The babysitter can touch the lights

It's Memorial Day Weekend. Tomorrow marks the official start of tourist season, with its traffic jams, mini-golf, crowded ice cream stands, traffic jams, bike races and 5Ks on the street, half-naked pedestrians in big hats, traffic jams, weekend fishermen, lost flip flops, and traffic jams.

It's the day when locals start thinking about Labor Day.

It's the day when the newspaper editorial says, "This is supposed to be about our fallen vets, not beer and cookouts!" to be hardly glanced at by thousands of beer-drinking backyard partygoers.

Today we've decided to keep our plans low-key, in case of traffic jams. We went to church, where I talked briefly to our new babysitter's father. Our babysitter is a 13-year-old boy adopted from China - not that AwesomeCloud cares right now. But we the parents care. Anyhow, the boy had never had a babysitting job before - he just got his certification last month or so - so we were his first clients. It was an easy job - we got Cloud ready for bed ahead of time, so all the boy had to do was play with him for a while, then put him in the crib and entertain himself for 3 hours.

His father asked, "You you have any suggestions for improvement? Anything he could have done better?"

Well, the boy hadn't actually done much of anything. He might have petted Riley and he might have sat on the sofa under the one lamp we'd left on. The house was so exactly as we'd left it that the only way I'd have known he was there was that he was still there when we got home.

"He can turn on the lights," I said. "He can eat the snacks, listen to the radio, and adjust the lights however he wants them. He was using them; not us."

"Oh," said the father. "Okay."

Then we went to a flea market, where Cloud tagged along willingly, but didn't start having a good time until we gave him a cup of frozen lemonade. With a straw. He spent the rest of our flea market time dragging his feet, playing with his straw and cup. He loves those things.

Now is naptime. Then, at 5:00 PM we'll all go to Audubon and release some captive-bred spadefoot toads into the wild. Spadefoot toads are very, very rare. They live near salt marshes, and, well, there just aren't that many salt marshes along the East Coast anymore. Humans keep building stuff on them. The few salt marshes that are left are badly polluted, because by nature salt marshes act as repositories for all sorts of pollutants. We have no idea unless we go out and study the polluted salt marsh phenomenon.

APCC, a different organization that my husband and I have done work with in the past, has made great strides in improving the conditions of certain salt marshes around here. So who knows; maybe the tiny young spadefoot toads will have a fighting chance this time around.

It's time for childhood sports

AwesomeCloud is two years old. That means in a year he'll be three, and when he's three, it'll be time to begin the process of choosing sports to enroll him in.

Three. Really? I played soccer for one year when I was ten, and I didn't join Brownies until I was eight.

So I was always the oldest kid whenever I finally joined something. We're not going to do that to AwesomeCloud. Other people start their kids early, and we'll... give it some thought, at least.

Here are my specific thoughts:

Hockey: My brother said it's important to get the kid on ice skates early, or else he'll struggle to keep up with all of his teammates who were skating at age three. This may be so. I can't stay upright on roller skates, so there's no way I'm teaching him how to ice skate. The equipment is expensive, the games are at 6 AM, and the hockey parents are insane. (Maybe not all of them, but the ons in the news are.) Verdict: No.

Tennis: I was a very casual tennis player. I could serve, but after that the game tended to fall apart. However, the more you play, the better you get, and once you learn to get it over the net with some regularity, tennis is a lot of fun. It can even be relaxing, if you're not McEnroe. Plus you can wear normal clothes, you can use the same tennis racket for years, and the tennis courts are right across the street from our house! Will he be playing real tennis at age three? No. Will we get him a toddler racket and let him whack balls around? Yes.

Football: Easy one. Not until high school. Then he'll have to beg and plead and present a good case for why football won't give him brain damage and end his career prospects as a neurosurgeon. Even then, the verdict may still be No.

Soccer: I like soccer. I played it for a year. It's simple, easy to play even without a full understanding of the rules, and popular all over the world. No matter where he goes, from Belize to Borneo, he'll be able to find someone to play soccer with. (Or futbol.) At age three he may be barely bigger than the ball, but he may still be able to kick it, and that's what counts. Verdict: Yes.

Basketball: What, my little pipsqueak? Besides, three-year-olds don'y play basketball. Three-year-olds play toss into a toddler-sized basketball hoop. Cloud does that already. If he wants to play kids' league in coming years, I'll let him, but he may be too short to get very far. Verdict: Sure, I guess, we could try it.

