The other day, Evangeline fell and scraped her knee something awful.

Really, she like gouged out a strip of flesh! I saw it, gasped loudly, and then caught myself and said, as calmly as I could manage, "Wow, you really got banged up. Sit here on the porch, I'll run up and get you some band-aids".

Evangeline: SOBsobsobsobSOBsobSOB!!!!! *hyperventilates*
Me: Eeesh. *runrunrunrunrun*

I came back down equipped with some wet toilet paper, some DRY toilet paper, the tea tree oil, and enough bandaids to equip a small army. Ana and Sonia were talking to Evangeline, and I don't know what they said, but it seems to have worked!

Evangeline (excited and happy): Connie! YOOK! I have BLOOD down my YEG and into my FOOT and they took off my SHOE! Coooooool!
Me: Wow, that's certainly a lot of blood 0.0

It really was too. Consider that I hardly ever bother with band-aids, and yet, this boo-boo took three and we probably could've/should've fit a few more on there before they became superfluous.

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We went to a playground last week for a concert featuring Princess Katie and Racer Steve. (Google them.)

Now, I've said it before and I'll say it again - playgrounds that aren't challenging just encourage children to play unsafely... or at least, not in the recommended way. Unfortunately, there aren't many playgrounds built to Ana's level. So while I'm busy chatting to Evangeline, Ana climbed up the outside of a playground structure. The top wall she climbed over was some 10 feet in the air, designed so children don't just fall off.

Here's the other grown-ups: 0.0!!!!!

Here's me: Hey, Ana, let's pretend I totally was watching you and am not a bad auntie. Do me a favor, never do this again on a crowded playground, wait until the playground is empty. You scared some people half to death! *forced laugh*

Here's Ana: Hey, I did this totally easy thing, and these bigger girls said "I wish I could do that", and I *can* do that, it's easy!

Let's be clear - I wasn't scared for her at all. But it was a very tall structure and I realize that I'm a little unusual in that. Most kids seriously *can't* climb the way she can.

Hah, she climbs the chain link fence around the parking lot EVERY week when we visit the library. It's six feet high. The other week I thought she climbed down a little fast, so I hung around and watched the week after.

She climbs up the way you'd expect, swings over, and then hangs by her hands while her legs dangle. Then, using ONLY HER HANDS, she lowers herself a bit, checks her height (with her eyes) and drops - from about two feet above the ground and holding herself with nothing but her upper armstrength between her and a direct painful PLOP.

People ask if she needs help. She says no. (She used to ignore them, but I'm working on convincing her that it's okay to talk to strangers if all you say is "no thank you" or "hello".)

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The other day, Evangeline asked me to flip her.

Well, no, she asked me to f'ip her. And I didn't want to, so I pretended ignorance. "Fip you? You want to fip?"

Evangeline: No, Connie! *giggle* F'IP!
Me: Fip?
Evangeline: F'IP!
Me: Fip?
Evangeline: SSSSSS...FIP!
Me: *gigglegigglegiggle*

I know what happened. Usually when we tease her (and she giggles too, we're laughing WITH and not AT her), it's for dropping her initial s :)

Some articles

One on adding two Muslim holidays to the school calendar.

I understand the reasoning that you can't reasonably add EVERY possible holiday to the calendar, but it occurs to me that they get off all of July and August, plus part of June and September. They don't *actually* have to be off until the Tuesday after Labor Day, they really can start school the Thursday before if necessary to fit these extra holidays in.

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An article on laws requiring electronics companies to safely dispose of electronics

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An article on how some societies have children who don't crawl. They're calling this research *new*, but as I've been referring people to these *very same studies* for years I wonder how new it can be.