Delicious Autumn

Delicious Autumn!

My very soul

is wedded to it,

and if I were a bird

I would fly 

about the earth,

seeking

the successive

autumns.

(quote by George Eliot)

Olivia and Little Ben

A few weeks ago, we got to try our hand at having 5 kids (5 and under!) for ten days.  Our good friends JoDee and Brandon went on a family "grown-ups only" trip to Mexico, so Olivia and Ben got to come and join our family for a while!

For the most part, we tried to keep everything really low-key, because I learned pretty quickly that buckling 5 kids into car seats gets a little exhausting.  This was our biggest outing (when Ben was there to help, of course) -- to do a hayride at Wilson Farms.

Ben and I were very self-conscious that people would actually think they were ALL our kids.  Some people saw Little Ben and Ellis and definitely thought they were brothers.  Do you think they could pass as our kids?

Mostly I just think this gourd display is awesome.  Maybe someday that's how I'll decorate my house for fall.


[Here's the one obligatory cute Sammy picture - for the grandmas!]

Olivia and Little Ben are really good kids.  It was pretty much a party in our house the whole time.  The kids all got along really well.  Sam loved the extra attention!

We got a kick out of Little Ben.  For one thing, he's very advanced compared to our boys in the climbing/opening/getting-into-stuff department.  I learned a lot of things, like HIDE the baking soda!  We also got a kick out of the funny things he says and the way he says them.  Ben, Henry, Ellis, and I have been quoting Little Ben ever since they left.  Our favorite thing is the way he adds extra letters to words, like the word "peanut" is "peeka."  Not sure where the K came from.  Our favorite quote is (in a VERY high-pitched voice) "No!  Not peeka butta jelly!  PEEKA BUTTA HONEY!!!"

And these two just might be BFF's.  They get along SO well.  They are both on the same page as far as reading, imagining, exploring, crafting, and being silly are concerned.  Olivia rejoiced every afternoon when the "time to pick Henry up from school" timer went off.  HENRY!!!  

And as long as Henry was at school, Ellis sufficed as a playmate.  They actually had a lot of fun together!  It turns out that Ellis is cool with playing with paper princess dolls, and Olivia is a REALLY good page-turner when it comes to listening to Curious George audio books.  

And I must admit, I loved having a girl around.  The world of boys is just slightly different from the world with a little girl in it.  Olivia is a little ray of sunshine and just gets excited about everything.  She was constantly saying things like, "Oh, Candy Land?  I LOVE Candy Land!  Just LOVE it!  Can you please play Candy Land with us?  Please, please, PLEASE???"  We don't normally get that level of enthusiasm or affection from our matter-of-fact boys.  Olivia also showered me with compliments repeatedly.  She always told me I was pretty and that I was an excellent cook ("It's like you have a cook book in your head!").  I didn't mind having someone like that around.

Admittedly, we were pretty glad when bedtime was over each night and all five kids were tucked away (in the same bedroom!), and after ten days, we were exhausted.  But we survived.  And now, of course, we're looking back on it fondly.  And some little part of me kind of felt like Super Woman by the end of the week.  Let's just say I'll plan on spreading out my own kids a bit more than this bunch was!  :)

Sweet Dreams

Something about that voice is just so soothing . . .

The Ramble: Europe is burning

This is now the third time I've sat down to write something about Europe and the mess they're in.  Each time I've gotten halfway done, and then the next day some new major development happens that makes a lot of what I've written obsolete.  It's such a see-saw over there!  Here's hoping this post is relevant for at least the next hour.  Feel free to skip any section you're not interested in! :)

The Real Problem in Europe


The EU is in big trouble.  The immediate problem is that Greece is essentially bankrupt and needs to be bailed out, but the real root of the problem is that all of its member nations use the same currency but each nation gets to set its own fiscal policy.  Let's use a quick example to understand why that's a problem.  Suppose there are two friends named Germany and Greece.  They've gotten along well for a while, and so they decide to move in to the same 2-bedroom apartment.  Germany is more of a natural leader, so he pays a bit more of the rent but also gets the bigger bedroom with the window.  Things go well for a few years, but after a while Germany starts to worry about Greece.  You see, Greece got laid off from his job, but rather than cutting back his living standards, he's just charged his expenses on a credit card.  Germany is concerned that Greece isn't going to pay his portion of the rent, but he doesn't want to say anything because he doesn't want to hurt Greece's feelings.  Unfortunately, things go from bad to worse for Greece, and in the end he sheepishly approaches Germany to tell him that he can't cover the rent, and that he's in debt up to his eyeballs.

