Father and Daughter

I just uploaded some pictures from my camera and I really liked this photo. It was taken a few weeks back when Maya and I spent the day at Pixie Woods.

Smells like wine

On the way home this evening there was the smell of fermenting fruit in the air. I didn't say anything when I smelled it, but Maya said, "It smells like wine." I was really surprised she not only knew what wine smelled like but that she remembered what it smelled like. I guess Mom has been at some friends' house and they had wine and Maya smelled it.

I'm just kidding!

Maya has this cute thing she does when either her Mom or I call her at night to say good-night. When I have Maya, we call her mom and Maya talks in a low voice and says, "Hello, this is grandpa." And then continues on with an entire conversation pretending to be my dad. She has such a creative and quick mind. It's fun to hear what she has to say. When she is with her Mom and they call me at night, she pretends to her mom. In a very high pitched voice she says, "Hello, this is Linda." She can go on and on pretending to be Linda. In either case, she eventually yells, "I'm just kidding!" and laughs and laughs. It's very cute. The other day her voice was so high and she went on and on for a long time, but I couldn't understand a word she was saying, but she was just talking and talking. It's funny that she rarely pretends to be me but rather her grandpa. She does a great job pretending to be him. Maybe she'll grow up to be on Saturday Night Live and do character voices and such. That would be fun to see.

House full of girls

Yesterday afternoon my friend, Tim, and his family came into town to visit with his sister and parents. I guess they were celebrating Tim's father's birthday. They invited me and Maya to this family dinner as Tim's daughter (Emma) has been wanting to see Maya. It's been a long time since they've seen each other. In fact, Maya didn't even remember who Emma was. Tim's sister has two girls: one in 6th grade and one in 3rd grade. Emma just started the 1st grade. In addition to Emma, Tim has one step daughter and one step son. They were there too.

So, to recap- there were five girls ranging from 5 years old up to I guess 13 or 14 years old.

We arrived around 4:30-ish at Tim's sister's house. The girls were inside the house deciding what to do. The adults were sitting outside, near the pool, drinking and talking. Maya immediately fit right in. They were playing hide-n-seek and generally having a good time. We stayed through dinner....the kids ate in the family room while the adults ate at the table. I checked in on Maya several times, but really she was just having a good time hanging with the girls. When I have her, she so rarely gets to spend any time around girls, let alone kids her own age. I only have nephews and they are all teenagers. About the only time she gets to be around girls is when my nephews bring their girl-friends to family events.

I guess toward the end of the evening the girls were back in the bedrooms and started talking about boys. At one point, Tim's step-daughter came out and was really laughing. She started to tell us something Maya had said, and I beat her to the punch. I said, "Was she talking about Francisco?" She laughed and said "Yes."

It was getting late and time for us to go home. I went to find Maya...she was hiding behind a bed in one of the rooms. She just didn't want to leave. She was having too much fun with these girls. I had to pick her up and put her shoes on. She gave her new friends hugs and we headed home. In the car she said she wanted to be part of that family. She said she want to have a sleep over there.

When we got home she told me to lie next to her on my bed so we could talk. First she wanted to talk about "girls". She asked me what kind of girls I liked at work. What where their names and what were they were like. She even asked, "Are they like strange?"

Then we moved onto talking "about boys". She said there are 5 boys she likes in class and 5 boys she likes in the after-care program. She talked about Francisco again. She likes him...just as a friend now. She said some other girl keeps telling Maya that Maya and Francisco should get married. Maya said this girl is starting to annoy her. She tells the girl that she doesn't want to get involved in all that "marriage stuff" right now because she not a teenager but just a kid. Well, at least that message has gotten through to Maya!!

It was nice that Maya wanted me to sit next to her and wanted to talk to me about not only the boys she likes but also asked about what girls I like. I know there will be a time when Maya won't want to talk to me about anything, let alone about boys. So right now I'm really enjoying and appreciating the talks we have together.