Riding the Rails

Today is a funny day, a single work day sandwiched between Christmas week and New Year's Day. I was planning to send Claire off to Grace for the day, who had last week off, but it turns out Grace is still in Florida visiting her family, and does not plan to be back in Atlanta until Tuesday. So I unexpectedly have Claire for the day. After all the recent hustle and bustle of the holidays, and all the recent travel, and working on the house, I am going back to an old routine -- just me and Claire, taking an unplanned day off. Losing the day to unexpected circumstances is tough, with so many things to do and so little time. But that is to worry about later; today Claire and I are going to have some fun with our day off!

I was initially thinking of going to the zoo, but it was foggy and cold and wet, so spending a lot of time outdoors did not seem ideal. But I felt sort of couped up and wanted to get out on some sort of adventure, preferably something new. With Claire's continuing fascination with trains, I thought it would be fun to take the MARTA train somewhere. Something about zipping around the city on the train in the fog on New Year's Eve sounded fun and adventurous. It seemed like a very Curious George type of thing to do.

But where would we go? We finally decided on Underground Atlanta because it was right by the main downtown MARTA station, and it had plenty of fun stuff for Claire to see, including, according to the web site, "caricature drawings and fortune telling, homemade candy, delicious dining and souvenir shopping."

So I packed up a small survival and dining kit (diapers, wipes, a drink cup, a bib, a fork, and some snacks), and we headed out to Lindberg Station. As we hopped on the train, Claire gleefully yelled, "All aboard!" We grabbed the only free seat, with Claire sitting on my lap, next to a sort of rough looking guy with greasy hair, hunched over sleeping (or pretending to sleep). The train car was largely full of middle aged women all dressed in the same goofy black and yellow outfits, as if for some sort of Georgia Tech pep rally. As we headed into town, the train filled up with more and more Clemson fans. I guess there was a football game today, but fortunately things did not get too tense between the GT and Clemson fans. One of the GT ladies said something about a parade and pointed at the rough guy next to me, jokingly saying, "We should put him on charge." She looked at me and said, "I hope he doesn't wake up mad." This was just funny, not scary; that guy looked harmless enough, and besides, he was way smaller than me. Once the train cleared up a bit, though, we did move to a more "comfortable" seat. During the ride downtown came the requisite Claire comments and compliments from all the GT ladies, with Claire introducing herself to our neighbors and saying, "MARTA train" over and over with a big smile.

We got off at Five Points across the street from Underground Atlanta. and didn't get 10 steps onto the sidewalk before Claire saw something she liked. There were about 10 pigeons cruising the sidewalk among all the pedestrians, hunting and pecking for food. Claire liked to see real birds up so close, and she insisted that we stay for a good 15 minutes just watching them, laughing whenever they flew around a little bit.

I finally dragged her across the street, and there was more great stuff to look at. They were setting up for the big peach drop, which is Atlanta's version of New York's big apple drop in Times Square. There were food stands and lights and generators everywhere. Claire was almost constantly saying, "What's that?" as we walked along. The camen the big wide stairs into the Underground, which was another prime attraction. We walked down each step, probably 100 of them in all, Claire enjoying every step. Awaiting us at the bottom of the stairs was a big bouncy moonwalk, like the one Claire had loved at the Kit's pathology picnic a few months ago. I steered us clear of the moonwalk, as I knew we would not get a step further if Claire discovered it.

Inside the Underground were more wonders. We saw big colorful balloons, lots of CHristmas lights, life-sized paintings of Dora the Explorer and Mickey Mouse, a big wooden train, and lots of little kid-sized rides, including a school bus, a fire engine, and a tug boat. I wasn't sure if Claire would be hungry yet, at it was only 11:30 or so, but when we checked out the food court, Claire said, "Daddy, let's have some dinner." So we split some lasagna and pizza, which Claire ate very, very slowly as we watched all the people around us.

It was getting late (in Claire terms), so we gradually worked our way back to the MARTA station, dodging pony rides and mini-carousels along the way, stopping for one last look at the street pigeons on the way back. The train was delayed, so I had to hold an increasingly tired and grumpy Claire at the platform for 15 minutes. We looked at the MARTA system map for entertainment, and Claire pointed out where she thought Mommy was.

The train ride back was different than the one down. Instead of colorfully dressed football fans, almost everyone on the train this time was dressed in dark winter coats, with dark hoods and hats, looking sort of glum and serious, or just tough. And then there was Claire, in her little pink pants and yellow jacket, happily taking her own seat on the aisle next to me. The train was pretty quiet. As the train took off, Claire said -- no, yelled -- "Here we gooooooo!" with pure glee. I could see some of the stone-faced passengers crack a bit of a smile. Then Claire started talking to the guy in the seat across from her, who looked like a tough hip hop artist along the lines of Dr. Dre or Big Boi. She said, "He's happy!" The guy smiled and said hi. Claire sort of made friends with him, and he was very nice about it and said, "Is she always this happy? She is one happy kid." Eventually Claire turned her attention back to me and said, "You're pooping" over and over. I saw some of the people around us cracking smiles again. We finally got off the train, saying goodbye to all of our unlikely friends, waving as we walked away, fetching a couple more smiles for good measure.

We had a good adventure today, worthy of Curious George, but fortunately lacking the disasters that normally accompany George. Yes, another forced day off, and another good one at that.

You wanna cumbo?

We have not really even acknowledged Christmas 2007 so far at home. We have no Christmas tree set up yet, no presents piled up on display in the living room, or even wrapped, or even purchased yet. We have not even been playing Christmas music. This lack of Christmas spirit is not intentional; Christmas has just sneaked up on us this year. So today, to get our Christmas spirit kicked off, Kit had the idea to go see the Festival of Trees at the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead.

We were hoping the Festival of Trees would be sort of like the Christmas Tree Forest that Kit used to go to in Corpus Christi. It turned out to be classier, smaller, and more subdued than the Corpus Christi version. It featured trees decorated up in the traditional style from several different countries, accompanied by a written explanation of Christmas traditions in that country. But it felt more like a display than a forest, and it did not exactly jump start our Christmas spirits.

So we moved on to explore the rest of the museum. Claire was especially excited to see the big, working toy train track. Along the track were little displays of things like ice skaters on a frozen pond, elves working at Santa's toy factory, construction crews at work on the road beside the track, and countless other things to look at, each with a button to push to make them go. And best of all was the fact that Thomas the Train was running around and around the track. Things were definitely looking up.

