By and large, there hasn't been anything entertaining to say. She's just about three-and-a-half. She gets frustrated easily, gets overstimulated easily, throws tantrums at the drop of a hat, and generally needs plenty of work, but not of the sort that is really that much fun to read about or hear tell of over the phone. Actually, if you try to call here and have a conversation, it's likely to involve many asides to tell Gaz to "stop doing that, I said STOP DOING THAT. RIGHT NOW. I have to go." Fun! But there's an almost equal number of times when she'll insist that we make a card or paint a picture for someone, or give me a big hug and kisses all over my face and tell me she loves me.

Which is actually fun, but gets repetitive when it's written down. So here's a few little strange things that aren't about tantrums, diapers, her inability to cover her nose when she sneezes (so, so, SO sorry about your lunch, Tamara!), or even any of the glurge. I hope that in the future it won't take me a month to gather this much shareable stuff.

In amongst the usual bundles of "why" questions, Gaz has had a few weird ones that she's been asking. While out having some quality time with Mark, the subject of our wedding photo came up, and from there sprang, "Where was I before I was born?" And then she pretended to eat Mark's brains (he was carrying her on his shoulders at the time). She gets the uterus thing, and she gets the being born thing as much as she can, but she's always wondering what she was doing when Mom and Dad kissed that one day in the picture, and what was she doing when we went to Italy? Thankfully, she is not insisting on immediate, concise answers.

Gaz likes to "shave" (with a play razor and foamy soap) her face lately, so this is now a component of every bath time. I'm guessing that she'll outgrow this well before puberty, but if not I don't know how I'll break it to her that she won't be growing a beard any time soon. In true Gaz fashion, she has named her razor Captain Wookiee--formerly Mr. Wookiee, but it turns out that the razor is a girl, and she didn't want her to feel bad about being called "mister." No, she hasn't seen any Star Wars movies yet, but she has seen a documentary about the movies, which is where I think the Wookiee bit came from.

So last night she's putting foam on her face and she starts to sing: "It's your mom and your dad and they're SHAVING!" And I couldn't stop laughing. I still laugh when I think of it. It's a surreal show tune sort of song, and it's coming out of my daughter. I don't know where she gets this stuff. Shaving I get, but parents shaving and this being a song-worthy event is something I would never have considered. The songs pop up all the time and tend to involve riffing on the "you can do anyting you want to do" theme. You can jump on the bed if you want to, or you can not jump on the bed if you want to, or you can jump on the bed and then get a snack if you want to . . .

But now mama's going to go to sleep because she wants to.