Playtime

I'm on unpaid furlough today so we're at storytime at a local toy store. Ava's playing mommy to twin dolls and losing herself in the wall of plush animals. I may soon need to pry some fluffy thing from her wail-enhanced grasp.

Halloween 2009

Ava the bee and Natasha

"Let me get this straight: I dress like this and people give me candy? That it hilarious!"

Saturday sushi

We hit a new sushi spot in Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood called Wabi Sabi. Affordable, filling and delicious.

Ava loved her edamame, miso soup and the kid's bento box. It had teriyaki chicken, rice and a small seaweed and cucumber salad.

Watching her sip out a glass without spilling, eating the pre-opened edemame and happily sipping her soup with little assistance or fanfare, Jason said, "Man, I don't think I could do that until I was about four."

Still, he nearly choked when she appeared on the verge of maneuvering a piece of chicken into her mouth with the chopsticks. Yeah, she's pretty good, but not THAT adept. We set her up with a fork and she was good to go, with more food in her mouth than on the table by meal's end.

I know it's just standard kid development, but it's very nice to be at a point where we're able to go out for a meal and she's pretty self-regulating.

Also, it's not like one description I read in pre-kid days that said good practice for going out with a kid was to take a wild goat to a store and pay for everything it ate or damaged. Thankfully, our goat is pretty civilized and rarely damages anything.

Noticing an equine theme

We hit the Lakeside School rummage sale today and I made the mistake of inadvertently strolling down an aisle chock-a-block with stuffed animals. Hence our latest equine acquisition "Duke."

I just shipped a giant box of baby clothes to a sister-in-law, so I think I'm within my self-imposed stricture of "If you buy something, something has to go." Giddy up.

Letters and emails and faxes, oh my! Behind the "Letters to the President"

Those who love letters and communication might be as intrigued as I was by this cool video from the White House about the 10 letters President Obama reads from the public every day to stay in touch with America's issues and concerns.

According to the site: "Letters to the President" is an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the process of how those ten letters make it to the President's desk from among the tens of thousands of letters, faxes, and e-mails that flood the White House each day.

The video has several neat factoids, such as, each week, the president receives about:

• 65,000 letters
• 100,000 emails
• 1,000 faxes
• and 2,500-3,500 calls per day

Video runs 5:54 - http://www.whitehouse.gov/video/Inside-the-White-House-Letters-to-the-President/