Over the weekend, we went to a birthday party in Julian for a girl Neil and I went to school with. Other than a couple of close friends, we rarely see anyone from highschool. It was great to see so many people after so long. It's a strange experience to see these people transformed, yet unchanged. Some of them look different, some are married, some have kids...all are adults, but their actual personalities are exactly the same. I think I finally realized that people are always the same, simply softened by age, throughout their lives.

This morning, I took Hayden to his first Gymboree class. He's in the Gym Explorers program with all the other two year olds. I think it will be good for him to get used to being around other children. Especially since we have recently realized he has no interest in the concept of sharing. Overall, he did really well. He participated in most of the activities and he only freaked out a few times during the class. There was the refusal to sit down during the story, the attempts to steal the other kids' musical instruments, and the Gymbo the Doll debacle. Hayden has never been that interested in any plush toys really, and doesn't have an attachment to any particular cartoon characters. However, the first time he saw Gymbo, the giant, red (slightly frightening in my opinion) Gymboree clown doll, he was in a sort of Gymbo-induced hypnotic trance. At the end of the class, the teacher brought out Gymbo. Hayden couldn't bare to see anyone else holding Gymbo, so I spent the last ten minutes of class trying to restrain him so he wouldn't attack Gymbo like an obsessed fan. I think the Gymbo doll emits some form of child attracting frequency or perhaps a pheromone of some kind. I have a feeling I am going to end up with a house full of Gymbo accessories, or maybe a more accurate term, Gymboree Propaganda.