Martial arts: Yes, yes, many times yes! What small child doesn't like dressing up in a loose robe, going barefoot, and kicking up high in the air while shouting "Hi-ya!"? I wish I'd done it. Martial arts build self-esteem right from the beginning, and they don't have seasons or tons of special equipment. The rules can be added as they learn. We'd sign him up for Kung Fu, of course. Gotta go with the Chinese arts. Verdict: Absolutely, let's go, sign him right up!

Baseball: I like watching baseball. My husband didn't like playing in little league, but some kids do. I don't see anything wrong with baseball. If he's interested, Yes.

Okay. After he's settled into sports, we'll evaluate his options for musical instruments. I'm thinking drums.

Mixed messages from my mother

Last night, my mother called to wish me a happy birthday. At the end of the conversation, she accused me of being anti-American. Then she wished me a happy birthday again.

Thanks, Mom!

Actually I'm not angry that she said I was anti-American. For her to use the hot-button phrases of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, et al is a lot like me quoting Monty Python. I do quote Monty Python sometimes. But I've watched very little of it and have only the sketchiest idea what it's about. I get my quotes from the company I keep.

And I guess I can't blame my mother for trying. I overwhelm her in almost every conversation we have. She has to respond somehow, I suppose.

I'm just annoyed because, even if she doesn't understand the current political context of her accusation, the very term "anti-American" sounds undeniably negative. One American calling another American "anti-American" can only mean trouble, in any context, regardless of whether they are strangers or mother and daughter.

Next time I lose you, Mom, try something a little nicer. Remember, I'm a blogger. Don't mess with the blogger, or you might get blogged about.

(At least the term has six syllables. She could have called me something monosyllabic, like "jerk," which might have made me cry in frustration.)

By the way, I had a lovely birthday. The best birthday I've had in years.

Baby's first comic show

Yesterday Daddy, AwesomeCloud and I, plus one friend, went to Portland ME to sell comic books at the comic book show. The Portland show is lovely. The ocean view is fantastic - you'll have a hard time finding a comic show with a better view no matter where you look. (Hawaii, maybe.)

The convention center is right on the water, and it's all windows, and for two years running, our table was on the ocean side of the room. Sweet!

There was also a balcony, and the door to the balcony was right behind our table. It was perfect. When Cloud got restless, we could turn around, take him out that door, and let him run around on the balcony with just the seagulls for company.

The only downside was that, every time we opened the door, all the minicomics on our table got blown to the floor.

Having our friend with us was an enormous help. She wasn't specifically assigned to childcare, but she played with Cloud and took him for walks, which gave Daddy and me more time to talk to customers. She also minded the table by herself for a few stretches of time. See, my husband and I kept bumping into our indy comic friends, and catching up with them, and we probably spent much longer chatting with the other vendors than we should have.

But it all worked out. Everyone had fun, and best of all, we sold lots of books. $62 worth. Mostly $1 minicomics.

That's a LOT of minicomics.

We only ran out of one issue, though - Unpopular Species #1. The species might be unpopular, but the book is very popular.

And most importantly... AwesomeCloud was awesome.

That's a relief for us. Because he's going to grow up attending these shows, and if he had trouble tolerating the crowds and the noise and the long hours, we'd have to back off for a bit until he was a little older. Fortunately, he's cool with being at these shows, so we'll keep at it.

I'm not saying we're taking him to Origins anytime soon... or even SPACE or SPX. Sorry. I hope our friends at those shows don't mind waiting a few more years. In those cases, though, it's not the show itself keeping us away. It's the commute.

My husband took a ton of pictures, but none of them have been formatted yet, and I'm too tired and lazy. It's a beautiful day and naptime is only so long.

This morning, AwesomeCloud and I transplanted one hydrangea. I gave him a tiny, tiny trowel from Mimi's old pouch of odd gardening tools, so he wouldn't do much damage while he was helping. He sprayed us both with small amounts of dirt, but the hydrangea is successfully relocated.

I'd like to do the second one while he's sleeping. Or I could do laundry and stuff.... eh....

Video from Zombie Day

AwesomeCloud appears at 0:57. It's essentially the same shot in the photo I posted yesterday.

