Our Ainsley

Her little habits are so easily forgotten as the months and years pass by.  I make a scrapbook at the end of every year to document that year's events, but find myself struggling to remember those little moments of parenthood that make me smile.

Here's a snapshot of my Ainsley from April of 2013.

1)  "Last night I dreamed about ponies, princesses, gummi bears, and slurpees!"  She often comes to the gate at her bedroom door at night to tell us she's scared of worms.  [My great idea of watching How to Eat Fried Worms has backfired terribly.]  We'll give her better ideas of what to dream about.  Tim usually tells her to dream of princesses in crystalland.

2)  The girl loves Scotch tape.  She finds a way to use it in many crafts.  She made a quilt for her stuffed reindeer by taping pieces of paper together once.  Below you'll see a creation she made using some of the school pictures she received this year.  It's right by her bed.  She specifically put no boys in the display.  Notice that the bottom picture is ripped.  She was trying to find a way to show just the head of this subject with no hair.  It wasn't working, so she gave up.

3)  She comes home often with art made at school.  On of my favorites is below.  You can see her signature at the top.  She struggles with the s and e yet.  When asked about Jesus, Ainsley replied "He loves children!  He gives us food!  He gives us our Mommies and Daddies.  He gives our Mom and Dad kids" 

4)  Ainsley loves to play games.  She had Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, and multiple memory games.  We found out right away that kids are built with an innate urge to cheat.  I told her once that stacking the deck was the same as cheating.  She stopped, looked at me, and said, "I think I'm going to cry!"  And cry she did.    Every game she plays she tries to stack the deck, flip through the cards until she finds a good one, or spin the spinner VERY slowly to get the correct number to move.  Her grammy taught her how to play tic tac toe.   Unfortunately, she doesn't understand the concept of three in a row.  She believes that ANY three on the board constitutes a row.  Needless to say, she thinks she's a pro at tic tac toe.  

Here she's playing a memory game she cut apart herself from a Highlights magazine.
Can you tell how proud she was about her cutting skills?

 5)  Ainsley will tell you that her best friends are her cousins.  She will list off all her girl cousins (sorry boy cousins, boys have cooties right now) and then beg to go over to their houses.  All of her cousins are SO WONDERFUL because many of them are quite a few years older than she but will still play with her.  And by "play with" I mean "be bossed around by."  She loves family birthday parties.

6)  One night she just wasn't tired and kept coming to her bedroom door to inform us of her wakefulness.   I tried to entice her to go to sleep by telling her there would be a surprise in the morning.  (One of her cousins was coming by to get her hair braided).  She thought about the concept of a surprise for a while and said, "Is it CAKE?"  This girl is SO my daughter.

7)  She's still attached to her reindeer named Nixon.  We tease her all the time that Nixon is a boy, and she'll respond with, "No!  He is a girl!"  Nixon and Monkey sleep with her every night, along with other random stuffed animals that happen to procure an invitation.  She also has a dream light that serves as the nightlight in the room.  After we pray, we have to turn the dream light on to the blue setting before we leave.  There are still a few times a month in which she wakes up distressed because she cannot find her Nixon.  During the daytime she puts Nixon's scarf around her wrist to make it easier to play while still holding him.  I wonder if she'll start to give Nixon up on her own or if we'll have to develop a gentle removal plan for her?

Her bedtime buddies.  

 8)  She loves to draw and color.  Every drawing has to be displayed somewhere in the house or put in the pile to be scanned for the scrapbook.  Our entire house is an art gallery.  One day we had an exhibit of square-bodied daddy drawings.  They lined our hallway.  Her favorite subjects right now are Hello Kitty, Fairies, mermaids, and weddings.

This is the display near my bed.  

She asks Daddy often to draw a bride and groom so she can color them in.  Daddy likes to joke that I let her watch "American Gypsy Weddings" too much given the red wedding dress.
[Note:  She's never seen the show, but must have an inner need for pizzazz.]

9)  While she hates to clean up in general, she loves having specific chores that are her responsibility.  Her chores right now are unpacking and putting away toilet paper and paper towels into the linen closet and unloading the top of the dishwasher.  She's not tall enough to put away the cups in the top of the dishwasher, but she finds the tops and bottoms for the sippy cups and puts them together for me.  She'll also put away the silverware.  She also loves setting the table, choosing who will sit where and what utensils and plates they will be using.  

The linen closet after Ainsley has put away toilet paper.  

10)  She's my little babysitter when I need to take a shower, do laundry, or handle Durham.  She knows to fetch a pacifier and say "sssshhhhhhh" until I can come to get Wrenn.  It's actually super helpful.  While I'm happy my kids are all very close in age and will be interested in similar activities, I can see why people wait 3-4 years between kids.  Two year olds are definitely a part of the problem while four year olds can be a part of the solution.  

That's a snapshot of our little lady as she is in April 2013.  I wonder what she'll be like next year?