Play Rules per Muffin

Per Muffin, the rules for playing these classic games are:

HIDE & SEEK: Muffin hides, and counts to 10 while hiding. When she's done counting, the other person says "I'm coming to find you", at which point Muffin darts out of her hiding spot.

TAG: The person who is "it" runs, and the other person tries to catch them. When you catch them you become "it" and have to run away and "avoid" being caught.

I know - she's got them backwards! Its so cute though ;) We've tried explaining to her the 'typical' rules but she doesn't buy them. Gotta admire how she likes to do it her own way!

On a related note, I think this NPR article does a great job explaining why creative play is SO important.

Of Carrots & Muffins

Muffin woke today up asking for muffins, so how could I say no? Except I didn’t have any. So we proceeded to make Dr Weil's Carrot Cake except I baked it as mini muffins for 15 minute instead, and substituted the pinapple with applesauce. Yum!

Bowling

Today we went to a Bowling birthday party, her first time bowling! Unfortunately one of the first things she tried to do was run after the ball. Anyone who bowls will remember how oily those lanes are… so yes, she took one step and immediately landed on her back. Poor honey was so stunned it took her like a minute to finally wail away. Of course we held and comfoted her quite a bit, checked her out to make sure she was fine, etc. Eventually she calmed down, and was even willing to bowl a bit again, but only with the birthday girl's help. Hopefully she's not scared of bowling, I'd love to do it as a family when she gets older!

Picnic in February?

Sunday morning Muffin woke up asking for a picnic. My response was, honey, its too cold to have a picnic! But that didn’t deter her, she just suggested we do it at the mall. And being true to herself, it was just not any picnic, she asked for tablecloth & flowers & an an umbrella. I was able to dissuade her from the umbrella and we used placemats instead of a tablecloth. It turned out great! I packed up simple sandwiches for everyone, brought some water & some chips, and we had a wonderful little picnic in the middle of Woodbridge mall.

Later that day while we were chatting, she suddenly asks me about talking in Spanish and she says, mami, I'd like to learn Spanish. I almost hit the floor! So now I'm trying to talk even more Spanish with her, which is hard b/c she speaks English so well its automatic to respond back in English. When I catch myself, I'll repeat my response in Spanish, repeating in both languages whatever word or phrase might be new to her. Hey, she just might still turn out bilingual!

Woe is me

Oh, big tragedy! We ran out of stickers yesterday, oh no!! Muffin and I did a quick run to the local Target last night to get some stickers. (BTW Its amazing how quiet the stores were just b/c it was Superbowl Sunday.) But on the way out we happened to walk by the little Target Cafe (which was closed) and all the way home Muffin kept saying in her actress voice "Oh, owe is me!" just because she wanted a big soft pretzel and couldn't get it.

Where do they get stuff like that? Had me cracking up all the way home.

Turns out that when she turns on the suffering actress mode on DH, he responds by saying 'woe is me'. Hmph, and he blames ME for all her acting ability! Methinks she's learning some from her daddy!

Just for the fun of it, here's a picture of our aspiring actress in full costume. Enjoy!