I apologize to my billions of readers all over the universe, for my lack of composition this summer. I've let you down, and I have no doubt you've all been wandering listlessly through the summer, unguided by my insight, like a throng of honeybees whose hive has vanished. I don't have an excuse. Well, I have a bunch of excuses, but I'm so wracked with guilt that each excuse I conjure up seems such a paltry exoneration, I can't summon the will to type it. However, I couldn't let this occasion pass without acknowledgement.

Today is our 14 year anniversary! I can't believe it . What an awesome girl I married. We've had such an incredible life so far! A really out of the ordinary journey, some might say. We had 7 super fun years together before adding these 3 little souls to the tribe, and as they say - you don't really experience life until you have kids. I think that's true.

When we got married, I know it sounds sappy, but I felt like the luckiest man on Earth. I really had no idea how lucky I was. It's hard to write about because I'm sitting here trying to think of appropriate words to convey how much happiness and growth Sara has brought me, but it's impossible! In short, I believe that Sara is some sort of super-human.

Sara is an alpha-female, in a quiet way. You don't want to mess with her, believe me. I've tried. Just ask the jackasses on the Good Ol' Boy Network known as the New Hanover educational system. Sara single handedly called to task the New Hanover Board of Education. She stood at a podium in front of them all and called them out, each of them sitting there with their brand new iPad 2, while the Special Needs kids in New Hanover county have less and less services due to the overnight "disappearance" of $2.4 million! What the hell? Sara was the only one who even raised the  question, "What happened to the money?!" They figure most parents of kids with autism or other disability are way too bogged down, frazzled and drained to do any research. They're right about that. Most parents aren't like Sara, staying up all night many nights a week, trying to decipher the best path to take with Gavin. Calculating the most effective use of these critical developmental years. Often times I've risen at 4 a.m. to start a pot of coffee, and Sara is in the kitchen just finishing the lunches for the boys after another all-nighter doing research on autism, or working on Snugfits, or folding laundry, or planning meals for the week….

Speaking of lunches, another bit of evidence on why I think Sara is beyond-human, is the lunch boxes she packs for Gavin and Garrett. You've got to see these things! They're like something straight out of a magazine. The boiled eggs are formed into little shapes like fish, cars or bears. The sandwiches are neatly pressed in a "crust eliminator" thingy that makes them look like some appetizer at an upscale Parisian bistro. The meat and cheese for the crackers is always cut into little stars or flower shapes with a cookie cutter. Its unbelievable. The cupcakes are always decorated with faces or designs which could make the cover of any magazine. And it's all done with no food dyes or preservatives: Feingold Diet! I keep telling her she's got to photograph these lunches before the boys destroy them at school. Photography isn't on the agenda at 2 a.m. understandably. Maybe I could get my lazy butt out of bed earlier and do a photoshoot for her, I really want her to post some pics of these lunches on the blog. Case in point: friday night we went to dinner with our good friends and their 2 girls, all the kids recognized another patron at an adjecent table as one of the second grade teachers' assistants. After a warm greeting with multiple hugs and high fives (it's funny how kids get so excited to see their teachers out in public, isn't it?) she stood up and addressed our table. "Okay," she said,"I've got to know which one of you parents is the one who makes Gavin and Garrett's lunches everyday. How in the world do you make all of those cute little shapes and designs? Its like opening a work of art everyday for me. I look forward to it just as much as they do!" Sara just blushed and said thanks. She didn't reveal any secrets.

Furthermore, the highlight of my boys' school day has got to be reading the note Sara packs in there everyday. It's a cute little joke or riddle of the day, then she adds a thoughtful insight about something fun they'll do that day or something she remembers about them from babyhood. Its just a sweet little reminder for them about how much she loves them, but I'm sure it helps them plow through the stresses of Kindergarten and Second Grade. Now, does anyone out there need any more evidence that my wife is the most brilliant woman on Earth?

So, what do we have planned to mark our 14th year of holy matrimony? Same thing we do every Sunday. We're getting bagels at the bagel joint, going down to the beach where our boys will roll in the sand, Sara will lounge on her bright yellow chair like the beach goddess she is, and I will rip up some tasty waves with my board like the Izzy Paskowitz I wish I could be. Okay, by "rip up", I mean trying not to drown whilst surfing, and hopefully not tearing the new beach shorts Sara got me. Hey, at least I look cool when I'm carrying my board to the water! Cowabunga. Then tonight, we'll hit the local fish joint where kids eat free on Sunday, Bloody Marys are 2 bucks, and the fish is fried so deeply it could qualify as a finalist in the dessert category at the state fair. It's a classic!

Now that I'm noticing these things, I've been seeing more and more off-color, obnoxious baby tees around. Who would put their kid in a onesie that reads "I met my dad on Maury"? or "Hung like a five year old"? I'm not a prude, but that's just an abuse of free speech. It's not like the baby can read his t-shirt, but his older siblings might have a few questions about it. There's a big difference between a funny onesie and an offensive, tasteless, not so funny onesie. If you put your kid in a shirt with a message that you think is funny, but 99% of the world sees as indecent and distasteful, the message is clear: You're a nincompoop, and hopefully your child can overcome the countless additional bad decisions you'll make for him!

We make (what we think are) funny onesies. We are proud of the baby clothes we carry, and our babies have worn many of our ideas proudly on their chests! Some of the shirts don't apply to our family, obviously. "Future Ballerina"? With three boys, probably not. "Future Mac User", now that's a shirt I know will apply. In fact, 2 of the 3 are already now Mac Users!  They are hooked on PBSkids.com, a great site with tons of fun learning games. We've got their little eMac's set up so they can't go anywhere besides a few chosen websites, and all they want to do anyway is play Super Why's games.  At 15 months, Bodie is not quite yet a Mac user. A funny onesie idea for him would be "Mac Abuser". His idea of computer usage is to bang my mouse until the batteries come out, put the parts into the office trash can, then climb onto my chair and start wailing  my keyboard like a pipe organ, re-naming the files on my desktop if possible. He has many virtues, but a tactful approach isn't in his playbook.

Our boys have always had cool baby clothes. Sara and her sisters have made sure of that. Now that Sara is in the business of making baby t-shirts, I notice different designs everywhere I go. To be honest, I don't think I ever paid attention to whether or not other parents' kids had hip baby clothes or not. Little did I realize that all these little baby clothes accessories would become such a big part of my life!

I get a lot of ribbing at work from the guys. Mostly because I'm a part-time baby onesie maker, and partly because they want to see us get a little edgier. They always come up with ideas for us - sometimes in jest, but mostly I think they really want their vulgar slogans on our baby onesies. They are a great group of guys, and a riot to work with, but their ideas can be pretty crude and tend to be mostly boob related. One of my buddies was in DC for the weekend and saw a group of topless protesters in the street with signs proclaiming "Boobs NOT Bombs". He came back on monday practically begging me to use it on our funny onesies section. I told him I'd put it in Sara's suggestion box. 

I ran across this inspirational video by a poster to the forum over at Startup Nation. I thought it was spectacular. Just the thing I needed to put a skip in my step and begin the week. My fellow mompreneurs are sure to appreciate it as much as I did, so I wanted to share. This was created by Grasshopper - a business phone service company (that I do not use). I had never heard fo them before, and now I have. What a clever marketing approach.