Oh Bother

Jeez
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Another ice storm pic. Sabrina was lovely about the whole thing, really. Santa (still my parents, which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it) brought her a rainbow play mat, you remember the kind, sort of a tumbling mat thing. The thing's multitalented; it's a partition screen, it's a slide, it even makes julienne fries. I like to think we explored the hell out of that thing's possibilities, and many of them make my daughter scream with laughter.

Sabrina's a lovely girl. I can't remember if I wrote about this yet here, but if so I'm going to do it again: our neighbors to the North are a lovely couple with two sons, 2 and a half and five I believe, and the older one is in the stage where they growl at everything like little dinosaurs. In front of our house is a little ring of bushes with a break in the back, sort of a litle kiddie cave, and the boys spend a lot of time in there. Not too long ago Sabrina discovered it, and at first we weren't terribly happy about that. She's still falling over a fair bit and there were some sharp bits in there at eye level, so I did some trimming and we did our best to hold on to her in there. The second time she explored it she was having a lovely time and suddenly the older boy next door came outside and saw her in there, which you could tell drove him absolutely nuts. He grabbed his big Tonka dump truck, the one he holds on to the bed of while rocketing down the sidewalk, and rammed the cave a number of times, growling like mad.

There was no physical danger to Sabrina, and I've found that I always feel like a jerk after yelling at someone else's kid, so I just watched. His dad came out and told him to stop with the cave ramming, and he did, and then entered the cave. I sat near the entrance and watched Sabrina catch sight of him, ball up her little fists, and give him a bear mating call roar that froze him in his tracks. I was as shocked as he was, and for a moment we all sat there stunned until the kid's dad laughed and called him inside the house.

That's my girl. I'm sure I inflate the value of these magic moments, but it sure seems like she's the best little person I've ever known, sweeter, braver, more understanding, more generous, etc. I suppose that's what people mean when they say they learn from their children, at this point at least. The real teaching will begin when she starts talking. I'm ready, Sabrina. Drop that knowledge.