Marmots in the Library

This morning my sister and her kids came to the library while I was working. This is always a most amusing treat for me, because my nieces are HILARIOUS. Li'l Miss 3-year-old likes to wear long sleeves right now and she also likes fabrics that feel good when rubbed, which is how she ended up in front of me at the reference desk wearing a purple velour track suit. She looked remarkably like a library patron I see in velour track suits all the time. Except, of course, the library patron is about 75-years-old. Because that's who usually wears velour. And even the 75-year-olds who wear velour usually wear it in, like, January.

Anyway, one of the special treats of having nieces in the library is that they often show me tricks they can do. Today we were on the second floor of the library, the quiet floor, so both girls were whispering very earnestly to me about how they could stand on one foot. One foot! "Look, Aunt! Look, I can stand on one foot. One foot without hands!" This was accompanied by lots of wobbling on one foot with outstretched arms.

My favorite trick they ever did for me was, "Look, Aunt. I'm very good at being blind." The 4-year-old told me this and then went wandering across the floor with her eyes closed, arms out, smug expression on her face. Miss 3-year-old then cried, "Oh, I can be blind too!" She turned around, set out with her eyes closed, and immediately smacked directly into her sister, who was headed back, still with eyes closed. There was a huge noise of heads thunking together and then crying and accusing. So, they're not so good at being blind, after all. But they'll keep practicing, don't you worry about that.

This is a picture of Madame 3-year-old hiking in Cascade Springs last week. You can see that she has a very refined sense of fashion.