In economic news today...

At a press conference in Washington today, President-elect Barack Obama repeatedly refused to answer questions about the size of his package, calling the subject "a personal matter."

Again and again, reporters attempted to get Mr. Obama to tell them exactly how big his package was, but the President-elect was steadfast in his refusal to quantify it.

"If I tell you the size of my package, some of you will think that it sounds too small, " he said. "And others will be uncomfortable with how big it is."

The President-elect seemed to indicate, however, that the size of his package may vary according to the circumstances.

"Depending on what is going on, my package could grow significantly larger," he said. "It all comes down to the amount of stimulus."

Good day today.

This afternoon we went to visit some good friends who just had a baby two weeks ago. And... whoa. I had honestly forgotten that they start out so small. I really had. He's not a shrimp of a baby, comparatively - he's up to eight pounds now - but holy cow, he is tiny. Was Alex really ever that small? Is Niblet really going to be that small? I just... I just forgot.

(I was putting away baby clothes the other day and found myself wondering whether the 3-6mo onesies had shrunk in the wash. Because surely he won't be that small after actual months have passed, right? Right? ...Needless to say, they hadn't shrunk.)

It was wonderful to see and hold the baby. I got to snuggle him for a long time while he was sleeping. Alex got to pet him and hold him and help burp him. But it was when Michael took him and soothed him after a feed, cradling and rocking and bouncing and murmuring to him - that's when my overloaded pregnancy hormones hit hard and I got a bit teary. For me, especially now, I think there is very little that's as attractive as a man who is a good father.

After visiting our friends, we had a wonderful late lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant we'd never been to before. Alex proved that it is actually possible to make a meal of plain unseasoned rice noodles in a rice-paper wrapper; Michael and I ate things that had actual flavor. Among other things, we ordered a dish that came as a platter of separate items: the aforementioned rice noodles, crispy seasoned strips of pork, pickled vegetables, plain raw vegetables, lemongrass sauce, and rice paper wrappers. You wrapped your choice of ingredients into a sort of a burrito. It was YUM. I haven't had Vietnamese food in too long.

Then we went to Daedalus Books & Music, a discount bookstore, and spent a fair amount of time and money. After we'd already checked out, I noticed that they had big laminated maps packaged at 3/$10: a U.S. map, a world map, and what turned out to be sort of a lame third map that shows flags of the world on one side and flags of the U.S. on the other. We couldn't resist them.

So this evening I've been collecting pictures of our various family members, and book covers of books we've read that have definite settings (most children's books don't, of course), and pictures of places we've been together like SUUSI and Montreal and Williamsburg, and a few extra pictures like our house and the sphinx (Alex is fascinated for some reason) and the Obama family. I'm going to print them all out as small images and cut them out, and then we'll fasten them to the maps.

Alex has started to show some interest in geography lately, but of course concepts like the vast size of the world and where places are in relation to each other are pretty hard to understand when you're three. I think this will help start to sort it out in her mind. And I like that this is a project we can keep adding on to when the spirit moves us, but it's not something where we would feel bad if it never progressed any further. However far it goes, it will be fun.