Eowinners!!

That's one of her few nicknames, and here are a few "winners" of this sweet, trying, hilarious, exhausting little baby:

That's my leg in the lower-left. As long as I'm within reach, she's a happy little girl.

If you've got great cleavage, you've got to flaunt it!

Under the table is so fun! And a great place to constantly bonk your head.



She's always crawling around with something in her mouth!

First Day of Preschool!!!

The day is finally here! After a brief stop at the pediatrician (yes, I managed to completely forget her 4-year well-child visit and the accompanying shots that are necessary for school) and a first-day-of-school lunch at Wendy's, it was finally time for MaraJade to go to school!

She was surprisingly (well, I guess not so very surprisingly, given her recent transition to super-shy girl) hesitant for me to leave, but after about 5 minutes, I was given the OK to leave. My baby girl is so grown up!

The Trials of Eowyn

She's a sweet little baby, but unfortunately for me, is a horrible combination of severely attached to Mommy and a terrible sleeper. Up until about a month ago, she was sleeping fine - just nursing a couple of times a night, but had to be with Mommy, of course. Which is fine - we have co-slept with all our babies; it's what works best and we like to do. However, once she started sitting up and crawling, plus teething, it's gotten really bad. She nurses incessantly through the night, nursing and pulling away so much that my attempts to sleep through it are constanly interrupted.

During the day, she needs to be with me pretty much all the time. If I manage to put her down and get her distracted with a toy, then sneak away, she's perfectly fine - until she catches sight of me. Then it's a mad crawl back to me, yelling all the way.

Her yelling: she doesn't "cry" so much as "yell". I've tried many times to capture the sound of her displeasure at not being the center of my hands-on attention, but strangely enough, as soon as I turn the Flip on, she shuts off the yelling and starts cooing and performing for the camera. Little twerp.

Recent Random Kid Quotes

In the car after school the first week back, I asked Tristen if Dolcee was in his class (Dolcee was his "girlfriend" in Kindy and first grade). He said, "No. But that's OK." Me: "Why? Don't you like her anymore?" T (getting embarrassed): "No. But sometimes, when I see her, I get embarrassed." Hmmm... The conversation continues randomly, then he turns around to Mace and explains, "Sometimes, when you see that special girl, you might feel funny. That means you like her." That special girl? Oh, crap. And for the next few days, he and Mace would have mini-talks about that sort of thing, always talking about that special girl.

Related (probably during one of these talks), Tristen tells Mace that, "It's OK to get scratched up or hurt a little. Because girls think scars are hot." My heart literally stopped for a second. I had been sure he'd say "cool" or "gross" or anything else. Hot?? My baby boy is saying this word in this context and I simply cannot believe my ears. Just last year, if we even teased him about Dolcee, he'd get embarrassed, but also a little icked out. Now people are "hot." Oh, fercryin'outloud.

The other day (again, in the car - we spend a lot of time there), Mace and MaraJade are playing in the backseat and Mace says or does something random. MaraJade giggles and replies, "Oh, Mace, how romantic!" in this high-pitched affected girlie voice. Weird.

**Update: Have heard her say this a few more times in play - apparently it's her new "go-to" phrase. Never used in proper context, thank goodness.**

Maceism of the Day - 9/21/10

So the boys are cleaning their room, which - as always - consists of lots and lots of time spent poking and picking at each other, fighting over who isn't helping, etc., etc., etc. At one point, apparently Tristen wasn't helping for a moment, then went back to policing Mace, to which Mace vehemently responded, "You're a minion of Satan!"

I honestly don't know where he comes up with this stuff sometimes.

Well, it had to happen sometime...

And, in fact, I'm amazed it took this long.

Saturday morning, I was getting my hair cut, T was at soccer practice, and PJ was home with Monster, Mace and Miss E. I pick up T and come home after about 2 hours. I'm catching up with the baby and finally look at MaraJade, thinking, "Man, her hair is really matted on that one side." Pull her closer and see - no....it's gone!

I immediately know what happened, since she and Mace do everything together these days and Mace's current obsession is drawing items (Ben 10 Omnitrixes, Green Lantern rings, his favorite superheroes, etc.), coloring them, then cutting them out (and wearing them, in the case of the Omitrixes and rings). So obviously they took scissors to the next level. And who knows, maybe they knew I was getting my hair cut, so....?

Anyway, PJ was - how shall I say it - not pleased. I'm not sure Mace has ever seen his dad so angry with him. And I couldn't get a straight story out of either of them. All Mace could say (um, sob) was, "MaraJade gave me the scissors!" Oh, and, "I'm sorry!"

MaraJade was appropriately despondent when we informed her that we would have to cut the rest of her hair off to match the chopped section.


So, once the yelling and tears had abated, we made an appointment with my hair stylists (completely awesome, BTW!) to have them fix it. I probably could have done it, since I've always cut the boys' hair, but I wanted to see how they do it first. Plus, I thought it might have more impact for her? Who knows. Off to Teal Salon! Super Janelle's awesome work! (You can't see it, but there's glitter spray on the top.)

Side note: Later that day, I found this stuffed in one of Eowyn's toys:
Of course, we still can't get a clear picture of what happened from those two, but close as I can figure, they somehow matted the heck out of several chunks of her hair, tried to wash and comb it out, then decided just to cut it. To keep from getting in trouble, of course.

MaraJade, the Union Rep

Last night, we let Monster stay in the boys' room for a while after "bed time" (yeah, right - during summer that comes 1-2 hours after we send them to bed) to play and such. PJ was making popcorn, when suddenly she appears in the kitchen and says, "Um, we were wanting, um 3 (holds up 3 fingers, just in case) po'corns for us." We say yes, and she runs back into the boys' room, yelling, "Yay! We gonna get po'corn!" Look out, Norma Rae!

**Note: this was also Eowyn's first popcorn. Holy cow, I couldn't bite off kernels fast enough for her! She was yelling at me every few seconds until I gave her more. Looks like we've got yet another popcorn fiend in the house!