Girl of Many Talents.

We've had a relatively quiet weekend (for us.) Yesterday Adam had Daddy and Me day at preschool, and Ellie was dying for us to do something FUN too. I told her look, they're only going to be gone an hour, I don't have a car seat for you, and frankly, I want to lay in bed and drink this coffee, but maybe you can find a craft kit to work on with me?

She dug out the mini loom that Granny Janny gave her for Christmas, and immediately went to town. She said she wanted to make the purse that they showed on the box, and got to weaving away. I was surprised at how quickly she picked it up - I offered quite a bit of help during the first part of the day, but when she picked it up after nap time, she'd gotten the hang of doing the loops and keeping the thread tight. This morning she whipped up a strap for it, and we got it all sewn together!

Beads and fringe and neon yarn, hooray!

Then this morning Adam had a birthday party for a classmate, so Tim took him, and I'd promised Ellie that she could ride her bike down the trail to the park, so we did just that! I was really proud of her - she not only rode the long way to the park and back, but then I had offered we could go to a nearby sandwich shop for lunch, and she rode her bike over there as well, which was a good lesson about safely using cross walks, being careful of other people on the sidewalk, etc. It's so nice to be with my grown up lady-girl, who can order her own sandwich politely, and then when it came time to get her scoop of ice cream, she went into the restaurant (we were sitting outside) read all of the flavors available and made her choice by herself.

Meanwhile, it is funny to think that when she rode on ahead of me (I was jogging) I had a momentary worry about if someone would think she was unaccompanied and stop her. I don't worry about things happening to her, honestly, but I worry about some Nosy Nancy telling me I'm a bad mom because I don't have her in my line of sight at all times. Very different than when I was seven and would get on my bike, scarves and hair a-flying, and ride all over the place for who knows how long. If she wasn't so damn pokey in the mornings, I'd let her walk to school on her own, but I don't because the one time she started off for school on her own last year, a neighbor brought her home for being alone. And because almost every morning I have to tell her to get a move on, at least twice.

Meanwhile, she brought this home from school the other day:

Me too kid, me too.