We Have Baby Lions

Once again, the Norfolk zoo is full of baby lions. This time there is four times the fun as our lions parents had quadruplets, which apparently is unusual for lions. Personally, I love it when the zoo has baby lions, because unlike their parents, the cubs never sleep. They are awake all the time, and when they're awake, mom is awake. It's the only time you actually get to see lions awake at the zoo. It's a pretty cool thing.

Speaking of which, does anybody else find it odd that lions are called the kind of the jungle, and yet they don't live in the jungle? Meanwhile tigers, who are the true tough guys, and who do live in the jungle, get no respect. The animal world is just so not fair.

What's That Lump?

The other day, I came upstairs to check on Kasia only to discover her missing. I looked everywhere, and she was nowhere to be found. However, I did find a rather unusual lump in her rug. Well, you put two and two together, and you get the idea.

She crawled under her rug, and then fell asleep. How crazy is that? I mean, I know that I enjoy taking a quick power nap while lying on the rug, but under the rug? Now that's just ridiculous.

Kasia the Fishing Girl

Many of you may not know this, but Kasia comes from a family with strong ties to the sea. Obviously, I was a naval officer for longer than I can remember. Kasia's Poppy is an avid fisherman. Her mom used to go fishing quite a bit, and her father used to fish all the time too... when he was nine. And now Kasia has picked up on the tradition, and she can now fish.

Admittedly, she didn't catch anything. Of course, we had no bait, and we were standing in water that was only six inches deep, but we had no bites. Well, she did get a jelly fish caught on the hook, but no swordfish or tiger sharks or anything cool like that. You'd figure though that the big trophy fish would hang out in the six inch waters. Maybe we'd have better luck if fish decided to purposely beach themselves at an alarming rate.

Peanut Butter Hands

Normally Kasia freaks out whenever she gets anything on her hands. She's to the point now that when she's playing with her sidewalk chalk, she has to wash her hands every ten seconds because she has chalk on them. I mean, isn't that kind of the point of playing with chalk?

So you can imagine my surprise the other day when Kasia came in to the kitchen to show me her hands, and they were COVERED in peanut butter. I guess she was kneading it or something, but it was everywhere. She got it on her face, her hands, her fingers... everywhere. But surprisingly, she didn't get it on her clothes or on anything else. Crazy.

I have to admit, that this is one of those moments were my initial thoughts were not "Awwww, this is so cute, let's take a picture." No. It was, "Come on? Really? Now I have to spend the next ten minutes cleaning this up. Great." But I figured, what the heck. Take a picture and one day I'll see the humor in it. And it worked. Now when I look at the pictures of peanut butter Kasia, I laugh. If only more things in life were that easy to get over.

Kara’s Trip from Hell

Kara flew home from New York on Friday, but not without a lot of hassle.  It was supposed to be an easy flight, with Kara being back and in her home by 8:00pm.

The problems started with the limo that took her to the airport.  It was scheduled to pick her up too late and so by the time it got her to the airport, it was too late for her to check in to her flight.

So she had to go across the street and wait in line to talk with an agent to reschedule.  For three hours she stood in a line waiting to talk to somebody, anybody, to figure out how to get home.  THREE HOURS!  There was some flight to Minnesota which was described as “hellish” and “a nightmare” because the passengers had to wait in their plane on the runway for nine hours.  Phooey!  That’s luxury compared to what Kara had to go through.  At least on a plane, you’re sitting down.  Your luggage is taken care of.  You’re not getting your heels run over by the guy with the oversized bag standing behind you.  Luxury.

When Kara finally did get a chance to talk with someone, they said she could either fly out the next day at one, or fly in to Richmond that night and get in by midnight.  So, rather than spending the night at the airport, she chose to go to Richmond.

And Kasia and I packed our things up, and made the journey to Richmond International to pick up her and Linda at midnight.  I thought that I was going to fall asleep well before getting there, but as the night wore on, I got more and more awake. 

Then when I got to the airport to pick them up, it turns out that the airline sent their luggage to Norfolk.  And since it was so late, we’d have to wait until the next day to get it. 

We finally got home at around two in the morning, or just a little later.  It was a long day.  When I was younger, before Kasia, I used to stay out until two in the morning all the time and it never phased me.  Now, if I stay up past midnight I feel like I’m pushing the boundaries.

I must say though that it is wonderful to have Kara home again.  The house is so lonely without her.

Truly, My Worst Nightmare

It’s on in full force now.  That period in her life that I’ve been fearing ever since… well, since well before I had a child, is here now.  And I’m terrified.

Kasia is in the stage where everything becomes “Why?”  “That’s a monkey,” I say.  “Why?” she asks.  Everything is why, why, why?!  I’m going to eat lunch.  Why?  We have to put our shoes on.  Why?  Is there anything I can say that won’t get the response “why?”  Of course there is.

“Because I said so.”

Just a Day at the Beach

Kara had to go out of town for the whole week on a business trip up to New York.  While she was away, Kasia and I (well, mainly me) decided that it would be fun to go on down to Salvo and spend the night.  So after talking to Karlie, we decided to do just that.

We don’t get together with the Philips family as often as we should, but when the girls all get together they always seem to have a great time.  Oh sure, there’s the occasional fight and every once in awhile someone gets punched in the face, but why should a little physical violence come between friends?  

I’m always a little worried when we stay someplace new, because Kasia usually has a hard time sleeping.  Fortunately, she went down pretty well after a long day of playing, no nap, and three or four stories.  She probably would have slept in too had it not been for the fact that she spent all night dreaming about all the toys just waiting to be played with downstairs. 

We had some rain in the morning that threatened our day at the beach, but fortunately the sun broke through and we had a lovely time playing in the sand.  Kasia actually surprised me by going down and playing in the water.  Not even Kylie would spend time in the water.  Then when the wind picked up and started shooting sand at us, Kasia took refuge under her towel (as seen in the picture above).  I wasn’t as smart and just sat there getting hit by bits of sand.