All this month, I've been warning Molly May that I'm on the hunt for a shrinking machine. Every time we go to Target, I say, "Wait, I just need to find the shrinking machine aisle!" just so I can hear her squeal and say, "Nooo! You can't shrink me back to a baby!!! I'm almost five!"
It's almost impossible to believe that our littlest munchkin, the one who is by far our snuggliest and most happy to be held and babied, is turning a WHOLE HAND.
Those scientists out there have got to do something about this (they have technology for everything except freezing time!) because this little girl is looking way too grown up all of a sudden.
Luckily, she still has her pocket-size moments, though... all of these pictures were taken this month, just shy of five.
She may be small, but almost every day, we do a double take over something this little one says... she misses nothing. "I know, I'm a smart cookie, but don't say that again, okay?" she told me the other day. Apparently, I say that a lot.
She's my constant buddy, except for a few short hours every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, when she is peppering her preschool teachers with questions and observing and taking notes on every other personality in her class. She knows everything about everybody, including Joey and Clara's teachers, all of their friends, even their parents' names. She knows our schedule for the week backward and forward, and from the moment she climbs out of bed, she knows whether it's going to be a gymnastics day, a dance day, or -- most exciting of all -- a baseball game day.
A lot is going on in that little brain, and she narrates it much of the time. She loves stream-of-consciousness talking, and often will go off on a tangent, then pause, puzzled, and say, "Wait, how did that conversation even start?"
She's an exhausting little chatterbox, but she wouldn't be Molly May if she wasn't commenting on and questioning everything in her little world. As a new reader, she now has her eyes peeled for words all around her, on signs, magazines, milk cartons, cereal boxes, and, of course, books! She happily devours the little readers that Clara brings home from first grade, and this morning, even "passed" Clara's spelling test as I was quizzing her on the way to school. She's absorbed geometry from Joey this year, listened to each of his monthly speeches with gravity -- even with topics like Grover Cleveland and conjoined twins -- watched him practice for his timed math tests with huge interest, and joined in Clara's Daisy troop's letter-writing project for the local convalescent home.
In other words, this little girl is soooo ready for another amazing year of milestones: kindergarten, swim team, new friends, sleeping in her own room in the new house, and really diving into little girlhood.
But part of me is still on the lookout for that elusive shrinking machine!