After we saw every little thing on the train display, we went outside and came across an old kid-sized playhouse in the garden. Claire knew it was made just for her, and she went right in to explore. She explored each of the three rooms and then made herself comfortable on the little kid-sized wicker sofa. Kit and I mostly stayed outside, letting Claire explore as we chatted about little things like where the heck we will be living in two years, what jobs will we both have, who is going to be president, and other basic unknowns of the relatively near future.

Over our chatter, Claire was sticking her head out of the playhouse's front window, looking especially cute in her little green Christmas dress, saying what we could best make out as, "You wanna cumbo?" or just "Cumbo!" We replied, "What's a cumbo?", but Claire just smiled and kept saying it.

Finally, when Claire said, "You want cheese?" Kit put it together. Claire was asking if we wanted a "combo", and she was acting like she was a lady at the drive-through window at Wendy's or McDonald's, where they always say, "You want to make that a combo?" or "You want cheese with that?" when you place an order. Kit and I were cracking up, because Claire did this with such as big smile on her face but was also trying to act serious, like she really did want to know if we wanted the combo. At least she did not ask us to "biggie size" it for only 39 cents more.

Second Birthday!

Today Claire doubled her age! I doubt she will ever do this again.

Claire's second birthday started off with an omelet, which I managed to cook in our torn up kitchen, which is in the middle of being remodeled by Claire's favorite handyman, Arvydas. I had to work my way through some construction rubbage just to get to the refrigerator and prepare the omelet with paper plates and a plastic spoon, finally cooking it on our one available pan. Among the construction rubbage, I discovered a 3-foot-long section of quarterround with several old nails sticking out at bent angles, laying in the corner. That probably qualifies as a child hazard, and arguably as a regulated weapon.

The first order of business today was, not coincidentally, Claire's two-year checkup at the doctor. Claire was somewhat scared and suspicious from her previous experiences with ear infection and shots. During the ear prodding, she did some pretty good resisting and crying, and I had to hold her arms and head still. Then afterwards Claire collected herself and declared, "I'm okay" with a sheepish smile. Claire's height and weight are both now very close to 50% percentile, down from her earlier slightly above normal numbers. Claire was again pretty freaked out, understandably, about being held down and poked with needles for her flu and hep-a vaccinations. She did her best to collect herself again, but it was the lolipop at the checkout line that really calmed her down and kept her quiet in the car all the way to see Grace and Reese.

Grace and Reese greeted her at the door singing "Happy Birthday", which was a really nice surprise, and very sweet, especially considering that Grace does not speak much English. Reese had a present ready for Claire which he was really dying to "help" her open. Claire was still fully absorbed in her lolipop at that point and was not very interested in the present. So Reese ran off and did Claire the favor of opening the present for her. It turned out to be a new Thomas train; this one was girly and named Rosie, like Calliou's sister. How nice! (Reese also thought so, and he "helped" Claire play with the new train all day.)

Apparently Claire and Reese each had another lolipop later in the day, and on the drive home Claire suggsted, "I want a lolipop for dinner. Lolipops are gooooood!" Coldly disregarding Claire's dinner suggestion, we all went to out dinner at Moe's for Claire's favorite real food, quesadillas. She got a sticker and a little plastic guy there from Happy, the very friendly Moe's guy, and she played a fun peekaboo game with a little girl about 5 years old.

Arriving at home, along with cards and phone messages from the grandparents who we had just seen a couple of days before, two new packages were waiting. They were from the Popes next door. They always remember Claire's birthday because she was born exactly the day old Aubry Pope died, and they seem to be big fans of Claire. One present was a great big Winnie the Pooh "find it" book from Faye. The other was a beautiful doll in a glass display case. We went next door to thank them and have a nice visit. Well, Kit had a nice visit anyways. Claire spent most of the time wandering around their huge, smoky, maze-like house, and I spent most the time shadowing her to make sure she did not break something or fall down the stairs or just get lost. Claire really liked playing with the cat toys. It turns out the Popes hand-made the display case, and they explained that while Claire may be a little too young for the gifts, she could enjoy them in the years to come.

Finally we all split a birthday cupcake and put Claire to bed a little late. It seemed like a pretty nice day for Claire, even if she didn't really understand what all the lolipops and cupcakes and presents were about. We actually ran out of time to give Claire the presents from us and some of the ones still waiting from her grandparents. So much fun, so little time!

First Haircut

Today Claire had her hair really cut -- not just a little trim -- for the first time. This did not happen in a hair studio or a barber shop. Claire had her hair cut by Ms. Janet, one of her teachers, out on the street in front of her school

You may be wondering... Does Ms. Janet make a habit of cutting her students' hair out in the street in front of the school? Well, I should hope not. This was a special occasion, the school's annual street fair and fundraiser. The word on the street (so to speak) was that Ms. Janet was a licensed beautician, and very good with little kids. So she took the opportunity to set up a little outdoor barber shop for the fair. She had set up a big tall chair and a full-length mirror in the street, almost in someone's driveway.

Claire was looking pretty shaggy, so we decided to give the $10 cut-and-style a try. When we sat her up in the stool, Claire seemed a little worried. But she knew Ms. Janet was cool, so she stayed with it. Once Ms. Janet started spraying Claire with the water bottle to sort of prime her hair, Claire got more worried. After all, Claire must have been thinking, why the heck was she sitting here in someone's driveway getting sprayed with cold water in the face by her teacher, and on a non-school day? I bet it just didn't make any sense; then again, many things probably don't make sense to a two year old.

One she got going, and despite some mild resistance, Ms. Janet got Claire's hair trimmed pretty quickly. The cut looked good overall, but Ms. Janet did cut Claire's bangs a little bit straight and short, so she looked sort of boyish. Still, it was an improvement from the old mess of her hair. Ms. Janet invited us to come by any Saturday for another haircut at her shop, Cleopatra's Hair Salon, in the nearby mall.

During the cut, Claire's classmate Abby and her mom had shown up to watch and wait for the next cut. When it was her turn, Abby's mom plopped Abby down on the big chair and asked Ms. Janet to go easy on the bangs. Abby was a funny sight up there, holding perfectly still with a worried look on her face, turning a little red, and grasping the sides of the chair like her life depended on it. But she powered through and ended up with a better hair style than Claire, thanks to the more girlish bangs.

After the haircut, we explored the fair some more. Claire had a real live pony ride (another first), got a ribbon for her hair, and got to look at lots of neat toys. Then it was off to home to have lunch and wait for her hair to grow out.

Before and after photos:

Halloween

Technically, this was Claire's second Halloween, but it was sort of her first "real" one. Last year she was not really aware what was happening, but this year she is starting to grasp it.

