Shrooming

Went mushroom picking in the forests of Varena yesterday. Mushroom picking is my special lady's favorite out-doorsy activity, and one I enjoy too, though she's great at it and I suck. I found three chanterelles, two of which were very small. She found about forty of those, plus a couple dozen russula, and one giant boletus, which is the #1 prize of mushroom picking. Maybe I shouldn't feel that badly, since my special baby was helping her on her first mushroom outing, and I was by myself. Egle and Mindaugas each pulled in impressive hauls too, though.

The young one got the hang of it pretty quickly. Once you have an eye for it, you don't have to check every mushroom to see if it's good: you can tell from a distance if it is has been host to worms and just walk on. After this dawned on her, whenever mother would walk by without checking a mushroom, child would turn to the mushroom and make a derisive sound made by vibrating her extended tongue and lips!

Lazy Kid's Coloring Book

Coloring.com is a website where you can "color" picutres, but not by precise hand movements with a crayon or even a mouse, but rather by using a function akin to the paint bucket in MacPaint: click to fill a space with a color you choose.

I found this site to be really good for my special baby to spend time on with me at work. She's on summer vacation: you might think she'd spend that with her mother who's also on summer vacation, but alas, her mother has relaxing and shopping to do, so she spends much of her days on my colleague's computer. Luckily my colleagues on vacation too.

The reason it's so good is its simplicity. She's never used a computer independently before, and we had some anxiety yesterday trying to get the handle of games as simple as Grab It, which uses only the left and right arrow keys. It was too frustrating for her to learn at three years old and me to explain over and over again at 27: frustrating because she understood the concept of the game completely, just couldn't master the use of the arrow keys. The only problem she has now is getting even lazier and painting everything the same color. I like it enough that I signed her up for an account so that she can save her pictures.

Boobies

Special Baby: Močiutė doesn't let me drive her car, because I'm a little girl.
Special Lady: Oh yeah?
Special Baby: Yes, I'm still a little girl, but when I'm big with boobies then I'll be able to drive.
Special Lady: What!?
Special Baby: I'm going to be a big girl with boobies, then I'll be a mother.
Special Lady: You don't say?
Special Baby: Yes, I'll be big with boobies and wear lipstick and mascara.
Special Lady: (!!!)