The Silver Platter

Avery has a knack for handing me the occasional riotous post on the ol' proverbial silver platter. The last time it was a letter she wrote to NASA at school. You remember . . . "Dear NASA, blah blah blah their air is stinky blah blah blah Your Friend Avery" It was hysterical, probably second only to the "Poop is Comical" post about Lily and her blowout at the gas station. Well yesterday afternoon she once again produced an absolute gem, totally unbeknownst to her.

The plan was for her to spend Friday night at her Grandma's house, something special she gets to do by herself to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa and get a welcome respite from Lily, Mandi, and me. (That is in fact proper grammar . . you can look it up.) Anyway, I told her to pack a bag, just some jammies, undies, and a change of clothes. The plan was to head over there right when Lily woke up from her nap, so I pushed her to get packed as soon as she got home from school. At around 3:00 Lily woke up, and as I took her downstairs I called for Avery to get her bag and come down with us. Her response is where the story got interesting . . "I can't carry both of them, can you help me?!"

Both of them? You're going for eighteen hours and you've packed more than one bag? What do you think this is, summer camp? I mean, really. How early do our wives teach our daughters this ridiculous over-packing habit? I thought for sure 7 was too young to be an over-packer. But sure enough, I get to the bottom of the stairs and there she is with her roller-board in one hand and a completely stuffed tote bag in the other. To top it off, she had to put her toothbrush in the front pocket of the suitcase because there wasn't enough room inside for it! So I went up to help her bring them down and the tote easily weighed thirty pounds. Of course, that was the one she asked me to carry. She put her coat on we headed out, and when we got to the car I actually had to open the trunk to stow her stuff . . I felt like I was chauffering her to the airport for a week-long getaway! Later I found out that she had jammed about 14 different toys and pets and random electronic gadgets into the bags that she hoped Grandma would spend all night playing with her. (Ok, so that grammar might be a little shaky. Get over it.)

Anyway, if anyone's looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, er, Avery, for her birthday . . perhaps some more voluminous luggage is in order? I'm just saying . .

"Just Call Me . . ."

" . . . Princess!" Ah, kids. We love all the cute little idiosyncrasies. We adore watching them begin to do things that they've taught themselves, like throwing a ball or jumping in to the pool. It is, however, quite a different thing when your toddler picks up something so outlandish that you shake your head and ask yourself out loud, "Did that really just happen?"

One of Lily's favorite things to do recently is to play dress-up. She's got two Rubbermaid totes full of Disney Princess dresses, old dance costumes, crowns, shoes, and the like. Honestly, I think her most favorite activity is dumping the contents of the totes onto the floor in her room and throwing them over her head like confetti. A very close second is choosing the princess she wants to "be" today and getting dressed up. She invariably completes the outfit with all the proper accessories . . her magic crown, her tappin' shoes, and whatever jewelry and purses suit her whim at the moment. She gets a little help from me or Avery with the dress and then it's off to the magical land of make believe she goes.

I know this doesn't sound like it's going to be an out of the ordinary activity, which in truth is exactly where I want you to be going at this point in the story. I want you thinking, "Come on rookie, all little girls like to play dress-up." I know that. But how many of them, once dressed, absolutely refuse to break character? Lily knows all of the different outfits and which characters they correspond to. We've got Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Belle (from Beauty and the Beast, dads), and Barbie. She also has some Dora The Explorer digs she got for Christmas that occasionally get worked in to the rotation. So when she's done dressing up, when she's got her tappin' shoes on the right feet, and when her magic crown has decided to stay just right on her head, the transformation has been made. "Daddy," she'll ask, "can I have a snack?" "Sure," I respond, "what do you want Lily?" Her response? Not "grapes", not "a cookie". No, before this conversation can continue she interjects "Just call me princess!" And she's dead serious. You will absolutely not address her as anything other than what the outfit makes her. "No, Daddy, you hafa call me Snow White!" She's relentless about staying in character, and I'm amazed by how far into a true role play of whatever story she's acting out she'll go. More than a few times I've played along and she'll actually make it the entire way through an episode of Dora, remembering every obstacle and how it was overcome. It's really quite amusing, and it makes me think more and more about getting her involved with acting in some way. Oh wait, nevermind, you actually have to listen and follow directions to act . .

33.33%

As of yesterday, 27 days in to the new year, that's where I am with regard to my goal for the Big Year. A great birding trip (and, admittedly, some luck at Mandi's parents' house) yesterday yielded 5 new species for my list, bringing the total so far to a whopping 50. And while that doesn't sound like a lot, I feel like I'm well on my way to the goal of 150 I set for myself before the year began.

