Back from Wallkill
LL and I had a wonderful weekend. We spent it with my sister and her family in Wallkill, NY. It was the first time I've seen them in eight years, and my niece is only four years old... so you get the picture. I'd forgotten what a handful a toddler can be, and my niece is at the high end of that range. I can't imagine where all that energy comes from. There are some amazing family traits showing up there; I'm convinced that the kid is a budding biologist. She's fascinated by mushrooms, and so she and I walked around the property and found a few. She now knows that deer mushrooms have pink gills that don't attach to the stipe and can identify the spore bodies of slime molds which she spent a great deal of time flicking with her fingers to make "smoke." She already knows not to eat anything she finds. According to my sister, my niece has spontaneously come to the idea that walking around with a bucket gathering mushrooms is fun; she likes them better than flowers.
Sound at all familiar?
We celebrated my sister's 36th birthday at her mother-in-law's house (what is the term that describes my sister's mother-in-law's relationship to me, anyhow? Aunt-in-law?) with a huge Italian-style dinner. Steak, sausage and peppers, chicken... and Tums for dessert, because I'm not at all used to eating that way!
There's more, but I'm not recovered from the drive and from my futile attempt to keep up with my niece yet. I have pictures, too. That will have to wait for tomorrow, though, because I think I need to lapse into an eight-hour coma right now.
