The Escape Artist - by McP

This afternoon I put Cal down for a nap, and thought he would go to sleep quickly as we had a busy morning and he ate a big lunch. No luck, as I heard some noise and found him in his baby bed with two plastic swords banging them together. Funny thing was, I could have sworn that those swords were hanging on the closet door knobs when I put him to bed!

I removed them, and checked the bed. Other than the usual suspects, "Little E" the sock monkey, "Monk Monk" the other stuffed monkey, and Looie the Lookout were the only things left in the bed, besides of course the sacred "blankeys," the little pillow that Grandmother made for him, and Mickey Mouse. Was there any room for anything else?

A few minutes later, I hear more noise and came in to find him with two books! I guessed that somehow I had missed them, or that perhaps he had somehow gotten them from the dresser. I took them away and bid him a good afternoon nap.

Just a bit later I heard the swords again, and snuck into the room to find him OUT of the bed gathering up his loot and sticking them through the slats into his bed! When he saw me, he jumped about a foot off the ground, and started to whimper. Like many of the great prison wardens of old, I told him he would be completely forgiven if he would just show me how he was getting in and out of the baby bed! He then performed the following demonstration:


Earlier, Alina and Cal helped me take the recyclables to the dump. It really puts things in perspective when you are explaining it to a child, and Alina was very astute to ask about the landfill being filled up with things that could have easliy been recycled.

I think big brother Mac got the biggest kick out of the video of Cal's demonstration. He told him that he would be happy to hand down his "big boy bed" as he wants to trade up to a bigger one himself.

Until then, I took off the front piece of Cal's baby bed to officially convert it to a "toddler" bed, a/k/a "Big Boy Bed."


Here is a good shot of our three, up in a tree:


Alina, Mac and I went to see "Journey to the Center of the Earth" today at the Rave. Later, Cal joined us and we went to the St. Jude benefit Rodeo down in Woodstation. It was a fun day and a fun night.
- McP

Annual Deep Creek Trip

This week was our annual trip to Bryson City, N.C. to the Deep Creek campground. At this posting, Alison and the kids are still there, as I had to come home to go back to work. Here Cal enjoys his first real dip in the cool waters of Deep Creek.

Mac had plenty of birthday gifts from the week before, so our camper was crawling with Bionicle creatures.

Alina had a lot of fun riding her bike around the circle of the campground, with Mac and our friends Henley and Carter Edge, who came up for a couple of days. She also enjoyed our trip to the "Ruby Mine" near Nantahala Gorge. She is already a natural at picking out good stones!

Cal and I took a ride to Dillsboro on Friday, to again see our old friend "Thomas the Tank Engine." Our timing last year was such that we got to do it then as well. This was a lot of fun for Cal, and I very much enjoyed taking him there. Your guess is as good as mine as to Cal's stated observation toward the end of the video!

I took Alina, Mac and Cal on a real passenger train ride on the Great Smokey Mountain Railway from Bryson City to Nantahala Gorge on Sunday. We almost had the whole car to ourselves! You may not imagine how that would be possible, until you see what some of the in route entertainment consisted of:

Mac is our reader, and I bought him this book of campfire stories. I did not realize that they were very gory with a lot of the characters being driven to their deaths by demons or perceived demons! Of course, Mac ate all of this up! He could not put it down!

Back at the campground, Cal felt the near-constant need to patrol the place on his new three-wheeler. Of course, we could not let him do this alone, so I got lots of laps in myself with this exact view: Note he is not using the pedals yet!

It was a very nice trip, and I look forward to Alison and the children's return home mid-week. - McP