I suppose I should post a warning for the squeamish, but it's not actually very realistic. Children 5 and under probably shouldn't watch it, but to us grown-ups, it's just a bunch of people (including the cameraman, who works for the local paper) having fun.

AwesomeCloud and the ZOMBIE INVASION!!!

Local news today:

A four-car pile-up on the Bourne Bridge slows traffic coming onto and off of the Cape for most of the morning...

The driver who struck and killed a woman in a wheelchair has been identified as an 18-year-old girl...

The proposed Wampanoag casino might end up in Fall River instead of Middleboro...

and Hyannis was ATTACKED BY ZOMBIES!!!! AHHH! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

Or you can take a cue from AwesomeCloud and watch with mild curiosity as they groan and flail at you on camera, and giggle and joke when you put the camera away.

Bystanders remarked that AwesomeCloud was astonishingly mellow and unafraid of all the zombies surrounding him. I remarked, "Oh, this is nothing. One time, he walked right up to Boba Fett."

We enjoyed our photo op, and as we headed back to the stroller, a gentleman waved at me and asked, "So, did you take him to a science fiction thing or something, when he met Boba Fett?"

"It was Free Comic Book Day, actually," I replied.

"Ah," said the man. "I'm a reporter for the Cape Cod Times. May I ask you your names?"

So, yeah. Not only did we witness a newsworthy event, but now we may even be mentioned in the newspaper. (Or not. The article will primarily be about the participants, and they'll be roaming the streets till 4:00 PM, so maybe he'll collect better bystander reactions than ours.)

My son likes black people

A friend of mine with a young daughter said he wanted to introduce her to the presence of black people, so that she'd grow to be comfortable with them. However, the opportunities have not come up much, which is not surprising around here. We have black people. But unless some are your personal friends, or you go out a lot and talk to lots of strangers, if you have a day job and your social time is limited, it can be hard to purposely find ethnic diversity of any sort.

The tourist-centered nature of this region makes it all even harder. In summer we're teeming with people who will be gone in a week, and in the winter our population is sparse and spread out. I'm not saying we locals are unfriendly. But on the other hand, what's the point of reaching out? All the real social activities are for the out-of-towners, and when they leave, the rest of us cherish the quiet.

However, if you know where to go and when to go there, you get a glimpse of small-town living with just a touch of diversity.

If you go out often enough, as AwesomeCloud and I do, and you look at enough people, and you develop a friendly streak, you can beat the odds and experience some diversity.

Lots of people come up to us and fawn over AwesomeCloud. Most of them are female, white, and retired, and AwesomeCloud may have had a glut of that particular demographic. Sometimes he decides who HE wishes to be friendly to. Sometimes he spots somebody particularly appealing in the crowd, and he waves frantically at them and says, "Hi!"

(Or rather, he flails in their general direction, often waiting until their back is to him, and yells, "AIEE!" Same thing.)

His number one target? Black men.

(I'm including some men who were probably part Wampanoag, because many of the Wampanoag have dark complexions and African-American-like features, and in fact may be part African-American; I've heard that there really aren't any full-blooded Wampanoag anymore, which makes sense, as it is supposedly a tribe that got fully integrated before recently reestablishing itself as an entity. Anyway, the details of a random stranger's ethnic heritage are meaningless to a toddler.)

I am pleased to report that at least half of these men say hi back. (The men whose backs are facing us when AwesomeCloud was frantically greeting them are at a disadvantage; maybe they'd greet him back, too, if only they knew.) They speak directly to him, using phrases like, "How ya doing, my man?" And I find that inordinately cute.

The senior citizens usually pepper me with questions, and if they address him at all, it's as an afterthought.

Well, to be fair, a few of the regular mallwalkers greet Cloud directly. But if we're generalizing by demographic, then talking directly to AwesomeCloud isn't a common behavior.

I don't know how much is a racial thing. Asians are very, very interested in questioning me all about AwesomeCloud's story and the dynamics of our family. I'm okay with this overt directness, because in China, everyone was like that. Among white people, women pry more but men occasionally do too. But not black people. One time at a library playgroup we sat next to a black man and his daughter, and I talked with him while our nonverbal children both squirmed and clung to us, and he didn't ask me a single personal question. I volunteered some basic info, as did he... I mean, we were in a conversation, so of course we have to talk about something!

Only once has a black person asked us directly about adoption, but she's adopted too, so we were making a connection. She's an actual friend of ours now, though. I can't remember if AwesomeCloud ever waved at her and said, "AIEE!" Maybe she'd remember. But I'd feel silly asking.

