Max's

Today we went next door to play at Max's for a little while. Max is about Jack's age.

It was fun for Jack, who plays great with Max. They run around together and have little inside jokes and conversations. At one point they were way up at the top of their yard, by a stone wall, sitting and laughing about something. It was like two high school friends leaning against the hood of a car or something.

It was fun for Kate, who loves the various toys Max has that he's only mildly interested in at this point. A little house, that Katie likes to go in and out of, in and out of, over and over again. She rings the doorbell each time she goes in, as if that's what allows her to open the door. Funny.

It's fun for all of them, as the boys like to be chased by Kate and she likes to run after them, not necessarily aware she's chasing them. They shriek -- "Ah!!! Here she comes!" And run off in some direction. Kate, noticing them running away, looks up from whatever she's doing and goes after them. Generally, I don't think she's aware she's chasing them.

At one point, though, while running, she paused, threw back her head, and laughed a long, loud, mouth wide-open cackle. "HAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAA!" she said. Thinking, perhaps, I am Katie, and they fear me!!!!!

- Unrelated incident from when Kate was napping today. Jack played with this book Aunt Robin had given him for his birthday, and we only recently opened up. You could use little magnifying glasses and 3-D types of glasses to see different things in each page. He LOVED it. It was kind of neat to see, him finding little things that the space alien ate, and saying "HEY! Look at THAT! He ate a CAR! Wow!!!!"

Sometimes you forget how cool it is to really get excited about something, and then a 4-year-old comes along and reminds you.