Working Child

Today I took Dutch with me on a bus trip to do a land use inventory (this involves filling out a form for each parcel of land - we had about 85 parcels to inventory), and she was heroic. The poor kid. She's chronically under-rested and under-attended these days. After bravely sitting in the stroller for an hour and a half, looking for streetlights and inquiring loudly whether passersby were homeless or not, while I very slowly inspected many many ugly houses without sidewalks (what's WRONG with these people?!), she finally started vigorously complaining "Mama, you're taking TOO LONG!!!!!" and only cheered up when I took her to an Asian mall and let her hang out for a while in one of those terrific trinket stores filled with Hello Kitty pens and teddy bear Kleenex box covers. I bought her a $3 sheet of dressup stickers that are like paperdolls, except not reuseable. I figured that was cheaper than paying a babysitter.
Then we went home, and Cook took her to the grocery store while I typed up my inventory. A never-ending whirl of fun for this kid!