Potpourri

This, that, and the other thing ...

Time flies
So Annika's become fascinated with the little travel digital clock we keep on the changing table, always wanting to hold it and push buttons and whatnot, so we started teaching her what the numbers meant, and she's catching on really fast; she knows that the hours are to the left of the little flashin lights (the colon flashes, who knows why), and the minutes are to the right, and that you say them like "seven twenty-three" or whatever. She doesn't know all the numbers in the hour, of course, but she's got the general idea. So the other day, some lady in line at the store asked her how old she was, and she said two, and the lady responded that her little boy was three. When we got out to the parking lot, I asked Annika how old she would be on her next birthday -- she looked blank, so I said, "How old are you now?" "Two." "And what comes after two?" A pause, then a nod and a confident "Forty-four." (In my head, I was like, "No, kid, it only just feels that way ...")

Bread
Another obsession of late: The "How Bread Is Made" section of Busy Busy Town. The story tracks bread from the harvest of the wheat all the way to Able Baker Charlie's exploding oven, and she LOVES it. So I got the idea to make bread with her -- she loves helping in the kitchen, and I figured, hell, we could both learn it (I've never made bread before, except in a breadmaker). I found a step-by-step recipe on the Internets that looked doable, bought the ingredients, and sprang the project on her as a surprise treat on Saturday morning. Y'all -- it was FABULOUS. I mean it. Just AMAZING -- and so much easier than I thought. It's not even that much of a time commitment -- you have to sort of be around (you have to let it rise twice for an hour each, and knead once for ten straight minutes, then bake for 30), but in between you don't have to do anything, so it's ideal for an at-home Saturday. And it's so much fun working in the kitchen with her -- I measured ingredients and she poured them in, and mixed as much as she could, and then of course the kneading was good times, and like her mom, Annika loved eating the dough. Heh. When we got it in the oven, it smelled unbelievably good all through the house, and the finished product was just ridiculouslydelicious -- that afternoon, we all just kept eating plain slices, and the toast and grilled-cheese sandwiches we made from it on Sunday were pretty much the best EVER. I may never eat store-bought bread again.

A city day
Babyschool was closed on Presidents' Day, so I took PTO (we don't get it as a holiday) and planned a fun outing for the two of us. She and I drove to the BART and took the train to downtown SF (kids love trains, it's a universal fact). We got off at the Powell station, and did a little shopping at Gap (tons of new cute stuff for her, a pair of jeans for me) -- the big hit as far as she was concerned were the floor tiles, which were hexagons in one patch, and "dots" in another. Then we spent some time admiring this old-fashioned clock on Market Street (you can see the works of its insides) before running a block or so out of sheer excitement (her shrieking "RUNNING! LIKE BASEBALL!!!"). We caught the F-line trolley down to the Ferry Building, where we wandered around for awhile looking at the big high ceiling, etc. Around 11:00, we went to Taylor's Refresher for lunch; she had a grilled cheese, and stole several of my fries. Then we went to the water's edge to look at all the birds & boats & such, and then went back to BART, arriving home in time for a good long nap. The whole thing worked out so well that I'm really excited to do more of the same with her; she's just old enough now to have a few hours' stamina (provided I bring snacks! snacks can save the day!), and she gets such a charge out of acting like a big kid and going new places & seeing new things. She's a real pleasure to be around these days (not that she's ever not been, in general, but -- you know what I mean -- there are more- and less-hairy phases of kids' growth and development, amirite?). Really great day.

The Quotable Annika

• Trader Joe's -- now a regular stop on our Sunday-morning rounds: "Trade-a-lader Joe's."
• About the little sister in the "Little Critter" series of books by Mercer Mayer: "That little girl is a brat."
• The shape that involves two sets of parallel lines, but isn't a square or rectangle: "Palola gam."
• When whoever has done the bedtime stories leaves the room: "Night-night! I love you! Go haffa meal and talk to [Mommy or Daddy], den you go to bed."
• When you want her to do something and she doesn't want to (which is always): "I'm just going to play a little bit of more of de markers job. Juss a little bit of mo."