Item, two lips, indifferent red

See, I posted this picture on Facebook with that caption, and now I’m worrying that people think that I’m maligning Ellie’s lip color.  But I’m not.  I’m just alluding to the fact that Margaret likes to poke and prod Ellie’s face, and enumerate her features*, and then I quoted Twelfth Night because it seemed like a good idea at the time. 

The fact remains that I have a super-cute picture of sisterly love, and they are even in neatly complementary outfits, though I didn’t plan that.

See?  Awfully cute.

*Clearly she needs to embark on a course of reading that deals with the blazon.  But probably she should learn to read first.

Rock Star

Margaret has been channeling her inner rock star, which is more or less fine, but if she gets a record deal, I get a cut of it.

Anyway, she’s got that in-your-face thing going on.

Of course, the three-pronged pony tail undercuts this look a little bit.

And, when she gets outside, where the sunglasses (and indeed the pony tail) would be useful, she gets rid of them all.  Silly rabbit.

Metafiction

Margaret likes to give Ellie toys, as has been noted before.  And this morning, she decided to shower her with toys inspired by beloved children’s books.  So Ellie (doing her best pirate impression) got a Madeline.

This was slightly worrying,

but she rolled with it.*

And then she was inundated by Eeyores.  I’m assuming that one large stuffed Eeyore counts as inundation, when you’re rather small.

Again, this introduction was a cause for alarm.

But she soon realized that Eeyores are quite tasty.

She latched onto his tail and held him in place while she gummed his mane.  He probably would find this typical.  But I think that he should be glad that his tail is still on, and not go grousing.

After all, we can’t all, and some of us don’t.

*Actually, she’s been doing more rolling.  Back to front, a little.  Go kiddo.  Although if she gets too proficient, I’ll have to stop swaddling her, and that will be TERRIBLE.

More About Moose(s)

I have mentioned Margaret’s developing sense of personal property as it pertains to her cervine friends.

But Ellie appears to be getting there too.  This afternoon, she sighted the moose.

She was excited by the moose.

And she chewed the moose’s antler.

Astute readers may notice that she is chewing Margaret’s moose, but that is because Margaret was “sharing wiv her,” which meant that Margaret was taking whichever moose Ellie was interested in, and giving her the other one.  That’s a step in some direction, anyway.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Margaret ate them today for lunch. And apart from a somewhat irritating disinclination to settle down and go to sleep already, she seems to be suffering no ill effects. 

Anyway, she thought that peanut butter was the best thing she’d had since this morning’s farmer’s market blueberries, which do taste like sunshine.  She picked up each quarter of the sandwich and took a bite, in case any of us were imagining that we might steal some. 

And she thought that we should have more of them tonight for when daddy comes home because he would like them and eat them with us because they are yummy.

So, you know, if she doesn’t go to sleep and let me have a few moments of relaxation, that might happen.

Ponytail

This morning, Margaret was getting ready to go to the park with her grandmother, and we were having an argument about the order of operations.  I prefer to brush her hair before applying sunscreen, because that way her hair is out of her face when I try to put the sunscreen on.

And when I had prevailed in that argument, she asked for ponytails, which are actually pig tails, because they go off the side of her head.

And once I had put those in, there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth because she wanted a pony tail “Wight dere, wight dere,WIGHT DERE,” gesturing frantically at her head.

I told her she had pony tails right there.  On her head.  Where one would expect to find them.

And we went ‘round again, with bonus screaming.

It transpired, after a few more rounds of crying and removing pony tails and then howling for pony tails, that what she wanted was a pony tail “on the back, like Grandma” (or, you know, Mommy, who ALWAYS wears a pony tail, but don’t bother noticing.  I’ll just be over here with the chopped liver).

So I did my best, but it’s a bit tricky with her hair not being long enough.

Someday, she’s going to realize that there are things like French braids and chignons and other foreign-sounding hairstyles, and then we will be in trouble.  Clearly I need to take a class or something. 

Hey, Miss Tambourine . . . Kid

Yeah, it seemed like a better idea for a title in my head.

And there’s nothing much here but pictures of Margaret with tambourines.  Or sambourines.  Or possibly submarines.  Her enunciation continues a little muddy.  She discovered them this morning, and thought that they were awesome, because you could shake them or give them high five, and it made music*, Mommy, MUSIC.**

And then she wanted to go and show Ellie, who was at that point sleeping inoffensively in her crib.  And while I think that this desire to include Ellie is sweet and lovely and should be encouraged, I also feel that – you know – naps are important.  Very important.  So we didn’t.  But I praised her for her thoughtfulness.

And then later today, she wanted Ellie to have her hair brushed, and told me that she was being thoughtful.

ARG.

Which reminds me of another adorable Margaret anecdote, for which there is no picture, but is still awfully cute.  She has been learning to throw things, and we have been trying to convince her, by way of strategically applied time-outs, that throwing things is a bad idea.

So this morning, I had the idea of putting the things in time out, since she tends to throw treasured possessions like Legos and balls and books and stuffed animals.

I told her about this, and she said “If I throw, it goes in time out” very seriously.  And then she went and grabbed the hair brush and hurled it across the room.  That kid is far too clever*** for her own good. Or my good, anyway.

