well!

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Quite the weekend. Sarah went to a birthday party on Saturday, followed immediately by the Chinese New Year celebration in Holyoke. On Sunday, there was another birthday party at the Children's Museum in Holyoke, followed by rides on the merry-go-round. This morning, the fun continued. Instead of going to school, Sarah went to the Kids' Dentist for a 10:00 root canal. Perhaps this will finally scare her into brushing her teeth for more than 2.3 seconds a night.

The real bombshell came from the nurse. She can't eat anything sticky. For how long? Until she's eight. And sticky means...? Gum, caramel, gummy bears, taffy ("What's taffy?" asked Sarah), Starburst, that sort of thing. It'll pull the crown off. What's it held on with, I wanted to ask, good intentions?

So now we're both home. She's been watching TV and complaining about how her mouth feels, poor kid. She agreed to having some clam chowder for lunch, then declined to eat any. She'll probably continue eating Lunchables, though. She's been stuffing those down every chance she gets. We're having an alleged nap now, with Sarah watching Monsters, Inc. with me. She slept for about two minutes, then a noise caused her to snap awake for the next hour or more. Each time the movie jumped a track, she was even more awake (somebody keeps getting gunk all over it -- I might try washing it again; that usually works for a while).

I've managed to get a tiny bit of writing done. I might be able to finish my story for this week only a day late. I managed to get some shoveling done this morning, and washed clothes and dishes and got some of Sarah's debris field cleaned up out of the living room.

Cathy should be home in about three and a half hours. Wish me strength, and the power of being entertaining. It's Daddy Day.
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echoes

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I found a tape marked "Early 2004?" on one side and "Late 2004" on the other, one in a small series of audiocassettes documenting Sarah. I usually recorded these at bedtime, on a little recorder I bought for the purpose. The tricky part was finding a place to put it where Sarah didn't find it and try to play with it. (I can hear myself saying, "LEAVE THAT ALONE!" on this one.) I wish I'd started it earlier, or been more diligent about it, or something. She used to make the cutest little chatter, talking herself down to sleep after we left her, before she was using words. Now I'll never hear that again!

I've listened to both sides. I can hardly recognize that voice. She was pretty talkative already. I hope I have a couple more tapes to find somewhere around the house.

In other news, I paid a quarter for a copy of Seven-Day Magic at the library today. I'll replace a recent paperback printing with it, but I'm a little chagrined that they are discarding an Edward Eager book for any reason. No doubt they needed the room for more series fiction about ghosts and boogers. Edward Eager rules. As I told the librarian, Barnes & Noble has all his books, so people are buying them, even if they're not checking them out.

While I was there, I checked out two more Russian children's fantasy movies by Aleksandr Rou. I'd already watched Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors. Now I will be seeing Maria the Magic Weaver and another whose name isn't readily apparent to me... ah, here it is. It's Jack Frost. (Anybody interested in seeing some short clips from Maria, follow me over the fold.)

( this is the fold )