Archive for September 12th, 2006

BestBuy doesn’t have laptops but it does have a yellow stripe

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Okay, technically they did have laptops. But not the one that I saw online and went in to buy. And maybe I was silly for thinking that it was a good idea to take Reid to shop for a laptop at 7:00 pm. It probably also didn’t help that I was the one who closed her hand in the front door. I was kind of grumpy when I couldn’t get a laptop tonight.

Reid, though, had recovered from the finger-pinching, seemed unphased by the lateness of the hour and was quite willing to shop. She found a bright red laptop bag as soon as we got to the section. After a disappointing conversation with a boy who was far too young to have a job, we headed for the front door. But wait! There is a bright yellow stripe on the floor that surrounds the carpet “islands” where the displays are. Reid had to walk along that line, sometimes she even had to run, to see where it led. Luckily she was giggling as she ran so that the people who were standing on the line had time to step back. Well, they moved except for the one woman who didn’t notice Reid until I said, “The lady is allowed to stand there, Reid” while Reid was standing practically on top of the lady saying, “Stop” which I think meant – I have to stop because you won’t move. In retrospect, it might have been only boys and men who moved without prompting. And they chivalry is dead.

Aviation Museum

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Ken and Reid went to the Aviation Museum on Saturday while I was getting my
hair done. Reid seemed to like all of the “a’planes” or at least having a
large space to move about in on a gloomy, rainy day. By the time they were
ready to leave, Reid had found an airplane for each of us:
 * Ken is a  Lancaster bomber;
 * Reid is a Messerschmitt ME-163 Komet (“Comet”) (rocket propelled
fighter);
 * and I am a Kittyhawk (P-40 fighter aircraft).
 (Yes, Ken had to write those out for me to get them right. :+) Reid likes
to assign things to people, cars, dishes, etc. Ken gets the biggest and Reid
gets the smallest thing and I’m middle-ish.

 Ken said some people looked at him funny as though he was being mean to
Reid by taking her to a museum *he* wanted to see. When I asked her where
they’d been she grinned and said “Mooseum!” She obviously didn’t feel
mistreated.

School and rules

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006
Seeing Melissa’s note about Dylan wanting to skip (Sunday) school, made me think of how happy we all were when school started up around here. Reid likes to spot big vehicles and the holy grail since August has been yellow school buses. We were so glad when the French school board started back in the last week of August. Until then we’d point out a city bus and her first question would be “lello bus?”. Sometimes we wouldn’t point out the buses (or any vehicle) and she would still ask about the yellow buses when we were in the car. The day after Labour Day was so foggy that Ken said he didn’t even know if Reid had seen any of the many buses on the roads.  As I remember, the buses in Windsor are yellow and blue. We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled when we’re down for a visit.
Every day, Reid and I try to teach each other something or at least it seems we usually do. One day recently, we tackled fashion rules.  When we were in New York, I bought Reid three socks from FAO Schwartz that were made by Little Miss Matched ( www.littlemissmatched.com). They are black and one has stripes, another hearts and the last has dots. I put them on her and she started became upset with me. Apparently, I am the only person in the world who doesn’t know that the sock with the hearts goes on the left foot and the dots go on the right foot. When I switched them, she became the sunny girl we’re used to. She is just practicing to be an irrational teenager. Or maybe she’ll revert to being a toddler later ;+) When we went downstairs, Reid wanted to put her sandals on with her socks. I can handle many fashion faux-pas but that one is a problem for me (rather like putting hearts on the right foot) and so I talked her out of her socks after all of the work we’d put into getting them on and away she went.