Random Happenings

Today we went to the Good Zoo in Wheeling, WV. We hadn't been there for a year, and this year it seemed a bit bigger hit than last year. Of course it helped that we talked about it for about a week before we were able to get it together to actually go. Felicity especially enjoyed the meerkats which look like this:

Cute, no?

On the way there, Kwamai and I discussed nuclear energy and nuclear weapons (to the best of my ability, I should say; Kwamai constantly shows me up for everything I don't know). We discussed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, and how in the latter case the Catholic cathedral was almost directly hit. He came up with various theories for how electrical wires were able to be strung all the way across the Ohio River (as they are in one spot a few miles out of town).


Yesterday Kwamai started Catechesis of the Good Shepherd again. The jury is still out whether he will stay in the Monday group (which confusingly enough met on Tuesday this week) or whether he will switch to the Wednesday late afternoon group to be with several of his friends.

Felicity and I had a good time grocery shopping without Kwamai. While in one store another little girl who was about 3 or 4 spotted Felicity sitting in the shopping cart and started petting her like a puppy and grabbing at the toy Felicity was carrying. I tried giving the polite verbal signal to the girl's mom that we weren't appreciating the direct tactile experience, but it didn't work so well. So I got more abrupt with the girl. Felicity asked me several times over the next few hours "Who was that little girl? Did she like me?" (I had told her it seemed the girl liked her, but that if she doesn't like someone touching her hair like that she could tell them to stop.) It's the sort of situation where I really wouldn't mind having a screamer child. "Back off, would ya, and get your hands off my head already!!"


Felicity isn't a screamer, but she's getting into the "gotta move" stage, especially at Mass. I've been spoiled with her, really, because I think Kwamai was in the "gotta move" stage at Mass from about age 1 to just before he turned 4. Now he's just in the "gotta occupy myself" stage. I can see him at his First Holy Communion/Confirmation Mass sitting on the floor in his fancy duds and drawing pictures on his bulletin. But Felicity fortunately is satisfied with going off to the Eucharistic chapel and walking around in circles around a chair or draping herself over a kneeler. On the rare occasions when I'm able to go to Mass by myself I almost have a hard time concentrating without behavior to manage.