A Thing about Things

D: Hey, Wrigley! When is your birthday?
W: On Tuesday!
D: Are you excited?
W: Yes!!!! (she earned all those exclamation points)
D: Why are you excited?
W: Because Grammers and Gramps are coming!

The nicest thing about having a three year old is that - even though our storage area is crammed with boxes of gifts from near and far - big events are still about people, not things. I don't know how much longer she'll see the world that way, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

A Child's Revenge ...

When we named our daughter after a baseball stadium, I was pretty well resigned to the fact that there was no way in hell she would like baseball. I fully expected her to enthusiastically embrace the only sport duller than baseball: soccer.

But it is worse, my friends, oh so much worse ...

Every Sunday in the fall, I like to partake in that uniquely male ritual of ... folding laundry. And while I am folding laundry, I like to watch a little football. And Wrigley, who misses her daddy, likes to hang out with me on the weekends, so she also watches a little football. During the commercials, I like to flip from CBS to Fox. Last week, as I was flipping through the channels, something caught Wrigley's eye: "Daddy? Can we watch the racecars?"

"Um, What?"

"Can we watch the racecars?"

Round and round they go. Why people watch, nobody knows ... but I have the personal shame of giving life to ... a NASCAR fan. Oh, sigh.

In local news ...

An Oregon City School Board member - that's right, a school board member in the district where I teach - told the Oregonian newspaper that he talked to God this summer. Or rather, God talked to him.

You can reread that if you'd like, but the facts won't change: an OC school board member is getting advice directly from God. I wonder if God had anything to say about our drama department, because this is the same board member who dragged my friend before the board to defend her production of the cutting edge musical Grease.

And God's advice: pray. That's right, grab as many Christians as you can and pray.

Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed in God. With all the turmoil in the world - Iraq, Israel, nukes in North Korea, and the Cubs losing three straight to Cincinnati (?!?!) in the final week of the season - you'd think God would have more important things to do than find a preacher in OC and tell him to pray.

I guess there is one thing to look forward to: the big prayer bash will end up at the high school. With any luck, they'll pray for better test scores.

Breaking News

Portland "news" stations have finally discovered something more dramatic and fascinating than weather forecasts: ashcasts. That's right, we've been getting 8 minutes per broadcast of ashcasts.

Mt. St. Helens hiccoughed the other day, and volcanologists have been crawling out of the magma layers to deluge the newsrooms with blow by blow descriptions of a cloud of dust. Weatherboys and girls have been busy at their computers, generating graphics that show Helen shrouded in fog, which can spread to the north, south, east, or west with the click of a button. The thrilling conclusion of all this coverage: "Well, there really isn't much wind so the ash will probably just land right back down on the mountain anyway."

Thank God there isn't anything important going on in national or international news.

Visualize Umlauts

It is fall, if you haven't noticed, and Mom and Wrigley have been spending their days gathering things that have fallen: leaves, pine boughs, and a wide variety of nuts. Wrig's treasures have been spread out over her project table for the past few days but today she wanted to build an excavator with her construction set, so we had to clean up. Mom and I were cleaning the kitchen, so Wrig was left to her own devices to clean up the project table. She sorted out the pine boughs from the other leaves and the green leaves from the crunchy leaves. "That's great!" I told her, "but where did you put the nuts?"

"Over here," she replied, pointing to her doll house.

"Oh," I said. "The nuts are in the attic. That's so very Bronte of you."

Getting Away with Murder

If only I'd known when I was a kid, that when you're sick you can get away with all sorts of stuff, and your parents won't say anything. They'll just clean up your messes and let you watch TV or read 7 books in a row. Too bad you don't feel like doing much else.

Wrigley had a fever yesterday. It just came on in the afternoon and was gone by morning. Huh. Apparently, it kicked viral butt with little fuss. We're glad it is gone, and she is her energetic self again, but sometimes it is nice to have that reminder that she's just a little kid who likes to be snuggled endlessly when she's sick.

It's a big day!

Wrigley woke up this morning and said with the biggest grin, "I'm going to preschool today" It went off without a hitch and she loved it!
the before shot

the after shot.

What every girl needs

Mommy, do we have any race car tights?

If any one ever sees such a thing, we could use them here!