mommy-daughter day

{craftin' in the morning}

Malayna and I had a wonderful day on Wednesday! They don't come very often these days, you know. Maybe it's because we spend so much time together that we get a little tired of each other. Plus, she's 3. Whoever made up that saying "terrible twos" obviously had not hit the threes yet.

Honestly, though, I really don't like that expression. Why would you want to call your child "terrible"? Isn't that just expecting the worst? I like to use more descriptive words for Malayna. Words like: persistent, intense, perceptive, sensitive and energetic. That last one only happened recently. Holy moly does that girl have energy. I am NOT the kind of person who likes to run around all day, wrestle, talk constantly and move from one activity to another in a matter of seconds. All of a sudden, she's that kid that doesn't stop. I think it has something to do with not taking a nap anymore. She has to keep moving so she doesn't fall asleep!

On Wednesday, she slept until 9:00 {because she had woken up at 3 to play}. When I came into her room she asked me who was coming over that day. She asks this most days, I guess because I'm no fun. I told her it was a mommy-daughter day and she asked if we could make something together. Huh? What? Am I dreaming?

When we went to the Festival on Sunday, I stopped at my friend Jessica's booth. She had "make your own doll" kits - filled with a small fabric doll form, glue, sequins, yarn, and paint. When I bought it I had hoped that we could make it together, but in the back of my head I thought that she wouldn't be interested. When I showed it to her later in the day, she asked if we could do it then. I told her that we would save it for a mommy-daughter day.

Any day that starts off with her sleeping until 9 and then doing a craft together when she wakes up is bound to be good! After we finished the doll we went to Ikea, where I actually shopped {and Malayna didn't complain!} and then had lunch together. Since she slept so late I wasn't even going to bother putting her up for a rest, so we headed off to Trader Joe's. Our next-door neighbor works there and every time we see him in the store Malayna gets excited. However, she won't really talk to him when we see him at home. Weird.

It was a perfect day. We didn't have one single issue.

{meet Diamond}

Yesterday, however, was back to normal. My friend told me about a local food co-op, so I decided to try it in the afternoon. There's a little playground there, so I told Malaya that she could play after we shopped. Well, of course she didn't want to wait. She folded her arms, put on her nastiest face, stomped her foot and said, "I want to go play NOW." She repeated it a few more times just in case any of the workers or shoppers hadn't heard her the first time.

When we did get to the playground, she didn't want to play because there was no "inside swing". {She means those bucket swings for babies.} So we got into the truck and drove to one of her favorite playgrounds - one that she usually goes to with daddy. We pull up, and she looks at me with this weird smile on her face and says "WHAT are we doing HERE?" I told her I thought she'd like to play there since they have inside swings. She said "Me and daddy go here. I want to go home." I finally convinced her to get out of the truck and play, but when we got to the playground it was empty. She said, "There's no one here. We shouldn't be here either. Let's go home." Oooookaaaay. Home we went.

I used Ahna's advice when we got home and had a conversation about how I thought she was too small to go places like the co-op with me. She immediately said, "I'm not too small! I'm a big girl!" I repeated that she was too small and her reaction was to smile and say, "Yes, I'm too small." Arrrggghh!

When we were playing with her dolls later, I had the mommy go to the store alone. She told her children that they were too little to go and that mommy was going to shop by herself. As soon as the mommy left, the children said, "Yahoo! Let's have a birthday party!"

She wears me out.