Hilary Moon Murphy

Hippo Birdie

December 21, 2000

The above is a direct quote from a birthday card by Sandra Boynton. And since Sandra Boynton is currently Cassie's favorite author, it seems especially appropriate to wish her "Hippo Birdie!" on her first birthday.

Those of you who are not parents may be wondering how I determined that Sandra Boynton is Cassie's favorite author. I mean, how much of a literary critic can a one year old be?

You'd be surprised. She carts board books with her all over the house, and pulls beseechingly on the pant leg of anyone she can get to read to her. The books she chooses most often are Sandra Boynton's. I can't fault Cassie's choice, either. Sandra Boynton has a gift for telling a strong story in very few words. Add in Boynton's whimsical illustrations and rhythmic prose and you have a story that toddlers love and adults can tolerate -- a rare thing in a world dominated by Barney and Teletubbies.

What will we be doing to celebrate? We are either going to go the planetarium for the annual family solstice celebration and Holidazzle parade, or we will have a quiet evening at home letting Cassie play with her gifts. We will have to hold off the official cake destruction ceremony until a bunch of our friends and relatives come back from holiday trips elsewhere.

"Hippo Birdie!" to my college chum Inna Larsen, who will soon be having a little one of her very own.

And a belated "Hippo Birdie!" to fellow web rat Ben's newest arrival, Aviva Rahel Rosenbaum! Ben has been too busy (gosh, I wonder why?) to update his web site, but he sent me an e-mail with all the stats. To quote Ben: "Aviva was born around 1:30 a.m. on December 17th, 2000 to her happy and exhausted parents Esther and Benjamin Micah Rosenbaum, at the Basler Frauenspital, weighing 2990 grams and extending 49 cm from head to toe." For those of you who don't do metric, she's 19.3 inches long, and weighs 6.6 pounds.

She's cute, too, but I'll leave it to Ben to post the pictures when he comes online again.

Good news on the Name-Your-Own Dare front. It looks like we now have Karina, Trey, Rob, Anne, and Jennifer. And Marti is still thinking about it. Coolness! As for my own writing, last night I started working on a new plot synopsis for Fire of Genius that will incorporate much of the short story's structure and yet have room for the novel to grow. It's a fun challenge.

Happy Solstice, Everyone!

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