What's Germany to do?  He doesn't want to bail out Greece, but not doing so will get BOTH of them evicted from their apartment, and Germany will not only have to find a new apartment, but he'll lose his (large) security deposit on the apartment as well.  But if he just bails him out, he's worried that Greece (or one of his other down-on-their-luck friends--Italy, Spain, and Portugal) will turn around and ask for another handout soon.  In the end, he decides he'll bail out Greece (with the help of other friends--France, IMF, US, and others), but only under some strict conditions that will essentially force Greece to pay him back out of his future wages.

Greece doesn't like this deal, but he doesn't have many options.  He could refuse it, and just move out of the apartment, but he'll never find a better apartment (in fact, he'd have to live in a pretty crumby one), and Germany buys expensive food that Greece really enjoys.  But if he takes the deal he's not sure when he'll ever be able to get ahead, because all of his extra money will be going to Germany to pay him back.  He wavers back and forth, undecided about what to do.

Okay, it's not a perfect example, but putting it in this context makes it easier to understand the main points, I think.  The real problem going on here is that in the EU each country shares the same currency, but each country gets to decide individually how much it's going to borrow and how much it's going to tax, along with a host of other policies.  This means that countries that are irresponsible can harm others in the EU, because any action they take affects the currency that they all share.  In my story, that's like Greece just spending away after he lost his job--he knows that Germany will have to bail him out if it comes to that, so he has less incentive to cut back.  Where my example breaks down is that it's a much bigger deal for Germany and other EU countries than just having to find a new apartment.  If Greece really crashes and burns, it will likely have a large effect on all of the EU.  Specifically, it could easily push Italy, Spain and Portugal over the edge as well, and if those much larger countries fall into a serious recession, all of Europe will almost surely follow suit.

The Solution for Greece and the EU


So, we have the immediate problem, which is that Greece is bankrupt, and the long-term problem, which is that the EU is set up in a way that is unsustainable.  In my view, to fix the immediate problem Greece needs to take the bailout.  They keep going back and forth on this.  At first they accepted, then they said they'd put it to a referendum (which is equivalent to rejecting it), then they said they wouldn't do the referendum.  Who knows what they'll choose tomorrow.  But it's in everyone's interest that Greece doesn't completely crash and burn, and to avoid that we need to bail them out.  The problem is that there are no bankruptcy courts for nations, so there's not an orderly way to deal with the process, and that's why it's so messy and uncertain.  But, under whatever terms they finally decide, a bailout needs to happen.

Fixing the EU itself is even trickier.  I really like the idea of the EU.  A unified currency, free trade, and free labor markets between countries are all things that I fully support.  I think the European Central Bank has done an outstanding job so far, as well.  But to make it work they need to have a more unified government--especially in terms of fiscal policy.  And doing that is going to be extremely difficult because each country has such a distinct culture, and no one country is going to be willing to bow to any of the others.  We have distinct cultures in each state in the U.S. as well, but we have the benefit of having grown up together.  We all think of ourselves as American first (well, maybe except Texans :) ), and so we are willing to have a centralized government for most things.  Europeans have a much harder time doing that.  The Germans HATE the idea of bailing out the Greeks.  The Greeks HATE the idea of being bailed out by the Germans.  The Italians are not about to cow to the whims of the French!  And that's the problem: they think of themselves first as Italians, Greeks, Germans, and French, and not Europeans.  I just think it's going to be pretty much impossible for them to agree to any sort of effective centralized government that can run fiscal policy.  That makes the euro unsustainable.  Which means that I predict that several nations, if not all of them, will stop using the euro over the coming years.  I just think that's inevitable at this point.  The goal, then, should be to make the transition as smooth as possible--which means bailing out Greece to put out the fire, and then finding an exit for them.  I really hope that the EU survives with free trade and free movement between countries, and I think it will, but I think the euro is gone.

What this means for the U.S.


