41 Months

This month we finally got a visit from Karen. Hooray! (No really, total Kermit flail!) Athena was beyond overjoyed. I think she might be enticed to come back sooner as this time all thoughts of "No, Mommy do it." were left behind in favor of "No, I want to brush teeth with Meme." and "No, I want to make coffee with Meme." and the greeting of  "Meme! Meme! Meme! Meme!" for about an hour when she first arrived. Athena skipped school in favor of trips to the park and the library and the junior museum and generally having a completely delightful time.

We went to Vasona Park for the first time to try the train and the carousel, which were both great.

"Meme carry me please."

Carousel in the trees

Mommy and Daddy sat on the bench

Saturday night we took advantage of the free babysitting and hit the Mountain Winery for George Thorogood and Brian Setzer. Brian Setzer was as awesome as I expected, and the Mountain Winery is definitely not the right place to see him. We found one wide space to dance a bit, but otherwise, it's tiny little seats with barely any legroom and no place to dance. I initially turned it down, and Erik said he wanted to go without me. That bummed me out, so I decided to go too. I would cheerfully go to any Brian Setzer show again almost anywhere else, but yeesh, when the best dancing is on flagstone paved corner no where near our seats, that's just wrong. But when you're the only couple dancing, a lot of people notice. Erik bumped into Ryan Shen-Knotts in the bathroom, and, and a Stanford colleague emailed me on Monday to say hi and say, "I told my husband he'd never dance with me like that." He said, "Nope."

We all headed to Santa Cruz for Father's Day, which seemed to be an idea lots of other folks had too. Athena loves the rides so very much.

On my trusty steed!

Boat!

More carousel!

Athena is very clear on the letter A all of the sudden. She has been pointing out As all over the place, because A is for Athena. She also knows O. Other letters are still a bit more fuzzy, but she's got her numbers, can count to about 30 pretty successfully (and farther with a nudge here and there, so she gets the mechanic clearly), and delights in counting everything.

Also, we are all silly Billies. A lot.

Athena delights in making a mistake. I can only assume this comes from school because she says it with such joy. As in, "Oh! I made a mistake!" So far, no particular negative connotations there, so that's pretty cool.

And last week, her favorite phrase became, "Well, except..." She uses it in much the same way that a lot of folks use, "Um" but it sounds more adult and more contrarian. She's also all about "the plan." I'm pretty sure that one is my fault. I'm always briefing her on the plan because life goes soooooo much better if she knows what the plan is, especially if we can get her used to a big, out of the ordinary plan for a few days before it happens. Then big things can happen, and she knew it was the plan, so she's way less upset. Turns out, her needs are not unlike any adult. She likes to know what's going on, and sometimes she likes to decide what's going to happen. She'll say, "Well, here's the plan. We'll make coffee, then get dressed, then go to the park." And I say, "Oh, ok. That's a good plan." She'll say, "That's a really good plan. Let's do it." And off we go.

Her favorite food is macaroni and cheese. Like she would eat it twice a day every day if we let her.

Meanwhile, at work, things are pretty busy for me, but at least I've got a couple of interns doing the pile-on, no way it was gonna happen work. Erik is just finishing his quarter and the summer quarter starts Monday. This seems crazy on many levels, not the least of which is that grades for the prior quarter aren't posted til Wednesday so there's no telling if you passed the prerequisite, but it's how they roll at De Anza. He'll have a month off in August/September so that will be nice. (I never get a month off! Or an end of the quarter sense of completion. Harumph.)