Top gear

Monkey wants to body-paint himself red. Except his eyes, because he's very sensible. I'm not exactly sure why, but apparently it will provide camouflage (when he's on the red chair, I'm assuming) and help him to defeat baddies. He promises to take a bath as soon as the baddies have been defeated. I think we should teach him the word "vanquish" next.

I hope this desire wears off soon, before he goes looking for a paintbrush.

The weather was beautiful today. We went out on the back deck and I fished the easel (warped from being left out in the rain one - or seven - too many times last summer) out of the shed. It was soon abandoned in favour of making trails with the sidewalk chalk all over the deck itself, and then on the driveway out the front. Monkey was drawing long wiggly lines and then having me make a movie on my camera of him walking thrillingly along them. (I know you'd love me to post one of these engrossing pieces of cinematographic genius, but I think I'll keep them to myself.) Mabel was having an involved conversation with her doll, and her horse, who were sharing the dolly stroller.

I made the mistake of leaning against the front of the car. And then raising my feet so I was perched on the bonnet (hood). Big mistake. Huge mistake. Mabel looked up, decided sitting on the car was the most fun thing ever, and scrambled up to join me. I abruptly removed her, stated that nobody would be sitting on any cars, and she went back to the chalk, or her baby, or whatever it was.

The battery light on my camera started flashing and I took Monkey in to show him how I had to put it into its little holder and plug it into the wall. When we came back out we found in front of us something approximating this (excuse my lack of Photoshop, so I have to do it in text):

BABY
CAR

I would have taken a photo, but I was too busy grabbing her before the neighbours called CPS. Also, the camera was plugged into the wall in the house. But take it from me, you don't want to find your two-year-old perched like a grinning maniac in between the bars of the roof rack of your pale green Subaru Outback. It's just not a Good Thing, you know.