Add to the List of Things to Buy

The bad news first: the beloved family friend, known as the digital camera, is broken. Dropped one too many times, I guess. It finally just gave up after five and a half years of devoted service. Next to the coffee maker and the computer, this is the one device I use daily.

Now the good news: the digital camera is broken. That's right - an opportunity to hemorrhage large amounts of cash. I mean, a chance to upgrade to a nice new camera. Whoo hoo!

But until then, I have asked that my children not do anything cute. Nothing noteworthy that I might want to remember or commemorate by taking a picture and finding it years later in the basement of my computer that is iphoto. No developmental milestones or other feats of growth. No first haircut. No blowing of dandelion puffs into the wind. No admiring yourself in the mirror with your puckered lips and half-closed eyes while you brush your own hair - the same way you look when you are blowing a dandelion puff.

No reading books to your younger brothers while they gaze up at you with those worshipping looks on their faces. And did I just catch you dancing to a song that you are singing to yourself because you think no one is watching? No more snuggling with the dog, who is at his sweetest when he is being snuggled by own of his boys. And no walking down the path in the woods with that dog at your side and the sun filtering through the trees to create halos on both your heads. And absolutely no hugging and kissing of your siblings instead of the usual wrestling that occurs. Please, not that!

I hope we can all hold out until the new camera arrives.