Little Things

Or, How We Spend Our Time.

1. Carefully placing tiny alligator-style hair clips on our holiday cards. Throughout the season they have moved from one card to another, but they are still there. Actually, at one point I think she put them away because I remember she helped me open one very lovely card and then, when I went to hang it up, she darted into her room saying, "I have a good idea!" and came back jangling 10 of the little clips in her hand to put on the card. Excellent idea. It's like a little floating shrine, where one card gets this special treatment.

2. Making and serving stews, cupcakes, tea parties, cookies, and other assorted offerings. Below Brown Bunny enjoys a feast of hickory nut, shell, and local pebble stew on washcloth place mats, while and Matryoshka Doll ponders toast. I'm not sure whether she is a diner or part of the display. Fine line.

Cupcakes with white frosting:

3. There is also a lot of arranging of chairs into movie theater style rows. This interest in movies does not, by the by, translate into sitting through an entire movie. Also, an excessive amount of doctors visits with flu shots and treatment for sick tummies.

4. Naming things. This green fellow is a boy but he is called Mother Cabrini, named for a local park. She called him this from the instant she pulled him out of her Xmas stocking. Another good name of late is "Baby Espresso," who is a white bear with an American flag on his chest.

5. And now, thanks to all four grandparents:a new dollhouse with little animal inhabitants. Big, big hit.

6. I almost forgot. Rhymes! Over the past 2 months she's been getting increasingly interested in rhymes and goofy made-up words, and is getting better at making rhymes that are really rhymes and not 1) alliteration (which would be the opposite of a rhyme, I guess) and 2) the exact same word.

I've been trying to work in more puzzles, but she doesn't have much patience for the jigsaw style ones that take some thought, though she likes to whip through her stack of easy ones (the ones with individual pieces). She's not a builder/stacker type either. Blocks and Legos are, to her, mostly served as food in tea parties. (See Item #2...)