Vanity & Excitement

Vanity has been discovered creeping into parts of our lives. Our 2.5 year old has begun exploring her own ideas of pretty and not so pretty with unblushing honesty and a sweet flash of a dimple. Where before brushing her hair was accomplished through either a long run and an ambush, it is now something important that needs to be done before we leave the house. Chapstick has taken centerstage and when A-chan knocked her punch cup off the table this evening her first thought was that the chapstick might have taken harm somehow. It is an interesting new dynamic since I am not all that interested in make-up and have very little to do with this behaviour.

How putting on chapstick became a daily ritual is beyond me. I own one tube of lipstick that actually gets used maybe twice a year so I know that she is not modeling behaviour from me. Watching her today was fun, it's neat to see her coming up with things completely her own (with perhaps some influence from a couple of fav anime like Strawberry Marshmallow) and not just interested in copying me :)

At the same time, it's a little painful as I ask her how she likes my new dress and she tells me, "it's ugly, take it off!" But that's okay, I'll save up that little comment to return to her when she's sixteen and trying on prom dresses... And along those lines I have a new and impassioned diet/exercise plan after this loverly and very truthful list of my facial features, "hair, eyebrows, nose, lips, teeth, chin, other chin..." At the moment the diet is going fairly well as I've lost about 12 pounds so far and I can hear that little voice in my head saying 'other chin' whenever I come face to face with temptation, lol.

We're going back to the Renaissance Festival this saturday and while we're all looking forward to it, A-chan is going nuts about it. She's been listing off everyone who is going and talking about what she will show to whom and how much fun we're going to have. Apparently the boat swing was a source of major fun, she's made us both promise to take her for rides in it. I haven't told her yet that other things have come up for about half the people that we were going to go with. It's so hard to disappoint her so we're pretty determined that even if it's just the three of us we'll go anyway and probably swing in the boat all day! :D