This Tuesday with Old Lady Mary: And After That, I Put on Some Jersey Knits

This morning, I had a slow start (like every morning, really, but this time I didn’t bother to rush at the end), and Jarod took his moped to work, leaving before I was all dressed for Old Lady Mary, so we were without a photographer. No matter, I thought, Nicole is going to meet us at OLM’s, and I’ll ask her to take the photo! Except that I’d missed the call that was Nicole saying she wouldn’t make it today, and left the house without so much as taking a mirror photo of the two of us. We arrived at OLM’s, took in all the stuff we’d gotten her both for Christmas and as regular groceries, and proceeded to have a nice chat, during which she admired Zinashi’s look over and over again and did not notice anything at all about my outfit. Well, except that I wasn’t wearing my coat (same song, same dance, stuck on repeat), which I had stashed beneath the stroller so that Zinashi and I could walk in only wearing our holiday finery. The visit went swimmingly, and Mary loved the card with Zinashi’s photo on it, as well as the small bird ornament and giant package of cinnamon danishes we’d brought her. She exclaimed over Zinashi’s headband and her fancy plaid dress and her sweater! The sweater was exclaimed over several times. In fact, the only part that didn’t go well was my daughter leaving her headband on. I figured I could threaten ciao chocolate* and get her to put it back on long enough for a photo on the premises, but she wouldn’t last long after that. So as soon as the visit was through, I asked her to put the headband on and stand in front of the Christmas tree in the lobby. She obliged, sort of.

I like the weird grimace at all, but I thought I’d at least try for a smile, and when I requested one, she decided to point to her teeth.

Yes, Zinashi, those are what you use to smile with, but that’s not a smile. What? You’d rather not smile? Okay, fine. Wait, what? You want to take a picture? Okay, great. Can you take a picture of Mami for the internet?

Legs and shoes, and then a few photos of her finger in front of the lens. Let’s try again! I’ll crouch down.

Good enough! Let’s go! What do you mean MORE!?? Oh, all right, one more.

And from there she proceeded to take about twelve more photos of her finger in front of the lens. For the record, she thinks they’re all fantastic.

For the record, I think she’s fantastic. Not that you didn’t already know that. She went on to charm everyone in the lobby and the majority of people doing holiday food shopping at Whole Foods. Well done, little cricket, well done.

She chose to wear her dress to sleep in for her nap, and I rocked her to sleep wearing mine, but it didn’t take me long to change for a workout and decide to slip into something more comfortable afterwards. I am now transformed from Vintage LBD Mom into Yoga Pant Mom. But it can’t be helped; I’m not going to scrub the crusted over scrambled egg pan wearing something so cute. At least, not this time.

*When Zinashi is being a little bit naughty, our current useful tool is to take away something she likes. When we first met, she said ciao instead of good-bye, and so it stuck within our discipline system. This morning she decided to hit the cat immediately upon waking, and her brand new big machina, her bear, and Baby Coco all had to ciao**. Such is life, and guess who has been very nice to the cat ever since?

**Actually, only the big machina would have had to ciao, but she also bit Ababi and refused to say she was sorry (to Ababi or to the cat) for a short period of time***, thus three of her prized possessions exited to the coat closet. She has been asking about them all day. I doubt she’ll begin her day by hitting the cat tomorrow.

***So much for your impression of our girl as an angel, huh? She’s a three-year-old. What can we do? You know, aside from making it clear that hitting the cat and biting Ababi are unacceptable? Nothing, really. We love her regardless and think that she’s a very good girl.