We went down to Charlotte with the goals of letting the girls spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa, scouring the retail scene for some Crocs for Mandi to wear to work, and potentially spending some time at Freedom Park looking for birds. Freedom Park turned into Mandi wanting to show me around Myers Park High School, her old stomping grounds as it were. We walked out behind the Auto Mechanics building and were immediately overtaken by a raucous symphony of singing birds. There were so many unique songs it was difficult for us to stop and focus on just one. We heard a few familiar ones, like the Carolina Chickadee and Northern Cardinal, but the overwhelming majority were strangers to my still-untrained ear. Our first new addition was the Hermit Thrush pictured above. He was playing around in the leaves and generally making himself as conspicuous as could be. He may have been trying to bring our attention to the litter left behind by the teenagers that do, well, whatever it is they do back in those woods.

Then, in the scraggly pine trees we spent a good bit of time identifying a Golden-crowned Kinglet. He was a jumpy little bugger who did not make an easy task of photographing him, but he hung out long enough for us to be absolutely sure of our ID. We saw at least 25 more species in that trip that are already on the list, and I considered our morning a huge success just for the two names we were adding. Then it was time to go pick up the girls, and we were heading inside as I noticed a large bird under a tree in the neighbor's back yard. I scurried back to the car to get my binoculars and when I got back I saw the most gorgeous Northern Flicker "flicking" around the leaves and foraging for ants. I watched him for a few minutes as he made his way across the yard and jumped the fence. As I turned to go inside I saw some movement in one of the tall pines in the same neighbor's yard. I followed the elusive little bugger around the branches for a while, struggling to get a full view in profile through the pine needles, when right before he flew off he stopped, as if to concede to me what he'd been teasing me with, and he showed himself in perfect light. He was a Pine Warbler, behaving precisely as my Field Guide promised he would and showing a beautiful yellow color from his head and nape all the way down his belly. Score!

As if that wasn't enough, as I walked to the car to put the binoculars away, I startled a Carolina Wren that was sneaking around in the other neighbor's back yard. He flew quickly under their covered grill, but he stayed in view long enough for me to make the easy ID. Five new additions in one day was a total thrill, especially considering I had woken up that morning not expecting to go birding at all!

The Fish Wrapper

Some interesting events have unfolded in the last few days that might land my mug in the local newspaper. I was contacted Thursday by someone from the Cabarrus County Convention and Visitor's Bureau with an inquiry about the Moss Creek Nature Trail . She lives here in the neighborhood and had seen a little article on our community website that I submitted last November. The article was about the ebird.org website I've been using to submit my birding observations, and the fact that upon my suggestion our Nature Trail had been designated as a "Birding HotSpot". She apparently thought the designation was newsworthy, and the CVB mentioned it in the January edition of their e-Newsletter.

While it's hard to tell how much interest the newsletter generated among its target audience of meeting planners and hotel executives, it apparently fell into the hands of a regional reporter for The Charlotte Observer. The reporter called me yesterday and did a quick 15-minute interview, just getting background information on me and on the Trail. The plan is for a small article to be run in next Thursday's Cabarrus Neighbors section of the paper highlighting the hobby of bird watching and the Moss Creek Nature Trail as a formidable choice of locations to undertake it. They've got a photographer coming over Monday morning to accompany Lily and I to the Trail and hopefully get a few good pics of some of our local bird species. I think I'll schedule a haircut for myself between now and then, just in case the lens is pointed my way . . Mandi's already promised to pick out Lil's outfit for the day and told me she'll leave strict instructions on how I should fix her hair. You can rest assured I'll have a complete, unbiased review of the article posted early Thursday morning.

Snatching Success From The Clutches of Failure

Our trip to Asheville last weekend was conceived with the intention of spending the afternoon on Saturday at Chimney Rock State Park hiking and exploring the wintering birds of the North Carolina mountains. As luck would have it, the snow fell just hard enough that afternoon to keep us off of the trails and confined to the car. We tried to do some walking at the North Carolina Arboretum, which was just down the road from our hotel, but the gusting wind proved too much for Mandi to take. Plan C was to leisurely drive the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while, but it had been closed down due to the weather. Certain that a failed day of bird watching was upon me, we made a last ditch effort and pulled in to a small park that was right next to the fast-flowing French Broad River. We sat for a few moments and watched as the White-throated Sparrows flitted about on the ground, when in the distance on a branch that reached out over the water Mandi spotted an unusual shape. We pulled forward through the mud puddles and got as close to the bank as we could without Mandi having to dig us out with a shovel, and through the lenses of our fogged-up binoculars we spied an Eastern Phoebe quietly picking through the leaves for his lunch. What I'd almost written off as a failed day of birding had just produced success, and we were able to head back to the hotel with a sense of unexpected accomplishment.

Later on in the weekend, after we came home to Concord, we ID'ed the Canvasback I'd been tipped to diving in the pond in front of the Concord Mills Mall. Mere minutes later we saw a Cooper's Hawk hiding in the low branches of a tree between an apartment building and the strip mall where our local Wild Birds Unlimited store is, as well as a Sharp-shinned Hawk circling high above. As difficult as the identification of these two species is usually said to be, these two particular individuals showed all of the clues to their identities with surprising accommodation. Four new species in one weekend added to the Big Year list was honestly more than I had hoped for, and I still had a walk on our Nature Trail planned for later that afternoon.

