Long Overdue Update

Phew!  Life is busy around here -- holidays, travel, work, school....  but no one - NO ONE - is busier than Miss Alice.  She has so very much to do.  Busy busy busy.

A typical day begins with a clean diaper and getting dressed, then downstairs for breakfast.  While I'm cutting up pears and pouring cheerios, Alice wastes no time removing pots from cupboard and drawers, un-nesting the bowls, and (of course!) taking the kitchen aid attachments out of their cabinet and placing them ever-so gently around the floor.  (CRASH.)

Once I scoop Alice up and into her high chair, she has even more responsibility.  She needs to take one small bite out of each item, then fling (right handed only) the remainder at the adjacent picture window.  Toward the end of the meal, the fork needs a good window-toss too.  Alice is also careful to take a few big gulps of water, thirstily at first, but the last one must (must) be spit out with a nice arc onto the tray.  With that the meal is over.  Bib must be pulled off and thrown (of course), and any form of wash cloth to the face or hands must be avoided and berated at all costs (and at volume).

Once down from the high chair and fueled with several chunks of fruit, and a few cheerios, the day really begins.  First order of business:  remove all books (about 30) from the book basket in the living room.  Board books should be tossed farthest, and a few of the larger books should be placed on nearby chairs, for texture and aesthetic appeal.  Then the cooking magazines need to be taken down from their shelf in what I foolishly termed a "grown-up cookbook section" when we first moved in.  There are a good 50 or so of those to be sprinkled around.  A few should be taken into the kitchen, just to keep us inspired.

Then into the playroom where the real mayhem begins.  Puzzles have been put out of reach (after Eric and I slowly and painfully learned our lesson putting them together each night piece by piece), but there are still plenty of duplo pieces, blocks, balls, stacking boxes, and sorting shapes to be mixed and incorporated into the toddler-family room ecosystem....

Then an amazing thing occurs -- Alice will start to put things away, at least a little.  She even understands "put away" an is pretty happy to do so.    So a few things -- maybe 5% of the total -- are put away.  Not where they were initially, though.   That would be far too banal.  Someplace ELSE.  Someplace exciting, and NEW.  Like down the cat door to the basement.

Upstairs, closer to nap time, Alice has yet more on her agenda.  She dutifully takes Lizzie's tights out of the hanging baskets in her closet and puts them in her pants drawer.  And all of the shirts need to be taken out of the short drawer.  Probably to be left on the floor, but possibly to be taken into the playhouse for a more creative dispersion.  In the bathroom, there are of course a few things that need to be tossed into the bathtub, and more to be taken to the sink (via Lizzie's step stool).  If someone has been careless enough to leave a toothbrush near the end of the bathroom counter, then that should (naturally) be dispatched through the banister railings to the first floor.  Any clean diapers in arms reach should be opened and trotted around the room (possibly on one's head), and dirty ones should be extracted from the trash can (if I haven't been careful to wedge it shut); Alice is careful to check.  every time.

And that's just the morning...

Alice, Alice, Alice.  What a little wonder.  SO delightful.  And ridiculous.  And BUSY.