...and Meredith's milestones

Meredith at, let's see, six weeks shy of five years old:

Likes to:
--make intricate art creations with cut paper, glue, and crayons and/or markers.
--brush her own hair. (Sometimes she needs help with the back.)
--watch the PBS show "Wordgirl," which features superhero-with-vocab lesson storylines.
--talk about science. Recent questions: Do germs have eyes? How long after the dinosaurs did people live? Why does Daddy have to flip the circuit breaker all the time? (All our air conditioners appear to be on the same circuit in our 100-year-old house.) We continue to play the "animal game," an animal-only version of 20 questions that she is astoundingly good at, usually while I am doing dishes.
--play with the dog, who is remarkably tolerant, especially of being used as an "air guitar."

Is working on:
--swimming! She has recently begun enjoying going underwater and jumping in. She continues to work on actually swimming, i.e., not sinking when she can't touch. Derek and the girls had a chance encounter with Mer's swimming teacher from school at the beach yesterday, who was impressed by how much she's learned this summer!

--helping around the house. She is expected to clear her plate when she's done and help clear the rest of the table.

--her birthday. She is very excited about her party, and friends are immensely important to her right now. I appreciate how much she enjoys and remembers the friends she sees less often, as well as her neighbors, who she sees almost every day.

Derek, any additions?

-JRR