Water vapor = spun sugar?

Today as we pulled out of our alley and drove along Crescent Lake, I pointed out to Reilly that there was mist on the surface of the lake.

"Daddy, what is mist?"

"It is water vapor, like clouds."

She thought for a moment, then said, "Cotton candy is made out of clouds."

Beach Bums

A few days at the beach. Photos here.

NewJork

Back to the Big Apple to visit a few friends...

It was frigid one day and raining the next, but we managed to snap a few [photos].

Now showing...

BabyO2 is not even here yet and she's already suffering from second child syndrome: Shawn has been showing BIG for four weeks or so now, and we've yet to post prego pics.

To make up for that deficiency, here is a black and white series I took the other night:

Click Here.

Stale but still fresh

Here are some photos that it took forever for me to get out of my camera: click here.

Your photo of the week:

Only 10 years left...

Today on the drive home, Reilly told me that she was going to have 125 birthdays, and mommy was going to have 188 birthdays. When I asked her how many I was to have, she said, "43."

It kind of freaked me out.

Eyes wide open

"Mommy, what happens to your eyes when you die?"

"Well, you can donate them."

"What does donate mean?"

"It means you give them to someone who needs them when you don't need them anymore."

"Can I donate my eyes?"

"Of course."

"Well, on the day that I die, or--right before I die--will you take my eyes and walk around town to give them to someone who needs them?"

Hexapoda

This afternoon, while Shawn was in the kitchen, Reilly was using an orange highlighter to draw on a paper towel Shawn had given her.

(Hey, everything is a potential art supply in our house, which brings me to an interesting tangent. To beautify our otherwise rusty and run down thirty year old refrigerator, Shawn painted it with black chalkboard paint. Reilly spent part of the afternoon drawing on the refrigerator with chalk and then describing her detailed drawings to us.)

Where was I?

So, Reilly came into the kitchen with her drawing of an ant, with three body segments, two antennae, and six legs.

"Mommy, how many legs does an ant have?"

"I don't know, Reilly, eight?"

"Is an ant an insect, Mommy?"

"Um, yes."

"Then it has six; three and three."

(Wikipedia confirms this fact.)

She's a smart kid.

and Bounds

Somehow, Reilly has made another leap in her maturation.

There are tangible things, like how she can add and subtract simple math problems in her head. (Harder ones she'll tackle by counting her fingers.)

The level of her dialog with us has also raised, almost peer-to-peer (which can be problematic).

But when I say that she's grown, it is in her overall being; the sum of these things and those that are intangible as well. Somehow, Reilly is older.

The other morning, she walked in the room, and it was in how she held herself that I saw she was different. The light around her was different, the air was charged. She had presence.

She was less of a little girl.