There's one other person we see regularly, and AwesomeCloud greets that guy obsessively every time we see him. He is the only black morning custodian at the mall.

He says hi back, too.

Hehe.

My brother and sister-in-law spent the weekend, and they brought their old aquarium. We set it up while Cloud was out with Daddy, and then we all went out to a seafood restaurant for lunch. After that, we went to the pet store to get fish.

Fish! Six of them! AwesomeCloud is very interested in them, although I'm probably more so.

If I'd known how much I'd enjoy having an aquarium, I might have gotten one sooner.

Or not. We've always had something else going on. Living in tiny apartments, or cats, or something.

Uncle Chris also helped us assemble Cloud's red car. He hasn't figured out how to propel it forward yet, but he can get hours of entertainment out of it. Instead of riding it around the driveway, he leaves it in one place, gets in, gets out, runs a few steps, runs back, gets in, gets out...

I can't explain the fascination with entering and exiting a car repeatedly. I just stood and watched, and occasionally rescued the car when it rolled backwards into the hydrangeas.

I'm not kidding about the "hours" part. The attention span on this kid is amazing. He's only two! And full of energy! You'd think he'd flit from one thing to another, but when he gets going on a certain task, it's hard to distract him.

Unless you offer him baked goods. His obsession with baked goods is even greater than his glee over the plastic car.

Austerity measures

So Greece is forcing its people to practice austerity measures.

Austerity measures... sounds good to me! Why are the Greeks violently protesting? Seriously, why? The answer to a nationwide financial meltdown is violence? And they actually DISLIKE austerity measures?

Bah.

I think I'll practice my own austerity measures.

...

...more.

...

I know the Chinese government was all gung ho about the idea that AwesomeCloud was being adopted into a life of wealth and luxury and opportunity... hell, the opportunity is absolutely true. He has tons of opportunity, and we plan to encourage him to do good things in his life.

However, we live within our means. Maybe, sometimes, even a little below our means. (That's how we managed to remain unaffected by the recession.)

Austerity - it's more valuable than two mortgages on your McMansion and a yearly tropical cruise.

The Greeks are doing it wrong.

Mother's Day recap

How could I not blog about my very first Mother's Day?

Possibly, by realizing I botched something up pretty badly at work and by choosing to spend tonight scrambling to fix it instead of typing up a long, rambling entry about lunch at a nice restaurant and a trip to the cemetery. Oh yes, and a shrub that we haven't bought yet, but that was promised to me.

Sorry. This fix is complicated but important, and I must return to it. Tomorrow I need to call my boss and give him the thumb's up. Trust me; Mother's Day was lovely. And I hope alla youse had a lovely day too.

Next weekend might be a little better documented. My brother and sister-in-law are coming to give AwesomeCloud.... a fish! In an aquarium! For real! One more pet for me to clean up after. (Well, it was my idea; I kinda want an aquarium too. And if it starts to go wrong, I can always ask my brother to help me fix it again, and buy more fish.)

Beautiful day, la la

We had a nice, quiet, slow morning at the butterfly garden.

Actually, there was lots of running around, gobbling of large amounts of Cheerios, and fussing and whining, but I didn't do any of it.

The funny thing was that the fussing and whining came in the middle. I kept trying to pick one last weed, one last weed, and Cloud kept trying to prevent me from doing so. Finally I gave up and strolled him back to the car.

As soon as we got there, he turned around and tried to lead me back.

We're finding a mass infestation of swallow wort around the garden plots. I took a picture, but I currently don't have the camera so I can't upload it. Here, let me draw one for you.









It's very small right now. The Audubon guy is going to spray it with Roundup sometime when we're not around. In the meantime, I'm picking off those little heads.

Eventually it will look like this:


We hope to prevent that from happening. But it's invasive and fast-growing and it has a spaghetti-like root base that's impossible to remove. Also, it kills monarch butterflies. Swallow wort is related to milkweed, and it smells just as bad, but monarch caterpillars can't subsist on it.

Of all the rotten things to have in a butterfly garden, this is the worst.

I'm also pulling up a lot of grass, which is not harmful to butterflies, but grass air-pollinates so it doesn't produce any nectar.

(That's why so many people get grass allergies.)

