Dress Rehearsal

The school bus just drove by. I guess they are practicing their route before the big day on Wednesday.

We were doing a little practicing ourselves today. Since the Bus Route listing shows our closest bus stop as being a nonexistent address, we practiced going to the second-closest bus stop today just to get our timing down. Up until this point, it has been hard to imagine Miranda ever walking to her bus stop by herself (which is funny, when I consider that I used to walk ten blocks to school in Indianapolis -- by myself -- when I was her age), but Miranda is starting to chomp at the bit for some independence, so I let her pretend she was walking back from the bus stop by herself as Xavier and I trailed along behind her.

After we crossed the first street, we started doing some role playing. "Hey, little girl, can I give you a ride?"

"No!" Miranda shouted.

"No!" Xavier echoed.

"Hey, little girl, can you tell me how to get to --"

"No!" Miranda shouted.

"No!" Xavier echoed.

"Little girl, I have a puppy in my car," I posited. "Would you like to see it?"

"No!" Miranda shouted.

"Well, okay." Xavier conceded.

"Little girl, would you like some candy?"

"No!" Miranda shouted.

"Yes!" Xavier shouted.

I see we still need to do a little work on Xavier. Luckily, we still have a couple of years.


My brother and his daughter Chloe came to visit this weekend. My niece is a cherubic child the same age as Xavier, and, like Xavier, she will be starting preschool soon. When Adam's brother Matt was here a couple of weeks ago, the kids insisted on calling him "Uncle Ez" and my nephew Riley "Chloe," and while Ez was here, they insisted on calling Chloe "Riley."

It seems Chloe is more precocious than our kids in some ways ... Ez is very careful what songs he lets her listen to because she picks up on four-letter-words and repeats them, while we've managed to convince our kids that in the Garbage song, "Shut Your Mouth", one of the rifts includes the word "kitload." Admittedly, we are becoming more careful as well. There is something a little disturbing about hearing a five-year-old chant, "Hit me, baby, one more time!" Yes, they are that innocent.