Toe, Toe, Toe.

In our family, baptism day is not only a day for our child to promise to take Christ's name upon them, but also a day for Charles to go barefoot in front of ward members and thereby expose his toe.

His left toe is very large. Think triple the size of a normal toe and you are getting close.

Sure enough, at Mira's recent baptism, barefoot Charles caught all kinds of stares and second takes, which we happily recounted and laughed about later at home.

The toe has become a sort of measuring stick for how close we are getting to new friends. Is it time to show the toe? Have we reached the toe pinnacle of friendship?

On our recent trip to Germany we found that we had become dear friends with the Stankewitz's, so much that it was time to show the toe. Ann-K gasped. Herbert looked a little horrified and Josa, a nurse, was most intrigued. The next day at the hospital where she works, she asked the radiologist if we could come by for an x-ray. This thrilled both Charles and me because we have wondered for years what is actually in that toe. Is it bone? Cartilage? His twin? A little gnome (a real possibly since T&L proudly say that Charles was conceived in Germany). And speaking of T & L, Louise hates the toe. Like she is mad that Charles has the toe and wishes he would have plastic surgery which basically means cut it off. (During these conversations I love to remind her that the mutation she finds so disgusting was created by none other than hers-truly.)

So Josa, Charles, Anne and I went to the hospital and had the toe x-rayed. Next we were all standing in a dark little room with the x-ray right in front of us. Here is what we found...a lot of bone. Much more bone than is normal, bone that sort of sprays out in funny ways. How should I call it? Bone matter. So much extra bone that Charles does not have full function of his toe.

On the way home from the hospital Anne and Charles looked at the x-ray and discussed the toe in great detail with Josa piping in to give her reading of the black and white image.

Thank you Stankewitz's, for a wonderful trip to Europe and an x-ray of Charles's toe!

One more thing. Louie saw the toe this week. His reaction was "WWWooooooowwwww!"