The Missing Pieces

Besides being terribly behind on blogging about birthdays and family trips and the usual Tali antics and Davidisms,  I have also been remiss in reporting a few other small details of our lives....like starting a family business...and, oh, having another baby. 

The business came first - an idea inspired by Ben's chance comment about his future in the entertainment industry.  "Mom," he said to me one day while standing in the kitchen, "I want to be the guy who shows up at the party with the moonbounce and the magic act and the cotton candy machine."  A lightbulb went off in my head, my ears literally perked up (they can do that you know, if sufficiently aroused) and I said, "Cotton Candy!  Hmmm....."  And thus was born Squeaky Clean Entertainment, the proud peddlers of old fashioned party entertainment and all natural NatureSpun cotton candy.

For years I've been feeling a pull to start up a family business - something all the kids can be involved with, something that will be there for them as they get into high school and college and need to earn money, someplace where our more compromised children can find a niche, a laboratory for the arts, science, math - the Uber-Homeschool Project.  And now here it is - hawking cotton candy and marketing party entertainment. 

We thought this would be a great time to start up a business.  Having lost years of our lives and the dream of owning and living on a farm to the mess of a church from whence we came, we were beginning to talk redemption - reclaiming what we lost, moving forward, putting ourselves on a fast track to long-neglected goals.  And we were resting from having children.  Twelve was a good number.  Long ago, Tad said he'd get to twelve and consider the contract (I said I thought we'd end up with 16 but I granted him his considerations).  So we started off on monthly monitoring and a whole slew of other nonsense intended to temporarily cease any new fetal development.  In true Klopcic fashion, however, it wasn't long after our business was adopted into the family that number 13 showed up in my womb.  Yes, we know how *that* happens but really I have no idea how it happened this time around - we had it all figured out - or so we thought....and now we have a wee one due on or about April 1st.  God's joke on us - a wonderful, glorious joke!