Chicks and geese and ducks better scurry...

... 'cause Edith only has eyes for cows. This week we took her to Farm Tour Days on her great-grandfather's dairy farm. Once a year the local 4-H clubs bring a menagerie of baby animals to Pop-pop's farm to complement the cows, and all the local elementary school classes come to visit. Since the theme of so many of Edith's first birthday gifts was farm animals, and since they have thus formed an integral part of our conversation and singing with her in recent weeks, we thought she might like to see some live versions of the critters in her books and toybox, and on her bib. But despite introduction to chicks and goslings, kids and foals, Edith remained true to her first love, the calves.








Well, the calves and the kids. The other kids, that is. Every time we put her down, she was toddling off as fast as she could to join the crowds of first-grade classes eating lunch out on the grass. We continue to marvel at what a social animal we have. She is perpetually trying to engage the people around her. Mostly for better, sometimes for worse. At today's neighborhood yard sale, for instance, she wanted to be sure that the people who stopped to look at our wares had heard my rule, as pronounced to her earlier that morning. As people started to rifle through the piles of clothes, she told them emphatically, "No -- don't."

One of her big loves right now is driving. I don't know how well she stays on the road, but she uses her horn often enough that other drivers ought to know she's coming. Inside the car she pays scrupulous attention to ambience, judging by how much of her driving time is devoted to the radio and air conditioning buttons. And she is more than willing to pay her tolls, methodically dropping all the pennies in the cup holder out the driver's side window one by one.