The good news is that this is happening in Europe and not here.  Yeah!  It wasn't us this time!  Is there any other good news?  Well, if Europe goes down the economic drain, that means that all of our companies here in the U.S. that compete with European companies will likely do a bit better because they'll have weaker competition.  And, this solidifies the U.S. dollar as THE worldwide currency, which is a good thing for us overall.  And, we'll likely be able to buy European goods for cheaper, I guess.  And...uh...that's about it for the good news.

The bad news is that we do about 20% of our total trade with Europe.  If Europe has a major recession, we will almost for sure fall back into recession as well.  That's the real story.  To get some sense of how this is affecting us, check out this graph of the S&P 500 index.  Really, click on it.  See that big jump on October 27th?  That's when the bailout deal for Greece was announced.  The market rose like 2.5% on that news!  That's huge!  That means that the average large company in the U.S. was suddenly worth something like 1.75% more* just because Greece was going to be saved!  Now look at what happened around Halloween--look for the big cliff.  Stocks dropped about 1.3% over the weekend, and then another 2.8% on Monday night.  What caused that?  That's when Greece announced it was going to hold a referendum, which would likely kill the bailout.  U.S. companies were suddenly worth substantially less because Europe was back in its pickle.  Our economy is just very closely tied to Europe's.  If they have problems, that means we're going to feel that, and vice versa.  These days, our economy is pretty closely tied to almost everybody else, for that matter.  If Europe falls into a major crisis, that means that suddenly they're not buying as many American goods and services (mostly services!), they're not sending as many tourists over here, and they're not hiring as many Americans to work for them.  It also means that they won't be doing as much trade with China or Canada or South America, all of which are major trading partners for us as well.  All of those things hurt us.

So, please, Greece, take the bailout, and please, EU, let's make these changes as calmly as possible.  Pretty please?

Comments, suggestions, thoughts, or questions are always welcome!  Also, please vote on what you want me to write about next: (1) Occupy Wall Street, (2) Education in America, (3) the Lewis and Clark Expedition and new frontiers, (4) How we mess up lots of decisions.

*The value of the average public company in the U.S. is made up of about 30% debt and 70% equity--so when the market goes up by 2.5%, the value of the company goes up by 2.5%*70%=1.75%.

Feeding Therapy and Food Chaining

Tonight was a victory: our entire family ate the same thing for dinner!  Every single person (including Sam) enjoyed their food and didn't require a word of prodding to convince them to gobble it up.  This hasn't happened in our house for over three years.

Granted, we had apple cinnamon pancakes with maple syrup for dinner, a meal most sane people would enjoy without much persuasion.  But if you had asked Ben or myself four months ago if we thought it was possible to convince Ellis to eat a pancake, we would have been skeptical.  It's a small success, but from everything we've researched, we should be happy for the baby steps Ellis is taking.

If you know anyone with similar feeding issues to Ellis', or even picky-eating issues that are not quite as extreme as his, I would pass along two recommendations: feeding therapy (and a few tricks we've learned from our beloved Miss Kathy) and "Food Chaining."  Allow me to elaborate . . .

1. Feeding therapy.  We have been taking Ellis to visit his friend, Miss Kathy, for weekly visits since August.  She is a speech therapist trained in feeding therapy who deals with kids like Ellis all the time.  She told me when we first began that a) I didn't cause Ellis' feeding problems (although I may have influenced them in certain directions); b) his problems are a combination of sensory/texture issues, anxiety, and behavior; c) the problems wouldn't go anywhere without regular feeding therapy.  While I'm certain someone could figure out how to "fix" this problem at home, I sure am happy to have some guidance.  For one thing, it's great to have someone besides the parent helping Ellis out.  He is ten times more likely to do something Kathy asks him to do than something I ask him to do.  She's very good at working with him, and he adores her.  For another thing, she has some amazing tricks up her sleeve that I never would have thought of.

