July 8th, 2003

I’m tired today. Stayed up too late last night reading the new Harry Potter book. Man, is it good. I’m amazed at how tightly paced and plotted it is. Not finished yet, though, so I’m sure I’ll be thinking about it and what may happen next all day. If I seem distracted, this is surely why.

Three weeks from today we’ll be going to Europe. I’m really excited about it. My passport still hasn’t arrived, but I told myself I wouldn’t start worrying about that until next week. I’ve also got tons and tons of things to do before leaving. One thing I want to do is clear all the pictures off the camera’s memory stick so that I can have the full empty thing to take pictures on. I’ve made good progress with loading pictures so far, and I’m now in the month of May.

Our holiday weekend was nice. Too short, of course, but very pleasant. On Friday we went to the Ag Museum because they had rides and watermelon and ice cream and animals. Sophia’s favorite part was the barn with the animals in it. She kept asking to take another look at them. “Go back to the barn,” she would say, and we would walk back that way, where she’d exclaim about the pigs and turkey and goats and pony. Kurt helped her feed straw to the goats. She liked that a lot. Somewhere along the way I lost my cheap sunglasses, which really got me down. I buy a pair every summer, but this pair was surprisingly nice and comfortable. At some point I took them off and (thought) I put them in my purse, but when I checked my purse for them later they were gone. Later I went back to Target to see if they had another pair like it but I couldn’t find one. So here we are, middle of summer, and I have no sunglasses. Weak. At any rate, it was quite enjoyable, though we could not persuade Sophia to get into any of the space jump thingymabobs or to ride the pony. She likes to be outside, and the area was very shady, so even though it was the heat of the day (between 10 and 12), she did not get any sun and had a blast. She did not want to leave, actually, and we finally just dragged her away because we had seen everything a thousand times and were ourselves a little tired. Again, like last weekend, she took no afternoon nap, though she was willing to sit and play quietly in her crib and that’s good enough for us.

On Saturday we strongly encouraged her to nap (and she did) because we knew we were going to be out late at the Martins. Sophia loves going out there. We had burgers and brats and fireworks. The fireworks scared her a bit, but she would watch them from the window inside the house. For two days afterwards she talked about the fireworks non-stop. They apparently made quite and impression. “Firecracker! Up in the sky!” she would tell us every 10 minutes or so. We would smile and nod and tell her they’d been pretty and loud.

Today, I have been remembering last year’s fourth holiday, because it was then that Sophia first started walking. It seems so long ago, but it was only a year. She took her first tentative steps with my dad, and it was so sweet to see them together. She’d hold up her arms imperiously, his cue to help her to her feet and patiently walk her all around the house. Now she’s running, jumping, climbing.

Continue reading