entertainment

Car rides with Ada have become an interesting endeavour. Long gone are the days where she just sat in the back and quietly took in the sights of our drive. These days she wants constant stimulation, especially in the car, because car rides are so boring - all you do is sit there and watch the road pass by. I try to provide her with a range of toys to play with and that usually works for part of the ride, but it always comes down to the one ace in the hole trick - singing and clapping. Ada LOVES it when we sing, and loves it even more when we clap and sing. She will bop her head back and forth and clap along. She doesn't care what we are singing about, as long as it comes with a "clap, clap, clappity, clap" she is happy. The other night on the way to my brother's house she got particularly into the clapping and head bopping and ended up so excited that she didn't know what to do and just whirled her arms back and forth and up and down so fast it looked like there was a little ball made out of baby arms spinning around in front of her. She finished this flourish with a loud squawk and then a string of babble with good conversation cadence to it. Like she wanted to tell me about how much fun she was having. Most of the time, I feel like my sole purpose in life these days is to entertain Ada as she makes her way through life, but every once in a while, something like this happens, and I realize that we share the job of Chief Entertainment Officer in our house - I just run more meetings than she does.