Happy Birthday, Nana!

Aunts Linda and Betsy (Marj's sisters) watch on as Abby flees the scene.

Busy day. Tiring day. Here's how tiring: when we came home after dinner, I called out to Lily to see if she wanted to put on some sleepwear, and it came out, "Do you want some jammies, Phil?" It was supposed to be Lil. Instead it was Phil. What a great nickname, I hope it sticks.

This morning we braved the cold air and brought the girls out for some frivolity. Cold as it was, were you to turn your face to the sun you could easily discern the tingly warmth radiating from it. Spring is on the way, a fact impossible to ignore even when the temp is 7 degrees.

Girls had a good time, thanks mostly to the fact that we played sleddog to their musher/sledder inclinations. There was a fair bit of walking too, which is quite calm and peaceful on the winding slickness of Parson's Point Road. Very Minnesotan. I taught Lily how to kick a chunk of ice down the road as you walk (I am a veteran kicker of things while I walk, a fun yet annoying habit I employ mostly in the pursuit of scattering pine cones willy-nilly around the globe).

After a brief nap that was either truncated or non-existent, depending on how you interpret 45 minutes of mostly silence punctuated with a sharp and diabolical laugh from Lily, we got the girls gussied up and brought them into Duluth proper for Nana's 90th birthday bash. I would hope I get half as many people out for my birthday if I'm lucky enough to see 9 decades; it was a good showing. Nana was in fine form, cane slung from her hip and a tasty beverage in her hand.

We did a quick trip back to the house for a "real" nap, then piled back into the car for dinner at Blackwoods. Somewhere on Rice Lake Road we turned to the south, and Lily said, "Wooooowww!" very loudly. We looked, and she was obviously taking in the sunset to the west, a sunset that was certainly not unpleasant, but was nothing remarkable. "Is it pretty?" we asked. "Yeah! Pretty!" This is a strange milestone, her remarking on something that is almost subjective in it's observation. What makes a sunset such that a kid would notice and verbalize their excitement about it? It drives one to ponder questions like this, questions about how kids visualize their world and what they think of it. So much is taken for granted (I've spoken about this on numerous occasions, I know) about the world they live in; the fact that we're rocketing down a road at 60 miles an hour in an object that has no visible source of locomotion does not appear to ignite any curiosity or awe in them. Which makes the acknowledgement of a sunset that much nicer, I suppose.

Day three hundred and sixty two. (3 days! I would certainly hope you've found another blog to follow by now...)

Jen looks 7 feet tall here. The girls were ambivalent to our foray into the out-of-doors, but the day was quickly salvaged with the timely use of the sled. As happens so often, the cure was worse than the disease, as they (Lily especially) wanted that sled to be pulled forever. Our lungs could only take so much.

Now Abby looks really tall! Is something wrong with my camera? I feel like it's the credits reel of bad 80's movies, when the aspect ratio would suddenly be completely strange.

Grandpa was showing Lily some nifty movies on the computer, when I turned the light on for a better picture. Thus, the distraction.