Abby is all about bats right now. She's learned about bats in alot of different places including school, the Oakland zoo and her "Animal Fieldtrip" program. Her knowledge is being conveyed right now in all of her pictures - she draws bats all the time now. Here is a picture (that she took w/ her camera) of a picture (that she drew). This is a typical bat picture - it represents the fruit bat structure at the Oakland zoo (two sort of tower things on either side, with the bat hanging off the net that is attached). The circle things coming from the bats mouth represents "echolocation" - this is how bats find their food (high pitched sounds that bounce off their prey and lets them know where they are). At the end of the "echolocation" is a mosquito that the bat will be eating. In this particular representation of the bat world, I'm not sure what that thing is on the left - although Abby said that it's the person taking care of the bats. I guess if you're going to take care of bats, this is what you have to look like.

We have an old (emphasis on old) digital camera that Mike brought home from work a year or two ago (it was earmarked for the trash). Up until now, Abby used the camera to pretend to take pictures (and sometimes she pretends to take pictures without a camera). Last night, Mike decided to throw some batteries in it to see if it actually worked (maybe being able to use the small LCD screen would give Abby an extra special "pretend" feeling). Sure enough, it worked. The camera also just so happened to use an SD card for memory - and lucky for Abby, I happened to have an 8mg one in my junk drawer! The planets aligned and a shutterbug was born. After a minute or two of instruction, she was off snapping (and staging!) photos! We are amazed at her steady hand and ability to center her subjects. And it's also interesting to see what she finds photo-worthy. Oh, to be 4.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ABBY'S PHOTO ALBUM!

As a result of a diaper-changing injury (!!) - Mom has been seeing Dr. Laura (the chiropractor, not the psychologist!). Abby went with me for the first time last week. Dr. Laura asked Abby to be her helper and had her do a few things. Today, I had to go again and asked Abby if she would like to go with me. Her response was, "I am going to be the "firepractors" helper!"

Scene 1: Dad and Mom are laughing about something in front of Abby. Abby's response, "Hey, what are you guys peckle-ing about?" We determined that she was trying to say "chuckling".

Scene 2: The Saturday morning sleep in....Abby hops in bed w/ Mom and Dad and has some cuddle time. Abby says, "Lay it on me sistah".

Scene 3: After a 3 hour conference call about databases and the like, Mom hangs up the phone only to find Abby sitting at her laptop talking on her princess cell-phone. The conversation is this, "are you going to upload the database?.....yeah......yeah......yeah........FTP it."