apologies

I was sitting on the floor and Zoe put her little hand on my shoulder and said
"I love you mom."
"I love you too, Zoe!"
and then she looked me in the eye and said
"I made a mess. But it was just an accident."
"ohhh... okay..."
"How about a hug, mom?"

in the car

"Mom?"
"yes?"
"Can I drive?"
"Not right now."
"Um. But mom. I wanna drive. Can I drive?"
"No. Mommy's driving."
"okay."

Happy

Zoe has been watching School House Rock in the car whenever we go somewhere. She really likes "I'm Just a Bill" and she likes the multiplication songs. When we got home from the YMCA tonight she asked me to write certain numbers so that she could paint them. She requested 4, 8, 5, 16... I think she did a pretty good job of painting over them. Especially 5.

She has been drawing faces quite a bit. She'll say "I'll draw you mom!" and then she'll draw herself, too. Sometimes the eyes & nose are just little dots, but this particular face looks like an actual happy face! Good painting! She asked me to get her blocks. They were not in the same place where they have been for many months. She told me that they disappeared and that it was a mystery and that her blocks were in Constance's room. After Constance moved I put some of Zoe's toys in there thinking that it could be a play-room; but we just drag it all back out into the living room every day. Oh well. She likes to build this same "castle" over and over again.

all the colors

I am working on a yarn-dyeing project and Zoe is assisting. She is really interested in mixing the different colors. It's just food coloring and water.

Butterfly Princess Dinosaur Pajamas

She often goes in her room and closes the door and this is what dances out a few minutes later.

crown

Last week Zoe had her butterfly costume on and she told me that she couldn't find her crown and I told her that I didn't think she had one. She was disappointed. So we were at Joann's buying some food coloring and they have a bunch of $1 stuff to stare at while you are standing in line. Of course it's all pink and shiny and everything that little girls cannot resist while they are forced to stand in line next to their crafty-fabric-buying mothers. Zoe finds this crown and puts it on to the delight of all the women standing there and then she puts it up on the counter while I am buying the food coloring. It was only a dollar and it really is very shiny. I think we have the whole princess ensemble now.

argh

It has been a tough week. Zoe's painting tells a good story: layers of turmoil. There was a clear path at times, but mostly we just kept attempting to get through the day. Pete left for New York on Monday [with a fever and the flu for sure], I tried to go to work [and I did, three times], Zoe went to preschool completely hysterical and miserable. Yesterday she woke up with a fever so I had to cancel my job and stay home with a sick kid [another first!]. Today I feel like crap, too. Can't wait for tomorrow!

Sometimes though, Zoe picks out something awesome at the store: like pink, heart-shaped sunglasses and everything is okay again. She loves these. She spun the sunglass display around and then put these in the cart at Kohl's. She loves pink. In every way. She picks all of her pink things out of her pile of little toys and keeps them together in a collection. There is a pink wind-up dragonfly, a pink flower, a ring with a pink heart on it, and some other things....

During our sick day yesterday Zoe thought she wanted to play outside so we got all bundled up and just took a walk around the house. It's been a long time since we had even been in the backyard. Hey, look, you know it's Spring when the "pretty flowers" are blooming again. She picked all of the dandelions she could find and then we just sat on the porch in the sun for a few minutes.