I feel terrible about posting so infrequently lately. Munch has kept us on the move with her busy social calendar every weekend. It's been a lot of fun getting to meet her new friends and their families have been really nice. I was relieved to have a day off for the holiday, even though AudioDad had to work. Munch and I decided to get back to our letter activities, so we tackled M,m today. We started off making the letter M with wood pieces and Munch was delighted to discover she had made the word "moo". Of course, I got sound effects to accompany the word making:
Next, we moved on to her alphabet workbook. Munch found the stickers with M words and practiced writing the letter-
before beginning her letter collage onto which she glued some dry macaroni-
We had a puppet to assemble- and Munch loved making her monkey-
I was really excited about our super cute, super easy food project after getting the idea off the web. I melted some pink candy melts while Munch stuck marshmallows onto lollipop sticks.
The marshmallow pops got a dip in the pink candy then sprinkled with decorations
The only tricky thing was where to put them while they cooled and the coating dried- they were too top heavy to stand in a tumbler. In the end, I propped a cooling rack on a few cans which worked perfectly!
Munch got to enjoy one as part of, what else? A muffin tin meal! I filled it with bunny mac & cheese (Munch's favorite), meatballs, macadamia nuts, mandarin orange segments, and a marshmallow pop- all washed down with a glass of milk-
After naptime, which gave me a chance to clean up, Munch and I finished up her mermaid craft. Earlier in the day, she painted some tissue paper (a la Eric Carle) with green, teal, and blue dot markers
After it dried, she glued squares of her painted tissue paper onto a mermaid shape and decorated it with sequins
I cut it out for her and we glued it onto a water-scene background done in glitter glue-
Last activities for the day were a batch of "hide and seek" muffins to go with dinner (the cherries she pushed into the center of the batter sink into the center of the muffin during baking)
and some exploration with magnets.
By a year and a half, it was finally long enough to give her a short, flippy pixie cut, but she usually wore it in pigtails, thus beginning her "Boo" phase (from Monsters, Inc.)
As she grew older, Munch decided she wanted her hair longer, so we let it grow out. And when she neared her third birthday last Christmas, she had hair I would have killed for- sleek, smooth, layered- absolutely gorgeous.
Within months though, it began to change. What began as a funny little wave on one side of her head spread to most of her crown. She continued to wear her hair long, but it definitely had more body and fullness at its roots. Finally summer arrived and we just couldn't continue to fight what her hair was becoming. I cut it to shoulder-length, and while we were usually able to brush it smooth, for the most part we let the waves do what they liked and corralled them with clips and headbands.
By Fall, Munch's hair was still cute, but only because a preschooler could get away with a wacky look like hers. It was no longer wavy, but fully curly at the roots but straighter towards the ends. Most days it was a mess and I had no idea how to cut it or style it any longer.
So off we went to a kids' stylist, who was able to make the most of her messy curls, and who admitted to have never seen a child's hair growing this way before. Many babies have those beautiful baby curls, which eventually grow out, but I'd never seen them grow IN! Munch got a darling, short, Shirley-Temple-esque bob, which requires a totally new way of styling (I'm learning to spritz and scrunch) to keep the curls from getting fluffy. Her self-portraits have changed too and she now draws her head covered in numerous circles. Here she is at Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa and her latest self-portrait-
