Rob's family

Melinda was pretty psyched about the whole thing. Tracey's Dad came over to watch Gretchen (Tracey had a bow-making class), so my leaving (normally a tragic affair) was hardly noticed. Melinda skipped to the car giving me directions about everything - she's four after all - she's a woman of the world. As we walked in, Melinda happily led me to her classroom. A couple Dads & kids were waiting when we got there. "That's Eric, Dad. And that's Colleen." I had informed Melinda that I wanted to meet all of her friends, and she was very good at letting me know who everyone was. School opened and after hanging up her coat, Melinda went right to the "kitchen." Over the next 17 minutes, I met everyone in her class (the fifteen other kids that came). "This is Bridget, and that's Molly and Madeline." We flitted from activity to activity. I actually got a couple minutes to talk with Mrs. Karen and Mrs. Mary. "Is she always this happy at

from Jim Tracey. I'll take pity on my coldish daughter and do this correspondence be e-mail, so you don't have to talk on the phone. But before I fill you in on the weekend (all good), I've been meaning to relay what Melinda told me when we baby sat a week or so ago. If you and Rob ever wondered whether the time and cost of going to Disney World was worthwhile, the answer from Melinda's viewpoint would be yes. We were talking about the vacation, and I asked her what she remembered most. She quickly responded Disney World. Then she told me about the rides...the fact that she wasn't very interested in the animals because they were too big, but that Gretchen got to know Pluto...and the videotaping of Small World "and we videotaped you, too, Papa." So Disney World seems to have been a worthwhile venture at least for Melinda. She was, not surprisingly, just about perfect over the weekend. She played indoors and out...did the computer only once...did some cr

Tracey and I decided that the weather was good enough today for a trip to the zoo. Packed up the family and headed down to Brookfield. Tracey's folks give her a family membership for her birthday each year. It works out great for us - if we arrive and the weather is lousy or the kids are crabby, we can punt and not worry about having spent $35 for an hour. Melinda is taking a much more active role in deciding where we're going at the Zoo. "I want to see the Leopards first." She's inquisitive and loves to run around playing with this exhibit or that - moving levers, and lifting flaps. She's been to the zoo so many times, now she knows where things are. Upon entering the children's zoo - "Dad, I want to go pet the goats." Very self assured, but also tentative at times. Petting little goats is fine, but she remembers an aggressive (big) goat from another time and shies away from the big ones. It's tough to look at Gretchen and not consid

From Tracey "Playdate" is the trendy term for moms and their kids getting together for a few hours. Makes it sound like our little tykes have important social agendas already. Anyway, a high school friend of mine with a 2-year-old daughter invited us over for the afternoon. Melinda basically slept while Annie played with toys. This is the first time I had met Annie, but I have heard over and over (from her own mom and grandparents, no less) "what a handful" this child is. Not so, I think. She’s cute and happily building a lego house for her Fisher-Price little people. Then Melinda wakes up, and Annie wants to see the baby. (I am quickly finding out that toddlers are enchanted by babies.) So I hold Melinda in my lap, while Jean reminds Annie to play nice and be GENTLE with the baby. They come over and Annie pats Melinda on the head. A split second later, Annie is pinching MelindaÂ’s arm—and when Jean pulls AnnieÂ’s hand away, it accidently scrapes Melinda a