hot princess

I got a report today from one of the teachers that after the girls told Sophie how beautiful she was, one of the boys told her she looked hot. Inappropriate but flattering. I'm conflicted.

Princess U

In the summer, we get to lounge a bit more in the mornings before heading off to school. Usually this suits Sophie just fine. But today was dress-up day at school. At about 9.00am, having dressed herself in a pink princess dress, she came into the living room and asked, "Can you take this little princess to school?" Well, yes I can. So off we went. Upon arrival, she was collectively greeted by her friends with "You are so pretty." and one gasping "You are beautiful." Who wouldn't want to be at school with that kind of reception?

near San Marco in Venice Italy

Ciao Italy. We ended our trip to Venice with a gondola ride with a the nicest gondolier.

I think austria was created for children. Oddly, everywhere we went in Spain, they showered Sophie with candy. None of this happened in Austria, but everywhere they had the coolest parks for kids.

fun at the fair

We went to the fair when it was 105 degrees. We rode all the rides until we were tired, pet all the animals and ate crappy fair food Even though Sophie was a good two or three inches too small to ride the bumper cars, they didn't seem to care too much.

No Eiffel Tower, but we do have carousels

At least one major reason we went to Paris was because Sophie expressed interest in seeing the Eiffel Tower. When she told us she wanted to go up the Eiffel Tower we booked plane tickets and an apartment. When we arrived, it turned out the tower was under some pretty major renovation. Lines to go up were easily over three hours. This was a tough moment when the whole raison d'être was to go up the tower (I'm not even sure you can use raison d'être this way, but whatever). So when it became clear we just weren't going to wait in line for the rest of the day, we drew from our bag of parent tricks and diverted attention. Luckily, there were at least two carousels within eyeshot from the base of the tower. If Sophie remembers nothing else about Paris, I at least hope she remembers any of the number of carousels she rode around town. We found at least four and rode most of them at least three times.

Parisian Bateau

Buskers

Sophie's at a sweet age for buskers, just big enough to be interactive, still little enough to be crazy cute.

In re: candy

"I guess everybody loves me and wants to give me stuff!"

Another Milestone

22 June, 2012.

Existential Angst sets in.

Apropos of I don't know what, Sophie begins discussing death.

Other people's deaths first, followed by our repeated assurances that her mother and I aren't planning to die anytime soon.

Then:  "Am I gonna die?  I don't want to die."

This went on for a while.  "Not for a long time" wasn't as reassuring an answer as "No, never" would have been.

my first pilgrimage

Sophie and her dad showed up in Villafranca del Bierzo. She didn't walk the Camino, but she and her dad, and sometimes myself, would drive to meet the students at the end of their daily walk. I had imagined we'd get a hotel room in each town, but Sophie was so chillax that we all slept in the alberuges with the other pilgrims. She loved the bunk beds. Everywhere we went, people thought she was the cutest pilgrim ever. They showered her with candies at every stop. She thought this was totally cool. Once we finished the pilgrimage, we spent about six days in Santiago de Compostela. We had a lovely apartment near downtown. Next year, we're going to try to see about finding a kindergarden for Sophie to spend the days.

Six weeks in Europe

Sophie took her first trip to Europe. Looking back, we were probably pushing it to go so long. But at the same time, she was a travelling champ. Sophie and her dad met me in Villafrana de Bierzo, Spain to walk/drive the rest of the Camino de Santiago. After a week on the trail, we spent a week in Santiago. From there, it was five days in Paris, two days in Venice and nine days throughout Austria. Sophie now knows the word for ice cream in at least three other languages.