Fun firsts

It has been a week of fun "firsts" for Edith--the kind you get to start enjoying when you're really a kid and not just a baby.

She was eager to tell one of the other mothers in Sunday school about one of them this morning. She paused, because she couldn't remember the word, and asked me, "What's it called when Daddy and I go and sit by ourselves in the middle of lots of seats in the dark and they show us 'Horton Hears a Who' on a big screen?"

Yes, Tom took Edith to the movies for the first time this week, one night when I was preparing a conference paper. I was sorry to miss out on her first movie-going experience, but
considering her parents' relative enthusiasm for movie-going, it's probably best that she gets the idea from the beginning that it's a daddy kind of thing. Apparently she behaved very well--and Tom was freed from further worry by the theater's being empty. There were some scary parts of the movie, Edith acknowledged, but since she already knew the story Tom would just remind her that it would turn out happily, and that would calm her.

Friday was Edith's first ___-a-thon: in this case a trike-a-thon at school to raise money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. When we told the teachers that Edith can't yet reliably ride a trike, they asked if we could come to school to push her through the event. Unfortunately we both were busy (I was delivering the aforementioned conference paper; Tom had work), so the teacher who planned the event wound up with the aching back. But Edith had fun. Glad no one was sponsoring her per revolution of the pedals, though.

Saturday it was Tom's turn to do schoolwork, and Edith and I joined a Grad-School-sponsored trip to the Philadelphia Zoo--Edith's first zoo trip. Since she is enthusiastic about animals and is soon to star as a zoo animal in the school play, we thought it was a good bet. (Though why she woke up the night before crying, "I don't want to go to the zoo! I don't want to see the monkeys!" Tom and I have no idea. The next day she recalled the incident of her own accord, but with no insight as to its cause. And she was perfectly happy to see the monkeys.) The weather was much better than the predicted pouring rain, and we had a good time.

Edith and I agreed that the Philadelphia Zoo elephants appear to live in a church. That, or someone is trying to reinforce the "Christians are necessarily Republicans" stereotype in an election year.

Peacocks were among my favorites at the zoo when I was little. Edith seemed particularly impressed by the alligators and crocodiles, maybe because Peter Pan is her latest favorite story. I was surprised that we were able to see every animal in the zoo in one visit. I think that was because as a first-generation American zoo, Philadelphia's is very compact, with animals cheek-by-jowl in small enclosures, such as you wouldn't find in a newer facility like, say, the North Carolina state zoo, where you can walk for a good ten minutes circling the African plains exhibit, hoping to spot some of the animals on the horizon. But I should leave any further comments on zoo design and its history to Uncle Peter, the expert on the subject.

I confess that all my love of urban settings evaporates when there's a child involved. Parenting children in a city seems to me to be an exercise in thwarting their every natural instinct, while trying to maintain one's cool. It began when we arrived at the front gate of the zoo and Edith saw a fountain and wanted to take her shoes off to wade in it. I had to explain (about fifteen times) that although that is permissible, even encouraged, at the fountain at Mommy's school, one doesn't do that in a city. From there I felt like I spent the better part of the day admonishing her not to touch things because they were dirty or to stay close to me so she didn't get in other people's way/get lost. Then there were all the things I told her we couldn't do or eat or buy because they cost too much. I finally relented and let her take the one-minute, $5 pony ride when I was tired of saying no. Compared to the multiple free horse rides from her cousins last summer it wasn't much of a deal, but city life wears one down.

Edith can drive a tractor for free any day of the week at the orchards near us, or down in Delaware, but all her previous experiences made this one at the zoo no less exciting.

Today we attended Harrison's 3rd birthday party, and most of the children got their first all-important exposure to Pin the Tail on the Donkey--er, Pin the Fly on the Frog's Tongue. It was a group learning experience. The first two kids had no idea why Harry's mom was blindfolding them, then asking them to walk with their eyes closed. Edith, who was third, got the idea that she had to keep the blindfold on, but she didn't realize the importance of keeping her arms out in front of her when walking towards the wall...ouch. Sarah, who was toward the end, had the whole thing figured out, down to sliding her hands along the wall until she came to the posterboard before placing her fly.

Harrison and Edith. You can guess the party theme...

The beautiful cake

These blowers were a big hit.

Sarah, Harry, and Edith enjoy cake and ice cream. Harry's parents wisely brought in a bunch of kid-sized tables without bothering about chairs.

The birthday boy

Harry demonstrates to his guests how to toss a beanbag into the frog's mouth.

Edith after her close encounter with the wall. Her fly is the one perched precariously on the far right edge of the posterboard.

After the birthday party Tom and I taught Edith her first board game: I had picked up a second-hand Candyland for her at a rummage sale yesterday. Edith seemed to catch on to the rules quickly, but after a few turns she was more interested in the stories she was inventing about the board and the narrative she was composing about who was likely to win than she was in paying attention to moving her piece forward along the path. In fact, with each turn she would pick up her Gingerbread Girl and wave it around in the air as part of her imaginings, then forget where it had been. Avid competitor she is not.

The rest of the afternoon she spent playing with the bounty of toy frogs and frog stickers that came in her goody bag from Harrison's party...in the guise of Ariel, of course, hanging out with new friends under the sea.

Edith let us know the other day at lunch about one first to which she aspires. She brought up the fact that soon we'll be living in a new house. We agreed and told her about what it will be like in the apartment complex where we hope to get a spot. When Tom told her that it will be walking distance to the public library she said, "And when I get bigger in that house, then I will say, 'I want to get a library book.' And Daddy will say, 'Edith you are big, so you can walk to the library and get a book, and I don't even need to come with you.' And then I can go to the library all by myself."

We hope we won't be at said apartment quite that long--but we like the direction in which her aspirations for independence tend.