April 19th, 1995 at 9:02am

Fifteen years ago an American terrorist blew apart the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Government Building. I watched the breaking news stories with shock, disgust and horror. I'd lived in Oklahoma City for a very brief period of time while my father was teaching at the FAA Academy affiliated with OU. I thought about my friends who live there as I watched coverage of the tragedy, and was thankful that no one I knew worked in that building...or so I thought. Later that evening I'd find out that the baby in the image above was Baylee, the niece of a family friend. Baylee had turned one year old the day before she was murdered.

Today, as we remember the victims of the bombing I ask one thing only: strive for kindness. Be nicer to people. Say "please" and "thank you". Treat your fellow citizens with all the respect and nicety that you would be pleasantly surprised to have received. It is my ferverent hope that in being kinder to each other we will find the way to peace both in our nation, which clearly has factions of unrest (plane flown into an an IRS building comes to mind) and in the world.

Please consider a donation to the Oklahoma City National Memorial, built by those who promised not to ever forget the loss of loved ones. The memorial educates those about the events surrounding the bombing and works toward healing the pain caused by it. At the website, you can find stories of triumph over injuries alongside a list of those who perished.

A note about this picture and potential copyright infringement: I have no idea if this is the picture snapped by Lester LaRue or Charles Porter. I'm certain this photo will be used without permission many times today. I hope that whomever owns the copyright, if it is copyrighted, will forgive my use of the photo of Baylee Almon.

Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine

There's some old folk song that goes "bottle of wine, fruit of the vine, when ya gonna let me get sober? Let me alone, let me go home, I wanna go back and start over". Well, with the work week I've had I will strive to be singing that song later tonight.

Carry on.

Bluebonnet Love

Our photographer friend, Burnett, rocks! She made sure we documented Ryder's first contact with wildflowers. It was a little windy, so his hair is wild but jeez, does it matter when he is this cute?

Mama: When Will My Child Say It?

Ryder still hasn't said "mama". His repertoire of words is getting bigger. He can say Dada, hey, cat, clock, yeah, baba (our word for bottle) and bubbles. He has said "Welita" at least once in the past month or so...which pleased my mother terribly. He shortens their nicknames now to "Ita" and "Ito".

Last night he called out "Dada!" to get Jaime's attention before he threw a ball across the living room, chortling to himself in delight. He points at the clocks in our house and others and gleefully says "clock! clock!". He whispers softly through the window to the kitties outside "cat...cat". But "mama"? Nope.

He might've said it last night when he was overly tired and suffering from teething pains but his face was pressed into my thigh and whatever word he uttered was muffled, hard to hear through his sobbing. Since it sounded quite a bit like "mama" Jaime and I shot a look and a raised eyebrow at each other. For now I'm still waiting to hear him call me Mama. Or Kay. Or anything, really, as long as it's clear he means me. I swear he's holding back on purpose.