New Endeavors, How to Punish Your Monkey and Finding Loopholes

I cut Ella's bangs:

That was my new endeavor for the week.  At least, I hope that's the only new endeavor I attempt for a while.  It was completely nerve-wracking.  First, she's my baby, and she's beautiful and gorgeous and perfect, and I was terrified of cutting her bangs the wrong way and ruining her.  As you can see, as long as her bangs are parted to the side, it doesn't look so bad.  I tried to wear them straight down on her forehead, and they don't look too bad, either, but you can see how horribly uneven I cut them.  Secondly, she's so darn wiggly!  I had to strap her into her high chair so I didn't have to worry about having to hold her with one hand and cut with the other, or, less ridiculously, having Tom hold her, wiggling around in his arms.

Okay, moving on, deep breaths, everyone!

So, a friend of ours recently treated us to a fun-filled evening at Chuck E. Cheese ("Where a Kid can be a Kid" and every adult dies a little inside).  Anyhow, prior to this, Ella had become slightly attached to this cute, fuzzy, purple monkey, so, of course, the monkey had to come to Chuck E. Cheese with us.  While at our table, Ella dropped the monkey on the floor.  Our friend then picked it up and said,

"Ella, he's a bad monkey, he fell on the ground!  Spank the monkey, Ella!  Spank the monkey!"

Her six year old son, no longer transfixed by the glitter and noise of the various games, whipped around saying, "I wanna spank the monkey, Mommy!  I wanna spank the monkey!"

Our friend looked at me and said, "This is going in your blog, isn't it?"

Yeah.

You know those toys that have the shaped holes in them?  The child takes the colored, shaped blocks and fit them through the corresponding holes, right?  Well, Ella has three different versions on this toy: my Mom got her the first one, a castle, that has 8 shaped openings, but the castle itself opens on a hinge, and also has a "drawbridge" door-type opening.  The second version, given to Ella on her first birthday, is a purple mailbox with Elmo attached, has 5 shaped openings, and one "mail slot" in the mailbox door for the two plastic "letters".  The third toy, given to Ella by Tom's Mom, is a ball that opens into halves, and has 12 shaped-openings.

My point is, the child is supposed to learn "spatial coordination" or whatever, by playing with these toys.  Ella, however, has learned to employ loopholes.

Castle: Ella opens the "drawbridge" door and puts shapes in, takes shapes out, and occasionally, I'll find pieces of food, dolls, Little People cars and small books.

Elmo Mailbox: obviously, she opens the mailbox door.  Once, she put in her sippy cup, closed the door, and put up the flag for the mailman.

Ball: pretty simple, she figured out how to open the ball into halves...which she then takes one half and puts on her head.

Again, I'm SO glad she has Tom's sense of humor.