish, too, because I bet F's Spanish includes the word "cabron?" (and yes, I'm too stupid to figure out how to put accents on words).

We just rolled back in from week on Maui, where the kids and the hubby proceeded to get beautifully tan, and I remained the pale beached whale sitting in lounge chair. Ok, I'll be kind to myself, not so much a beached whale, but maybe just a lost sea lion (since I'm probably that loud and can get nasty for food, as well). Really, the only thing I hate about Hawaii is the plane ride to and fro. If I didn't have to travel with my kids, it would be so much better.

You know how on every flight, there is always that one kid? That one kid that is so fricken' loud that no amount of cuteness could make up for them and really, all you want to do is muffle it with a pillow (or your chest, like that mother did in *MASH* when that American convoy was traveling through Viet Cong territory and the baby starting to cry; although she muffled that baby to death, so maybe my analogy is getting a bit gruesome here...). Anyhow! That kid!! Well, that kid is MY kid. Seriously. My youngest has a mouth on him like no other and I'm only glad that he's 1 and not 17, mouthing off about how he got some girl pregnant but it's no big deal because he's got a job at the local surf shop. Sigh.

I think we can all guess who he takes after. But we have my husband to blame for his sperm!

Love, D