Little EC likes a song—this one—that goes through the somewhat interminable process of reciting each letter, a word that begins with that letter, and the sound the letter makes. I’ve played it for her during the last year or two, just to see if she picked up on anything in it or any of the other “educational” songs on the album. This particular one strikes her fancy.

The other day, she left the kitchen while it was playing, went to her play area, and came back with a book that I had found in someone’s trash—a handwriting practice book for first graders. In the front of the book is a chart with all of the letters and pictures of objects that start with those letters. She wanted to follow along. So we sat for awhile while I pointed to each letter as the song said it. But she was hugely frustrated that the pictures in this chart were not the same as the words being used in the song…and no amount of explaining that many words start with each letter could make her feel better. I promised I’d make her a chart with pictures that correspond to the song.

Three times this happened. Finally, I got around to making a chart—this one—and I printed it out for her. Today at lunch we sat with it and listened to the song, pointing to all the right pictures and letters. At dinner, she sat by herself and did all the pointing on her own…and would even reference the chart to answer my questions about what word starts with what letter. All in all, a pretty clever performance on her part, and maybe on mine.

In other news, a neighbor loaned me a baby seat to install on my bike. After a few trial runs around our neighborhood this past week, the two of us took off on the 8-mile, almost entirely cycle-path, trip to the airport. (Because that’s where the cycle path goes…) Like a little princess, she sat behind me, eating snacks and watching the world go by while I burned off 900 calories of my body weight getting her there. We saw airplanes landing right above us from the path, and we even parked and wandered through the airport, looking for planes and riding on luggage carts. I stopped to ask an attendant where I could find a bathroom. She then asked the attendant for money. (Where does this stuff come from?)

And of course, she had wet underwear once we found the bathroom. So what to do? I was at a loss as I undressed her, until I heard someone drying their hands…with the air blower. So in about 15 minutes, I had rinsed and blow-dried her underwear amidst the airport bathroom foot traffic, while she ran around in just shirt and socks. Then it was back onto the bike, a coffee-shop muffin in hand, for the 8-mile trek home.

Some other time, I’m going to write about her obsession with volcanoes.