What a Weekend!

We'll consider this one prep work for our upcoming Disney trip. And in the prep weekend, I determined that although I'm still quite a bit lighter than I was last year at this time, I tire more quickly and am far more sensitive to heat. So Orlando will be interesting! I'm not hoping for a hurricane, but perhaps the spent aftermath of a mild tropical storm would be nice. You know, gentle showers and a slight breeze. Lovely! And keeps the lines short.

On Saturday we went to Meramec Caverns. I thought Ellie might be too young, but she seemed to enjoy the trip. She wanted to touch the coolest formations (strictly forbidden, of course) and Daddy carried her for the whole hour and 20 minute tour, because the guard rails weren't very effective.


On Sunday, we went to see the Cardinals game with friends, then had dinner with other friends. It was hot at the game, despite the lovely weather, so we bailed halfway through. We got a good show, though. Pujols came up to bat twice and knocked the first pitch over the back wall both times. Worth the trip!

On Monday, we went to the zoo along with the rest of St. Louis. Ellie was very into the animals, especially the brand new baby elephant, and wasn't freaked out by the monkeys this time. I think her favorite place, other than the pizza stand, was the herpatarium. Awesome kid.

Oh, also, I thought that it was way too early for Daddy to feel the baby moving. Turns out that it's not! So that's cool.

I'll leave you with a wonderful quote, then a picture of Ellie playing in the rain last weekend. The quote is from a book called Changed by a Child: Companion Notes for Parents of a Child with a Disability by Barbara McGill, excerpted from an essay about how a psychologist, upon getting to know a patient who tested horribly, was surprised to learn that she was actually "full of promise and potential."

Often what others perceive in us as denial or false hope is really our experience of our child's powers, which are not seen by those who are looking for deficits and think they are the whole story. Living with our children every day, seeing them "conduct themselves naturally in their own spontaneous way," we see how they are people according to the capacities they have. We see their souls.

Let us hold, always, this picture of our child in her completeness, even - especially - in the face of those who see her as decomposed, a collection of deficits.

I highly recommend the book.