random stuff

This will be quick because I'm beat, but there's a whole bunch of stuff to write about....

- Kate's favorite book right now is "Are You My Mother?" She brought it to me insistently before bed last night. On the page where the baby bird meets the kitten, she says the cutest little "meow," and looks up at me and smiles. On the page with the dog, she does an emphatic, "Woof! Woof!" These animals appear on later pages, too, so she continues with the sound effects. I was telling Emily and Jack this and Jack said, "Does she moo when she sees the cow?" Oddly, she doesn't. I think she's still thinking about the dog and cat.

- Jack can be very sweet with Kate, like when he shows her how to play with something. "Here, Kate, you can be this car." "Oh-tay!" says Kate. "No, Kate, play with it like this." "Oh-Tay!" He also shows her how best to jump on the bed, which she delights in. The other day he got a running jump to leap up onto it. So Kate then backed all the way up to the closet, ran up to the edge of the bed, then walked around and climbed up as she normally does via the trunk. Funny.

- He also takes her hand when I pick them up at school.

- We went to the beach yesterday. Kate is a little scared of the water, so when I go alone with her and Jack, we end up not going in very often. Emily was there, so I managed to get Jack to go out in the water with me. He was brave, walking out up to his armpits, it was good to see, because again, we don't get to go in as much as I'd like. At one point I picked him up and held him like he was floating on top of the water, then spun around. He laughed and laughed.

At night I asked him what his three favorite parts of the day were. "Um...when you spun me around in the water at the beach.....and when we found shells on the beach....and when we found rocks on the beach."

- Today was a work day for me, so the kids and Emily (and Aunt Cathy) went out on a nature trip to the Audubon Center. Saw frogs and birds and the like. They came back, and Jack came up to say hello. Then, before they went out for ice cream, he came in to ask if I wanted anything. I'd already told Emily no, but he seemed so hopeful and thoughtful, I said, OK, a small black raspberry. He left, then was back some 20 minutes later, with my ice cream and his ice cream. Thanks, Jack. He said, I will eat mine here with you.

So we sat down on the floor and ate ice cream.