Could you wear pads and a catcher's mask? It IS getting to be baseball season.

Well, that would be good for a few laughs at least.

As I understand it, the cost basis is the worth of the stock the day your relative died. If it's now worth more, you'll pay long-term capital gains on the difference between the cost basis and the current value. Considering that the market is down, you might not have anything to pay, unless the amount of inheritance is high enough to be subject to inheritance taxes. If it is, congratulations!

That's our understanding, too--and the stock has, as of this point, gone down since she died in early January. But if the money does turn out to be there, we'll be sure to work with appropriate financial and legal professionals to sort out the tax ramifications.

As for keeping the money in stock and collecting dividends, that's certainly an option, but my gut is against it for two reasons: A) it's all in one company, and I'd feel safer with a more diversified portfolio, and B) it's in one of the major oil companies, and I don't really like them.

But don't congratulate us until we actually know it's there, you know? The will dates to 1997, and she was living off a combination of dividend income and selling off little pieces of her considerable stock portfolio all along, and we just really don't know yet. There may be nothing left. It may be smaller than we think. For now, it's frankly kinda stressful and crazy-making, because it's so hard not to think of what neighborhood we might buy a house in or what car we'd get to replace that damn '96 Contour when it's still possible this will all fall through.

ION, Emeline and Matilda's refusals to wear pants cracks me up, because we've got the opposite child at our house. We want Annabel to wear dresses for Easter because it's tradition and Palm Sunday because the kids process into the sanctuary at church waving palms, so it'd be kinda nice to not have her in jeans and a turtleneck for a change. So we got her three dresses--a moderately foofy yellow eyelet one DH found at Costco and two plainer ones I picked up at Target.

A few days ago DH started talking about Palm Sunday coming up and how she needed to wear a dress. He showed her the yellow one, which was hanging in her closet, and asked if she'd wear it. Her reply: "No, no. I will not. I say, 'No.' I don't like it."

So I brought in the Target bag and explained how sometimes we have to wear things that aren't necessarily our favorites because of where we're going or because it's a special day. I said that I liked jeans best too, but I can't wear them to work because it's against the rules, and that for Palm Sunday, Easter, weddings, and funerals, girls and women wear skirts and dresses and men wear nice shirts and neckties because those are the rules. And then I showed her the other dresses, and she immediately got excited about the one that's brown with tiny pink polkadots because she likes polkadots. She asked, "Does it have a bow?" I showed her its tiny self-fabric bow, and she decided it was OK because it's small. She was also OK with the third dress, a really simple red knit, especially after I took her to my closet and showed her the skirts I was planning to wear.

We'll see how she reacts Sunday morning, though...

one that's brown with tiny pink polkadots

LOVE that dress! Almost bought it for Em a couple of weeks ago.

Lillian, given the choice, would like to spend her time in a short sleeved shirt, socks, and shoes, with nothing in between but underwear or a diaper.

Pants are very hard to get her into. I mean, I wear pants 90% of the time, but this kid just doesn't like them. If she has to wear them, she insists on pulling them up over her knees.

She's going to be so happy when it warms up enough that we'll allow a dress and shorts combo, or a skirt without tights below it.

Possibly the two-parent family is to help everyone survive the toddler years.

"The best thing about having two parents is that usually one of them wants you to live" - Chris Rock

Good lord, I thought conducting traffic was one of those cultural things people would pick up from movies and TV when growing up.

Oh, honey, if there is one thing that multiple evacuations taught me it is that directing traffic is a rare skill to be treasured wherever you find it.

{{JZ}} Just because. Quite the full day.

Emily's day, also exciting.

My day? Not. I need to get to the grocery store and then it's all about getting the kitchen in some kind of order, giving up my dream of the perfect order where things are in places that make logical sense and just having things in, you know, places.

Her reply: "No, no. I will not. I say, 'No.' I don't like it."

I am finding this quite charming. Possibly because I don't have a toddler who needs to be clothed. ALso, Annabel sounds quite sensible about bows.

Oh, the pants battles. I'm sorry, Aimee; apparently Matilda has been secretly precocious and has stolen my phone to call Em and coach her behind both our backs. Nine times out of ten over the past month or so, she screams during the getting-dressed process as if her pants (er, trousers?) were lined with fire ants and sandpaper.

Lordy, it's a full on Pants War in this house, too. Only now it's Olivia. I can't keep britches on that child to save my life. She ditches pants and pull up at every opportunity and cries and throws fits and runs away if I mearly suggest her getting something on. She'll prance around on her tippy toes flashing her vag and giggling.

She doesn't wear dresses, per se, because it's been so cold up here, I just didn't see the point. I'm hoping she'll adjust to dresses this summer and hopefully there will be less drama over getting dressed.

Bagel eaten. Boss emailed. Also, dishes done, mess on the kitchen table chipped away at, and Matilda's tights handwashed and hung to dry. Time to settle in for a rigorous mid-morning Wire viewing. I only hope this hectic pace doesn't completely wear me out.

{{{vw}}} for test-missage.

And {{-t}} right back atcha.

Annabel is my kind of girl. I always rejected bows and ruffles.