Summer is cranking along. My job is great, completely different from anything I've done before. So apparently my gargantuan investment in grad school was worth it.

In more interesting news, the kids are doing fun stuff. Max's garden is thriving and there are peas for everyone. I think it is a sign of excellent parenting when a 4-year old cries because he has to stop eating peas and chard and come in for dinner. I don't think Max has asked for candy in months, and that's not because Leah and I don't buy candy for ourselves. Well, for Leah. In fact, the only time Max got interested in candy recently was when he was buying a fancy chocolate bar for our neighbor, Jennifer, who lets him pick raspberries from her yard.

Max's cousins from the west coast recently came to visit, and Max was happy to share his peas with Jesse. These two could not be more different: Jesse does not mind the occasional fall out of a tree, and Max, well, let's just say that he would mind. A lot. Plus, they only see each other at best once a year. Yet they interact like the best of (4-year old) friends: half hugs, half bickering.

Max also recently graduated from pre school and is headed to kindergarten in the BPS. Fun times ahead as we become "that family that cannot get their goddamned kid here on time and packs those weird lunches." Max's school is sort of on the edge of the hood and on the edge of yuppieville, so his classmates will be very different from those in his private pre-school. We think he will do wonderfully, because why not? Max got to be first across the stage at graduation and loved every second of it. Abe liked the reception better than the ceremony, because the ceremony did not involve noodles.