Callia Lee Riden

I just uploaded all the new photos from last month.

Check 'em out.

Callia's hair was beautiful. Laura and I didn't want to ruin it, but her bangs were down in her eyes so we had to do something. We love her little curls in the back, but they were starting to look ratty.. they were all uneven. I don't think it helped any that Grandma Riden (or "Crazy Old Bird Lady" as I'm encouraging Callia to call her) snip-snipped a little sample for her scrapbook, either.

I decreed that if her hair wasn't cut by Sunday night, I'd pull out my clippers and give her a "high and tight" on my own. Laura made an appointment Saturday morning at a place called "Heads Up" (or something) near Target in Hermitage.

Callia did really well at first. She sat in Laura's lap in the chair and allowed a snip here, a snip there. Then the hairdresser sprayed some water into her hair. You would have thought she sprayed acid in her face by the way she screamed. I had to put the camera down and hold her for the rest of the hair cut.

It turned out ok. It looks much better, actually.. and we didn't cut her curls off or anything. Still.. $8 for 5 minutes and about as many snips! I think we'll be using the clippers at home next time. I'm pushing for a Mr. T style moehawk, but we'll see how it goes.

(BTW, I changed Callia's site a little. Hope you like it.)

I forgot to mention that we took Callia out to Chuck E. Cheese (in Hickory Hollow, Antioch) Saturday night. We ordered a pepperoni pizza and some drinks and sat down to wait for the "show" and the food.

Callia and I went to play some games while we waited.. which probably was a mistake. She rode the Stewart Little car.. where you sit next to the giant mouse in a little car and it gently rocks back and forth. She didn't seem too impressed.

Then we tried the Clifford The Big Red Dog ride. Exactly the same thing, except it's in the shape of the dog instead of a car. She LOVED it. I tried to pick her up when the ride was over and she screamed.. so we rode again. And again. And again.

She was obsessed. I looked around to see if any other kids were waiting for a ride.. I scanned the area for dirty looks from parents.. but I think we were ok.

I saw a pizza go out to our table and Laura motioned for us to come back. Callia was rather unhappy with that. She screamed "PUPPY!" and reached out for the ride all the way back to our table.

We struggled to get her to eat. She wasn't havin' it. She wanted to get back on the Clifford ride. The only thing that distracted her was the Chuck E. Cheese Show.

When I was a kid, we had Showbiz Pizza.. with a big animatronic band rockin' out and action on three stages. This place had ONE robot Chuck on a tiny stage and a large screen tv with some of his "friends" interacting with him on video. That's like phoning it in!

What was cool, though was they had a video camera set up in front of a blue wall.. so the kids could jump around and they'd be superimposed over the show on the tv's. Callia didn't go over there, but she did stand next to the stage and dance for a while.

After Laura and I ate the pizza, we went back to the Clifford ride. Callia rode it about a dozen more times.. then we started looking around for other things for her to do. She didn't like leaving the puppy.. but we did ride a Merry-Go-Round, a big dump truck ride, a school bus ride and some other stuff.

We finished up the night by playing Skee-Ball for a bit. Callia was able to roll the balls a foot or two, then I'd grab 'em and shoot 'em up at the targets for her. We did pretty well.. we'll have to take her bowling next time we want family fun.