Claire's first clue was the Emory Halloween party for kids last Friday evening. This was her first chance to show off her giraffe costume, and she got to meet and greet with her friends Reese, who was dressed up as Buzz Lightyear, plus Baby Davis and Chrissie's Baby Luke.

Next it was "Boo at the Zoo" on Saturday. The zoo was decorated up for Halloween and jam packed with kids in costumes. Most of the kids were running around happy, but there were a few grumpy princesses and pirates with skinned knees. Claire was awestruck from all the excitement. The highlight for Claire, and many other kids, was meeting Curious George in person. We managed to work our way in to Georgie, who was surrounded by a gaggle of excited kids. One kid gave a really long, heartfelt, almost tearful hug to George. Claire stood in front of him and just gave him a big smile, saying, "Bye Georgie!" as we eventually dragged her off.

Finally, on Halloween night, we did some real trick-or-treating. Here is another advantage of having a kid. No, not all the candy which we confiscated from Claire. Halloween gave us a reason, or excuse, to go knock on our neighbor's doors and say hi. It would be weird to do that any other night of the year. And it would be weird to do that on Halloween without a kid by your side.

The first stop was Melissa, who is a big fan of Claire's and had asked us to bring Claire by. We had the usual nice chat with Melissa and then moved on Lynn two houses down from us. She was happy and surprised to see Claire, as were our next door neighbors, Ella and Fay. The last stop was across the street to Dustin's house, where we also met his girlfriend Caroline, and then we headed home to put the two foot tall giraffe to bed a little late, exhausted but happy.

Pomodoro Prank

Tonight we all went out to eat at Artuzi's, which is a quick Italian place nearby. I ordered Claire her own kid-sized penne with pomodoro sauce, because she had enjoyed that in the past when Claire and I ate here with my parents. I could tell Kit was somewhat skeptical about this potentially messy choice, but she did not veto it.

Sitting in the booth next to Kit, Claire initially tried to eat her penne with a fork. But after having the pasta slip off her fork a few times, Claire resorted to using her hands, which quickly became coated in the deep red, oily tomato sauce. At this point, Kit become nervous of Claire ruining her nice sweater shirt, which she was still wearing from work, so she sent Claire to sit next to me across the table from her.

Claire's messy hands did not bother me, especially since I was not wearing anything fancy, just a t-shirt. This disinterest ended suddenly when Claire reached over and grabbed my white t-shirt with her left hand, leaving five little red dots on my right sleeve, one for each finger. As I recoiled from this intrusion, Claire reached quickly to my front with her right hand, to complete the hugging motion (or pincer movement, depending on how you look at it), leaving five more little red dots on the front of my t-shirt.

At this point, I was a little amused and agitated at the same time. Kit was just laughing. I did manage to lean away from Claire just far enough to keep out of reach of any further tomato sauce attacks. Claire thought it was funny that I was just out of reach and started swinging for me with her little hands, giggling the whole time through her sauce-coated face. "I want to hug Daddy! Hug Daddy! Huuuug!" she said, with a goofy smile on her face. At this point, it was clear that Claire was just having fun and had managed to make a genuine joke out of the situation.

The only real victim of this whole story was, of course, my t-shirt. But don't worry about the shirt. It made an amazing recovery thanks to some quick on-the-scene dabbing, as directed by Kit, and some liberal use of stain stick later at home.

I don't like it!

For a while now, we have been reading to Claire a big picture book called The Inside Out Book of Texas, partly for fun and partly to prepare for next summer's move to Dallas. The first page features a big drawing of the Dallas skyline. Normally when Claire sees it she happily says, "Dallas!" But yesterday she saw it and said, "I don't like Dallas!"

At first, this seemed like a bad sign for the big move, but I felt better today when Claire repeatedly declared, "I don't like Thomas!" Thomas, of course, is Claire's very favorite train character. She even named her favorite bathtub toy, an orange plastic dolphin, after him.

Claire has since claimed to dislike our dog Muffin and butterflies -- yes, butterflies. It's almost a good thing to be on Claire's "don't like" list these days. I expect that tomorrow morning I will hear her say, "I don't like pancakes!" even as she gobbles them down.

Nurturing Side

Claire still loves Reese's trains and dinosaurs, but she is also discovering her girly nurturing side lately.

She has been trying to change her Raggedy Ann's clothes and diaper. Unfortunatley, Ann's clothes are sewn on, so it is impossible in actuality to change her diaper. But she seems happy enough pretending to change it, mumbling, "change diaper..." or "clean up..." as she fiddles with the doll.

Sometimes she tries to dress her little plastic dolphin bath toys up in her own cloths, saying things like "How cuuuute!" or "He's snuggly!" Of course, these dolphins are about 3 inches tall, so even a toddler's little shirt dwarfs them. Speaking of her dolphins, she has named them too. The orange one, the first one of the bunch that we got out her, is named Thomas, after Thomas the Train. The other two are named Henry and James, who are also train names. She is very consistent about the naming. Thomas is always the bright orange one, James is the dull orange one, and Henry is the green one. She has even started to wash her dolphins during her own bath. I give her a washcloth, and she gently scrubs the dolphins with it one at a time, saying, "Let's clean him up."

Claire also loves to feed dog treats to Muffin. They both get a real tickle out of it. Claire holds the treat out for Muffin and waits for her to grab it with her mouth. She still seems a little scared that Muffin will bite her hand, so she usually lets the treat go when Muffin opens her mouth, dropping it on the floor. But especially when she makes a successful delivery, she giggles and jumps around. Both she and Muffin could do this all day.

Actually, Claire's nurturing side has take a slightly odd turn as well. She has a Thomas the Train board book with a raised plastic face on the front. If you press it's nose, the book plays a little song. Claire has recently adopted this book as her little baby to take care of. She likes to dress it -- the book -- in clothes, pretend to feed it with a bottle, and will sometimes put it to sleep. This is sort of bizarre to watch, but I guess it makes sense since the book sort of resembles a doll, with its little plastic face. In fact, it is the closest thing that Claire has to a doll besides her stuffed animals. I thought dolls only made sense for four or five year old girls, but I guess not. Perhaps it is time to gt Claire a doll.

Reality Check

You may have noticed that in most of these posts Claire comes off seeming fun, sweet, and good natured. That is not an accident; she is all of these things. But I feel like I should add a reality check here to avoid the inaccurate impression that Claire is only fun, sweet, and good natured, and every day is a breeze. That would actually be a little creepy. Claire is more complicated than that.

Besides being fun and sweet, Claire is also sometimes a fussy toddler. Or if not fussy exactly, she is often working on "asserting her independence" as her mom says, by resisting and disagreeing about arbitrary and trivial things. Here are a few examples...