What are her tricks?  She has a few strategies that really seem to work.  When we go to see her, we bring a few foods that Ellis doesn't normally eat.  She has him decide what he wants to do with the food (no pressure to eat it).  He can look at it, touch it, count it, smell it, lick it, kiss it, cut it, stir it, put it on his tongue, etc.  Over time, this helps him get used to foods that are unfamiliar and scary to him.  She always pushes him just up to his limit, but not so far that he loses his trust in her.  She'll have him take a piece of the food and hold it on his tongue (no hands!); then they count for 5 or 10 seconds and then take it off.  They'll do that 5 or 6 times, then try holding it between the teeth (no hands again!).  She'll change it up in different ways (hold all the different pieces of food on the tongue; try different sides of the mouth, etc) and just keep on manipulating it in as many ways as possible.  Anything to make it fun so that he's no longer worrying about the food, but his fingers, tongue, lips, and teeth are used to handling the food.  Then when he's that comfortable with it, she'll ask him to take the tiniest bite out of the side of his mouth.  I was SHOCKED the first time I saw him go along with this.  She convinced him to eat a Ritz cracker for the first time this way, and then did it with many other foods.  She can't always convince him, but at least he's getting more comfortable with each food.

We also have feeding therapy "steps" every day at home together, where we try to do the same things with different types of food.  He's not nearly as responsive to me as he is to her, but we've had a lot of successes (among the many tantrums and tears).



Which leads me to talking about
2. Food Chaining.  A friend of mine introduced me to this brilliant book called Food Chaining.  It may not be the best book for a parent of a regular picky eater -- it's definitely geared more specifically toward parents of resistant or problem eaters.  But I still think the principles could work for a regular picky eater.  The concept is that you take a food that the child eats and enjoys, and find a way to map it (through many steps) to a food that you want them to eat.

For example, I wanted Ellis to eat a peanut butter sandwich.  I know he likes cookies, so I started with Nutter Butters and created a food chain going from Nutter Butters to Ritz Bits to regular Ritz crackers spread with real peanut butter to Ritz with peanut butter and honey to a peanut butter and honey sandwich.  That might sound easy, but then each step was a complex process (using feeding therapy tricks described above).  It took me 45 minutes to convince him to eat a Nutter Butter.  I had to dissect a Reese's Peanut Butter cup (which he likes), let him taste that peanut butter plain, then let him eat chocolate chips with little bits of the peanut butter from the Nutter Butters on them, gradually increasing the peanut butter.  Then eventually, he ate a half of a mini Nutter Butter with a chocolate chip on it.  After that, he was sold on Nutter Butters.  We celebrated that day because Ellis discovered that he likes peanut butter!  We talked about it a lot for a few days and ate Nutter Butters until he was convinced that he really loves peanut butter, and then we were able to move slowly onto the next step.

Food chaining seems like a pretty obvious concept, but it wasn't something we would have thought of on our own.  For one thing, I think the idea is to break things down into teeny little baby steps.  You can't just try a food with your child once, and then give up when they reject it.  We tried to convince Ellis many times before to eat pancakes with maple syrup, but he would never even consider licking the syrup before!  So instead of jumping right to pancakes and trying to convince him that they tasted sweet like candy, we moved him from trying pumpkin muffins (which he likes) to trying pumpkin pancakes.  Then we added "frosting syrup" to the pancakes.  Then I got him to taste some syrup in a "dipping festival" we had in which we tried dipping oyster crackers in all sorts of dips (yogurt, honey, peanut butter, jelly, syrup, etc).  Then I tried giving him pumpkin pancakes with "frosting syrup" and maple syrup.  Then tonight's cinnamon pancakes with maple syrup were a breeze!



The other concept that I've really liked from this book is "flavor masking."  It's the idea that if you can get your child to try a food with a flavor they know they like, then they will get used to a more subtle version of the flavor they're unsure of.  This is the concept behind my trying the chocolate chip with the peanut butter as described above.  It's also why I wanted him to try all of the different dips, because if he can fall in love with maple syrup or peanut butter, that opens up a whole new window of things he might try with those flavors in them.  I've also done a bit of "texture masking."  Knowing he likes granola bars, I got Ellis to try a Special K granola bar that had a bit of dried fruit in it.  Then I was able to take little bits of granola bar and put Craisins in it and eventually (30 minutes into the process) get him to eat a Craisin plain.  And who knows where that might take us?

I know to most people it might seem crazy that I'm rejoicing that my child ate a peanut butter sandwich, a few Craisins, and a pancake with syrup.  But these are things that really seemed IMPOSSIBLE to us a few months ago.  It also seems crazy to me that I'm suddenly going down the grocery aisle buying things like Nutter Butters, Ritz Bits, and chocolate covered nuts.  I even bought Pop Tarts a couple of weeks ago . . . all in the name of food chaining!  I seriously never thought I'd see the day when I first of all purchased Pop Tarts, and then spent 15 minutes trying to persuade my child to eat them!  I've really had to let go of some of my food snobbery to make way for these baby steps.  I'm just so happy with the success Ellis has had so far, although I know we still have a LONG way to go toward "normal," let alone "healthy."

