Last week I took Iris to play at the treehouse play structure inside REI. This is the most awesome piece of climbing equipment I’ve ever seen. Like any good amusement, it feels dangerous, but it’s incredibly safe. You wind your way up the padded trunk of a plastic tree, across a bridge, and down a fast slide. I only wish it was four times as big. Iris played on it for two hours, stopping only for occasional sips of a smoothie from the adjacent World Wrapps.
The smoothie was strawberry-orange-banana, but Iris said it was “strawberry, orange, and rum.” This is because I let her pick out a sticker at the [pirate store](http://piratesplunder.com/) recently, and she chose the one depicting a skull drinking from a bottle, with the caption TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE HAVING RUM. I explained that this means, “Drinking tasty stuff makes you happy.”
I asked Iris where she wanted to have lunch after REI, and she requested Blue C Sushi. I wasn’t sure there was a way to get there by bus, so I asked the marvelous [Google Transit](http://google.com/transit), which told me we could catch a number 17 to the Fremont Bridge. We walked through South Lake Union, the Seattle neighborhood where every block is under construction, and watched a steamroller steamrolling a brand new road while we waited for the bus.
The last two times I’ve taken Iris to Blue C, she’s eaten rice and a cream puff. On one early visit, she tried a variety of items, but not my favorite, which is the mackerel. This time, she started with some edamame and moved on to a tempura shrimp roll and some noodles. Then she dug into the mackerel and eagerly ate several bites–dipped in soy sauce, of course. The only things she didn’t want were eel and the watercress garnish from the noodles, which was too spicy.
My guess, and there’s no way to confirm or deny this, is that this (surely temporary) spate of adventurous eating has to do with growth. In less than two weeks, she grew 3/4 inch. Presumably her brain is saying, “We need all the calories we can get, even if they’re green.” Of course, there are plenty of other fast-growing kids doing fine on plain toast.
We did get the cream puff, of course. After it was gone, Iris picked up its chocolate-cream-smeared doily and was about to try to lick it clean. “Iris, you cannot wipe that all over your face,” I said. She strategized. “We should get some of those!” said Iris, pointing at the potato croquettes. “Okay,” I replied. The croquettes are great–hot and crunchy, drizzled with sweetened soy sauce. Iris used hers to mop up the chocolate.
After we got home, we played Iris’s favorite game, conveyor belt, in front of our building. Iris inches along the railing of the wheelchair ramp, pretending to be sushi at Blue C.
> **Iris:** What kind would you like?
> **Me:** What kind are you?
> **Iris:** You have to say.
> **Me:** But you’re on the conveyor belt. Isn’t that your job?
> **Iris:** But I’m just a sushi. And sushis can’t think.