Dressing Claire in the morning had become a mortal struggle for while. Taking off her pajamas caused a messy, crying fit. Putting the new clothes on was worse, as she did everything in her power to keep that shirt from going over her head. She can actually put on a fairly impressive display of strength if she is determined. It turns out that manhandling your crying kid for 20 minutes is not a good way to start a busy work day when you are trying to get out the door as quickly as possible. Fortunately, we may have turned a corner on this issue, as Claire is once again fairly cooperative getting dressed in the morning.

Sometimes if we give Claire a milk to drink with dinner, she will sort of slap the cup and whine, "Water!" If we exchange her milk for a water, she whines, "Milk!" Occasionally we'll just give her both to see what happens, and she ends up trying to actually hold the milk, the water, and 3 or 4 empty cups plus their lids if we give those to her. It's actually kind of funny.

Mostly Kit and I just get worn out by all of our demands, going around like tired zombies, or frustrated because we just can't do everything or we can't do any one thing well. I am writing this post after midnight, knowing I will be worn out tomorrow, but lacking any other time to do this. Of course, I enjoy writing the blog, but it's frustrating because it basically has to come right out of my sleep time.

Ok, I guess that gives you an idea. I think I am starting to whine now, and it is a sign that I need to go to sleep myself.

Claire Breaks a Heart

Claire may have broken her first heart today. It happened on the sidewalk in front of the Carter's baby clothing store in Sandy Springs. That is where Claire left a 15 month old boy crying on the sidewalk, not because she hit him or bit him, or because he had skinned his knee. He was crying because Claire was leaving, and he wanted her to come back.

My mom and dad (Noni and Granda Phil!) were in town for the weekend to get a Claire fix to hold them until Thanksgiving. We all took a rare trip OTP (Outside the Perimeter) to the Carter's store near Perimeter Mall to find Claire some new pajamas. Her venerable old ones had served us well but were finally starting to get too small.

Fresh off a fun lunch at La Madeleine, we headed to Carter's. Kit sorted through the PJ's while I kept an eye on the kid. Claire was pretty happy to be out and about, and was in a playful, chatty mood. She sorted through the floor-level clothes racks repeatedly saying "How cuuuute!" and then pointing at the tags and saying, "It's twenty months!" (even though the tag actually said 24 months. I mean, get with it, kid!) As I checked out, Kit tended to Claire, who was happily playing with some small stuffed toys in the back.

As we all left the store and were on the wide sidewalk walking towards the car, a little toddler boy was heading towards the store with his parents and gramma. Claire ran forward and jumped right in front of the boy, patted herself on the chest, and declared, "This is Claire! Nice shoes!"

This little display just about floored all of us, including the little boy's parents. The boy was shocked and speechless. Claire then proceeded to pull out all her tricks as everyone watched on. She sang parts of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and The Wheels on the Bus as she danced and spun around. She ran around and tried to do some hopping, although that was less successful. She gave a heartfelt but largely unintelligible monologue. As her finale, she patiently recited the entire alphabet, almost flawlessly. The boy's mom said, "Oh my god! Is she saying the alphabet?" The little boy watched Claire this whole time, engrossed, with his mouth half open.

Finally I had to pick Claire up since it seemed like she was just starting to show off at this point. We talked for a bit with the boy's parents. The boy was 15 months old and was named Conner. They were in "the city" for the day to do some shopping. Little Conner did not have any brothers or sisters and stayed at home with his mom every day, so he had not been exposed to many other little kids. Maybe he would have been fascinated with Claire even if she had not put on such a show. But I felt a little bad for him because it seemed like his mom was thinking, "Why can't Conner do that?" Either that or, "Them city kids is smart." Just kidding. Anyways, we tried to explain that Claire was barely even talking at 15 months.

Eventually, we had to part ways. As we walked off, Claire looked back, waved, and said "Bye Conner!" Then she said quietly just to me and Kit, "That was fun." At this point we heard Conner crying. Looking back, he was trying to run towards Claire, and his parents were trying to grab him. I think he wanted to see Claire's second act.

Now that I have finally written this up, a couple of weeks later, we still talk about Conner occasionally. Sometimes Claire lists him along with her other friends, like Grace and Reese and the kids from school. She even named her new wiggling pig head toy after him. So I guess Conner made an impact on Claire too.

Moonwalking

Claire had one of her funnest days in memory today.

First off, Grammy Joyce is in town, which always means a fun day for Claire. Grammy is recently retired and can dedicate most of her time to playing, reading, cuddling, and just goofing off with little Claire. Grammy is not quite as familiar with dumb words like "busy" and "later" as Mommy and Daddy are, and she does not tend to get distracted, tired, or irritated. Plus she's just lots of fun. So the morning was mostly dedicated to playtime.

Around 11:00, Mommy, who is a Chief Resident, had to meet co-chiefs Chrissie and Shelby in McKoy Park in Decatur to prepare the 2nd Annual Picnic in the Park for the Emory pathology department. This was a project the three of them had been preparing for the last several weeks. Grammy and Daddy stayed at home and fed Claire a nice lunch and hung out for a while. After that, it was off to McKoy park to join Mommy's festivities.

Ordinarily, a picnic in a park with all those people and kids and swings and grass would be pretty darn good. But this was an extra special picnic, because it had a moonwalk! We weren't sure Claire was even old enough to handle this, but she took to it like, well, a kid to a big bouncy playroom. I could explain how much fun Claire had on this thing, but why don't you just see for yourself (Grammy is also a dedicated documentarian).

By the time we dragged Claire away from the moonwalk, maybe an hour later, she was pretty worn out from all the fun. She spent the rest of the picnic drinking lemonade, socializing with her old pals like Kelly and Baby Luke (Chrissie's kid), and eating watermelon and grapes on Grammy's lap while I enjoyed lots of delicious BBQ ribs.

But Kit had to work. She stayed and took care of the picnic after the rest of us headed home. She and Shelby and Chrissie got to have their own well-earned fun while waiting for the moonwalk guy to come reclaim his big, fun toy. They had the moonwalk all to themselves, and put it to good use. They also provided snowcones to random kids in the park who lined up by the rented snowcone machine, thinking it was just a public service. It looks like Claire was not the only one who had a fun day.

Called in Sick

Just a quick note that this is the first time I have ever called Claire in sick for school. She had a minor head cold, and I figured we should drop her off with Grace rather than spread the germs. I think Claire picked up the cold when we took her to the doctor a few days ago. The funny thing is that Claire is liking school a lot, and probably would have preferred to go in if the choice were up to her.

