The Number Field

The time of year has come for Jenny and I to pull together all of our ideas and start working on our Christmas packages . Of course, we're starting early with Elena--she plays an integral part in this year's plan. Without giving the theme away, she's helping us with a craft project. Trust me, it's a great idea, but between the three of us we have no experience with this particular kind of thing.

As with any craft, practice makes perfect, so on Monday we did our first trial run. First, I made a pretty crucial mistake and we had to start over. Then Elena didn't really comprehend what she was supposed to do, so we had to scuttle our second attempt. After that, we decided to rethink our strategy. We're hopeful about some ideas, but if they don't work we might have to abandon this part of the package and replace it with something else.

On another note, I haven't written recently about the adventures of Elena and Jewel. Elena loves this cat more and more every day, and does everything she can to be close to Jewel, even though she isn't fast enough to catch her. Jewel has picked up on this, and I think that she has a Pied Piper complex. She leads Elena into odd corners, then jumps safely out of the way, leaving Elena to look up longingly. Someday soon the pendulum will swing, when Elena learns to crawl for real and pull herself up to standing, so Jewel needs to enjoy this time of relative safety.

Of course, we do everything we can to promote positive relations between the baby and the kitty. Jewel is often surprisingly calm when we bring her over to Elena for petting practice. Even when we put her right in Elena's lap, she bears it very well. Elena, on the other hand, becomes extremely excited, squealing and waving her hands. We help her to pet the kitty gently, and not pull ears. I think she's especially interested in Jewel's whiskers. By keeping these encounters short, we hope that Jewel will eventually become Elena's friend. Here's a video depicting the current state of affairs: