The force is strong in this one...

    I wont bore you with recounts of this weekend's revelries which is had been reported in depth at www.raquita.blogspot.com (with Pictures too) except to say that, had we continued to play poker, both Raquita and her Pocket Aces-Having Father would've been beaten down, their once proud stacks of chips reduced to dust and tears.  There, I would've stood, victorious and gloating, $60 pride swelling like a ripe....like a ripe....  Well, you get the idea...we'll even ignore the fact that my father in law had to spot Raquita and me money for the buy in because we couldn't secure any cash (issue with bank cards...don't ask) so we were pretty much playing with his money.  But it was fun.  But that is not my point here today.

 

    So, I'm at work, diligently grinding away and I overhear on NPR about a bright new novelist named Helen Oyeyemi from London who's written a new novel called The Icarus Girl.  My interest piqued, I listened more closely.  The book (which sounds interesting and, from the excerpt that Helen read on the air, is very well written) is about a young, troubled girl who finds an imaginary friend on her family's interventionist trip to Niger and discovers that her new friend might not be as wonderful as she first thought.  I plan on checking it out and, if it's as good as I've heard, I'll take one of my golf clubs and beat myself silly with it.  She wrote the book in 7 months.  7 Months!! No, I'm not jealous...

 

    We took the Cammy to a place called LittleGym last night.  It's basically a indoor playground for kids, but with parental participation and friendly group structure.  The kids do all sorts of playing simple games and singing songs and physical activities like assisted summer salts and handle bar work and low balance beam stuff.  So we go in there and of course, Cammy is the only black kid there.  We get the usually stares and pointed non-stares and we ignore them.  Cammy, of course, goes up to each and every kid and talks at them.

    Well, when we get to the activities, Cammy is all over the place.  The kid is fearless.  She's not scared of strangers (as long as we're nearby) and she loves new activities.  She had the LittleGym teacher in stitches as she clapped and sang and played and gave her trademarkable giggle almost on cue.  What follows is an almost verbatim conversation Raquita had with a mother that night.

    Cammy - 'Whassat?'

    Raquita - 'Thats a mobile.  It's a hanging picture.'

    Cammy - 'CanIhaveit?'

    Raquita - 'No, sweetie.  That has to stay where it is.'

    Cammy - 'Oh' *Cammy wanders off...

    Mom #1 - 'Excuse me, did she just ask what that was and if she could have it?'

    Raquita - 'Yeah.  She's always asking that.  For her right now 'Can I have it' is the same as 'Can I see it''

    Mom #1 - 'Girls are just so much faster than boys, aren't they?'

 

    So at first I was like, okay I know my baby is smart but maybe its them female genes coming out in here that has her so advanced.  Then I saw her with the 15 month old baby girl that was there (cammy is 13 months)  Cammy literally was running circles around that poor child, who was sweet, but not too coordinated.  Sometimes, Cammy is so much more like a 2 year old than a 13 month old that it's scary.  But she's also the cutest thing since sliced bread so she doesn't generate the kind of enmity another child might.  She kicks your kids butt and then comes over and gives you a hug (which she actually did last night to a mom who's kid wasn't having a good time...simply amazing, this child is)

 

    We leave for LA at 7am tomorrow and have yet to secure transportation to the airport.  Packing is commencing and it should be a fun, if harrowing trip.  As long as they leave the horrid childhood nicknames behind, I wont have to gut family members like fish and put them up on stakes as warnings to the rest.  No, I'd never do that.....

 

    Benticore

    Out