After a morning of the quotidian, the four of us headed to a little afternoon get-together with a blog friend (whom I'd met once, a couple weeks ago, when she was interviewing for a good new job at Carleton) and the rest of her family, which none of us had met but which included three "Big Girls" - two teenagers, a.k.a. Possible Babysitters, and a tween.
The event was a kinda successful in the same sense that they grow a bit of corn across the road. Generally, everybody was wonderful; specifically, the Big Girls treated the Little Girls like princesses. Things started on a high note - with the fourteen-year-olds painting Julia's nails - and only improved. The tween played blocks with Genevieve, the older girls colored with Julia and Vivi, everyone partook of a wide variety of great snacks (Julia had her first Oreo - about thirty seconds before Genevieve did), Shannon and I got hepped up on strong coffee while talking with the blog friend and her husband, and we ended with the promise to to arrange some babysitting.
So all that was great. Even greater was how clear it was that it was all great. Julia hadn't even climbed into the car for the ride home when she started pretending to be one of the teenagers (whose first name shares an initial letter with Julia). "Daddy, say, '[Alter Ego's Name], where did you get such beautiful nail polish?'" This peaked just before dinner with Julia pretending to be her alter ego, babysitting Genevieve and telling me to go get some coffee (i.e. leave the playroom and go sit on the bed to read my email).
In short: Big Hit. I predict that the first thing Julia says tomorrow morning is that her nail polish is so pretty.