The Real World

Before I start the Real World story, here's Claire doing sparklers for the first time ever. Ghostly picture of her; cool picture of the sparklers.

And now for why I sat down to blog:
We just had a really nice evening with our neighbors to the south watching fireworks and chatting while the kids played on the swingset (We always make friends just as we're going to move; we need to make more of an effort next time). Anyway, it was a fun night (except for the mosquitoes), but when we got in and were getting Claire ready for bed she was insistent on changing her underwear (she's a morning changer). When we asked why she said it was because the 7-year-old neighbor boy "said I smelled bad and pooped my pants." Poor girl! She started crying, and the poor thing was checking her pants! She has never had anyone say anything mean to her, and try as we could we couldn't convince her that he was teasing or that her panties were fine. She believed what he said over her own knowledge that it hadn't happened. To make matters worse, Claire has NEVER ONCE pooped her pants. She's a perfect potty trained girl and has had no more than ten accidents ever, maybe 13 at the most. And she smells fine. Nice even. Her hair has a way of keeping the scent of conditioner for days. She smells great. Stupid boys.

And so we enter parenthood where we cannot protect our children from the cruel, cruel world. I don't like that. Claire has such a sensitive heart. I hope that she can stay that way in spite of boys who claim poopy pants.

Oh, and the thing that makes it worst of all was that she was wearing new Dora Princess panties today! He claimed that about her Princess Panties! In fact, this morning Taylor took Claire to the resthome for Sacrament Services, and one of the old ladies asked her how she was and her response was, "Great! I'm wearing new princess panties!" Stupid boys.

On a related note, and cause for repentance for us, the reason we haven't been as friendly as we should have to our neighbors is as follows: We moved here on August 25, 2007. We parked our moving truck in their parking lot. There was nowhere else to put it. About an hour into our move, the dad came out in a wife-beater and jeans and kind of rudely announced that the owners called and wanted the truck moved. We were offended at his "welcome" to the neighborhood and totally didn't believe that the owners even knew our truck was there. Come to find out (last month), the owners of his building live across the street. Oops. They probably did call. Our HUGE bad. We were upset for almost 2 years because of that. Lesson learned. Hopefully. On a side note, they had their Christmas tree up and lit on Easter. Is that weird? I totally took pictures. One with the normal setting, and one with a night setting. Christmas tree. On Easter. Oh, and all you who probably can figure out who I'm talking about---you better not rat me out. I'm sharing because I want to confess: to the hard feelings and the sneaky picture taking.That's all for now.