My Ravenous (Eldest) Rabble-Rouser

Well, m'peeps. We did it. We forced a better day today. 

I pretty much took the attitude let go, let flow.

You wanna go crazy in the car and make a crap-ton o' noise as loud as humanly possible?

Go for it.

You wanna take your shoes of everywhere we go (I'm talking to you, Little Man), despite the 40,387 time-outs and lectures Daddy delivered last weekend in an attempt to get you to stop?

Knock yourself out.

You wanna duke it out over exclusive rights to your toys and enrage your siblings?

May the fiercest kid win.

I mean, seriously, I just let it all go.

And you know what? We had a pretty dang good day of play time (at home and at one of our fun play places), projects, painting and eating. Oh my heavens, the eating.

Which brings me to the focus of tonight's post:

My beautiful, beloved, growing, almost-kindergartener:

I mean, my girl is a-growin' and a-changin'.

I look at her a million times a day and I'm stunned by the small differences in appearance and demeanor and maturity.

I mean, she's always been relatively composed for her age, and her height always makes people guess she's even older. But these days, I listen to her and interact with her and I just know she's on the precipice of being a true elementary-aged kiddo. 

(Waaaaaaaaaaaaah.)

In all seriousness, we're nothing but excited about the big K-Day next month. She's ready, I'm ready. I know it'll be an adjustment until we settle into our new normal, but I'm not stressed.

At least not about school.

Just a little stressed about paying the mortgage since Little Man and Chica are currently eating me out of house and home.

For Little Man, that's nothing new. But for Chica, two things are dead giveaways for growth spurts: 1) eating and 2) sleeping. And just recently, she's needing more of both.

Tonight for dinner, she had baked, stuffed pasta shells with meat sauce.

Then went for some yogurt.

Then an apples, blueberries & spinach pouch.

Then thought she was done, so she had a Kit-Kat.

But, nope. Still hungry.

So she went for some Mickey Mouse-shaped veggie chips.

Then some grapes.

And finished it off with some mandarin oranges.

For anyone who knows my eldest's eating habits. That's a lot.

So the food intake is on the rise, and she's napped, voluntarily, two days in a row, after months of rarely napping.

During quiet time today, she and I did some flash cards, and then played a Doc McStuffins pop-up game we've been doing. And then I told her I wanted to rest for 20 minutes before I had to release Chicklet from her crib. And she told me she was going to practice her cheetah skills (prowling around the bed and sneaking impossibly quiet, obviously), and then next thing I knew, she was quiet and I looked over to find this:

She had such a peaceful rest, Chicklet was a lovely, quiet girl when I brought her down to play, and we went on to have a great afternoon once Little Man was up (project pics tomorrow).

So...my girl is a-growin' and I think it will continue for awhile.

Which means I'll continue to look at these pictures and marvel at the changes before my eyes!