Sidewalk Café

My parents came down last weekend, not just to bring the "big girl bed," but also to do the (mostly) annual weeding. It's my birthday present every year, because while I am pretty good in the yard when it comes to vegetables and roses and stuff I actually started from seed myself, everything else is a potential crime scene. Like, I know I have bee balm and spiderwort and coneflowers in my garden beds, but until they are actively flowering, I don't always know what is what, and I run the risk of accidentally pulling out something that isn't really a weed. (Except morning glories: those I recognize on sight, and I pull those shoots right out and then set them on fire.)

While my parents were assembling furniture and pruning the lilacs, Shae dined al fresco. She and her bologna sandwich went everywhere my mom did all day long.

And it occurs to me, just now, that fully 75% of the pictures I have of my kid are either of her swimming, or eating. Easily that many. If you include the random naked and bathtub pictures, it's 90%. I'm not sure if that makes me a weirdo, or what, or just a typical parent. I hope we're not giving her a complex.

Now that we've mastered "Twinkle Star" and "You Are My Sunshine" and "Que Sera, Sera" and "Rehab" (Shae sings the "NO NO NO!" part, and she's very good at it), I think the next songs we're going to have to learn are some of the more traditional childhood classics: "Oh, I Wish I Were An Oscar Mayer Wiener" and "The Armour Hot Dog Song" and of course everyone's favorite, "My Bologna Has A First Name."

'Cause Oscar Mayer has a way with Mommy's pretty little Shae.