Changes

Change is coming to the Kaplan household... well for Rebecca anyway... Tomorrow is her last day at the day care on our corner, and Monday she begins at Charlotte Jewish Preschool's August interim session. We will miss her friends and teachers at Chesterbrook, some of whom she's known since she started there as a baby... Especially Maria, who loves Becca's dancing and often slips a biscuit, muffin or donut to Ben in the mornings in an attempt to fatten him up...

I am excited for her to start at CJP though, where she will get to go to the splash park every day for the rest of the summer, and make lots of new friends! It will also make afternoon pick-up time easier since Ben is at the JCC campus for summer camp and will be going to the after school program there as well when kindergarten starts in a few weeks.

The Difference Between a Balloon and a Ball

Rebecca has been playing with a balloon she got at the grocery store for several days now. This is nothing unusual, since they give away free balloons at the grocery store and the kids always ask for them when we go. Usually they play with them for half an hour, then lose them on our 20 foot ceilings despite the fact that I tie them around their wrists. After a day the balloons come down and they kick and throw them around like balls until I get annoyed with having half-deflated balloons kicking around and they mysteriously vanish....

Well today Rebecca discovered the difference between a balloon and a ball. She has a little beach ball that she sometimes likes to try to sit on, and today she decided to try to sit on her balloon. I saw her trying to position her little tush over it and warned her not to sit on it.... but since she never pays any attention to me she sat on it anyway.

It popped, of course, leaving Rebecca sitting on the floor utterly mystified. "It popped," I told her. She stood up, examined the spot on the floor where the balloon had just been, and spread her hands questioningly. Then she said, quite clearly, "Why did it pop?" I explained to her again that you can't sit on balloons. For the next five minutes she walked around aimlessly, looking for her balloon and asking "Why did it pop?" over and over again.

Visit

This weekend we had a visit from Carolyn, who was on her way to a business trip in Orlando. She arranged an 18 hour layover so that she could visit with us and meet Becca for the first time. We had a great time showing Carolyn around -- we went out minus the kids (thanks to Joel's parents) and ate way, WAY too much food on Saturday, and yesterday we went swimming at the JCC and later Joel showed Carolyn around some more and took her out for barbecue on the way to the airport.

Apparently, we may have killed her by overfeeding her since Joel says she was feeling rather ill when he dropped her off at the airport. Carolyn, we hope you are okay! As Joel confided to me later, four restaurants in 18 hours might have been a little too much.

Being Cute Gets Me Out of Trouble

So says the shirt Rebecca is wearing today.

A Little Too Big for That

I saw bad things about to happen, and like any good parent, I grabbed my camera (the stroller broke about five minutes later).

Not a Movie About Bunnies

Yes, my son actually did this to his poor sweet sister tonight. He was watching Jurassic Park 2 in my bedroom, and had asked Joel to put on a certain part involving lots of dinosaurs and mayhem. I wasn't in the room, so I don't know what actually was on the screen except I could hear quite a bit of roaring and screaming going on.

Ben came out of the bedroom and into the kitchen where Becca was sitting on the floor reading a book. He said, "Becca, do you want to see a movie about bunnies?"

"Yes!" Becca said, and got up and followed him into the bedroom.

A moment later I heard Becca's dismayed "Oh no!" as she saw what was happening on the tv, and then she ran out of the room crying.

And Ben watched her go, looking rather smug.

Home

I arrived home from Harrisburg last night, after missing my connecting flight in Newark and having to wait three hours for another one. Ben was very happy to see me and very appreciative of the stuffed dog (from the Harrisburg airport) and "petrified dinosaur food" (freeze dried mint chocolate chip ice cream from the Newark airport) I brought him. Becca didn't react to my presence any more strenuously than usual, so I don't think she noticed I was gone. She didn't pay much attention to the stuffed bear I brought her, either. Oh well -- at least one of my kids appreciates me ;)