Jolly Good Time

So we've been having a jolly good time around here lately. A few weeks ago, I took Alyssia to her first Circus. She loved it. Ben couldn't go with us because he had to work, but I was very glad to be able to take Alyssia anyway. It was an old-fashioned circus under a big tent and it was held at the county fairgrounds. I think Alyssia's favorite part of the show was the Elephants. They were quite impressive. Massive creatures. She also enjoyed the trapeze artists and the dogs and ponies. I bought her her very own box of popcorn, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

The next day, Ben and I took her to the library for a Disney Princess night of stories and crafts. All the little girls came dressed as princesses. Alyssia loves Cinderella, so this was right up her alley. A friend of ours came with us (Ashley) and the two girls had a fine time making crowns to add to their already extensive princess wardrobes.

And then the next day, Alyssia went on her first field trip. I volunteered to take some highschool kids to the courthouse to witness what goes on in court. Alyssia was with us and she was great in court! She was quiet for about 15 minutes (oh, allright, because I plied her with sweetarts), and then I had to take her out to run in the hallway. The judge's secretary and law clerk watched her for me for the rest of the morning so I could take the kids around to different court rooms. You would have thought she owned the place the way she was prancing around in chambers when I returned. She said goodbye to the judge when it was time to leave. "Bye, Judge," she said, and everyone was duly impressed. She'll have a chance to spend more time with Judge Silkworth and his staff because I'm joining him again for a brief stint this summer. His clerk is going out on maternity leave and he needs a fill-in until his next clerk starts in the fall. I'm excited about it. It's going to be a bit odd to go back to the very first job I had out of law school (11 years ago!), but I think it's a fine opportunity to help a man who certainly helped me a lot when I first joined the profession. I very well may be the first lawyer to ever go from being an Administrative Law Judge to being a law clerk in the same Circuit Court for the same judge she clerked for the first time around! I wonder if I'll be better at this job the second time?



After the field trip, we went to the mall for lunch. The kids took Alyssia over to the rides for a bit. I think she was so tired, she looks like she almost fell off her horse.



Alyssia just walked in here with one of her baby dolls, wrapped in a wipey, and she bowed her head and said, "Jesus, amen." What a perfect prayer.

She's been talking a lot lately in full sentences. I was putting her in her carseat the other day and she said, "mommy, I wanT some goldfiss." She pronounces her "t's" very clearly. "Mommy, I don'T wanT iT." You'd think she was British or something. She also likes to say "Mommy, I hold uh!" "Daddy, I hold uh!" and "Pickee beeooo" (peek-a-boo). The other day she woke up in the morning and started repeating a word I didn't understand at first, "pussme! pussme! Mommy!" Then she said, "Marcus, pussme Mommy!" And then I knew what she was talking about. A little friend at church, named Marcus, had almost pushed her down a couple of steps the night before, but I intervened before anything bad happened. She'd obviously remembered it the next day and felt the need to tattle first thing when she woke up. Oh Lordy!

We've been hanging out with our little friend Nathanael lately. He's so much fun to play with! Alyssia is beside herself with joy when she finds out he's coming over. "Mafammee?" Or for "fammee" for short.

At the Chesapeake Children's Museum, making important phone calls.

At the bridge, watching the awesome Blue Angels!! Alyssia did very well with the extrememly loud noise. She remembered enough about the event to tell her daddy later that day that she saw blue planes.