Juvenile.

A couple mornings ago, as I stood in the office kitchen pouring milk into my cereal, my boss came in and caught sight of what was in my bowl. "A little Kix to start the day, huh?" he asked. Yes, because apparently I am 7 years old.

The cereal in question was actually Berry Berry Kix, also known as the greatest cereal ever. It was one of my favorites when I was younger, but it seemed to disappear for a while and I thought it had been discontinued until some time ago, when Allison reported a sighting at her local grocery store. When I went to visit Allison a couple weekends ago, my very own box was waiting for me to bring back to New York.

So anyway, I went to North Carolina to see my new baby. Isn't she cute?


Annabelle is a delight, and enjoys such activities as cuddling into your chest, not crying, and making adorable baby noises in her sleep. When I wasn't staring at her, I was making mischief with this little hoodlum:


At church on Sunday, Emaline dubbed me "Reindeer" because of the way my necklace was looped to look like, well, a rein. From then on, whenever she addressed me it was, "Reindeer, do you want to play Mario Kart?" "Reindeer, can you read me a story?" and so on. I get no respect.


One day, when I was taking one of thousands of pictures of the wee one, Emaline asked if she could try. I handed her my camera and showed her the button to press, and it was somewhat like what I imagine the moon landing was for Neil Armstrong. Her face lit up and she immediately began taking pictures of everything in sight. Each photo was proclaimed to be more beautiful than the last.


A brief photo essay:




Anyway, it was a great weekend and, despite Allison's apologies that we weren't doing anything exciting, I had a great time sitting around in sweatpants and playing with the kids. Plus, sometimes outings can get overwhelming, like when Allison and I sat in the parking lot of the Cookout for 10 minutes while I tried to decide which of about 15 kinds of burgers I wanted. These are big decisions, people! Sometimes I much prefer having virtual sword fights with a 4-year-old or laughing about stupid things with my sister. Or eating Berry Berry Kix for two meals a day.