Kathleen and Mac flew out of Laguardia this morning, headed—eventually—for a week in Northern California. Weather in Houston delayed their landing and they missed their connecting flight. I think they're on a plane to San Francisco now. They were supposed to have been landing in Sacramento this afternoon, but that's not happening.

The rental car has been canceled and a different one has been booked. All I know about how Mac is holding up is this shard of Houston telephone conversation:

"Hold on. Macky's getting yogurt everywhere."

Butchie got up alone this morning and was out the door within half an hour, strollering to the pediatrician's office in his overalls and one of the shirts I like him in. Playtime on the doctor's office floor went long, until I started to suspect the receptionists weren't checking their sign-in sheet and weren't calling us because they didn't realize both twins weren't coming today. We just looked like Daddy and baby waiting for somebody to finish up.

This suspicion turned out to be sadly true. But we had a lot fun co-narrating his activities with the waiting room toys while we waited. Open! Out! In! Closed! Open! Out! In! Closed! The lid of the toybox thing made a little noise whenever it hit the floor, so eventually he started squinting in preparation.

Butchie had actually a pretty good time until the big needle, and then he screamed. But not for terribly long, and then it was Boys' Day Errand Time.

Another half-inch of arm growth and there will be no strategically positioning his stroller in the single aisle of Cheese World. Today no matter how he stretched, he couldn't reach anything when centered horizontally; in two weeks I'm not sure how I'll outsmart him. But we had fun there despite his not being able to pull the boxes of crackers off their shelves because although Butchie doesn't know a lot, he knows these things for sure:

• The puppy says "Huff!" (He can't say "Ruff.")
  
• The sheepy says "Baa!"
  
• The cow says "Moo!"
  
• Miss Piggy says "Cuando le gusta, le gusta, le gusta, le gusta, le gusta, le gusta, le gusta!
  
• Wallace says "CHEEEEEEEEESE!
  

So naturally, being at Cheese World, I said "Cheese, Butchie!" and Butchie perked up and said "Huff!"

We hit Barnes and Noble and got a new Elmo bath book, and we hit Starbucks and Butchie leafed through his new Elmo bath book while I ordered my Iced Venti Soy Green Tea Latte ("A man's drink!" is my standard joke with the counterperson), and we stopped by the liquor store and restocked Bushmill's and Bombay Blue Sapphire and got an allegedly super-dry sake called Kira Yonjyozo, and then we went to the other Starbucks near home because Butchie's friend Jerold left a message saying he needed a few minutes of rejuvenating baby time and we figured we'd maybe hook up with him there--but then the air travel and rental car issues surfaced, so we went home to deal with them online.

They got dealt with, and then Butch wouldn't fall asleep in his crib, so we watched THE COMANCHEROS and he fell asleep in his bouncy chair.

So I lay him in his crib, had some Szechuan Beef and a glass of verifiably super-dry sake, and spit-shined my shoes.

The Viking reference is from the pediatrician. Butchie's a big boy—over 30 pounds and 34.5 inches tall at 16 months. He's from Vikings, I explained.

"I'll tell you a funny story about Vikings," said the pediatrician, and did.

If this isn't a boys' day, I'm Mavis Staples. I figure we'll shoot craps later.

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