Friday

• Have I said she calls the driveway the drive-through?  She says "can we play in the drive through?" almost every day when we get home.  She loves it and I hate it, because it's hard to watch all three of them.
• She is getting very entertaining in general.  She tells the story of the three little pigs, and she pretends to be the wolf, and she makes a scary voice, it's adorable.   She sings Broadway Baby, and she calls Times Square Times Squares.  She just adds in consonants where she feels they will give the song something extra.  Like she sings the end and she says "In a great!  Bit! Broadwait! Shooooooooowt!"  because she likes the way the T sounds at the end.  
• I screwed up and stupid ballet started TODAY and not next week, PLUS the class is full, so we have to do Wednesdays at 12.  This will screw with the nap schedule pretty good but it's only seven weeks and also, she is probably outgrowing her nap enough that one or two days won't kill her.  
• In a few weeks, she'll be three and a half.  Crazy.  I hope that in the second half of her third year, she'll start to not wear a diaper at night, but I am not too pushed about it.  
• She is the most loving sister ever.  Sure, she can be a complete rat to Veronica if she wants something.  She and Veronica had a fight at Trader Joe's yesterday that I can only describe as operatic.  Seriously, it was insane.  Tears!  Yelling!  Screaming!  Wrestling!  More tears!  I've never seen anything like it.  But mostly she is lovely to her and she is always, by some miracle, so sweet and kind with Anthony.  She loves him so much.  I think this is because girls always like boys that don't like them, ha!  But she is a sweet thing, I have to admit it.  
• Her friend Emma has been away and we saw her today and she was so, so happy.  It's so hard to explain to someone Maria's age that her friends are out of town, or at their grandmother's house in NJ, or God forbid Italy.  Maria has no reference for it and she just gets mad.  
• Speaking of mad, she has gotten, like, ridiculously angry this week, at least once a day and sometimes more.  I guess the cold hard truth that you can't always get what you want is finally hitting home for her and - well, let's just say she's displeased.  

Pretty Baby

Maria is having fun at her camp, and I like it too! She's pretty quiet about what they do, but she always shows me her little projects and seems to be having fun when I go and get her. I think she'll be glad to be back into two days a week this fall. Today when I picked her up, we were pulling out of the lot and she said "I sure would like to go to the Children's Museum!". I said, well today we went to camp, that was our activity today and she said "hows about Thursday?". Ha!

Overserved

She is crazy. She's also sick, today, which stinks. I had no suspicion when she wanted to take a nap at 9:30. I was up early and I heard her yell at 5:30 but didn't go get her until 6:30, which is still pretty early for her, here lately.

So she napped for an hour at 9:30 and woke up hot and crabby and headachy. Now she's napped again and is doing a little better, I guess. She got her haircut yesterday and was the best haircut-tee ever. Sheesh - when she wants to do something and is happy about it, no one is happier! She was charming and sweet at the hair place.

But I'll tell you how she is. This morning at 6:30, I brought her in to Mike, who was still sleeping, and we all lay down for a while. I put her on the pillow and pulled up the blanket and put my arm around her and snuggled in and she said "Mommy?". I said, yes?, thinking she'd say something about how nice this was or something. Instead she said, "what Maria doing today?". Sigh. Even sick, she wants to go go go.

Pretty Profile

Reading

She's such a weirdo - she never, ever relaxes for more than two minutes. Then I find her in this baby swing, making up the words to this book. She's funny but crazy. Maybe she was hot? She's sitting right by the AC vent.

She had ballet today and it ends next week. Next week is a big one - she is starting swimming lessons at the Y, she'll go Monday and Wednesday. Tuesday, she and Veronica start at their summer camp. She is happier when she's kept busy, and that makes all of us happier, too.

Jungle Cat

Ha, she looks like a crazed lunatic here, right? She loves that driveway and she is a heck of a runner. What she lacks in ability, she makes up for with sheer ferociousness! Lord, no one has ever driven me so crazy and made me so happy. She didn't take a nap yesterday, we were busy all day and she just never got time, so it was a long day, but she was pretty good about it. Yesterday she slept until like 7:45, which is unheard of, but today (Saturday), she of course was up before 6:30. Soon I am going to get her a clock that shows what time she can get up, and I hope she'll just bum around in her room until maybe 7:00.

She'll start her summer camp a week from Tuesday and I am going to start her in swim lessons next week, too, I hope. Then later in the summer, I am hoping she can take some swim lessons with some friends. I want to talk about what our goals are for this summer for Maria, but I feel like she has had so many goals met here recently, I hate to push it. I guess I'd like to her mind me more. I'd like her to learn to control the volume of her voice, because sometimes I think she is seriously going to shatter my eardrums. She is LOUD. She is screaming her head off right now, out in the driveway and I am in the front of the house and I feel like she is sitting next to me. Mike will get up with her in the morning and take her downstairs and try and keep her quiet and I still feel like she is there on the pillow. I hope she has fun at her camp and I hope she makes some friends, I hope she keeps up with ballet and I hope she learns some swimming. That should be okay, right? But mostly I hope she can do the volume control thing.

Old One Eye

This is a dirty look, with just one eye, can you tell? She was mad today because we couldn't go outside on the deck and go swimming, because there was a tornado watch. I let her go out later, when it was better. She's not really a weather girl, ha. Today she was watching Dora and they interrupted to say the National Weather Service has issued a blah blah blah you know and she kept saying "okay, weather! Thanks, weather! BYE, WEATHER!". Ha!

She just went to bed, which is always my favorite time of day. She is so much of a person. She is like hanging around with Liza Minelli or something. We went to a playgroup today and before we left we had a conversation that went like this:

M: Can we go now?
J: Not yet.
M: Now?
J: Not yet.
M: Now?
J: Not yet.
M: Now?
J: Not yet.
M: Apple juice?

Then we went to the playgroup and she kept coming upstairs and asking "do you want to come play?". I told her no many times but she kept checking, maybe so as not to hurt my feelings? Ha, so considerate! We start at the camp a week from Tuesday. I'm really looking forward to it, I know she'll do great. Two of her good friends from ballet are going away for a while and she'll miss them, I'm glad she's going to be busy with something. She's so gorgeous though, right? My sister Laura pointed out how good her hair looks in this picture. It's the little things, sometimes.