It's all well and Good Friday

(Don't ask about the title... I don't know. It made some kind of sense in my head...)

I have more Ari stories. I have a feeling this is going to become a pretty regular topic of conversation...

Ari managed to lock Tony out of the house the other day, when he was home alone with her. He was letting the dogs out the back door, so he stepped outside with them. The door is a sliding glass door, and the lock is a simple one that flips up or down. Ari likes to play with it, so after Tony shut the door behind him, she managed to flip it into the locked position. Luckily, she was in a cooperative mood, and she came back to the door when he called her through the glass and unlocked it for him. And I was on my way home from work anyway, so it wouldn't have been a huge disaster.

Ari was at the babysitter's yesterday, and Mary called my cell phone to share a story with me. She told me Ari was saying "pee-pee" and wanting to go into the bathroom. Curious, Mary followed her, to see what she would do, and Ari gestured toward the toilet. She was already down to her diaper, having decided earlier that it would be fun to strip, so Mary took off her diaper and sat Ari on the toilet. She didn't pee, but she sat there, content, even holding on to the seat by herself. The reason Mary called was to ask me if Ari had ever done that before, and I said no. I mean, we've been explaining to her what we're doing when we sit on the toilet, and we've sat her on her own potty fully clothed. Well, a couple times we've sat her on it right before a bath, but she's never peed in it. But she's never actually asked to sit on the potty naked before. And I'm pretty sure she's never said "pee-pee" either.

We took Ari to the play area last night, and at one point, she was sitting inside this little cave with a little boy who looked to be about her age. And she was flirting for all she was worth. She smiled at him, touched his arms, hugged him, and I swear I even saw her lean in for a kiss once. After that, she was laying her head in his lap and just being a goofball. The boy's back was to me, so I couldn't see his face, but he didn't seem bothered by it (though he wasn't returning any of the affection).

Last time we were there, Tony helped Ari climb up on top of this cave--it's probably a good 3-4 feet off the ground at the very top. Last night, the little showoff scaled the curvy walls of that cave all by herself, and sat proudly at the top. And she even managed to get down--by laying on her belly and sliding slowly backwards. Of course, once she got to a certain point, she wasn't sliding slowly anymore, so she would land hard on her feet and end up plopping onto her butt. I held my breath the first time she did it, expecting tears from the ungraceful landing, but she got right up and trotted over to us with a Cheshire-cat grin on her face. By the third time she pulled this stunt, she managed to land on her feet, just as hard, but without toppling onto her butt. She looked almost as surprised as I was by this feat, and then grinned even bigger than before.

And so begins the weekend. We're going to my parents' house tonight (Happy Birthday, Daddy!), and then tomorrow we are getting together with Matt, Kristin, and Nicholas. And then Sunday is Easter, so I will finally stop being a slacker and will take lots of pictures of Ariana in her adorable little dress. Happy Good Friday! (Ooh, that sounds so grammatically wrong...)