Runnin' and Smilin' - Day 577

This picture was taken just today in front of the James Madison building of the Library of Congress. Anna loves to go up and down the steps and ramp. As you can see...

Today we took her on a long walk and it extended past her nap time, so as things usually go, she walks a lot, has a lot of fun, then begins to trip and stumble a lot too as she gets more tired. Invariably, when we are the farthest point from home, we realize that we should take her home and put her to bed. This is what happened today while walking around the tide pool where the Jefferson Memorial is located.

I can't remember if I have written this before, but as Anna falls down or otherwise bumps herself, we usually offer to kiss her to make it feel better. Anna has at some point interpreted this as SHE should instead kiss US to make things better. We know it shouldn't work this way, but both Kerry and I have no interest in correcting this glitch in the system. Of course there is a broader problem in that if she starts falling down more we get more kisses and a moral hazard may subconsciously exist. My main worry is that the grandparents will understand that more falling down = more kisses. Talk about a moral hazard -- we will be on our watch. Aunt Susan is here, and she has already started taking advantage of Anna's post-fall-down kisses.

In other news, today we were walking and we spelled out banana instead of saying it. Anna then repeated B-A-N-N-A. It was admittedly an imperfect spelling, but she is getting the idea (very quickly). I think our spelling work-arounds will soon be ending. Of course, she has a head start on banana because it has so many common letters with her name, which she can now spell easily. Kerry asked today what the word for banana was in French, and I started thinking of words in Arabic. We have more tools than she thinks.