aMUSING Stories

1. No secret that I fell guilty about my love of the daycare. I love it. I do not pine at all for the year- (ish) I spent at home with each child until they started.

Friend in town recently had her second child; oldest started at Annaliese's place when he was 2 years old. This one? I saw her out and about and I asked where the baby was. "Day care," she said. "Miss Linda said he had to be six weeks old so he couldn't start until after Labor Day."

It was Tuesday. (The day after Labor Day).

Made me giggle.

2. The other grocery store here recently go a makeover. I knew this because their out-of-state painting crew came into the store to get some of Billy Ray's milk. About time, I thought; the store hasn't been freshened up in years.

But no. Not just ANY paint job, BUT

faux-brick walls with large signs and murals proclaiming "Water Valley Farmers' Market" and "Farm-Fresh Dairy" (even though they carry shrink-wrapped squash and Best Choice milk).

Faux-brick! FAUX-BRICK!

Heh.

3. Last weekend, Annaliese ran behind the swings at the state park and a kid swinging knocked her over. Totally an accident; the doesn't understand physics, he was just swinging. Whatev. This morning we were cuddling on the couch and she told me emphatically that a boy had knocked her over. "When honey?" I said. "On the swing," she replied. " I wasn't sure if she was talking about a recent incident or what, so I asked, "which boy?" And she paused and then said, "The black one."

Ok. Hmm. Kids are descriptive little beings but it's kind of interesting she said black instead of brown, number one, because he wasn't black black. We don't really talk about race. I figure I'll wait until she actually says something racist before I whip out my we-'re all-equal speech; don't want to impose the long weight of our countries' history with race on her 2-year-old observation, but still, it gave me pause.

I just said, "Oh, that was an accident," and kissed her head. She seemed affirmed by that.

And yeah, that's the end of that story.