Girl Can Talk

Most of Claire's conversations still sound like this one today: "Baby Davis. Crying. Gracie. Infinity and beyond!" It is sort of a loose stream of consciousness monologue. In this case, Clair is noting Baby Davis' common practice of crying, something which she sometimes imitates as "Waaaa! Waaaa!" Caire goes on to notate her other two main weekday companions, Grace of course, and Reese doing Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story.

But Claire is occasionally involving us in real conversations lately. She had this discussion with her Mom while getting ready for her bath last night.

Claire: Mommy, do it!
Kit: Do what?
Claire: Toby!
Kit: Who's Toby?
Claire: I dunno!

And then she giggles and storms down the hall, returning a minute later to reiterate, "Toby! Toby!" Kit and I, by the way, have no idea who Toby is, but we were rolling on the floor laughing after this exchange. (Editor's note: We later discovered that Toby is a blond four year old boy in Reese's class who Claire thinks is especially funny.)

Claire is also forming more substantial sentences. This week when I was picking her up from Grace, Claire carried a book over to Baby Davis and proclaimed, "I'll read it to Baby Davis" rather than just something like, "Read baby Davis." Another example is if I walk out of the room, she'll sometimes say, "Daddy's coming back." And today (Sunday), Claire was looking at a picture of herself with Reese and Grace and announced, "I'll see Gracie tomorrow." She may actually understand the idea of tomorrow and the basic schedule of two days at home and then back to Grace. On the other hand, she seems to invoke "tomorrow" to mean more or less the same thing as "later", but a little stronger, like "more later".

Claire sometimes even talks about her emotions. A few weeks ago, she walked into the living room after a bad wakeup from a nap, and with her lips puckered, she quietly said, "Sad" and then walked away. Yesterday in the car she was having a small fit because we took her drink away from her, and she said, "I'm crying." And after a brief struggle this morning over changing out of her pajamas and into real clothes, she actually said, "I'm sorry. It's okay." The funny thing is that when she says something like this, that she is sad or crying or sorry, she almost always calms down immediately. It is almost like she is soothing herself. Hey, whatever works!

Last Day of Pool

Today the Garden Hills Pool, our favorite summer weekend hangout, closed for the year. Forget about Labor Day; this is the real end of summer.

The last half hour of operation every year, the pool hosts a dog swim. People bring their dogs and let them go nuts in the pool before they drain it. Kit and I had wanted to check this out for the last couple of years, but we never managed to actually get over there. Since today was our last chance ever to see this, we finally made it, and I am glad we did. The weather was perfect, finally not too hot, and a bunch of wet dogs were running around and swimming and barking. And a bunch of wet kids were doing the same thing (minus the barking, fortunately). It made me want to jump in too! But this was just a quick visit in the evening, and we did not bring our bathing suits. Anyways, it was a fine way to close out the summer.

Blue Train, Green Train

Claire is obsessed with Thomas the Train. As Grace would say, "Le encanta!"

For example, I bought Claire some new Thomas the Train cups. Now whenever I make her a drink, Claire ask for her new cups by name, "Thomas cup! Thomas cup!" Then she will look at the cups and recite the name of the trains over and over...Thomas, Henry, James. This is often punctuated by a loud drawn out, "Thoommas!"

For the most part, this Thomas obsession is harmless. But now it is encroaching on our bedtime reading choices. We have started asking Claire which book she would like to read, and every night she quickly says, "Thomas book!" meaning her little board book entitled Blue Train, Green Train. It is great to see Claire so enthusiastic about reading and what not, but Kit and I have come to loath that damn Thomas book.

Our dislike is not just due to boredom or repetition; we can read something like There's a Wocket in my Pocket all night. The real problem here is that Blue Train, Green Train is just a terrible book. It is supposed to be a rhyming sing-song type of book, but the rhythm jumps all over the place, and it is very jarring to read. Here is a sample.

Unload the blue bikes,
red wagons, orange trikes!
Unload the new toys
for happy little girls and boys!

Down goes the yellow sun.
Blue train Thomas' day is done.
Home now to the Shed.
"Peep!  Peep!"  The Shed is where
Thomas can sleep.

Well done, blue train.
Have fun, green train.

Up peeps the white moon.
Green train starts soon.
"Peep!  Peep!"  Clickety-clack!
Green train Percy on the track.

Load up all the mail
and unload along the rail.

I picked this book because it has a variety of things for Claire to look at and name, like blue bikes, red wagons, and orange "trikes." Fortunately Claire does seem to be warming up to other books with lots of stuff to look at, such as the terrific Carl the Dog books. One great thing about the Carl books is that they have almost no words.

First Day of Pre-Pre-School

Today Claire started preschool. School starts at 9:00 am, so we have a little extra time to burn in the morning. It's not enough time to do anything substantial like work in the yard or do any serious errands, but it is enough time to cook up a special "power breakfast" to help Claire keep her energy and mood up for the whole morning. So we had an egg, tomato, onion, and cheese omelet to start things off right.

The drop off at school was not bad. After last week's meet & greet, I knew exactly where to go and what to bring. And Claire already knew the classroom was a fun place to hang out with Ms. Betsy. Claire and I arrived a few minutes early, so we spent some extra time naming all the animals on the large Noah's Ark mural in the hallway. Animals are one of Claire's specialties, and she was able to name all of them.

After a few minutes, I dropped her off with her bag of supplies and headed for the door pretty quickly. Claire made a run for me as I walked down the hall, saying "Daddy, Daddy!" in an excited but not panicked voice. Ms. Betsy swooped her up and took her back to the room without incident.

I was to meet Grace back at the school at noon to pick Claire up and introduce Grace to everyone as someone who is "cool" to pick up Claire. I worked on my laptop in a coffee shop near the preschool during the morning to avoid wasting the nearly hour round trip in the car. This worked out well, and it would be fun working from coffee shops more often except for calling into meeting on my pay-by-the-minute cell phone with The Beatles playing in the background. I actually had to retreat to the car for the 11:00 conference call.

The pickup went fine, and Claire was happy to see me, Grace, Reese (who was in the class two doors down), and Melanie all show up. Ms. Betsy told us that Claire did not cry at all, she had a very good time, and she talked a lot. I felt a little bad, because Melanie had just told me that Reese had cried for the first two weeks of preschool. As we left the classroom, Claire said her loud "gooodbyyye!", and we headed out with her first school drawing (hey, at least she got the scribbles on the page). Grace and Melanie struggled a bit getting Claire, Reese, and Baby Davis in the back seat of the Camry, and I headed back to work at home until the afternoon pickup. Aside from some logistical issues, this school thing seems to be working out pretty well so far.

