Belle and traveling to Romania

Belle’s world dominion started when she was very young. Sitting in her car-set throne she would control traffic lights for hapless daddy, saying “Green light GO!” repeatedly until the traffic light actually did change, seemingly in response to her latest demand. “I DID THAT!!” she always exclaimed, with confident pride and a growing sense of her own potency and power.

Now, years later, I am again reminded of her “need to achieve” as we ride bikes around the neighborhood, to the park, etc. When her bike had training wheels she learned to lean way over to the up-side while traversing a stretch of sidewalk that was tilted enough to pitch her bike into a dangerously steep angle. She jumped up and down and cheered for herself on the day that we removed the training wheels, celebrating her six-year-old passage to “big-girlness.” With or without training wheels, Belle invariably steers her bike over every reasonably crossed obstacle that she sees; a small depression caused by a utility access cap in the street, a raised reflector in the road that marks fire hydrants, a stick, a piece of paper, a bug, a skid mark, any unlucky and slow moving bug.

It’s not enough that Belle is the best reader in her K-garten class. She wants to take books to the bus-stop and read to any and all who will listen. Her bus carries K through 12^th graders, so there is a wide variation in the level of receptiveness. But with her head down and fully concentrating on the important task of exhibiting her literary prowess, she is oblivious to any “less-than-enthusiastic” responses from her fellow bus-riders.

Belle sleeps on the top bunk, now, in the bunk-bed that I had built for Walker when he was a youngster. She refuses to use the ladder on the foot of the bed where the rungs are padded and there is an opening in the railing to accommodate her ingress. Rather, she insists on ascending the head of the bed where there is more to climb, a higher pinnacle to reach, a bigger accomplishment to feel before her reluctant daily resignation to the enemy of all that is fun and interesting – bed-time.

Audrey and I have been preparing for some time for our impending travel to Romania to retrieve Walker from his mission. December was “passport month”; “ticket research” happened in January; February was the month of “reservations and confirmations”; in March we bought our travel clothing and read tourist books for Budapest, Salzburg, Venice, and Athens; and May is “packing month.”

We fly out of Miami on May 28^th and return on June 13^th. There is a chance that we will be sending emails from the other side of the pond, but if not we will share stories and pictures when we get back.

Audrey’s mother is coming to spend three weeks tending our younger children. We leave her and Belle in Courtney’s capable hands.