a little bit of everything

Yesterday we got out the princess gear, put on the ballet shoes, and Ainsleigh danced until she couldn't dance anymore. Later we did some baking and got to share with Grandma Connie and Grandpa Larry. It was a pretty good day for Ainsleigh. We also got out the fairy tale book. The book that tells fairy tales the old-fashioned, not-so-disney way. She requested to hear little red riding hood, but would only listen once I explained why the little girl was called "little red riding hood." The fact that she wore a red hood wasn't quite enough. She couldn't understand what the word "riding" was there for. Hopefully I explained it well enough. She does a pretty good job of listening since there aren't many pictures. We got to the part where the hunter enters grandma's house, sees the wolf asleep in grandma's bed and realizes he has eaten both grandma and little red riding hood (this was a little unbelievable to Ainsleigh who told me, "that's silly. Wolves don't eat grandmas), so the hunter cuts the wolf's stomach open and they tumble out, amazingly alive. Then they fill the wolf's stomach with stones and grandma stitches him back up. Ainsleigh asked, "they put him in the sewing machine mommy?" No,they probably just used needle and thread. But it was interesting that she was thinking so deeply about it. She wanted me to read it over and over. Lots of animal-eating-people sequences so close together. Hopefully she won't have nightmares or be too scarred. We also read rumplestiltskin but it wasn't quite as interesting to her. She did decide that he got his name because his skin was so rumply.
Tonight she broke her princess wand and disappeared for a few minutes, to return with the wand nicely taped back together. Not bad for doing it all by her 3 year old self.

This is my favorite of the day, Ainsleigh's drawing from this morning. Notice how it somewhat resembles Picasso, his cubist period? She's been doing this all the time lately. Interesting compositions. Tim and I have been really impressed. I thought they were just abstracts but today she brought this one to me and told me it was called "Siahknockus." Then she went on to explain that it was named that because it was a type of dinosaur that knocks. Isn't that great?