If you're really interested in seeing our progress so far and where we plan to go next in our baby steps, you can check out this Food Map that Ben and I created.  You can zoom in and scroll side to side if needed.  The foods circled in blue are the foods Ellis ate before we started feeding therapy -- basically 9 different foods.  The foods circled in green are the foods we have added since August, with the date marking when we added them.  The foods with no circles are some ideas we have for different directions we might go with the food chaining.  If you have any ideas for other foods we might try that might lead us to more food options, we'd love to hear your suggestions!  Also, Ben put a link to Ellis' Food Map on the sidebar of our blog, in case you want to continue tracking his progress (or if you are considering inviting him over for dinner and want to know what to make :).  

Kind of makes it look like we don't have a life, huh?  Well, it helps us to keep track of our progress and goals, and it makes me happy.  I just love this boy too much to let him go off to college with a suitcase full of Gerber purées.  We'll get there eventually, I hope.

Something New, Something Old, Something you would NEVER guess

 We did something NEW for Halloween this year: carved a Jack-o-Lantern.  Ben has been trying to convince me for YEARS to do this, and I refused to do it with children who wouldn't care or help in any way (and I'm not into the gloop).  Ben took the reins with this one, and Henry assisted beautifully.  I'm happy to let the Jack-o-Lantern become a "Dad Tradition" at our house. I kind of like to stick to traditions that taste yummy . . .

Like making donuts!  Once again, my friend Eliza and I made our homemade donuts (our 4th year in a row - this is one of my favorite traditions!).  The pumpkin spice donuts were to die for, as one might expect.

And what would you NOT expect from our family for Halloween?  What is the one thing you would NEVER guess that we might do?

How about dressing up in U.S. Presidents costumes?  I promise, we'll move on to a new obsession someday.  I'm just not sure when that will be!

For now, the boys were purely delighted with their uniquely presidential costumes.

Henry as Teddy Roosevelt

Doesn't he look natural with a mustache?

Ellis as Abraham Lincoln.  You should have seen the happy dance he did when we got this costume all put together.  He was giddy about his black bow tie and "tall tall hat."  Did you know Lincoln kept court documents and other important papers in his stovepipe hat?  Ellis wanted to keep his Halloween candy in his hat . . . but it got a little tricky.

Ben and Sam as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

If you know Ellis very well, you know that this is the face he makes 90% of the time when he's in a situation where other people are being remotely boisterous.  Honest Abe maintained this demeanor for most of the night - especially when Teddy tried to gallop in circles around him.

Lady Liberty joins the party!  Did you know that last Friday was the Statue of Liberty's 125th anniversary?  I hope Megan didn't regret lending her costume to me on that day!

The landmark family: Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty, all squished together.!

The post-trick-or-treat sorting.  Sam was in heaven chewing on the wrappers!

First picks: Henry goes straight for the chocolate.  Ellis thinks about it, but when it comes down to it, he's a lollipop kind of guy.

8 Months

Well, it's happened again.  The Sammers has grown another month older.

And it's getting harder and harder to get him to lie on his back for these pictures!  

Over the past few days, he has broken a family record by being the first Iverson baby to crawl before he learned to walk!  Yep, he's an official crawler.  It is so cute to see him up on those knees rocking, and then moving!  He has just started to traverse the boundaries between rooms.  As you can see, it's no longer safe to leave ANYTHING lying on the floor -- even if it's a room away from Sam!

See those two adorable teeth starting to show?  I love them.  The funny thing is, I just noticed another tooth has cut through as well -- on the top.  But it's not one of the top middle teeth; it's one of the teeth on the side.  So soon we're going to have ourselves a little vampire!  Should be exciting!

Amendment regarding October Snow

Here's an update to our family Christmas music policy:

No member of the Iverson family shall sing Christmas music or play Christmas albums until the day after Thanksgiving. Playing Christmas music on the piano is acceptable after Halloween, but NO SINGING ALONG! The space between Halloween and Thanksgiving is STRICTLY reserved for practicing accompaniments. The new Christmas album of the year may be played after the Nov. 14th wedding anniversary (traditional time to by the new album of the year), but no other albums until Thanksgiving!

