Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Okay. One More.

As I was typing up that last story, Maggie was happily playing with a big box of play food. Then, she asked to play with her puzzles. Usually, I try to get her to pick up something like play food scattered across our entire living room before moving on to, say her puzzles, but I was already feeling bad that I was taking the time to type up that previous post, rather than playing with her, so I was all ready just to let it go. I put her puzzles within her reach, then sat back down to finish typing.

Suddenly, I hear a little voice singing "clean-up, clean-up..." I look over and Maggie is putting the play food back in its box. Of course, I jumped from my seat to sing and clean with her (want to do everything possible to encourage that behavior). She kept cleaning until all of her play food was back in its box. I was so proud. I was smiling and cheering and starting to regain some of my broken self-esteem (see below for that explanation.) Maggie had remembered to clean up one toy first, before moving on the the next. This was a major break-through!

Then, I sat back down to try to quickly finish up typing. In about two minutes, Maggie dumped all the pieces out of her two puzzles (with no attempt to put them back) and quickly moved to the book shelf that houses most of her toys. She proceeded to dump every basket on the floor, swiped all the books from the shelf, and continued in her rampage until almost every toy was out of its rightful place. There is one lone basket and a couple of stragglers remaining on the shelves. Our living room looks like a battlefield.

One step at a time, right? At least she picked up the food.

Dark circles and how a 1-year old can dent your self-esteem

Okay, more Maggie stories, because lets face it, that is pretty much what's going on in my life right now, or at least what is worth writing about.

So, the last couple days I decided to have a make-up holiday. Usually I am a make-up everyday kind of a girl. I don't necessarily go all-out, but usually the bare minimum consists of some concealer under my eyes, a little powder, and some mascara at least. Lately, I have been feeling tired of spending time in the morning putting it on just to spend time at night taking it off and have been doing an experiment to see if it is really worth the time every single day--hence the holiday.

Anyway, yesterday, Maggie pointed to the place under my eye (where that concealer would normally go) and said "owie." I thought perhaps I had smeared something on my face and tried to wipe it off. "Better?" I asked. Then, she pointed under my other eye, and said "owie" I took a look in the mirror, and thought, "Maybe I have darker than normal circles under my eyes today?" Could that possibly have been what she was pointing to? I figured it was near the end of the day and our apartment is kind of dark at night... Plus she is only 1. I shrugged it off as a mystery and mostly forgot about it.

But then, today, day 3 of my make-up holiday, just before Maggie's nap, she pointed under my eye and said "owie" again. Then, she repeated herself AGAIN, while pointing to my face. I looked in the mirror, just to make sure I didn't have some mysterious black eye, but sadly, I only saw myself. No black eyes. No smeared dirt. Apparently my face, to my one-year old, looks like one big owie.

I think someone (perhaps that one year old?) may be giving me those circles under my eyes, but I think also, just perhaps, my make-up holidays may need to be hidden with some concealer.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Nap

Tonight I after dinner I said to Maggie, "Okay, Maggie. It is time for your bath."

Then I paused, sighed, and said, "Mommy is tired, sweetie." (hey, I am allowed--Joe is out of town, and I was tired).

Maggie looked me straight in the eyes, walked over to me, patted my leg, and said, "Nap."

"Do I need to take a nap?" I asked her trying to hold back my giggle.

"Uh-huh." Then, she walked into my bedroom and pointed to my bed.

I guess I could learn a thing or two from my toddler. But I did follow her instructions, or at least I pulled her into my bed with me and proceeded to "take a nap" while she jumped around on the bed and made monkey noises and played with the window blinds. She did stop to give me a kiss and a hug and then another kiss and a hug (which I loved). Then she took a big dive into my piled up comforter and shrieked, "Fun!" Perhaps if I had taken a nap this afternoon then I would have been jumping around making monkey noises at my bedtime. Maybe I will give it a try tomorrow.