Magrilless

As I was making dinner the other evening, Maggie told me to look at the refrigerator: “Look what I did!” And what she did was spell her name in magnets (as best she could seeing as how there are no double letters in our set).

Then the next morning I glanced at the fridge again and saw that she had rearranged things slightly. No prompting, no nothing. Total surprise.

This kid!

And we’ve found The New Movie: Cinderella. It’s pretty awesome, actually. Just saying “sup sup” like the mice makes her laugh, in the middle of a hissy fit too. We’re emphasizing Lucifer the cat as a villain. And she even asked if she could be a princess. Precious little girl.

So it has been brought to my attention that I am not doing a good job of blogumenting (that is, documenting by blog) this pregnancy. Last time I was in this state I implemented TP Tuesdays; this time I’ll do a weekly BLT: Big Lady in Town. And just for fun, I will keep the toilet paper measurement. So today I am at 12 1/2 squares. Yes, that is bigger than I was when Maggie was born. No, I do not think that means I will be imminently delivering baby Biangi, but it does make me feel better about how sluggish and tired and sore I feel. Walking up two ramps to our compost bin today rendered me out of breath, and by the time I finished grocery shopping I was nearly draped over the cart. But both Biangi and I continue to check out just fine at the doctor. Heart rate, movement, inches around — all are in the good and normal ranges. And thank heavens for preschool; three days a week I mostly sit on my tuckus and watch movies on Netflix feeling pathetic but able to at least be a parent for the afternoon and cook dinner. So there I am. See you next week!

Maggie’s been creative this week. She built that face out of beads and pom poms all by herself (well, I might have straightened the smile, but that’s it). No input or suggestions from me. And then during painting, she smeared a strip of paint, turned her brush over, and wrote her name with the back of the brush. She’s painted over half of the M in the picture, but you can see the G G I E. Or maybe E E. Again, without any prompts from Mom or Dad. We just looked over and saw what she’d done. Anyway, pretty cool for a not yet 3-year-old I think.

She continues to kind of push the boundaries a little bit. It’s very cute when she screams “no thank you!” but there are some times that’s just not a choice. And I’ve been trying to emphasize choices. Letting her choose her shoes, her pajamas, the order things happen in, what chair she wants at the table. Much of the time she says, “I want anyone to choose” which to her means, “I don’t want this to happen at all.” But which really turns out to be Mom or Dad chooses and she gets upset about not having any imput, but I guess she’ll figure that one out eventually.

Pet update: Maggie cat is still with us. We are forbidden from calling her Maggie; she prefers Maggie-Cat or Little Kitty Cat. Our toilet is now referred to as a litter box. We play fetch with balls in the house and she licks for kisses. On the upside, she can be lured places with promises of pretend cat treats I keep in my pocket. I have been informed by Maggie’s teacher that all the girls in school are cats right now. Who’s up for giving a school presentation on, I don’t know, some large animal that eats cats?

Another obsession: this song Wagon Wheel. She calls it the MamaLade song based on the lyric “mama like,” which is the only remaining cute thing about her request. She asks for it whenever she knows we will be in the car. And then after it has played once in the car. And then she counts on her fingers, “once, twice, three, four, five.” It is 2 MamaLades to school; 1.5 MamaLades to our favorite park; 1 MamaLade to the grocery store. Don’t ask me how many MamaLades it is to Albuquerque; that’s too painful to remember.

So we’re all doing well. Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow.

There are some words I just cannot remember how to spell. The farthest I get is “this is a tricky one and I remember . . . I’m supposed to remember to . . . something.” So I just decide to egregiously misspell them as a kind of forget-you-hard-word gesture.

cinamon: I know either the first n or the m is doubled, but heck if I can ever remember which, so neither gets it. Take that.
vaccuumm: I know either the c or the u is doubled, but not both, but which one? Let’s do em both and add an extra m for kicks.
occassion: One of those doubles is supposed to be single. Oh well. The more the merrier.

I’m sensing a pattern. Double letters does not seem to be my forte. And I’m sure there are more I can’t think of right now. I think it’s genetic. Do you have a downfall?