Baby Fosse and Inspector Small

Jazz hands AND jazz belly:

Sylvia, slightly bigger:

All That She Wants Is Another Crayon

One of the coolest things about being a parent -- or, for that matter, a constant grownup in any kid's life -- is watching that little person become who he or she is. Or grow into herself, however you want to put it. Passions emerge. In the past week, Maggie's love of drawing has reached a new level: she finally put it together that she can climb in a chair (which she has been doing for awhile, I think?), sit at the art table, and with just a little reeeeach... 

 ...can obtain basically anything she wants from Rosemary's art table. In fact, I think we will just have to start calling it the art table, because it is in no way exclusively Rosemary's any longer. Crayons are great, markers are better, colored pencils are still forbidden and have been moved to what little higher ground we have. Our white Ikea chairs are suffering a bit for the cause, but I guess that's why we only buy Ikea right now. Every morning this week, the second she comes upstairs she runs to the art table and sits and colors, colors, colors. For as long as we'll let her. We've been noticing this obsession with art materials all summer, but now that she can reach the motherlode on her own it's become a constant. She is also surprisingly diligent about trying to put the lids back on the pens. And--I'm not sure this is a plus--she indignantly fishes her finished drawings out of the recycling and gives me the what-for for tossing them out. She sounds a lot like an angry squirrel (still not many words).

(Sylvia, meanwhile, is pretty much indifferent to the stuff.)

This series of pictures, taken at my friend Tiff's house, say so much about Maggie, and her fervent desire to squeeze her seat at the table.

A few other Maggie thoughts and pictures:

She shakes her head no like everyone else does, but instead of nodding her head to say yes, she shakes her entire body to say yes - I guess you could say she "nods" with her torso. 

She loves a good seat, especially a small one just her size.

 Cousin Mimi recently visited and Maggie really enjoyed showing her around our little playground.

And she has new, noisy shoes. This was the first time we put them on her. These are the sweetest shoes, though definitely not the most dignified. It is turning out to be quite handy on the playground though. I am awaiting the moment when Sylvia grows into the squeaker shoes, since she's the cat who really needs a bell around her neck.