(eye roll)

As I watched my beautiful daughter playing with her Easter stash, I felt the need to tell her how much I love her.

Her response?

"I know that already! You've been telling me that ever since I was born."

Pardon me. ; )

So sweet!

Even though the kids start out (almost) every night in their own bed, they inevitably join Mommy in her big bed. For Jessica, that means taking her stuffed animal(s). It's really quite amazing. Hari witnessed her one night, half asleep, running all around making sure she got 3 stuffed animals, plus her water sippy, before she walked right past him on the couch and went upstairs to our bedroom.

Jessica usually comes up first, and Xander follows later, unless Jessica cries so loudly before leaving the room that she wakes him up. Well, last night, Jessica had an armful of animals as usual and it wasn't until morning when I saw she had not only brought her animal and sippy cup, but she had taken the trouble to bring up Xander's dog Dodger and his sippy cup too. And then this morning when she came downstairs to join Xander and me (he always wakes up before her), she brought down her animal and Dodger as well. How thoughtful!

How to lose years off your life

Have a conversation with your 5 year old that goes along these lines:

Jessica: "Mom, when can I drive?"

Mom: "A car?"

Jessica: "Yes."

Mom: "In about 10 years."

Jessica: "But that's when I'm going to be pregnant.

Mom, hoping she didn't hear right: "What?!"

Jessica: "But that's when I'm pregnant" (it got even better the second time).

Mom: "No no no no...you are not going to be pregnant for AT LEAST 20 years." (please)

I will now commence drinking a large glass of wine to soothe my frazzled nerves.

Anatomy

Jessica, like many little girls her age, loves unicorns. You know the pointy part that comes out of their forehead? (the part that adults refer to as a horn.) That part of their body is the unicorn. Usage: when talking about her stuffed animal unicorn Sparkle: "This is Sparkle's unicorn."

* * *

So, we had a gorgeous day on Friday, warm, mostly sunny. I took the kids to the playground. This is what Jessica decided would be the perfect thing to wear on a nice spring day:



Not only was it her Christmas dress, which I'd been meaning to put away in the category outgrown, but this is the pattern of the leggings she chose to wear with the dress:

This is just a nice picture of her.

Where are her listening ears?

Jessica was eating breakfast this morning. I asked her if she wanted to wear a dress today. I could tell she wasn't really listening to me. She said no. So I knew she wasn't listening to me. "You don't want to wear a dress?" I asked in disbelief.

She turned and looked me in the eyes. All of a sudden the fog seemed to clear. "Ohhh," she said. Covering her tracks, she added, "I thought you said bess."

Fashion Sense

Jessica has been begging me lately for a snazzy glittery glitzy gymnastics leotard. The kind half the kids in the gymnastics school are wearing. The kind that are prominently displayed in the gymnastic school's shop, which we must walk past every week to get to the gym where her class is held.

I suspected they were kind of expensive, and decided to confirm it by popping into the shop the last time we were there. The kind she wants are about $30. At first I said no, that was too expensive.

Then I began to crunch some numbers.

She'll wear it for maybe 6 months before outgrowing it (assuming she doesn't decide to quit gymnastics, which is a completely random factor.) That's 26 weeks. She wears it for an hour long class. That's 26 hours she'd be wearing it. At $30 that's a shade over $1 per hour of use. Kind of pricey.

But let's think about it.

Is it worth a shade over $1/hour to not have to listen to her whine and beg every time we go to class? It just might be. I'm conveniently ignoring the part of my mind that is telling me if I give in to her just because she's whining I'm setting a terrible precedent.

How to tell who dressed her

Normally, I pick out Jessica's clothes. Partly because she'd gladly stay in her pajamas, or naked, all day, and partly to take pride in her being well-dressed and well-matched.

Yesterday's outfit:
pink striped long sleeve shirt (narrow horizontal stripes) and a purple flowered (almost paisley) jumper.

Today's outfit:
yellow and green (with a little pink, of course) jumper with a black long sleeved shirt. Oh, and in case you're wondering, the only reason she even owns a BLACK shirt is that I bought it to go under her butterfly Halloween costume which was mostly black gauze.

Needless to say, I did not pick out these outfits. However, while yesterday's outfit was all Jessica's choosing, today Daddy had a hand in the choosing. I told her, if anyone asked, to make sure they knew Daddy helped dressed her today.