Sunday, July 24, 2005
Ella's pearls
Nicola and Lindsay left yesterday morning for a week in Philomath, Ore., visiting her parents. So it was just Ella and I for most of the weekend. We had a good time together, as we usually do. Two items of intellectual interest from this 5-year-old marvel:- At lunch on Saturday: "You know, the first bite of a hot dog is always the best bite." Goddamn, she is so right. Is there anything as pitch perfect as that first nosh of a hot dog at a ball game? So simple, yet so true.
- As we were reading pre-bed books Saturday night, I was trying to hustle her along by saying "It's almost nine." It wasn't really...probably 20 to 9 by my watch, and her clock said 8:33 p.m. Ella glances at her clock, and is silent for a few minutes as I keep reading. "Daddy," she says, "What's 10 minus 3?" "Seven," I reply. And she says: "So it's actually 27 minutes until nine o'clock" !!!!!! I'm like, whoa, did you just do that math in your head, basically? She knew to subtract the three from the ten and then add it to the 20 other minutes before nine. Maybe I'm just being a proud papa, but I was amazed.
Of course, she is still just five. We went to see March of the Penguins today, and she sat in my lap for the second half because she was afraid for the baby penguins. She's so sensitive...the appearance of "predators" (new word for her) really was upsetting, I think. She's been known to bail on movies all together before, so sitting through the whole thing was progress. Fascinating movie, by the way. I'd love to see a documentary of how they filmed it.
A quiet and lonely week ahead (sniff!). Maybe I'll find some time to work on what passes for my golf game.
// posted by Bill @ 10:27 PM 
