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Cora has been helping out at the grocery store for over a year now by driving the shopping cart. Callie was relegated to the backward-facing baby seat during these trips.

Well things have changed. Just last week Callie was promoted to co-driver. Now daddy’s all alone at the back of the buggy.

We recently went to see The Wiggles at an afternoon concert in the middle of DC. That means a forty minute drive to the city, navigating through crowded, unfamiliar city streets, finding the concert venue, and then finding a parking garage near the concert venue. Then we watch the show and, afterward, return to our parking garage to discover it’s jam-packed with other families trying to leave at the same time. So, thinking on our feet, we drag everyone back out of the garage to find a toddler-friendly restaurant and supper before returning to our now-empty parking garage just in time to enter DC evening rush hour traffic. It took us 2.5 times as long to get home as it took us to enter the city.

The day after the concert I was hoping Cora would bubble over with excitement about how she loved seeing The Wiggles. Fishing for one of those smiles that would make the previous day’s adventure worth the effort, I asked her what she remembered about the concert. Her answer was, “We parked inside a building.”

I posted some images from Halloween of Cora dressed in her Boohbah costume. This has caused more than one person to ask, “What’s a Boohbah?” By the standards of this website, anything being seen by more than one person constitutes great traffic–a veritable groundswell of interest!–so I’m going to address that question here. Thus will my loyal readership (yes, both of you) gain enlightenment.

Here is a picture of five of the six Boohbahs known to exist: Humbah, Zumbah, Zing Zing Zingbah, Corbah, and Jingbah. It should be noted that Corbah is not widely known outside of the Coleman household, with most fans instead referring to the blue Boohbah by the name Jumbah.

Boohbah is a kids show on PBS that involves a lot of exercising and running around, and Cora loves to dance and run around right along with it. She started slow at first, but now she tells me, “Daddy, dance!” when Humbah, Zumbah, Zing Zing Zingbah, Jumbah, and Jingbah start running around.

The best physical description of the Boohbahs from a news organization comes from the AP via CNN: gumdrops clad in Astroturf. My impression is that the Boohbahs look like visitors from a planet where the dominant species had evolved from shag rug and then grew exceedingly obese and sparkly.

Cora, however, does not judge by appearances. The Boohbahs make fun sounds and do fun dances and have a cute little dog named Fido. And, especially now that she has her Boohbah Halloween costume, she’s becoming one of them.

This is Cora in an outfit that Uncle Brad sent to her while he was stationed in Korea. It’s not a kimono, which is Japanese, but probably an example of the Korean formal dress known as hanbok. However, if I had titled this article “The Hanbok” you wouldn’t have known what I was talking about, would you?

When Uncle Brad sent this outfit Cora was much too small to wear it, but she seems to have grown into it pretty well in the intervening year, yes? The outfit ended up hanging in a closet and was only recently retrieved: these pictures show the very first time she’s tried it on.

Cora just loved the new outfit. It’s silky, it looks cool, and we say “Uncle Brad” a lot while she’s wearing it, which she likes. The shimmery smoothness of it reminds me of something worn in the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, so I tried coaching Cora in some basic martial arts moves. The picture to the left shows her balanced on both feet ready for any attack Master Li Mu Bai and his sword, the Green Destiny, might throw at her. (Not really. It just shows her standing there. But dream with me!)

The last image shows Cora making a scary face when I told her to look tough. Nice try, kid.

Callie turned one year old on October 10, 2004. We had a party in honor of the event.

You can find pictures of candles, gifts, and face-stuffings here.

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Tina’s lifting dumbbells. Cora says, “Put them down, Mommy.” Tina asks, “Why should I put them down?” Cora says, “Because they’re so heavy.”