tomorrow! We'll be taking her for her first hair cut. Holy fu schnickens, where did that time go? So, I'll, over the next couple days, methinks, write down the milestones and brain dump about her here. In case you have no desire to read kidlet catch-up, I will kindly put it all behind...



Things Maeve Knows

1. Lots o' body parts: hair (wet & dry), forehead, eyebrows, eyes, eyelashes, nose, nostril, cheek, chin, lips, tongue, teeth, mouth, ears, neck, shoulders, nipple, boobies, chest, stomach, belly button, arms, hands, fingernails, knuckles, elbow, leg, knee, toes, feet, butt, back and...moles! She has gone through phases of obsession about different body parts -- eyelashes and nostrils were early ones, right now she's pretty into knuckles, nails and moles. She likes to chat about them and point them out on us and herself.

2. How to climb...most everything, suddenly. Today I found her on top of a storage tub where our two bags of chicken food live. She was leaning into the bag, to play with the food and the scoop. I only have a slight inkling of how the hell she got up there. She also, for the first time today, climbed up on a chair we have in the kitchen. Decided to snag her baby ibuprofen off the counter and pretended to quaff it. Great. Now nothing is safe...especially once she figures out she can *move* the chair around. She also is really getting into more of the play equipment at parks, climbing up the odd ladders most of them have for older kids. I spot her on these, though, as she's unsure how to navigate them once she's gotten up.

3. How to cook: She loves to stir and mix and cut (and tell you about it) pretty much everything. Luckily, there are lots of things in our regular diet where she can do that. I let her help with stuff on the stove, with lots of admonitions on the heat. She pretty much gets it, along with "sharp!" and "cut!" She has her own little play kitchen where she mimics us and feeds her babies and whatever else she thinks might be hungry. When at the table, she loves to feed us, sharing her spoon full of whatever, often to the detriment of our floor. But hey..*sharing.* Another new sharing this past week or so -- she brings her doll or stuffed animal up to my chest to breastfeed before she does -- all the while making little "feeding" sounds with her tongue and teeth. Heh! She's a givener.

4. How to garden: Not unlike me, this girlie is super-content if she is out in the sunshine and getting dirty. She gives bonus points in happiness if there is some water in the mix to make mud. I picked up a mini-set of bucket, spade, shovel and rake for her at Big Lots, and she totally digs the digging, especially if Dada is using his big shovel. She's a bit unclear on being kind to the plants; ok, *totally* unclear to be truthful, but I'm hoping this will come in good time. We planted a ton of seeds together along the fence, and she was in charge of the sunflower seeds. Many are coming up right now, along with volunteer pumpkins, and I'm excited to share with her the final product. Don't *even* get me started on how cool I think it is that she and I will be able to pick our food together once all the other recently planted starts take off. We have 6 corn plants! Woooo!

More to come when I am not falling asleep on the keyboard.