Didn't think she'd be making out with boys already

Ari's latest "obsession" is putting her dolls and stuffed animals in time-out. She is very stern about it, too--I've caught bits and pieces of the speech she gives them, with phrases like, "Don't move, don't cry, you stay there, 5 minutes, no talking." It seems like every time I turn around, another doll/animal is in time-out. And when I ask her to tell me why they are in time-out, she doesn't give me a solid answer. I'm starting to suspect that this new routine is her subtle way of protesting the entire concept of time-out as an unfair and pointless form of discipline. (Though, for the record, I should tell you that we don't use time-out all that often with her. At least, not as often as she's been employing it.)

Also, up until this weekend, I thought it was not possible to color on carpet with a crayon. But Ari kindly demonstrated that one should never underestimate a toddler's powers of destruction. I was sitting at the computer yesterday when she came over to me, out of the blue, and loudly said, "Hi!" with a giant grin on her face.

Thinking that was sweet of her, I smiled and replied, "Hi!" But when she kept grinning at me, I quickly grew suspicious and asked, "What did you do now?"

"I broke-a my crayon," she said, holding up half of a red crayon.

"Okay..." I said slowly, feeling like there was more to the story.

"Ari color," she added, pointing in the direction of the living room.

I knew there wasn't really any paper around for her to scribble on, so I asked, "Where did you color?" thinking maybe she had colored on the coffee table (again).

She pointed again, a little more urgently, and as I got up from my chair and saw the damage, she finished her sentence. "Ari color on the carpet."



That picture doesn't even show all of it... I couldn't fit it all in my camera's viewfinder. I made her help me scrub the carpet, but she was far too excited about it for it to be any sort of punishment. But at least it made me feel better. Most of it came out, but if you're looking for it, you can see faint pinkish lines. So if anyone has any tips to remove crayon from carpet, I'm all ears.

Ari had a couple "dates" with her "boyfriend" Nick this weekend. On Saturday night, while Ari and Nick were playing together, Kristin (armed with her camera) was trying to get Nick to give Ari a kiss. Instead, Ari grabbed his face with both hands and planted a big kiss right on his lips. I'm pretty sure she did that more than once--encouraged by our laughter, no doubt.

We hung out with them at the mall on Monday night, too--let the kids play in the play area for a while and then got dinner. When it came time to walk the mall, we had Ari and Nick hold hands. Sure, it was adorable, but it also served a practical purpose--it kept them so occupied with each other that they stayed with us and didn't wander off. They took off running once or twice, but I think the fact that they were holding hands slowed them down a bit.

After the mall, we went to Coldstone, and let them two of them roam free. Luckily, it's a small store, so there's not much for them to get into. Of course, of the very few things they could get into, Ari managed to find all of them, first playing with the bathroom door, then the door to the employees-only area, and finally trying to erase the chalkboard sign in the window. But for the most part, they kept each other distracted. At one point, Ari was spinning in circles, and we told Nick to go dance with her. I am not kidding when I say he didn't walk over to her--he strutted. We were cracking up, because it totally looked like he was trying to impress her or something. A few minutes later, Ari was walking around with this weird limp in her step--totally on purpose. Really makes you wonder what goes through their little heads sometimes.