Hole in One Every Time

Went up to the freezing Mountasia which sounds asian but is really just a Farrell's ice cream parlor and a go-cart track up in all-white Santa Clarita. Brother Bruce was home from college and Nathan just slid along on his rainbow shadow, the Brother is the ultimate gift from the North, San Francisco.

Anyway, Lilly is too short to ride on the go-carts so she and I played mini-golf in the bitter cold while waiting for the kids to be done. Lilly's version of golf is way better than the real version. She doesn't set the ball down at the end of the green strip and then try and bat it to the far end. In fact, she thought I was an imbecile trying to tell her to set the ball down THAT FAR AWAY. She considered that, and then picked the ball up and ran all the way to the hole, then set the ball down a hands-width away from the hole (to make it challenging)and then plopped it right in with her club. Hole in one EVERY TIME. 18 holes of it.

For a girl who still refuses to poop on the potty, and can't drive, she's a skilled problem-solver.

At first I tried to show her how to hold the club, tried to steer her toward playing the "right" way, and then I just gave up. Because frankly, her way was so much better. Watching her run from hole to hole with her old spinny dress on and diaper and bare legs in the freezing cold, I kept thinking this is the greatest day of my life. The kids are so happy to be together, there was tons of leftover Thanksgiving food at home in the fridge, we were bundled up and frozen and we just had to play games for a few hours before we got to go home. Watching her play, I kept thinking, at the end of the night, I would get to crawl into bed and have Lilly fall asleep on me, with the black dog at the foot of the bed dreaming, all those blankets, and her warm sleeping body half on my stomach, a movie flickers on tv, a regular night at my house, this is the magic of a three year old.