Wednesday, July 7, 2004: Jasper National Park, Western Canada
Miss Claire is under my care. “One?” She shakes her head. “Two?” She shakes her head. “Three?” She nods, slowly and wisely. It’s quite a thing to be nearly three years old.
Last night’s soaking of the tent, through insidious seeping, becomes nearly general. Noodles for dinner. There’s Mr. Noddy, a squirrel that the boys keep chasing. Spence is a moose. We struggle to get, to keep that fire going. We have a couple more river excursions to generate some two-on-one time and more individual conversation.
With the clouds gathering and the darkness slowly coming down, we get in the tent and give Claire her birthday present. This is a set of ten pretty cool finger puppets. We sing several times. Claire accepts our acclaim. We have a few false theatrical starts, and then Drew has a good idea. We tell the story and the puppets follow suit.
The boys take the back seats while the girls settle in the tent and begin to drop off. Claire, the car napper, remains chirpingly awake. Drew, kindly and with real enthusiasm, plays with her, concentratedly, for well over an hour. Mostly they exchange Sponge Bob episodes/dialogues, whole episodes in fact, more or less verbatim. “Taking out the trash…” There’s pop culture, providing, imposing our entertainment. On the other hand, there’s this enormous geniality, and plenty of allowance for personal shading and expression. Plus one of the great displays of sorority in recent memory.