Ground Control

One of the things I've been enjoying about my involuntary unemployment is the opportunity to get to know Skipper a little better. Only a little, because she's still a mystery. While both my kids are a mystery to me, Skipper has always been a bit more opaque. I can't say I'm really getting a grip on who she is, but I'm getting something. Today I had the pleasure of seeing her face when she heard somebody on television say the word "gutsy" * - she totally cracked up. She thought that was the funniest word she had EVER heard. Gutsy! Hah!

We watched NASA TV on and off on Monday, monitoring Chris Hadfield's trip home from the International Space Station. NASA TV is fairly (no, extremely) boring, but Skipper hung in there for a surprisingly long time. It turns out that I shouldn't have been suprised - apparently she had thought that Chris Hadfield was making all those videos just for us, so of course she's invested in his adventures. I was slightly concerned that the Soyuz would crash and then she'd have to go to therapy for years, but everything turned out well. We even got to watch him get extracted from the capsule in a weird parody of birth, and be propped up, pale and wobbly-looking, in a camping chair. Welcome home, Chris! We'll be expecting your visit soon!

And this is a bonus photo of Duchess and O Blond reading a graphic novel on the porch. I think they're both wiping their noses with their hands, which makes it a rather less charming moment.

* Yeah, my four-year-old was watching "The Voice" with me. So? Shouldn't preschoolers get to hear the wisdom of Shakira?