Happy Third Birthday

I took a vacation day from work so that I could spend the day with Chas and Angie. I always try to be home for Angie's birthday--last year she and I danced for the entire day. This year we planned to take Angie to the "Wild Things" exhibit at the Western Reserve Historical Society (site of our first date). We have been reading "Where the Wild Things Are" to Angie in anticipation of this trip.

The Exhibit was great. As we entered the room, there were giant wooden cut-outs of Max as the King of the Wild Things and a Wild Thing. Angie ran between the two and hugged them saying, "It's the King! It's a Wild Thing (Or Lion)! Rowr!" We also frequently climbed in the boat that Max used to go to the place where the wild things are. Angie insisted on steering, but she wouldn't tell me where we were going. Angie also kept running to a giant poster of wild things and shouted, "The Wild Things are swinging in the tree!"

Other Sendak books were part of the exhibit so Angie cooked in the night kitchen and slid down a very slippery slide to a big bowl of Chicken Soup with Rice! Yes we do have pictures. Angie dressed in two Wild Things costumes and wandered around the exhibit. And yes the costumes were made for children much larger than Angie so her feet and hands disappeared regularly. Angie didn't mind at all.

Then we had a picnic outside and Angie chased the squirrels and birds. The birds were not foolish and took off as soon as they saw the large aqua and green object hurtling toward them. The squirrels would let Angie come within about two feet before they realized that she wouldn't back down.

Angie took a brief nap on the ride home. Far too brief. For dinner we had "roly-olies" (ravioli) and bagels (garlic bread). For the first time that I can think of, she did not finish her ice cream. Pasta night usually requires a soap bath, which Angie just loves--she can stay in the tub for an hour. Tonight she wanted out shortly after I finished washing her hair. A clear sign that she is tired.

Once Angie was clean, dressed and hair brushed, we gave her our presents. We went a little retro this year: Koala Brothers viewmaster discs and Dora colorforms. We also gave her a book of jigsaw puzzles. She asked for more presents (I think she likes the tearing and ripping), then left to go play with her viewmaster for a bit.

I think she had a nice birthday.

Nice Father's Day

Grandma and Grandpa Rich were with us for breakfast. Angie was in heaven because Playhouse Disney ran several episodes of Jojo's Circus in a row and she could play with her new Jojo car (Thanks to Grandma Pat) while watching. Then the Grandparents left and Angie could only be described as forlorn.

She wanted me to read from my "BBC America" book (that's just what she called the book I am currently reading). So I did. It went something like this: "la la la la la la la la. BBC America. La lala lala lala la la la. BBC America." She laughed and thought that was great.

We went to a park and her daddy tried to fly a small kite. It did a few neat tricks but the wind wasn't steady enough for proper kite flying. Then we walked to the river and Daddy showed off how well Angie plays near the river. He found stones for her to toss in the water as she sat on a large rock at the shallow part of the river. My favorite part was Angie doing sound effects as she tossed the rocks: "Gawomp. Gawomp. Gawomp."

Nice steak dinner tonight on the charcoal grill followed by a walk to a local elementary school playground. Angie ran the bases on the ball diamond and climbed on the playground equipment. We returned home, watered plants then went inside to have ice cream and birthday cake.

As I type this, Chas is reading "Where the Wild Things Are." Angie is convinced that Wild Things say things like "Wubba wubba woo" and so our readings of this book are peppered with Angie interjecting "wubba wubba woo" enthusiastically.

Just a nice day.

Her Daddy seems pleased.

More Amazing Memory

We went to the Allergist today (she's fine and the doctor thinks we can just maintain her on the current medication and continue to avoid the food triggers in large doses). We were last there in February. Angie briefly napped in the car on the way down. When she woke up in the parking lot, she started talking about doctors and going to see the doctors.

While we waited for the doctor in the examination room, we read Angie various stories: Sweet Dreams Spot, a squeaky book about apples (silly rhymes and an apple that squeak when pressed)--we didn't bother with the ABC's of Asthma though. We finished the two books in the room and Angie started asking for the book about the Muppet Show. When we waited for the doctor to come to the exam room in February, we read a book about Muppet Babies. Pretty amazing memory!

The doctor had an intern with him--nice young man who seemed really charmed by Angie (which is probably why I thought he was nice). After the exam was over, the Intern left to get Angie some stickers. Usually kids get a single sticker for a doctor's visit. The Intern returned with 5 strips of stickers which had 3 stickers on each strip. Angie became excited and took one strip from him and said, "Thank you very much." Since she didn't take the rest immediately, he gave them to us for her. Then Angie waived bye to the Intern and said, "thank you very much doctor doctor. Very good doctor" From the expression on his face, I'm guessing that he thought Angie was a nice way to end the work day.

We wandered around a local mall just window shopping while we waited for Angie to get hungry. She loved the fountains and counted the mini-fountains in Spanish. At the Disney Store, we placed her stroller under a bubble machine and she was incredibly happy with that location.

Finally we went to Skyline Chili because she wanted spaghetti. While we waited for the food to arrive, Angie read to us from the book about spaghetti (the menu). It went something like this:

"Once upon a time there was a spaghetti. And the spaghetti lived happily ever after. THE END!"

She read that story to us a few times.

Chas and Angie played outside before her bath, then after her bath she climbed on my lap to play computer games. She was fighting sleep and I finally insisted that she go to bed. She was quite upset to leave her game (helping Zoey from Sesame Street put the animals to sleep in the correct pen) and fussed quite a bit, though clearly exhausted. I finally put her to bed, and just when I started to leave because I thought she was asleep, I heard a tiny voice say, "Put the blue doggie in the pen!" in a sad, despairing tone.

Sweet girl really needed to sleep.