Lilah's 1st Birthday Trip

We visited Lilah for the week of her first birthday. She entertained us continuously with her sunny, inquisitive disposition. Our first outing with Lilah was a visit to Daddy's office, where we met a couple of his fellow professors.

Lilah at Daddy's Work

It became apparent we have lost a step as parent-types. Only Mommy could successfully feed her. We learned one has to give her hands something to occupy them while distracting her from one side and then sneaking the spoon in from the other side. We had to let Daddy read her to sleep. One has to keep the book out of her reach because of her inclination to rip out the pages, and I was too big a distraction to her to enable sleepiness to take over.

Grandpa Fails To Get Food Into Lilah

Lilah loves to be carried around to look at things and seems to enjoy hearing what things are called. I let her go where no toddler has gone before, down the slope in the back yard to the tall grass. She likes the small slide and toy trampoline also, and generally shows no fear.

Lilah Admires Grandma's Necklace (Which Grandma Crafted Herself)

Lilah now seems to prefer getting out and walking rather than being in her stroller, and generally wants to go in some direction other than the planned one. She decidedly prefers to be free and not enclosed in contraptions, be it high chairs, car seats, or strollers. But Lilah loves her bath.

Grandpa Gives Lilah a Good Scrubbing.

Lilah is a hugger. She hugs the dog and any small person within her reach. The dog isn't too happy about this, but tolerates her. Hopefully other small people will not feel threatened by her forwardness as a hugger. She also likes to try out her eight gleaming teeth and her powerful small grip on anyone willing to let her experiment on them (her Grands for instance).

Our guest room was next to Lilah's room. She is a great sleeper, waking only at the appropriate hour (from the Grands' point of view). And her waking routine is a clue to her disposition. She sits up and carries on a continuous babbling conversation with some doll or stuffed animal for as much as 20 minutes before calling out for someone to come say good morning to her. I can't imagine a more pleasant waking chime than Lilah's babbling.

Mommy made a great birthday celebration with a butterfly theme. Lilah's birthday will always be the icing on Daddy's birthday, which is three days before. My mood was definitely brightened by Lilah's smile and inquisitiveness. I think I can keep my smiling act going now, inspired by the memory of our visit together.

Butterfly Cake

Butterfly Hat

Butterfly Birthday Greeting Wall

Side Trip One - Gettysburg

Debby and I borrowed the Prius and took a day trip to Gettysburg to meet Debby's brother Richard, who drove up from Baltimore. Gettysburg is roughly the halfway point between Baltimore and the Harrisburg area. We enjoyed a picnic together and Richard spotted a large cardinal, a first sighting for me. Then we drove around the battlefield, buying a CD at the Visitor Center to enable a self-guided tour. We found a sunny day in the mid-80s.

Debby and Richard On The Path Up Big Roundtop

The battlefield has a number of monuments to both sides, as well as field pieces, scattered along the tour route. Fortunately, it was just before the main travel season, so it wasn't excessively crowded there. One group of re-enactment infantrymen fired a musket volley just as we drove by. That was a nice reminder that no battlefield can be truly appreciated without the violent sounds that ruled the day. Other monuments informed of the sounds of the sharpshooter's rounds zinging by and through, fired from up to a mile away with deadly accuracy. Having heard the musket volley, one can scarce imagine what the cannon fire must have sounded like.

Louisiana Memorial

As with any battlefield, the lay of the land plays a prominent role. There are two north-south ridges, Seminary Ridge (Rebels) to the west, and Cemetery Ridge (Union) to the east, with a small plain less than a mile wide between, containing several prominent battle locations such as the Wheat Field and the Peach Orchard. When one thinks of ridges one normally thinks of elevations of hundreds to thousands of feet. Here, we speak only of tens of feet, but any elevation provides a battle advantage. Cemetery ridge is anchored at the south end by the Little and Big Roundtop prominences, which are significant, and at the north by Cemetery Hill, where the Union boys are buried and where Lincoln delivered his poetic Gettysburg Address. A gift for poetry should be a requirement for President, I think, definitely more so than a birth certificate.

Side Trip Two - Amish-Mennonite Area of Lancaster County

Debby and I borrowed the Prius again for an overnighter to a B&B on Main Street in Churchtown. This is lovely rolling farmland in the heart of Amish-Mennonite country. We were the only guests at the Inn and had a quiet evening and fine breakfast before our day tripping.

Debby learned a lot about the differences between the Amish and Mennonites while chatting with the owner. Apparently once united, the Mennonites were willing to relax their rules but the Amish sect wished to retain all the old Ordnung and to introduce shunning as reprisal against those that rebelled against the Order.

Today the Amish and Mennonite sects span the spectrum from complete adherence to Ordnung and separation from society, over to the liberal side that allows for considerable relaxation of rules and integration with society. In the middle are found strange concessions to modernization, such as tractors with steel wheels to encourage use only in the field, rather than general transport, which is provided by horse-drawn buggies. Debby learned that Mennonite buggies are black, while Amish buggies are two-tone brown/black.

Mennonite Horse-Drawn Buggy

Mennonite women typically wear prints and pastels, while Amish women wear dark solid-color frocks. Amish married men wear untrimmed beards and straw hats. A Mennonite man might look like anyone else. They homeschool only through the 8th grade. Then it is work, family, and devotion for life.

The Amish still insist on no mechanization and can be seen plowing fields with horse-drawn plows. They also allow no connection to the grid, either for water or power. They pay no social security and do not insure themselves.

We walked along a farm road for a while. A small herd of dairy cows took a liking to us and followed us all the way along their pasture fence. It was an odd feeling, not understanding the nature of their interest in us. We visited the towns of Intercourse and Bird-In-Hand and bought some souvenir jams and relishes for our hosts, along with a mini ShooFly Pie. On the way home we stopped in the town of Lititz for lunch, a small burgh with a couple of blocks of shops, some good chocolate and pretzel sources, and a few restaurants.