Meet & Greet

Claire is starting pre-pre-school every Tuesday and Thursday morning starting next week. Today the school, part of a neighborhood church, hosted a "meet & greet" for parents to bring their kids by and meet the teachers. Kit and I (and Claire) rearranged our schedules to be there for the big event.

This is the preschool that Reese has been attending the last couple of years, and Claire has been here many times already in the past with Grace to drop off and pick up Reese. Claire already knows some of the kids, teachers, and parents from playing around on the playground with Reese after school. Walking around with Claire, we heard comments like, "Claire's back!", and "Look, Claire's talking now." It is remarkable that Claire has managed to etch out her own secret life over here at this age. Even though Claire is just now starting school, Kit and I are the only new really new people here.

We introduced ourselves to the teacher, Ms. Betsy, and Claire almost immediately rushed off to explore the classroom. She pointed out the stuffed animals ("teddy bears"), and tried out each of the three rocking horses in turn. Then she found the shelves of toys and started talking on two play telephones, one on each ear. Another little girl name Matilda showed up too. Claire was pretty quickly saying "hiiii" and repeating Matilda's name over and over. Kit and I incorrectly pointed out that Matilda is the name of the little girl in the "Carl the dog" books (the girl's name is really Madeline -- oops). Before we knew it, Claire was gently throwing her arms around the unsuspecting Matilda and saying "huggggg!" She had truly embraced the "meet & greet" concept with full force.

We had to get back to work eventually, and we had to somewhat drag Claire away from all the fun. Claire loudly said, "Byyyye Betsy!" as we left, and repeated Betsy's name as we walked out the classroom and down the hall. We were very proud of Claire for showing such confidence on what could have been a scary and overwhelming occasion.

A Real Bath

A warm, bubbly bath has been a key part of Claire's bedtime routine since she was just a little baby. It helps her unwind and tells her, "It's time for bed." Until tonight, Claire hast taken her baths in a small, blue, plastic infant/toddler bathtub on the kitchen counter. We had a such a strong bathtime routine that we could have practically done it in the dark (which is not out of the question with the power grid around here). We had her washcloths and pajamas stuck in the kitchen drawer below the counter, special playlists going on the iPod, and everything else you could think of. But alas, little Claire is getting too big for her plastic tub, and tonight she finally graduated to a real bathtub.

So Kit and I clumsily took a first stab at a new routine in the "nice" bathroom. There was an issue with the bathmat being too spikey, which stool to sit on, getting the water temperature right, and waiting for the water to fill up high enough (wow, that is a lot of water). Claire was happy enough to stand up in the tub, but it took some extra convincing to get her to actually sit down in the water. After that, the bath went well, and she seemed to enjoy being dried off and dressed on the cushiony bench in the bathroom. In the end, the new routine officially worked, as Claire went to sleep just like normal.

Goodbye, little blue tub! Thanks for all the hard work.

Pool Bust

Today I had another involuntary day off with Claire. Grace needed today and last Friday off for family reasons. Kit took Friday off and went to the zoo and did errands with Claire. Today was my turn. The day started off with a good sign. Claire's first words this morning when I got her out of her crib were "Wow! Awesome!" Sadly, the day would not live up to those bold expectations.

The first task of the day was to go to Target to return some lake supplies that we did not end up needing at the lake this weekend. As we pulled into the parking lot, just as Claire said "Target!", I realized I had the unused toddler life preserver with me, but not the unused sunglasses. I would come back another time when I had everything I needed to return.

Returning home, I began the hour-long process of getting ready to go to the pool. This process involves dressing Claire in her bathing suit and water shoes, dressing myself in my bathing suit and water shoes while keeping an eye on Claire, applying sunscreen to both of us, collecting together all the necessary water supplies such as towels, cups to play with, a kickboard, change of clothes, snacks and drinks, shutting the bedroom door so Muffin does not pee on our bed, and finally getting out the door and into the car. Damn, I forgot my cell phone. And Claire's hat. Back in the car.

We finally made it to the Garden Hills Pool, at 10:45, just 15 minutes after opening time. Claire enthusiastically said, "Pool!" as we drove up. We parked and walked up to the pool...And nobody was around. Literally nobody. The pool was closed. No hours were posted, it was just closed. I had to explain this to Claire, saying "Sorry, no people. Closed." Claire calmly repeated back "no people" as I loaded her back in the car. She cried a bit when she realized we really we not going to the pool any more, but she calmed down pretty quickly.

Determined to swim now that we were both all greased up ready to go, I went to plan B. I was not going to spend my day off not swimming! Chastain Park was not too far away, and I knew it had a public pool. So we drove up Peachtree and Roswell roads to the other pool, Claire glumly but calmly repeating, "Closed. No people." We parked, unloaded, and walked up to the pool...The closed pool. Claire offered, "Sorry, no people." The pool was closed until 4:00 in the afternoon. These beautiful pools are wasted just sitting there on such a hot, sunny day!

Plan C is to find a playground to get Claire's mind off of today's fiasco so far. After all, this was a park, and I hoped to avoid getting back in the car, which I would have considered a mortal failure at this point. The nice fellow at the nearby tennis center told us that there is a playground a little way down the road. So Claire and I walked a few blocks down Wieuca Road in 98 degree heat in our swimsuits and water shoes to the goddamn playground. We stopped along the way to sip on the Poweraid ("juice", as Claire calls it) that I had bought at the tennis center, and to enjoy the views of the golf course and baseball fields. Most of the goddamn playground was roasting in the near-noon sun, and the swings and slides were too hot to use, especially in a tiny nylon bathing suit. Claire did manage to have some fun, though, generally running and climbing around and just looking at the other, mostly older, kids. I was personally somewhat out of place among the Buckhead nanny set, but it was fun to hang out for a while. We cooled off over lunch at Moe's with a "kadeeya" and finally headed home to listen to music, dance, read, nap, and take it easy.

Even though today did not live up to the "Wow! Awesome!" expectations, it was still a fine day, and I even learned a few things along the way.

• Atlanta's pools are not open on Mondays...or something.
• Chastain Park offers some nice views of the Buckhead skyline across the golf course.
  
• Poweraid is a fine, refreshing beverage, even when quite tepid.
• Some nannies seem impatient or bored with the kids they are watching.
  
• Any day with Claire can be fun even if it is totally screwed up.
  

