Pigtails and chocolate

While I was making lunch today, Claire came up to me and announced that she wanted some chocolate. She asked several times while I cut an onion, sliced some cheese, and layered them with tortillas in the cast iron skillet. And she asked again while we were eating our quesadillas for lunch. I distractedly kept telling her no, that after lunch it was time for nap and then she could have some chocolate. A few bites later and she asked yet again, so I decided to explain why.

"Honey, chocolate has caffeine in it...can you say caffeine?" She repeated it perfectly. "Caffeine makes it difficult to sleep, so we don't eat chocolate right before nap. But we can have some after you wake up!" She looked like she was digesting this information along with her food, and let the issue drop.

She took a great nap and I forgot about her request until we were back in the kitchen a few hours later, and she went running toward the cupboard that we keep chocolate in (when we have it). Pumping a fist in the air, she joyfully yelled "I WANT CAFFEINE! I WANT CAFFEINE!" So we enjoyed a few pieces of an organic chocolate bar together and all was well.

A few pics from our chocolate-enhanced afternoon...






I threw my hair into pigtails for my workout, so Claire requested the same for her hair. We couldn't find the other pink rubberband, so we went with one pink and one orange...and she actually kept them in for a while! Notice her entourage: Baby on the left (we recently named her Lucy) and Marge on the right.

A local school supply store is changing locations so everything was on sale; I got Claire a bunch of pencils, a pencil sharpener, and a few blank hard-cover books to color and write in. Later, when I was putting these items away, she got an urgent tone and said "hey, what are you doing with my lessons?!"