Birthday and groveling

Gaz is now four and seems to be loving it. I think she hit the annual growth spurt early this year, so she's been a bit grumpier than usual and a bit more ravenous. Her appetite has returned to normal, but she's still a little more whiney than normal. I'm hoping that will be decreasing any minute now.

We had the birthday party on August 1st out in the park near our house. We had a few kids attend, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Gaz requested a red velvet cake decorated with a rainbow and sprinkles, and that's what I made. She even helped with the sprinkles and the rainbow, but mostly she ate sprinkles and begged for icing.

By now you're probably wondering where the pictures of this merry event are. It turns out that after years of playing with the camera, she's finally figured out how to delete every single picture from the camera all at once. You can imagine my glee. Now I don't have a picture of her from her birthday morning, etc. etc. Fortunately for you all, the party was documented by the fabulous Auntie Darci, so you all will get to see pictures that are probably a lot nicer than I would have taken with my crappy old one that sometimes like to zoom all the way in for no good reason.

Anyway, the birthday was had, the presents were all deemed acceptable by Her Majesty, and cake and ice cream were shared by all. We had a fine time, despite the incredible winds that threatened to blow food and everything into the river.

probably way too much information

Gaz has her first Barbie. She's stripping her as I type, of course. I don't think we've got a clothed doll in the house. And already she's planning Barbie's first haircut ("Your hair is too long! It goes all the way to your butt!")

This is a good thing: An evil sorceress put a spell on Barbie so that she could only be released from her cardboard and plastic prison if a certain girl pooped in the potty. It only took months for this fairy tale to reach its conclusion.

But actually the doll was not the prime motivator. She kept asking for a diaper and we told her that she could have one if she sat on the toilet for ten minutes. I guess all it took was a little conveniently timed boredom.

I'm unbelievably excited at the prospect of not having to change diapers much longer. It's about damn time.

Baby's First Big Girl Haircut

Originally uploaded by georgiegrrrrl

By which I mean, the first haircut done by a professional.

Gaz was a total champ the whole time, even though we had a bit of a wait for her turn to come around. She was reasonably compliant with all the "hold your head this way" and "okay, don't move" business, and now she looks (as you can see) fabulous! She got some new headbands as a treat, as they are the one hair taming device she actually enjoys wearing.

I have my fingers crossed that this will help make this summer a bit less unbearable for her. Now it's less of an issue that she refuses to ever consent to ponytails, even during a heat wave.

Us girls are heading down to visit my alma mater tomorrow for a girl's weekend out, so look out for pictures of the impending Hooisierification of Gaz!

This afternoon Gaz and I were Queens of the Wild West. We wore rainbow-colored dresses and sang songs. We also saw a cloud shaped like a bunny with really lumpy skin.

We finally got around to sorting out the back porch, so we even got to do our imagining out doors, while snacking on our newly lounge-friendly porch.

Now I have to go here the one-queen band in the living room.

Gaz says

Thursday was a rainy day, so we stayed inside and amused ourselves in the usual manner (tea parties and various excuses to move all the toys from one room to another), then Gaz announced that she was going to write a speech to read to Obama.

You see, she's got a bit of an Obama obsession. I take responsibility for this, as I did make her watch the whole inauguration (well, we played with toys and I listened in, but I did take a break from toys for the big speeches and oaths), but it's really grown into something strange and wonderful inside her head. Every time she sees a magazine with him on the cover she says, "Hey Mom! There's Obama!" The other day, her alien toy didn't believe that Obama was the president

, even singing a song about how he, the alien, was president and not Obama. Gaz set him straight in the end.

Then she started asking about speeches, and why do people make speeches, and what do they say in them, and what was Obama speaking about in this or that news clip. Then, on that fabled rainy day, she asked me for a pencil because she was going to write the speech she would be reading to Obama. And so she disappeared into her room for a few minutes and emerged with a bunch of random letters on a page. I should scan it for posterity.

The best part was that she couldn't read it to any old imaginary Obama. She had to read it to Mommy pretending to be Obama. So I did my best to sound presidential and listened attentively to Gaz's speech about her favorite things, her favorite toys, and what she likes to do (play games, play with her toys, play with the kids next door, etc.).

I wish I had had the foresight to have the camcorder handy, because it was definitely a YouTube moment.

Other fun that's happened lately:

What happens when you cook a fossil? (Inspired by waking up with her knitted nautiloid this morning, she insisted we find pictures and information about nautiluses, which naturally ended up by checking out pictures of Lituites lituus. I've been trying to explain fossils lately, but we're still at the "if it's a dead animal, what happens when you cook it?" stage. Don't ask me to explain this stage. I don't get it either.

Of the Greedo key fob she found today: "He's a skeleton guy with clothes on. But he lost all his bones!" (She did not respond to questions on how he can be a skeleton guy and be missing his bones at the same time. Greedo is just so much fun to play with, I suppose.)

Many apologies for the long dry spells between posts. It's been a crazy few weeks, between disturbed sleep cycles and general random cranky three-year-oldness, but I'm trying to catch up. I'm even not ashamed of the kitchen right now! The living room on the other hand . . .

Well, one thing at a time.