And...we're back. A few vignettes from the last week:

• The Girl was so happy that she started each morning with a little dance as soon as she got out of bed. It's a variation on a dinosaur stomp, while doing the front crawl with her arms. I can't remember what it was like to be so happy that I had to celebrate the start of a day with a victory dance.

• There is no better amusement park ride than a log flume. The Boy disagrees.

• Bumper boats armed with squirt guns are also pretty cool. The Boy agrees on that one.

• Whatever happened to “knee-high by the fourth of July”? We drove past many a cornfield, and the corn was easily five feet high. Is that the fruit of hybridization, more-intensive fertilizing, a longer and warmer growing season as a result of global warming, a misleading rhyme, or all of the above?

• The Girl was surprisingly clingy for most of the trip – not in an anxious way, but just wanting to be picked up a lot, mostly by me. I think she needs a little more Daddy time than she's been getting. It's fun just to let her talk and see what happens. This week she used the word “confused” correctly, which I think is pretty good for a two-year-old.

• Whoever invented central air should be awarded every prize society can offer – Nobel, Pulitzer, Tony, Kids' Choice, all of them. Verily, it is good.

• We went on a restored historical railroad, complete with restored historical men leading a singalong on the way back. If you want a sense of the experience, lock yourself in a hot, humid, swaying room for an hour with someone who can't stop talking about canals of the 1800's, then wants you to join in a chorus of “New York, New York.” The living envied the dead. Add “singalongs” to the list of Things I Don't Do, right after “botany.”

• You know you've been sucked into your profession when you're driving back from a faraway destination and reflecting on the kind of community college programs that would likely succeed there. And resolving to check out the local campus on the internet. It's a sickness, I tells ya...

• We also attended a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for The Wife's aunt and uncle. I had a mini-coronary when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a kid who looks just like The Boy in four years. I actually had to look back at TB to assure myself. Several other people there noted the resemblance, too. I wasn't emotionally ready to see Future Boy running the PowerPoint show of fifty-year-old wedding photos.

• If The Boy and The Girl had their way, they would have chicken nuggets and/or mac and cheese at every meal. Children's menus are distressingly similar wherever you go.

• The Girl is learning the fine art of the protest march. One afternoon she got hungry for dinner a little early. When we told her dinner would be in a little while, she started marching in circles from the dining room to the living room to the hallway to the kitchen to the dining room, chanting rhythmically “I-am-hun-gy! I-am-hun-gy!” I can't decide if this is a good thing. I imagine in a few years it'll be “What do we want? Dinner! When do we want it? Now!”

And now back to our regularly scheduled blog.