Time for Some Pictures

We discovered a really great playground in walking distance from our house. Aria is never super-eager to go there, but then never wants to leave. (Actually, she has a similar thing going on that I had when I was a kid: she doesn't like to change states. She doesn't like to have a bath, but once in it, doesn't want to get out. I was exactly the same way. I don't understand it, but I get it. Naming it that way helped her Mom get what's going on, too.)

This is a really great time in our lives together. Really, really great. Some of her perceptions are so much deeper than her 3 years, and then the next thing she says is the epitome of being a kid. When she's saying something, she strives so hard to be understood, and she won't rest until she is, even if that means she needs to bend our own meanings to get there.

A Vector Has Both Direction and Magnitude

We recently tried to go to Chapters, one of Aria's favourite places to be, but she was having a very whiny day, and just as we were getting there it escalated to the point where we decided (with a warning and an ultimatum) that we were not going there after all. Everyone in the parking lot (if not the city!) was made aware of her despondent disappointment.

Because we're such good parents, we recognised that part of her emotional condition was probably due to hunger, a diagnosis she didn't seem to instantly agree with. We couldn't reason with her, so we decided a new tack: give her the opportunity to express an opinion. When we asked her where she wanted to go to eat, she said in her most forlorn, chin-on-chest tone: "A coffee shop."

That kind of took me back. "A coffee shop!? What kind of coffee shop?"

She answered, still in the same woe-is-me voice: "The kind of coffee shop that has a Chapters next to it."