Remember my previous post, in which AwesomeCloud suffered various small mishaps throughout the day? That's becoming a pattern now. There are mashed finger incidents and stubbed toe incidents and dropped food incidents and other unpleasant surprise incidents.

I had a scone and I was going to split it with him when I noticed it had mold. "Ew! Ewwy!" I said dramatically and I threw it across the Audubon parking lot. AwesomeCloud gave me THE MOST HORRIFIED LOOK, as if he'd just watched me behead the cat. Actually, he can't eat a cat. Anyway, it was a genuine "you don't love me and also you're dangerously crazy" look.

And then he didn't cry... quite. Maybe a little.

Someday that whole scene will make sense to him. For now, though, Mama has fallen off her rocker and the world is a twisted, cruel, unforgiving place.

Then we went to the store and got a chicken salad sandwich, which I didn't fling into the dirt, so maybe the world isn't such a bad place after all.

Monday of mishaps

I know it's Tuesday. :-P

It's Tuesday, May the 4th... be with you... and maybe I was in a bad mood, a little nervous, because today was our adoption clinic appointment. Maybe I was also annoyed about falling behind on the housework, too, and I'm not a pleasant person when I'm doing housework. I'm a Person Doing Housework. I don't multitask.

It started off great, with AwesomeCloud endlessly begging for food and me running out of things to offer him except Cheerios. I backed into him while sweeping the floor and knocked his Cheerios all over the floor, and he cried over them for a long, long time.

(There was no milk. Go figure.)

Then I figured we'd cheer ourselves up with a trip to the butterfly garden. I got the sunscreen, and AwesomeCloud took a fingerful of sunscreen and planted it in his eye.

There was more crying, but this time, his tears helped wash out his eye. I washed it out as well as I could, but I could only do so much. I could have held his face under running water, but that seemed like a bad idea. With my luck, he would have found a way to drown.

So we got to the butterfly garden, where I discovered I'd forgotten my gloves and trowel. So we decided to look for rocks to decorate the edges with. There's a wooded path from the garden to Audubon HQ, and we walked along it with the stroller. I should get a wilderness-friendly stroller. The stroller I have can barely get over the occasional root.

We saw Ian, the Audubon guy, and AwesomeCloud offered Ian his shoe. Ian politely declined. But then he promised to send me an info sheet for my garden plot. Yay! Now I can find out what all the plants are while I take care of them.

Soon it was time to leave for Boston. We packed water and more Cheerios, and we got a donut on our way up. When we reached the adoption clinic, AwesomeCloud suddenly realized where he was, and in an involuntary knee-jerk reaction he spilled his Cheerios aaallllllll over the waiting room.

He was shocked and upset to see what he'd just done, and cried to tell me so. I told him I didn't blame him one bit - that was an awful lot of Cheerios he'd just wasted in the single jerk of an arm, and in fact it was the only snack I'd brought him.

I don't blame him for crying when his vitals were taken, either. He has hospital fatigue. I have it too. I know what it feels like.

It got better after the toys came out. I got interviewed and questioned a lot while he played. He failed performed poorly on the Standardized Development Test. At least this time he passed the object permanence test - he looked for, and found, the yellow bear, in spite of the fact that he hates toy animals.

He also picked up a doll and threw her across the room. That was... um... new. I don't think he's ever touched a doll before. Certainly not voluntarily.

He failed to respond to verbal instructions of any kind, which was hilarious. Because then when we went back into the waiting room to wait for Part II, guess what he did. Yup, he listened to me. Sneaky little kiddo.

The assistant thought he has a hearing problem. The MD grilled me about what I thought, later, and I admitted that I seriously doubted that AwesomeCloud has a hearing problem. He can hear the fridge open from the bedroom. He's like a cat. In fact, sometimes I mentally group him with the cats. They all clamour for my attention, and lately, I've really craved solitude. Catless, kidless solitude.

And a clean house.

I blame the seasonal changes for that. I love early spring. It's too early for tourists but warm enough to go outside. Last year I'd wake up around 6 AM every morning and walk around the yard barefoot in the dew, checking my garden and my shrubs with a cup of tea clutched in my hands. I did that this morning. I miss that routine.

Cloud has apparently hit his curve. He's done with his rapid growth-spurt catchup, and now he's leveling off and settling happily into the 10th percentile. This means he will probably always be very short. The MD is pleased with his rate of growth, however. She thinks 10% is pretty decent, compared to how scrawny and undersized he used to be.

