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[preceded yesterday by a discussion of how fast a kiss goes when you blow it, and by lots of instances of Dad looking up facts on his smart phone; Clara’s phone is a non-functional Motorola flip phone that we found in the street]

Clara: Oh, Dad: so I looked it up on my phone, and blowing kisses go at 30 miles per hour.

Timothy: Ah! Good to know. That’s pretty fast. I guess it’s OK, though, because they’re so light.

Clara: I LOVE STINKY CHEESE andyouandMom!

Clara (walking with her umbrella): It’s a nice day today.

Timothy: Yes, it is.

C: The rain is so nice.

T: I think so too.

(“It’s my new poem,” Clara explains.)

Henry Hobbes went to town
Making spirits bright
Along came Santa Bear
With light bulbs all around him
And clocks all around them.

[Katherine has the new Coldplay album on in the living room, loud so she can hear it while cleaning the kitchen. Clara is curled up on the living room couch, listening. Katherine enters.]

K (shouting): IS THIS TOO LOUD FOR YOU??

C (shouting): NO!! IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE LOUD!!

(Clara is getting up at night to pee. She holds a small cat robot as she sits on the toilet. She is not entirely awake, and very groggy.)

Clara: Mom?

Katherine: Yes?

C: (pause) Mom—…

K: Yes.

C: The only thing… (pause) that Kitty likes…

(long pause)

K: Yes?

C: … is the smell…

(long, long pause)

C: … of wildflowers.

Clara: This week is E week at school!

Timothy: That’s Exciting.

Katherine: Let’s see how many Extra E-words we can find. Elephant, and Egg…

(many fine words are named)

K: Oh - and here’s a good one: Eye. It doesn’t sound like an E word, does it? Hm, anything that starts with Ep-… Ep-…

Clara: Epinephrine?

K: … ah… yeah, that’s a very good E word!

I’ve now got the first batch of songs moved over from my old music page. It’s my most recent album (now nine years old), called off line. Took me a while to work out the right way to represent songs and albums in the Drupal content management system, but now it’s all quite easy to deal with and I hope that (and my weakness for shiny new technologies) will help accelerate the process.

Clara and Dad are walking to school.

Clara: I love when you drop me off at school and pick me up.

Dad: Yeah, I think yesterday was the first time I ever did both.

C: Yeah. You know what, Dad?

D: What?

C: I love you… ten hundred million!

D: Well thanks!

C: …Is that even a number?

D: Well, ten hundreds is a thousand, and a thousand millions is a billion. So it’s a billion. And that’s a number.

C: Dad?

D: Yes?

C: I’ll always remember you.

D: That’s so nice. I’ll always remember you too.

(As Dad sings the first of the usual bedtime songs, Clara has her eyes closed but is smiling. He finishes the first song.)

Clara: Dad? You know why I was smiling?

Timothy: No, why?

C: It was because I had a funny dream that made me happy.

T: Uh huh?

C: I dreamed I was Obama. (rolls over, goes to sleep)