Full House

This weekend our not too tidy house -- aka the staging area for the voyage to China -- was overflowing with friends.

Tammy came for a playdate with JieJie as we prepare to travel to China with her as our right hand. Ann and Addam came for our last gathering before we leave for China. Sammy, best man at our wedding when all of us were young, was in town too, on his way home to New Orleans after taking his son to college.

So much for packing and organizing.

We did buy some luggage and one baby bottle. We ate some sushi. JieJie had fun. She put the icing on cinnamon rolls, made chalk stencilsonthe sidewalks and went to the pool. She also spent a lot of time playing "Big Sister and Little Sister" in which the elder sister, portrayed inexplicably by a plastic cat, repeatedly shoved the younger, a wooden girl from the multicultural and multidimensional dollhouse family, down the slide of a Little People play set. Each time the wooden or body clattered down the slide, a pressure-sensitive panel would release a rather chilling burst of childish laughter. And JieJie would scream, in the voice of big sister, "You are a baby! You sleep downstairs!" as she let the doll slide down and crash on the floor.

Auntie Ann manipulated the "baby" doll, trying calmly to teach about sharing and kindness, but JieJie, who professes to be nothing but thrilled at the prospect of a meimei, continued her forcible exile of the little sister doll.

So much for Siblings Without Rivalry.