Jackson Lake

Today, we joined Reese and his parents, along with some other friends, at Jackson Lake for a day of watersports and fun. Today's high at the lake was a sizzling 102 degrees. Usually we would be holed up in the house on a hot afternoon like that, but today we were out in it. Fortunately, Claire handled the weather just fine. She pinked up pretty good in the heat, but we had a thick glaze of SPF 50 sunscreen on her all day, and she did not get burned.

The lake house was crawling with little kids and babies. It was pretty much a who's-who of Claire's kid friends. Reese was there with his new little brother Davis. Baby Luke, who is the four-month-old son of the other chief resident Chrissie, was also in attendance. Claire loves these babies. The last few weeks she has been whispering, "Shh... Baby Luke, sleeping. Shh... Baby Davis." Claire also met Melanie's friend's daughter Jaia (Jaya?), a lively, two-and-a-half-year-old girl with curly dark hair. Claire had actually met Jaia a few months ago when Melanie had arranged for Grace to watch her for a few days along with Reese and Claire. Apparently Grace had her hands full during those days, but Claire sure had fun with Jaia today. Well into the night, she was saying "Jaia" over and over.

We all soaked in the warm bath-like waters of the lake, the kids in full safety gear. This was Claire's first dip in a lake, and she seemed to enjoy it. She must have spent over an hour in the water, including about 15 minutes under Chrissie's watch as Kit and I took the Waverunner out for a spin. That thing was crazy fast, and Kit and I felt like we were both going to get blown off the back. Fortunately, we were able to hold on and make it back to the lake house and the kid. Besides our 15 minutes of adventure, we spent most of our day watching Claire and various babies. Claire was too wired up for her nap, so I drove her around the countryside and eventually got her to sleep a little. It had been a very long time since I had to use the old car trick to get Claire to sleep. Her little nap was enough to get her through a couple more hours of playing and exploring with all the other kids.

Everyone except Reese's grandma "Beebee" and the kids spending the night were going to ride the pontoon boat across the lake to the infamously slow Kountry Kitchen. Kit and I decided to go along and bring Claire, even though it would put her way past her usual 7:30 bedtime. Despite previous "difficult" experiences when missing bedtime by even a little bit, we decided to take a chance and join everyone for dinner.

Dinner was fun, and hot, and slow...and very late. We got to the restaurant around 8:00, and the waitress warned us before we ordered that it would take at least 45 minutes to get our food. After we ordered, Kit and I took turns sitting on the docked boat outside the restaurant in the hot night air reading Claire Curious George and the Rocket and trying to get her to sleep. Even a dark lakeside walk carrying Claire did not do the trick. Claire was charged up and ready to explore the lake or the restaurant. Eventually I brought her into the restaurant because I was about to die of hunger and thirst. We all had a fun dinner and were riding the boat across the lake around 10:30, listening to Hootie and the Blowfish's greatest hits, when Claire finally fell asleep under the stars. She stayed asleep for the transfer out of the boat, up the driveway, into the car, on the hour-long ride home, through a change of clothes, and into her crib. She probably had one of her nights of sleep ever that night, dreaming of Jaia and Reese and lights reflecting on the warm lake water.

Talking Maniac

Claire has been elevating her talking to the next level lately. She used to say mostly single words about things and people, like "blanket" or "Gracie". Now she is sometimes speaking in actual sentences. If she spills her drink, she'll say "I spilled it." Dropping something, she'll say, "I dropped it." If she wants a book that is out of reach, she says "I have it." That last one sounds kind of rude in a way, but I think she picked it up from me asking her to give us something she has, like a flashlight. I normally say, "Can I have it?" as I hold out my hands. She even told Kit, "I love you" the other night out of the blue.

I guess this means that one day I will have a conversation with Claire over breakfast beyond the current standard, "Pancake. Table. Reesie. Goergie." But what else could there possibly be to talk about?

She is also "messing up" fewer words, which she does so cutely. Sadly, flamingos are no longer "'mingos". I think she was onto something with her "mingos". We call aligators "gators", right? And "ome-ne-ne" has largely been replaced by the technically more correct, "Open it". She is even sort of counting now. Somehow a game evolved where we spread the phonebooks out on the kitchen floor in a crooked line, and Claire steps from one to another. As she steps, Kit and I count, "Oooone. Twooooo. Threeeeee..." Claire has picked this up and will usually repeat the number, and sometimes even say the next number before we do: "Fooooooour" That just kills Kit and me.

But happily, she does not say everything perfectly yet. Here are some things that she still says funny. I wanted to get these down before she fixes these too.

• Oatmeal is "elmote". It sounds like "Elmo", with a distinct "T" on the end.
• She also adds a sharp "T" to the end of "arbor", which is Spanish for tree, making it "arbort". Sometimes this devolves into "Eye-bort".
  
• "Close the door" is just "Clodoor!", usually said with gusto as a single word.
• Elephants are "ephelants"
• A lion is a "liney"
• A spider is a "pider", and Spiderman (Reese's favorite) is "Piderman"
  
• She loves saying Cock-a-doodle-doo, but leaves out the "doodle", making it the more concise "Cockadoo!"
• A strawberry is a "strawburrrdy", usually said with gusto.
  
• Pasta is "patsa"
• Blueblerries are "blue-blerrrries"
  
• A quesadilla is a "kadeeya!"
• A heart is a "lart"
  
• Corn is "corner". This especially applies to the Mr. Potato head character Pop Corn.
• Some phrases are a mystery, like "Apple duty!", which she repeats often.
• When we say "Gimme five", she'll slap our hand and say, "Go five!"

Shutterbug

It has become almost impossible to take pictures of video of Claire because she wants to look at the pictures of herself on the preview screen. Whenever we pull out the camera, she charges it, smiling and giggling, saying, "Claiiire!", meaning, "I want to see Claire!" Unless we are very covert, we end up with sequences like this.

Playing Hookie

Today I had Claire to myself. Grace had asked for a week off to take her family to Orlando while her kids were still out of school for the summer. With Kit on a tough rotation and short on vacation, I would have had to take the whole week off myself to watch Claire. But I could not absorb a week off from work so suddenly. As a compromise, I am taking Thursday and Friday off to give Grace and her family a four day weekend for their trip. So it's just me and Clair for two days.

Claire started out a little groggy today, so I thought I was in for a tough day. Usually a groggy Claire is not a happy Claire. But I knew that as long as she was doing or looking at something interesting, she would be ok. No problem. Fun for her is fun for me.

Thanks to another of Kit's great ideas, we have a yearly membership to Zoo Atlanta, so we can just waltz in any time we want to without paying a nickel. We showed up at the zoo right when it opened at 9:30 am. I was anxious to go since I had missed the last couple of trips to the zoo, opting to "go running and stuff" instead. Kit had been happy with this arrangement since it gave her and Claire have some valuable "face time" together during Kit's tough month.

Claire might have been the only kid at the zoo without a stroller. Letting Claire walk generally works out alright, although she needs little steering or else she ends circling back on herself a lot. We started out at the "mingos" near the entrance, and we moved on to the "ephelants". But Claire's favorite attraction today was not any bird or large African game, or even a monkey. It was the hand washing stations, which are scattered throughout the zoo. She really loves to wash her hands at home. She has even gone so far as to drag a step stool across the house, carefully navigating over the dog gate and into the bathroom, so she could climb up and wash her hands. But the zoo faucets are extra fun because they are motion-activated. She just sticks her hand in the sink, and it sprays a little stream on her hand. Then she giggles a lot and make it go some more. This is probably one of the coolest things Claire can imagine right now. After I drag her away from the sink, she spends a few more minutes maniacally running her hands under the hand dryer, which is also motion-activated. It blows hot air when she waves her hands under it. To Claire at the moment, all this is way cooler than some smelly elephant.

Later, as we wandered past the kangaroos, the zoo's little train chugged by, startling Claire at first with its loud rumbling engine. Once she realized it was a "choo choo train", just like Thomas the Train, she began to literally ran after it. I had to run and scoop her up before she made it to the tracks or crashed into a gaggle of kids from some sort of summer camp. But I promised her we would find that train again.

We slowly made our way across the zoo to the train area, visiting hand washing stations along the way. Once we got there, we had to burn a little time at the playground before the train's ticket booth opened. The playground was fun, but apparently feeling that her basic pants and shirt were not quite appropriate for this situation, Claire repeatedly requested the "play suit" that Noni Harriet had made for her.

After a little while, we got our $2 train ticket and headed for the station. Claire was excited to see the train, and pointed out that the Braves had sponsored one of the passenger cars. But she stiffened up a bit when we actually got on it. She kind of had a look like, "You can do that? Actually get on a train?" The little train seats were perfectly Claire sized, but she opted to sit in my lap, which was probably wise anyways. We were the only people on the train when it left the station. Once it picked up some speed and we got a nice breeze, Claire was finally smiling and talking and pointing out all the different animals she saw.

After about three minutes, we were back at the station. Fifteen kids were there waiting for the next train ride. I guess we were real trend setters today. As we walked away from the train, we passed a running zoo themed merry-go-round. Seeing all the kids riding on the backs of (plastic) lions and ostriches, Claire said "Cowboy! Cowboy!" I think she knows cowboys from our big "Texas Inside Out" book that we sometimes read/show to Claire.

We were both pretty hot, thirsty, hungry, and generally tuckered out by the morning's adventures. After lunch and cool drinks at Sonny's, we headed home and played bubbles and jumping games in the back yard, followed by dancing to An Old Navy Christmas inside. Then Claire settled in for some some quiet reading alone. It has been a fun day with Claire, and it's still only 2:00. I would normally be joining a weekly "Public IP MLFR Development Status Meeting" on the phone right now. Instead, I get to play with Claire and tuck her in for her nap soon. Maybe giving Grace these two days off was not a bad deal after all.

Power Outage

Today did not start off well. I woke up at 5:15 to the sound of beeping in the living room and downstairs. The UPS battery backups were complaining that the power was out (again). It was an overcast night, and the house was pitch dark; I could not even see my hand in front of my face. But I had a small flashlight right by the bed, and I quietly roamed around the house turning off the beeping batteries. I even made it back to bed without waking anyone up.

Fifteen minutes later, as I was trying to get back to sleep, Claire started calmly saying from her room, "Eyeball. Eyeball." At first this seemed like an odd thing to say. But I figured out what she meant pretty quickly. Normally if she hurts something or if something is not quite right, she will simply say the name of the offended body part, like saying "finger" if she were to hurt her finger. She did not sound panicked this morning, so I figured her actual eyeballs were okay. She must have been complaining that she could not see anything at all in the pitch dark, and maybe she was afraid here eyeballs were not working. I was impressed how calm she stayed when she suddenly realized she was, well, blind, and that she figured out a way to tell me that she could not see. I took her back to our room since it was still completely dark in the house and I did not want her to be scared.

We could not get her back to sleep since it was almost time for her to wake up anyways. But she laid down at the foot of our bed, asked for her blanket, pulled it over herself, and twice proclaimed "Sleepy time". She rested there, but did not sleep, for a little while. But by 6:00 am, she was off the bed and wandering down the hall to gather toy animals from around the house. Pretty soon she was asking for pancakes. So our day started a little early, but luckily we got the power back within about an hour, and everyone was happy and safe.

Zurikoo and the Deathly Hallows

This morning we went to Borders for story time, which is at 11:00 every Saturday. Besides just being something fun to do, we are hoping this will help Claire become more comfortable in large groups of unruly kids. Granted, aside from the occasional kid hopping around the story circle, the kids are not that unruly, but there certainly are lots of them, from little babies to school-aged kids.

Coincidentally, the last Harry Potter book also comes out today, so we half expected some sort of mad house at the book store. Entering the store, the mad house turned out to be only a guy at a card table with a clipboard and a highlighter, distributing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to people who had pre-ordered it. Kit had ordered it on Amazon already, so we expected to see it on our doorstep sometime today.

We made it upstairs to the children's book section for story time. In the past, Claire has generally opted to sit in my lap and listen during story time, usually getting up to explore and mix with the other kids only in the last five minutes or so. This time around, Claire was mixing it up sooner, doing some nice dancing and stomping during Miss Wendy's more upbeat sings like "Driving in My Car" and "Wheels on the Bus". Then she would clap enthusiastically and retreat back to my lap during the book readings or quieter songs like "These Are My Glasses". After this happened a couple of times, Kit said I should "get smaller" so Claire would actually sit in her own lap sometimes. Apparently my lap was too cushiony and expansive, and it overpowered Kit's lap for sitting comfort. I managed to scrunch up some, although I was quite uncomfortable. But it did the trick, as Claire hopped in Kit's lap (and I got to loosen up again).

After story time, another mom came up and told us in a thick accent that Claire "Looks just like Zurikoo". "Excuse me?", I said. The lady said more clearly this time, "She looks just like Suri Cruise." I don't know, I think Claire might be a little cuter than Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' kid. Well, maybe it's a toss up.

After we got home, the Harry Potter book magically showed up on our doorstep with special instructions for Muggles like our mailman. Now we finally have the full series, consisting of several thousand pages, that Kit plans to eventually read to Claire. I hope Claire likes Harry Potter!