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April 23, 2008

Alden's Big Weekend

Last weekend Grandpa John and Grandma Judy came to visit.

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There was great enthusiasm for their first grandchild.

Grandpa John brought Alden the smallest Kansas Jayhawks 2008 Championship commemorative t-shirt he could find.

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And Grandma Judy brought a beautiful handmade quilt she has been working on for months.

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We were blown away by the needlework.

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Alden was pleased by the fact that it was soft and enveloping.

There was a lot of hugging and beholding and admiring.

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And then more of the same.

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And even more of the same.

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Alden was wary, skeptical, looking to me for grounding in this mad world of senseless adoration.

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I took her home for a nap. We were exhausted by it all.

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The next day we went to the health department to pick up Alden's birth certificate.

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The woman behind the counter informed us that, in the three years she had worked at the health department, we were the first people who had taken photos of the birth certificate receiving process.

I was torn between pride and shame.

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Aunt Gina came to visit, bringing a jade plant that we are sure to kill.

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Grandma Judy tried to kidnap Alden, who was, by this point, growing accustomed to the largesse.

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The day was quite sunny, so we bought Alden a sunbonnet.

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She was kind enough to let me try it out.

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For one resplendent moment I felt like Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Which traumatized my small daughter, who expects me to be masculine and sturdy.

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That night we got a half-bushel of steamed crabs, which I tore to pieces with my bare hands.

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It comforted Alden, who felt that sanity had been restored to her fragile universe.

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The next day we drove to Baltimore to attend Christian and Emily's bowling baby shower.

Alden met Rich, who rocked her world.

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Christian wielded his Steelers bowling ball, which spelled sure doom for the pins.

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After the shower, we had some raw oysters and steamed mussels in Fels Point. Alden was unimpressed.

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She is surprisingly unadventurous when it comes to diet.

The rest of the grandparent visit was a lot more of hugging and such.

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Alden suddenly fit perfectly into her Jayhawks championship garb.

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And posed for a picture with Grandpa John.

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John and Judy have returned to Kansas City, and we have returned to preparing Alden for her SATs. She has been doing terribly in reading comprehension and shows little promise in expository writing, but we have a growing inkling that she might be an analogy girl. Only time will bear it out.

Posted by bogenamp at April 23, 2008 10:12 PM