Sadie's time to shine

Sadie working the Shirley Temple angle.

So, I know my daughter is cute and all, but every time we go out in public, people stop in their tracks and gawk at her. Wife once told me she could barely get through Target without being stopped in every aisle. I think people with puppies have the same experience. They have to stop every five minutes to let people ooh and ahh and pet their dog. (Yes, I'm comparing my daughter to a puppy. No, no one pets her.)

My favorite is when people ask us where her curly hair comes from. Honestly, I think we get that three times a day. Obviously, it's certainly the first thing people notice when they see our kids. Especially her. And then of course when they look at us it does seem like a natural question to ask. My standard response is that our mailman had curly hair. Some times they laugh but I like it better when they don't.

P.S. That beeping you hear is our coffeemaker. Could it be any more annoying? We figured out how to turn it off once but have since forgotten.

Day of fun

Believe it or not, there are two crabs in his hand.

Soen's school was closed today so I took the day off for a Father-Son day of crazy fun. First stop was the beach, where Soen found two tiny crabs. We spent two and a half hours at the beach, which is a long time for him, but we just chilled. Usually I'm running him ragged, trying to get him to do all sorts of things he doesn't want to do. Today, I just let him take the lead, with much better results. We built and destroyed a lot of sand castles. But mostly he played with these two crabs. He also showed off the crabs to almost every passerby. "I found two crabs!" (The crabs were still alive by the time we left, which I count as a minor victory.)

Then we went to the pier you can see here in the background to play some video games and have some ice cream. The video game he wanted to play was one of those first-person shooters. Then he played his first game of pinball. He liked the shooter game better, which is understandable.

Then we went to a new sushi place, which turned out to be the best spot in town. On the way home I told Soen he was going to take a nap. He assured me he wasn't tired but of course his eyes were half closed as he said this. However, he did rally when we got home and he watched The Black Cauldron. This wasn't a nap, but he did rest for an hour and a half. Then, while we were getting ready for the pool, I found a harmonica I had forgotten about and I gave it to him. He played with it for a few minutes and then said, "Hey Daddy, you play the guitar and I'll play this." I almost wept. So we jammed for a few minutes. He took charge of the session and made sure to tell me when I was screwing up, which was fairly often.

Then it was on to the pool for two hours. His new favorite thing is snorkeling, which makes it much easier for him to swim. With a snorkel on, he can swim the entire length of the pool with no problem. But best of all, we discovered that playing with one of those torpedo things is waaay more fun when you have snorkels on that without. So he had a torpedo catch for a good twenty minutes. After that, we went to pick up Sadie from daycare and then we met Wife at home. But... the festivities weren't over yet. We all packed up a dinner and went biking over to the park for a picnic. We even made it back without any meltdowns. Crazy, I know.

The funniest part of the whole day, however, was at the beach when I called Wife to tell her how much fun we were having. Soen got on the phone and said: "Mommy, I found two crabs! I found two crabs!.... Yeah, I found two crabs. I found two crabs. Mmmhmm. Two crabs, Mommy. I found two crabs!"

Soen Rocks

Not much to add to this.