FRANKEN-PEET

Yesterday Allegra had an accident. She was spinning around and around and around in the family room, when she lost her equilibrium and went crashing to the floor. Unfortunately, between her and the floor was a small square wooden table. She managed to hit the corner dead on with her little forehead and crumpled to the ground. Kristen and I were doing dishes and Kristen went running to check on her, and then found the gushing head wound.

We scrambled to calm her down and stop the bleeding - the cut was only a couple eighths of an inch, but was atop a decent egg. Kristen stopped the bleeding almost immediately. While I was running to get Motrin and a butterfly bandage, Blane was bawling his eyes out, "Is she going to be ok?" I assured him she was. Sure enough, later in the day she was back to her normal self, telling me, "I all beddar."

This morning she's as if nothing ever happened - with the exception of the obvious white butterfly bandage across her forehead. I started calling her Franken-Peet. She giggles. Though before I left for work, she had insisted on having a Barbie bandaid. Which is much less conspicuous...

LATE NIGHTS WITH ALLEGRA

This little one stays up late. It's like she comes alive when the boys go to sleep (not that she's mellow when they're up), and just goes bananas. But it's cute, and we can't bring ourselves to deter her whimsical ways most nights.

Last night though, we both tried putting her to bed on different occasions. Neither worked. In fact, on the second try (mine), I took her up just as Kristen was dishing out some ice cream for the two of us. Allegra was back down the stairs just about 1 minute later, putting on her bathrobe, and telling us, "I uh ice cream too". She came down the stairs, headed to the kitchen, and wound up in our room with her own bowl and spoon. How can we possibly turn her down when she's that freaking cute?!

TWENTY-EIGHT

Allegra has locked-on to the number 28. We have no worldly idea why. At first, we thought she just said it all the time. Then we recognized a pattern - she associates it with night time. So whenever she realizes it has become dark outside, we'll hear "Huuu! Mommy, 28!!!" and a little finger points out the window into the darkness.

SELLING IT

The latest in Allegra's repertoire of tools for getting whatever she wants, is the pout. This is a professional pout too - none of those amateur tantrum screams or loud carrying on (that only frustrates a parent). The moment I have to raise my voice even the slightest, so that she knows I'm serious when I say she can't stab the wooden kitchen table with a fork (I know, I'm a jerk), this is about how it goes:

Instantly, she drops her head to facing straight down at her belly, and without a peep. She just let's it hang there, silently, in protest. After a few moments, she will very slowly start to wander off - away from the scene of the horrible injustice. Oh, and she sells it too - she keeps a perfectly even gait as she slooooowly exits left.

Should you try to run after her to console and explain the situation, she'll waive a dainty arm in your face and sadly say, "No dad." Nothing but a measured response to tug at your heart-strings (especially when you're the daddy that she has wrapped around her little finger).

If you go the other route, and let her wander off to have her own time for a few moments, and then go in after her a couple minutes later... Yeah, she'll be acting totally normal as you walk into the room she's in - that is, until she sees that you're there, and her head goes straight down again and the whole thing starts over.

This little two and a half year old princess knows what she's doing. I can only imagine how this will be perfected over the next 14 years. I shudder at the thought.

ARGH MATEY!

We're sitting in bed, Allegra between us. She pointed at Kristen's chest and asked, "S'that?"
Kristen said, "That's mommy's chest."
Allegra, cocked her head, scrunched her nose, and asked, "Pirates?"
It took Kristen a moment, before she realized, Allegra thought she was calling it a Pirate's treasure chest. How cute is that?!

EARS

Allegra has this thing where she loves to touch my ears as she's going to sleep. She'll lay there next to me in bed, sucking her thumb on one hand, and the other is reaching for my closest ear. Once she finds one, she'll just run her hand over it, occasionally holding onto the lobe, before moving around again. She does the same thing with our arms, so I guess it's about the softness of that skin.

Sometimes when I lay her down in her bed at night, she'll reach up one last time and say "ear". I'll lean over to give her access - she gets in one last touch of my ear and then rolls over to go to sleep. This is one of those things I hope never to forget. It's so sweet and soothing - for both of us I'm guessing.

A LITTLE OFF THE TOP

Allegra got a haircut recently. It wasn't because she necessarily needed (or wanted) one. No, it was more a necessity. Here's how we got there...

The kids have these little bubble-blowing fans. It's a tiny AA powered push-button deal with a bubble wand circle over fan. You dip it in bubbles, push the button, and bubbles! (Because blowing through those things was wicked hard.) So she and Tobin were playing with one of these fans.

I'm not sure who was holding it, but the fan got wound up pretty good in Allegra's delicate curls above her eyes. It was in there pretty good, and Tobin took the initiative to get it out. Yeah.

So in walks Kristen to find that there's a big chunk out of Allegra's bangs. Tobin, head hung low, explains, "Mommy, I didn't think you'd want the fan stuck in her hair forever, so I cut it out of her hair." The poor kid. He really was just trying to help - I mean, no one wants a fan stuck in their hair forever! So Kristen suggested that next time he let her know so she can try to fix it first.

And thus, a haircut for Peetie.