Things My Girls do That Make Me SMILE :)

• Maggie vigorously exclaiming “GET OUT, KNOTS!  GET OUT!!!” while I brush her hair each day.  The girls have their baths early-mid morning (depending on how early they seem tired!), and I get Ana out first.  I dry and powder and cotton tip and dress her and brush her hair on the change table, and we have special snuggles and I put her down to sleep, smelling like my perfect little girl.  She immediately goes to sleep.  Then I get my other perfect little girl out of the bath, and dry, cotton tip, powder and dress her out in the family room sitting on the couch.  Then she turns around and sits with me, and I put leave-in conditioner and detanglers in her gorgeous hair and then I brush it and we chat.  It takes a little while to get all the knots out, and she knows that because she has beautiful curly hair, it gets knotty - unlike Ana's beautiful straight hair.  She loves it when I'm at the end of brushing, and there are no knots left, and it's like a little head massage :)  But right at the start she always says "Mummy, shall we get the knots out now?!" and I say "Yes, I'm getting them out right now" and then comes the "GET OUT KNOTS! - GET OUT!!" While I keep brushing :)  It makes me laugh every time - where does she come up with this stuff?!  Maggie chooses what she'd like me to do with her hair (1 plait?  2 plaits?  2 twists into a ponytail?  A bun?  Leave it out?  2 plaits into a ponytail? etc) and we take our time.  It's less fun when we're in a hurry to go somewhere and I have to try and hurry those knots away, pulling nastily, and make her sit stock still while I quickly braid the curls or whatever we're doing that day.  But we love our hair time!  I hope it all keeps being positive for Maggie with her hair, because I know that when you have crazy hair your likely to dislike it - hopefully she's always comfortable in it! :)  After 'hair time' Maggie grabs a book and we read together in bed before she has her nap.  When I'm in a hurry we 'speed read' - which means I flick through the pages and relate the story in my own words as fast as I can, and thank goodness Maggie giggles and thinks it's hilarious :)  Love our days just at home!

• The Batman & Robin thing - I love that Ana's Maggie's sweet little sidekick in everything they do :)  A song comes on and Maggie says "Dance, Ana!  Come on!" And Ana jumps up and dances with her, absolutely delight :) At the moment, they're under the dining table being 'Crocodiles' or so Maggie tells me and Ana's crawling behind her, imitating every movement exactly :)  Maggie will come out in a beautiful dress-up outfit, and Ana will be running after her dragging one for me to put on her, while Maggie translates for her - telling me that Ana wants to wear it :)  And don't get me started on those plastic high heels Ana's just desperate to wear like her big sister - she's juuust started to be able to walk in them, and words cant' describe the look on her face lol Ana just learns EVERYTHING from Maggie, and Maggie loves involving Ana in every single thing she does.  Sometimes Ana doesn't want to do something (like when Maggie wants to tuck her into bed for a big sleep for the 50th time in 10 minutes), and Maggie's learning when to back off and when Ana's going to go along with her scheme :)  

• And what about Ana? - Maggie never, ever asks for something, without asking for it for Ana too.  She just looks after her like she's her little Mama - it's so sweet.  At the dinner table she'll say "Can I please have some milk?  And what about Ana?  Ana needs some milk too.  Would you like some milk, Ana?".  Literally, she does this with EVERYTHING.  I love it - it's so nice!!

• Ana calls me 'Mammy' and calls out for me when she notices I'm not there.  I love the way she says it - she has a sweet little voice :)

• Ana's lisp - especially when she says 'yesss' and holds the lisp 's' sound.  It just occured to me that maybe this is something she'll have to work to overcome?  Or maybe it's normal at this age and it's just like pronouncing any word, but it's so cute! :)

• Ana's LOVING to learn to talk.  Every day she comes up and says new words, it's amazing to me how quickly she's learning.  And she loves it so much! - I'll be asking her what she'd like to eat, but she's busy excitedly pointing out 'Apple!' and 'Nana!" and 'Drink!' and 'Ears' (which she pronounces as 'eyes' lol), and 'Nose', etc.  And she's looking at me as if to say "ISN'T THIS GREAT?!  I CAN COMMUNICATE!!!!! :D" So cute! :)  And we always say to Maggie "Wow! Isn't that great?  Ana's learning to talk so well!!" and now I hear Maggie saying "That was great talking Ana!  Great job, yay!!" all the time :) - her other mother :)

• Ana always walking in and saying "Hi!!!" and waving, with a big grin on her face, every time she enters a room.  Then when she's leaving, she says "Bye!" and waves, about 3 times to each of us, before actually leaving :)  These were some of her earliest words, and she still loves using them to their full potential! :)

• Ana's joyful personality.  That girl is chock a block FULL of joy. She's just so happy to be here all the time - when we go into her room of a morning or after her nap, she'll start giggling and jumping up and down.  Last night she had ahorrible, awful nappy rash, and kept sobbing and saying 'sore' and as I changed it I was saying "I'm so sorry, I'll be very gentle", and everytime I talked to her she'd start smiling her head off, before dissolving into tears again.. I hope she keeps this gift forever!!!

• The girls singing :)  They do it all the time :)  Maggie walks around composing her own songs as well as singing it seems like everything she's ever heard, and she remembers lyrics I swear after hearing them once, so we're big on really uplifting music in this house!  Ana sings and dances along, and often walks around singing her own songs too! - Then grinning when she sees you watching her, stoked to be noticed :)

• Maggie's getting to be such a big girl!  She loves helping with everything, and it's wonderful and scary all at once!

• This boy in my belly kicks around a lot, and I love it :)  less than 12 weeks till we get to meet him, AHH!! :)  So excited :)  Lately I've been shopping a couple of times and looked for clothes for him.  Maggie is SO excited that we're "Getting some clothes for the baby brother!"  I think she'll be as excited as us when she finally gets to meet him :)