Amendment: If it snows before Halloween, disregard the above policy. Do whatever is necessary to maintain a bright outlook about the early appearance of winter!

We take our family policies pretty seriously around here.

Grandma and Grandpa . . . and Grandma!

This past week we were lucky enough to have not two but THREE grandparents come visit us: my mom's mom, Grandma Whitesides, joined my parents for a fall visit to the Northeast!  I've been bugging Grandma Whitesides to come visit us since we moved here three years ago, and we're so glad that she decided to come!  She's a very spry 87-year-old, and we certainly put her through her paces trying to take it all in.  Here's a run-down of what we covered:

Grandma Iverson knows that the way to a boy's heart is through his stomach.  So, we started off with some Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Halloween spiders.

Looks like it worked!

We let Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma go do the main Boston sites unencumbered by our toddlers.  They made it to a lot in two days: the Old North Church, Paul Revere's House, the Old Statehouse, Boston Common, Fenway, Lexington Green, Louisa May Alcott's home, Walden Pond, Sleepy Hollow Cemetary, the North Bridge, and I'm probably forgetting a few other things in there as well.

When the weekend arrived, we viewed it as our goal to give them the most picturesque view of the Northeast possible.  I think we succeeded:

First stop: Eastern Point Lighthouse on Cape Ann.  Neither of the grandmas were too sure about the 30-foot drop on either side of the breakwater down in to the ocean, but it's the only way to really see the lighthouse!

Eventually they got used to it.  :)  We had a great picnic out on the rocks, overlooking the harbor, lighthouse, and the Atlantic Ocean.

Next up was Rockport, MA.  Just a fun, little ocean town.  This red lobster shack is called "Motif No. 1."  Seriously.

The intrepid travelers on the end of Bear Skin Neck.

We were really glad that we got warm enough weather that we needed to buy some ice cream!  Henry performs the classic suck-out-all-of-the-ice-cream-through-the-bottom trick.

Our last stop of the day was Nubble Light in York, ME.  They claim it's the most photographed lighthouse in the U.S.  I don't doubt it.

Sam thoroughly enjoyed any and all attention he got from our visitors!  Also, in this picture you can tell that the lighthouse is on an island, separated by maybe 50 feet of water from the land.  They have a little rickety tram that takes the lightkeepers across the void.

After church on Sunday, we drove up to Lyme, NH and stayed in a great little Bed & Breakfast.  The breakfast was incredible--I'm still dreaming of the apple cinnamon pancakes with real Vermont maple syrup.  Mmmmmmm.  After breakfast on Monday morning, we drove through Hanover, NH, home of Dartmouth College, then headed on down to Sharon, VT to see Joseph Smith's birthplace.

Here are the boys and Eva (whom we happened to run in to!) sitting on one of the original stones from the Smith's hearth.

Sam and me in front of the obelisk, which was erected on Joseph's birthday 100 years after he was born, in 1905.  It's 38 1/2 feet tall, one foot for each year of his life.  We had a great visit here, and would recommend it to everyone!

We then decided to drive to Sugarbush Farm, in Woodstock, VT.  Happily, we took a few wrong turns and ended up on a dirt road that looked like this.  It was astoundingly beautiful.

Jenn snapped this out our car window on the drive.

Somehow, we didn't take many pictures of Sugarbush Farm.  But, as you can see, we all enjoyed it, even Sam.  We got to try 14 different kinds of cheeses that they make, as well as 4 different varieties of pure Vermont maple syrup.  They also showed us how they tap the trees and make the syrup.  Can you believe that it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup?  They just boil it down until it is exactly 67% sugar.  In my book, anything that is 67% sugar is likely to be amazing.  Pure maple syrup was no exception.  Aunt Jemima just can't hold a candle to it!

We were so glad to have such a good visit with such great people!  I was especially glad that my boys got to bond with Grandma Whitesides, whom I admire more and more all the time.  Thanks for coming Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma!

Booby-trapped!

Last night, Henry comes up to me with an evil grin, and whispers in my ear, "Dad, don't try to get a pencil from Mom's planner . . . it's booby-trapped!"  Well, I had to see what this was all about!  Here's what I found:

Watch out, Jenn!  It's a jungle out there.