Birthdays, Bikes, Baseball and Good Beats

The kids are excited because they were invited to their first birthday party--for Craig's little friend, Abby--yes, the "Abby, Abby, Abby!" of his toddler days. Even now it's always about Abby: "Abby and me dug up dinosaur bones today," or "Abby and me ran and ran and ran and then fell down laughing." I work with Abby's aunt who came over to tell me at the library last week that Abby's mom had just called her from a cell phone while they were on their way to their weekend vacation. Abby was sitting in the back seat sniffling, "I really miss Craig." And to give you a picture of Abby, Abby, Abby, she's a feisty little adorable bundle of energy, and to sum up Craig and Abby as friends, "Mom, me and Abby, we're both chatterboxes!" Yes, yes you are.

Speaking of Craig as chatterbox, Pete said he turned on the Tiger game last night and heard about a million questions from Craig, "Where's the umpire? Why do they have a catcher? Why doesn't the batter just catch the ball?" and from Anna, "Dad, can we watch Good Beats?" That's Anna-speak for "Good Eats." She much prefers shows with real people to cartoons. She'll tolerate Dora but will play through most kids shows, preferring to sit and watch the "Builders" (This Old House") or "Good Beats." Craig, on the other hand, will watch any moving picture on a screen.

Their taste in books is different, too. Craig will listen to you read just about anything. I swear you could read the kid a dictionary, and as long as he was allowed to ask questions along the way, he'd listen. Anna is still pretty picky about books. She has many that she loves, but if they get too wordy, she will either try to shut the book or (more likely) just get down and play right in the middle. Craig's favorite books right now are mostly about dinosaurs, but many nights we end up reading a Rosemary Wells book about a cat named Yoko who takes sushi to school and everyone makes fun of her. Of course it's all resolved in the end, when Timothy the hungry raccoon tries the sushi, and they become BEST friends. Anna loves "Pete's a Pizza," and one that we just checked out of the library called, "We've All Got Bellybuttons!"

And below are photos of the kids with their bikes.