While this trip to the Trail didn't produce any new species for the list (it was a really bad time of day to go, but I couldn't help myself), it did yield one of the best photos I've ever taken of a bird in flight. This Great Blue Heron flew right past me at a distance of about 15 feet, and my camera responded perfectly as I snapped shots in rapid succession. While these herons are relatively common, their slow flight and striking size continue to provide some of the most amazing photos. I am planning on heading to the Coddle Creek Reservoir later this morning to try to identify some of the ducks and geese that I see frequently as I pass by. My instinct tells me that I'll see Ring-necked Ducks and perhaps Lesser Scaup, although I'm hoping to be surprised by others as well.

Mission: Impossible?

We all know kids go through phases of behavior. Some have memorable names like "Terrible Twos" and "Troublesome Threes", while others are more vague and enigmatic. There's the "puts everything in sight into her mouth" phase, which is really quite understandable and not something we worry about. When they get older we expect the "interested in boys" phase and all the normal growing up stuff. There is one, however, that I was not at all prepared for . . one which currently is giving Mandi and I quite a cause for concern.

Without over-doing it on the details, Lily's usual routine at night goes as follows: dinner, bath, TV, story, bed. She's quite fond of that sequence and it seems to produce the best results with regard to her falling asleep quickly. So I do my best to stick to that sequence whenever possible. Sometimes, though, if dinner was too early or if other circumstances present themselves, I'll wait a while after dinner before taking her upstairs for her bath. Often this pause in the action will last 25 or 30 minutes, depending on what I've chosen to do in between. The first two or so times we did this it worked out well, giving me some time to regroup and Lily a little bonus play time. Recently though, it's taken an unsettling turn.

A few nights ago, with my mother in town and the whole routine in general disarray, we finished dinner early and Lil went to the playroom to kill some time before her Meema (my mom's self-given grandma nickname) was to take her upstairs for her bath. A few unusually quiet moments later she came traipsing back into the kitchen, naked as a jaybird. She had a huge grin on her face, and before our jaws finished bouncing off of the floor she proclaimed "I'm naked!" As if that wasn't enough, after Mandi made her best attempt at scolding her while struggling to hold back raucous laughter, she went back to the playroom and retrieved her broom-stick horse toy. She pushed its button to start the clickety-clackety-clomping sound, came galloping back into the kitchen with the horse between her knees and proudly shouted again "I'm naked! I love being naked!" Needless to say, it became futile to try to hold back our laughter at that point, although we wanted very badly not to reinforce this more-than-mildly disturbing behavior. When she left the room Mandi turned to me with the most serious look I'd seen on her face in days and said "Honey, your number one mission in life is gonna be to keep that kid off of the pole." I have to admit, I think she's probably right on the mark with that prediction, and I do not think it'll be an easy task. My mission, should I choose to accept it . . .

Perception vs. Reality

The forecast this weekend was for between 1 and 3 inches of snow to fall in the Charlotte area, a total nearly triple what was recorded just days earlier. The snow plows were warmed up, every grocery store had been raided for bread and milk, and the city was ready for a long winter's nap. So what did Mandi and I decide to do? Drive to the mountains, of course, where it was sure to be colder and the accumulation would be nearly double. We'd been planning this trip to Asheville and Chimney Rock State Park for a few weeks now and we certainly weren't going to let a little thing like impassable highways stand in our way.

Recently, as in the last three or four years, the saying "Perception is reality" has become one of the more overused pieces of phrasiology in our culture. I'm guilty of it . . I used to use it nearly every day when I would explain to my staff at the restaurant that a guest's perception of their actions was all we could worry about, not what may have actually happened. Perception was reality in the world of "Guest Service" and it was just something we had to get over. Our trip to Asheville gave me a whole new take on the phrase, however.

As we walked around the historic Biltmore Village a little before the snow's forecasted arrival at noon, it was quite entertaining to hear the way the perception of the reality of the day's weather changed from shop to shop. We heard a patron at a fly fishing shop tell the clerk how he'd heard that the forecast was for as much as 6 inches of snow. He mentioned that he and his wife were going skiing later, so I'm sure that perception was what he wanted to happen. Later, a young girl in a kitchenwares store told her mom she'd heard it was supposed to be icy and cold. Then, as we left the last shop before heading to lunch we heard the over-zealous sales clerk telling an old woman that she'd heard they weren't going to get any accumulation at all. I'm sure deep down her perception was based at least partly on the fact that her paycheck was tied to the store's sales and she didn't want to have to close down early. Can't let Mother Nature get in the way of paying off all those holiday credit card bills.

The reality turned out a little on the disappointing side, at least if you're like me and enjoy the white stuff. We did get to enjoy the flurries from our window seat on the second floor of a cute little restaurant in the village, but they only lasted about 4 hours and none of it stuck. Oh well, I guess everyone can't be right all the time.