Lazy Days of Summer

The summer is winding down in California, and the temperature seems to be, too. Lately, the temperature where live has been hovering around 85 (29 degrees Celsius) after an extremely hot July. It's been nice, and we often eat dinner outside, which Ella enjoys.

Nicki and I went to her midwife appointment yesterday and we discovered that the baby's head is down, so he's getting ready to come out. Hopefully it won't happen too soon, we don't want to be unprepared. Still, we're really excited about it and can't wait to meet him. He certainly is an active one so far, Nicki complains that his kicking and rolling around is pretty distracting.

We sorted through some baby clothes friends of ours gave us, from their eight month-old boy who has grown out of them. It occurred to both Nicki and me: Why is it that boys' clothes are so stereotyped? I mean, everything has fire engines and baseballs and construction tools on it, and good luck finding anything that isn't blue. It's like clothes are designed for parents to take their boys out in a public and say "LOOK HERE! THIS ONE IS DEFINITELY A BOY, WHETHER HE LIKES IT OR NOT." The poor kid doesn't know that he's supposed to like these things. What's next? Baby clothes for boys with pictures of sexy women on them? "HEY BOY! DON'T YOU GO GAY ON US."

I made a little mixtape for Ella - at least, that's what us oldies used to call a playlist (as in ipod) - that I burned onto CD of old Disney movie music, and it has since become a hit in the car when I take her to daycare in the morning. She refers to it as "Mickey Mouse" because the CD starts with the theme to the Mickey Mouse Club. You know, "Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me? M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!" She also calls the theme to Winnie the Pooh the "fluff" song, because there's a line in there about Pooh being "stuffed with fluff" and she laughs hysterically whenever she hears it.

There's nothing like the sound of a two year-old laughing. It could make a troll happy.