Merry

Christmas. Here are some of the highlights of Julie,

Billy, Olivia (4 1/2) and Davis (22 months) from this

past year.

January started on an

interesting note with ever-inquisitive Olivia asking,

"Mommy, what does Daddy do for a living?" Julie

tried to explain as best she could only to be interrupted

Delta pilot like everybody else?"

Davis started to walk in

February right at his first birthday. But shortly

thereafter gave it up when he saw a "Dateline"

Special on infant shin splints. He would further get

hooked on watching "Dateline" and proceeded to

cry anytime he heard the words "cholesterol,"

"hotel room mites," and "driver-side air

bags" and his first words would be "Jane

Pauley, hot babe."

The whole family took a

little trip to the zoo in the warming month of March.

Olivia is so cute. She almost got us all in trouble when

she didn't adhere to the "Do Not Feed the

Animals" sign. After all, she can't read. And

besides, they never should have let those ducks roam so

close to the lion cages.

April Fool's Day was a hoot

at the Murphy household when we got up in the wee hours

of the morning and called my mom in South Carolina and

took turns pretending to be IRS auditors, telling her we

had lost her records for the past seven years and we

needed full copies and all original receipts. An hour

later we called to yell, "April fool!" only to

have my sister answer the phone saying she had to pick up

my mom a prescription of Valium.

May couldn't have been any

more educational. A field trip to the library provided

quite a learning encounter; the first book, that first

library card, an initial experience that is sure to be

the beginning of mental enrichment beyond compare. Julie

beamed with pride to know she had introduced me to this

experience.

The summer started with a

bang with the first dip in Grandma's new swimming pool.

Davis loves the water and Olivia likes to play pretend.

Her favorite game is to play "poacher and baby

seal" in which she gets me to splash up on the bank

and then proceeds to beat me senseless with a plastic

baseball bat. The rest of the summer was a blur - to

me, anyway.

September was a refreshing

time with Olivia going back to preschool. We had trouble

getting her to go to school solo, leaving behind her

endless array of stuffed animals, moveable dinosaurs and

massive collection of Keana Reeves action figures. Davis

has made incredible strides in his communication skills,

repeatedly saying, "I want that," every time a

"La Femme Nikita" commercial comes on.

November was a month Julie

and Billy spent trying to recall, over and over,

something they forgot. They did word associations, went

alphabetically, they even drank large doses of Yoo Hoos.

(Yoo Hoos don't really help with recall but the sugar

high makes you not care). Then in the middle of the night

Billy sat up in bed and remembered. They forgot October.

Well, it's finally December

and time to celebrate the last 20 or so days before all

the noise, yelling, screaming and brawling. That's right,

before the Presidential campaign commercials start in

January.

[Visit Billy Murphy's

website at https://billymurphy.homepage.com.]