*For a certain specialized definition of music that is limited to cacophonous noise.  So Margaret would do well as a modern composer of a certain school that writes symphonies to be performed on bicycle horns and rocks and whatnot.

**Pronounced “muse-i-ket, since it’s so important it needs three syllables.

***Again, “clever” is used here to mean “fiendishly devious.”

Tummy Time à Deux

We have a routine in the morning (who am I kidding – we have a routine most of the time, because I find something that works and then we DO THAT OVER AND OVER.  I am boring) where we (Margaret and I) eat breakfast, and then Ellie comes out of her bouncy chair and we put down a blanket, and she does tummy time.  And soon after that, it’s time for her morning nap.

So, you know, that’s awesome.

Anyway, Margaret likes to join in on tummy time, even though I have tried to explain to her that she doesn’t still need to do it.  If it’s the going thing, she wants to get on board. 

It looks in this one like Ellie’s glaring at Margaret, but I don’t think that she is.  I mean, she might be, but she tends to look at Margaret as if she thought Margaret was the most interesting person ever.

Anyway, she certainly stopped glaring when Margaret got the rings out again.  Because the rings are – for reasons that completely elude me, since I am old, and so DON’T UNDERSTAND – the most fun thing EVER.

Not Acceptable

I’m not sure what she wanted instead*, but this finger is CLEARLY NOT WHAT SHE WAS LED TO BELIEVE.

*All right, I do actually have a pretty good guess what she wanted, but it’s rhetorically better if I say I don’t.  I mean, “She clearly wants food and this hand is a poor and miserable excuse for a substitute” just makes me sound mean, an we go for light comedy here, not a hard-hitting examination of the cruelty of parents.

Pyaying Wiv Her

One of the more nerve-wracking (and sweet; let’s not forget sweet) things that Margaret does these days is play with Ellie. 

It’s very nice, and Ellie likes it, and there is snuggling and laughing and general cuteness.  Oh, so heartwarming. 

And strange.  Because Margaret has been playing with Ellie recently by means of piling things up on her.

Like teacups.

Or Lego cars.

Or rings.  The rings are a favorite.

And Ellie gets into it, of course, since if something comes in range of her hands these days she tries to stick them in her mouth.

Or on her mouth, as the case may be.

And then, as is only to be expected, Margaret decided that by putting the ring on her face, Ellie was trying to play peek-a-boo with Margaret.  So she helped her do it again, and decided that she needed them on her wrists and ankles.  You can see one going on over the left foot.

But Ellie seems to like it, so who am I to argue?

Happy Father’s Day!

Margaret made breakfast.

It was pretty good.  She cracked the eggs (thoroughly – those eggs know that they’ve been cracked) and poured in the liquids and stirred.  I may have helped a little bit, and I certainly cooked them, but she did a lot of it.

She also picked out Leo’s presents.  She thought that he needed a tie (Daddy yikes ties, Mommy), and some big Legos (so he can play wiv me, Mommy and build a house with a roof, a big one), and a blue hippo (because Daddy likes the zoo and the hippos and the blue one he likes so he wants it).*  So she’s doing pretty well, I think.

*This last reason was a little less coherent, which I attribute to the fact that it’s much harder to explain why Leo would want a blue hippo.

Helping Bear

Our attempts to move all of the things in our house to other places before rooms of our house become migratory this summer proceed apace.*

Margaret went out this morning with her grandmother, and Ellie stayed home to nap, which she did for a part of the time that we had set aside for cleaning, but not as much of it was we would have liked. So she had to come upstairs and help.  She managed to be a quite congenial upstairs-cleaning companion.

But I could have done without her disdainful splutterings.

On the other hand, she probably doesn’t mean to seem disdainful.  Spluttering is the only thing she does that we seem to understand, and you can’t blame the poor child for trying to communicate with us in some way that we might get.

*I promise that this is a grammatically sound sentence.  It doesn’t seem that way, but it is.  I checked.  Twice. 

Horses! Driving!

So Margaret thought that the farm was the sort of thing she could absolutely get behind, largely because her grandfather let her do all sorts of things like drive around in the little car.

And, of course, be driven around as well.

I’m not entirely sure why the fact that it had a back seat she could ride in was so cool, because she rides in a back seat all the time, but it made her happy, and who am I to argue?

There was also a flag that she could put in the bracket, and – as she is very interested in flags right now, as anyone who has been in a car with her could tell you – she thought that that was pretty exciting.

I know we’re not supposed to let it drag on the ground, but she’s not tall enough, so what can you do?

But the most important and exciting event of the day, according to Margaret’s discussion of it after the fact, was seeing the horses. 

She was very intent.

And a little serious about it.

But she soon decided it was fun.

And then when her grandfather got up on the horse,

she was all attention.

She tells me that she got to touch the horse’s face, his white face, and nose, and that when she is bigger, she will be able to ride him like granddad.  She has told me this several times.  She is insistent. 

Working on It

Yesterday, we went out to the farm, and did farm-like things, farmishly, all day long.

At the beginning of the day, while Dan was locating horses and moving them to appropriate locations for viewing by Margaret, Margaret played with a jumprope on the porch, and I think that she got the hang of it.  A little.  I mean, she jumped, and there was a rope.  That’s really the essence of the thing, right?