and this is how i connect ...
My niece visited for a few days this week, and somehow I missed taking pictures. I guess I was just enjoying the time with her and didn't want to let a camera get between us.She's a great kid. First of all, I am convinced that she looks much, much better in my Jeep than I do. Her hair is pretty long now, and she sort of avoids the brush ... so I convinced her that baseball hats are cool on girls. We went cruising through the mountains yesterday, let the wind play with our hair for a few minutes, then stopped for ice cream, and threw our hair into ponytails and hats. We are pretty cool chics, if I do say so myself.
She is also really tan, because she plays outside all the time, and her blond hair is even blonder now that it's summer. She is a pretty, pretty girl, and I am already developing my interrogation packet for whatever young man is brave enough to ask her on her first date. Her beauty has a lot to do with her shimmering blond hair and twinkling blue eyes, but more to do with her infectious smile and her spunky attitude. She is cool - there's no way around it.
She probably would have been happy just to ride in the Jeep all day, but last night somehow the idea emerged to visit a wonderful mecca of children's delight and parents' empty wallets, appropriately named "Fun Depot." The place is huge and has just about every kind of form of kid-friendly entertainment you can imagine. I convinced Sarah to start with the climbing wall, which she flew up quickly and quickly grew bored ... so then she moved on to the arcade games. Throw in some mini-golf and batting cages, and we moved to the highlight of the evening: laser tag.
I admit that I really, really thought about trying to talk her out of playing. We made it into the "briefing room" where a quick instructional movie is shown before you go put on your vest and grab your gun. Everyone talked through the movie, so I'm glad I wasn't relying on what I learned there for my survival in the field. The room was filled with a random sampling on gang-banger wannabe's (and pretty convincing ones at that) and nervous church youth group kids from the suburbs. The wannabe's were the ones who had me a little nervous, as I overheard references to "going out like 50" and "going down like 2-Pac." While Sarah took it all in stride, I was looking around for the quickest way to get her out of there. How will this game possibly be fun for a 9-year-old girl?, I thought.
Then we got upstairs and the room went dark and the cheesy music started playing. And Sarah evolved into a laser tag automaton. I have to say - that was the most fun I have had with a group of 16 kids I didn't know, in quite a while. The wannabe's won, but I am convinced we were a close second ... and Sarah and I somehow made friends with those fellas. We saw them in the parking lot afterward. While the nervous suburbanites rushed to their buses, trying to avoid eye-contact with the hip-hop crew, Sarah and I gave them high fives and even took a picture with them. Of course, the picture is on Sarah's camera and not a digital one, so I doubt it will ever be available to the public.
The other highlight of my evening was when I played a 5-player game of the cheesy arcade basketball game ... I was the only female, the only person with light-colored skin, and the only adult type (over the age of about 16) ... I was also a good 4 inches shorter than my competition. And I won. Awe, yeah. Still got it. (Of course, I never really knew that I had "it" before, but it sounds awful cool)
I just pulled a pan of peanut butter-swirl brownies out of the oven ... off to share with the neighbors and engage in the mysterious act of connecting with another human being.
I did more thinking/planning/brainstorming today, about my combination counseling practice/bed & breakfast. I have been working on more variety in my cooking, and having some great, intelligent conversations with the therapists at work ... so I'm pretty sure I'm ready. :)
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