She also complimented the holy heck out of me. I wonder if she picked up on my trepidation. Or maybe she remembered our last meeting, during which I responded to her snarky comments with, "Grumble grumble." And then when she asked me what was wrong, I said, "I don't like being scrutinized."

Then she said, "Are you worried that you're inadequate as a parent?"

"Not generally," I said. "Only when I'm being scrutinized. At home I don't think like that at all."

So, yeah, a little lack of subtlety on my part. But that was 4 months ago. Who knows; maybe she remembers stuff like that after 4 months.

In any case, she complimented me till the cows came home today, and I, as is typical, can't take a compliment. I don't know; I just feel the urge to deflect compliments. I want to grouch about them. I don't feel the slightest urge to smile at them.

Sometimes I smile anyway. Compliments are fleeting things, and so are smiles, so I figure what's the difference? However, I didn't smile this time. I grouched.

I'm incorrigible, I guess. And so is my son.

I can't believe he didn't point to the picture of the cat! He's been able to identify pictures of cats since last year! Oh well, his low Development Test scores just means he'll qualify for Early Intervention for awhile longer. And I know he can do it. He finds and identifies pictures of cats when nobody else is even paying attention to them.

She asked him to point to the "kitty." Maybe that was it. She corrected herself after I interjected that we use the word "cat" at home, but maybe AwesomeCloud has a thing against the word "kitty." Maybe he can hold a grudge like I can.

On our way out, the MD gave him a sticker of a kitten. I stuck it on the front of his shirt. For awhile afterwards, he pointed to his chest and proudly announced, "Caaaaat! Meow!"

So, yeah, the folks in the elevator and the parking garage know he can ID a cat.

Then more things went wrong, but half of them were traffic-related.

AwesomeCloud's growth spurts (plural)

First, a literal growth spurt. After losing two precious pounds due to surgery, AwesomeCloud is shooting upward yet again. I swear he grew an inch in April, and now he's back to eating ravenously and being scarily obsessed with food. He's gearing up for a super-sized growth spurt, that will start any minute now.

His favorite food obsession is muffins, with cake being an acceptable alternative. Cakelike cookies also get him worked up. He's so obsessive that I've decided to cut us back on baked sweets for a while. If they're not in the house and they don't become part of a routine, maybe his obsession won't get out of control. I may even consider banning muffins and cakes entirely if he can't lighten up a bit. I hate to do that, though. Muffins are yummy. I'd feel like I'm depriving him.

(I seem to have forgotten all about Amazing Organic Food Mom already. How typical of me.)

I took the kid clothes shopping this morning. He enjoyed the outing and didn't put up a fuss. Why not? Two reasons: I didn't keep a tight rein on him and I didn't make him try anything on. Someday our shopping trips won't be as pleasant, but for now I'm just buying up anything cheap that says "2T" on it.

I only got 5 items, however, and two were pajamas. I hate buying baby clothes. It all gets outgrown so quickly, and then I give it away to a friend for free. I like giving hand-me-downs, but I want to get some, too.

The second growth spurt is in language. Can I say he's talking yet? He has a vocabulary of maybe 40-60 words, but very few of them are comprehensible.

Today he asked for something - a toy car - by name. That was a new development. Usually he says, "Doo?" for everything, no matter if it's food, toys, or the lid to the Aquaphor. This method gets him what he wants 60% of the time, sometimes after some trial and error during which he gets impatient for Mama and Dad to hurry up and pick the correct object.

This time he said, "Doo?" Then he thought about it for a few seconds and added, "Cah?"

I'm not worried that he'll rely on pointing to get what he wants and thereby be unmotivated to learn words. A 60% success rate isn't good enough for him. However, it's genuinely the best his Dad and I can do. We're both bad at guessing.

I also don't think our failure to teach him any sign language will affect him one way or the other.

Free Comic Book Day, with kid

AwesomeCloud meets Boba Fett.

And Mama runs to catch up, snapping pictures all the way.

We also got a bunch of free comic books, and gave some of our own minicomics away. AwesomeCloud is too little to understand what comic books are all about, but he's starting to sense that they're important somehow.

He was surprisingly unperturbed by Boba Fett's mask. The Tusken Raider (not pictured) didn't get as positive a reaction. Too bad. She seemed really sweet.