Leaving on a jet plane

I'm in the Salt Lake City airport, on my way to California for the weekend. It's a daddy-daughter weekend back home.

This is by far the longest time I've been away from Atlee. It was so, so hard to leave. I never imagined it would be like that.

Toddle toddle toddle

It's taken a while, but we've finally got a real, toddling toddler over here. She always tries to walk before crawling (unless she's chasing us or something else requiring speed), and often gets to her destination by walking. She's still slow and unstable, but she gets there.

She's super-speedy when she can hang onto your hand, but -- and this is typical A. behavior -- she won't let you hold her hand. She'll hang onto a finger or wrist, but if you try to wrap your hand around hers, she'll shake her arm until you get off or just plop down on her butt and refuse to move.

But when you can convince her to hold your finger, she has a blast exploring previously off-limits areas. A. and I went by my parents' warehouse to meet my mom for lunch, and A. got to toddle through the rows of merchandise and stop to explore whatever she wanted (paint-by-number, plastic dollar coin storage tubes, balsa wood airplane models). That was fun -- and had the opportunity for lots of trouble-making. It's going to be crazy when she can really walk/run around in there.

12 month checkup

I don't have graphs, but I've got numbers. At 1 year, A. weighs 19 pounds, 8 ounces and stands 30 inches tall. That puts her in the 25th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for height.

So, somehow, two short parents with straight, dark hair have given rise to a tall, skinny girl with curly blonde hair.

She's going to be a heart-breaker.

Disney World isn't enough

JJ, A., and I headed to the Disney parks for the day, since it had been a while since we'd taken a break and headed down there. We parked in the Magic Kingdom parking lot, walked over to the Polynesian hotel for lunch, and then caught the monorail to MK.

While we were at the restaurant, a dad sat down with his 2-or-so year old daughter. His wife and older daughter were picking up their food. Did the two discuss their day so far or plans for the afternoon? Did they watch the kids headed to the pool? Did they share some bad jokes? No. The dad pulled out a portable DVD player and started up an episode of Dora the Explorer.

Can you believe that? They're in the middle of Walt Disney World on a family vacation, and yet that's not enough entertainment and they can't be bothered to speak to each other.

I think that's worse than the time JJ and I saw a mom pushing a boy around a mall in a stroller with a portable DVD player propped in front of him.