Introducing Princess Butterfly-butterfly-purple-pink Effy-effy-come-on-lets-hide Fluffy-fluffy-white Collins. Or at least that's what she told us her name was a couple days ago. And it didn't change when asked to be repeated. Otherwise known as Maggie, this girl is just full of It. Full of imagination, of energy, of humor, of trouble-making, of obstinance, of smarts, of curiosity. She fairly refuses to wear anything except a dress, is newly obsessed with buns in her hair, and is moving steadily toward no more diapers at nighttime. It is still difficult to get her to school (every morning before school she tells me "I don't want to go to school"), but I whisk her into the car and by the time we get there she hardly remembers to say goodbye to me. She read her first book a couple weeks ago, about Mat and Sam. They sat. Then one sat on the other. And they switched. And Maggie could sound out or recognize all the words herself. Last week she went down the water slide at our rec center by herself. It's 38 steps up and a half dozen curlicues down, and as long as Daddy was at the bottom to catch her, she'd do it over and over again. Maggie sometimes takes the initiative to interact with or soothe Tessa and is very much looking forward to the day when they share a room, and then in the future have bunk beds! She comes up with things that just melt me, like "Thank you for a delicious dinner, Mommy." And then makes me want to pull out my hair by doing things like aiming her pee out of the toilet onto the floor while giggling madly. She gets thoroughly excited about the most wonderful things, such as a new tube of toothpaste or street-sweeper going past our house. And just in general makes our days as unboring as we couldn't ever have imagined.
35
36
37
38
