boring bulletins

Today we went to the Sunday Parkway* in East Portland. It was great. We walked in the middle of the street, and sauntered slowly across the high-traffic streets, protected by traffic-directing police officers, admiring the long lines of cars backing up and waiting for us.** We entered some raffles, learned some things, hula-hooped, ate handmade organic ice cream (Oh, Portland, we love you!), listened to music, enjoyed street theater, and generally soaked up the opportunity to own the streets, for once.

Also, Skipper turns out to be potty training herself, sort of. This is a surprise to us, since we have been making no efforts in that direction (Dutch potty-trained between the ages of 2.5 and 3), but we were told that she used the toilet at daycare on Friday, which prompted us to begin responding to her occasional requests for diaper changes by taking off her diaper and offering her the opportunity to sit on the potty. And... she actually pees in the potty. Who knows if it'll last, but it's at least a lovely excuse to watch her run around in all her nudie chubby baby glory.

*Streets closed to cars in a nice big loop, perfect for walking and biking. Activities and food and whatnot along the way.

** I know I'm becoming extreme in my loathing for cars, but I really don't understand why anybody thinks they're a reasonable way to travel. We went to a birthday party, and I found myself looking at the cars with a kind of appalled amazement - you people actually put your kids in those things and DROVE them here? Good god, why? - and then a kid said "Where's your car?" and I said "We don't have a car" and the kid said "But then how did you GET here?"