Almost Her Birthday

Before soccer on Monday morning, I could find only one ponytail ring. Much consternation ensued among all present members of the household, all of whom wished to be in possession of said ponytail ring, until I finally decreed that it go to Willow, who has the curliest, floppiest hair of the three of us.

After soccer practice, I went downstairs to throw the girls' soccer shirts into the washing machine, along with some pants, shorts, socks, stuffed animals, Batman costumes--you know, laundry. I walked back upstairs then, as I crossed the living room, I spied Willow leading Sydney gently by the shoulders over to the mirror on the inside door of our linen closet.

"There, now," she was saying to Sydney, "Now you don't need a ponytail ever."

I called Matt to come home for lunch, then grabbed a beer and a magazine--do you ever feel the need to just disconnect, lest you say or do something that your children would feel the need to mention in therapy a couple of decades later? I loved that baby's hair.

The barber that Matt took Sydney to called her a silly goose and refused to even try to cut it all even--see this cropped part right here, for instance?
Yeah, that's the top of her head. So now Sydney's my funky-banged, big-eyed, crooked-hair baby.

In other news, ignoring it won't make it go away--Willow is going to be five years old tomorrow. Add to that the fact that my Sydney hasn't nursed since LAST FRIDAY, and I am just about to squeeze them both to my ample bosoms and commence a-weeping. It actually does help with the hyper-emotionalism that they've been SO naughty this week. I am not kidding you, today I walked into the nursery to find Willow hanging her naked butt out the window, actively trying to pee into a plastic grocery sack that Sydney was standing outside, underneath the window, holding.

W. T. F? Can you even punish that? I mean, we don't have a specific rule in place or anything, but seriously!

A couple of days ago I taught the girls how to use our salad spinner and some acrylic paints to martial the force that is centrifugal force in the pursuit of art (we got the original idea for salad spinner invitations from Chasing Cheerios, and then we modified it to more closely match the messiness that is us), and then I decoupaged onto the backs of them, and thus we have our birthday party invitations: They're postcards, so the address will go on that white cardstock square, and then the stamp will go above it. I hate that stash scrapbook paper, which came in a pack of some cool paper, because it mentions meat a whole bunch, and so I was happy that it sort of fit the theme of our party, the Picnic Party. Goodbye, nasty paper.

Willow's real gift was Walking with Dinosaurs Live, which coincidentally also blew our entire birthday budget, but I think we can put together a nice little party for a few kid friends using only stash, and keeping the food much more simple than we've done at past birthday parties. Will also knows not to expect any other presents (other than the $30 grandma-induced shopping spree she'll have tomorrow at Learning Treasures, at least), but I think I can whip up something thematically appropriate from this:

That will hopefully go nicely with the five buttons my big girl will be wearing on her birthday crown tomorrow.