Today is Auden's birthday. If you're a parent, you probably know how almost discon- certing it is to realize that your little baby is four.

We celebrated today by going swimming at Las Brises with the kids from the little children's home and other children from the neighborhood.

We had a lot of little ones who can't swim, but we had a lot of fun together. This is James showing off.


This is Bernadette riding on my back. She was timid getting into the water, but she loved the whale rides.

Ok, it's a dispro- portionate ratio of Bernadette pictures, but she's such a cutie.

Deborah works really hard to make birthdays (and other important days) really special for the family. Auden woke up to coffee cake for breakfast, and asked for pumpkin soup for lunch and sinagong (sour soup) for supper.

If she looks a little proud of herself here, she deserves it. Auden's going to remember this day for a while.

Those of you who know Auden at all know that he doesn't do a lot of processing internally. He had a good time at the pool, but it was very interesting to see how he's changed again only just recently. After a while he went off by himself, looking for interesting sticks and pieces of metal he could collect. A little boy now, he's developing an inner life.