who's the boss

Oh, my darling daughter. She is so very, very bossy.

This week she has decided that I am not allowed to let my hair down. If I take my ponytail out, she points and demands-- LOUDLY--, "Hair BACK, Mommy! Hair baaaack!"

She's also discovered the power of alleging (at inconvenient and unfortunate times), "You're HURRING me!" (You're hurting me!) And it's easily intelligible, even by those not fluent in Toddlerese.

For examples, if I'm carrying the baby, trying to herd her and Emmett into Cal's school in the afternoon, but she wants me to carry her, she'll stand her ground and yell, "You're HURRING me, Mommy!" At which point I try my best to scoop her up, get on my way, and preferably disappear all together because-- standing in the school entrance getting scolded by my toddler for HURTING HER-- this is not my idea of a good time.

Or when I am trying to leave the grocery store, after indulging Willa's need to betow admiration on the store's selection of balloons for a good 8 minutes, and she does NOT want me to carry her. So I pick her up, kicking and screaming, "You're HURRING me, Mommy! You're hurrrrring meee!" and do the best dead sprint I can manage with a tantruming toddler and a cart of groceries. When what I really want is to turn INVISIBLE. But it seems that life with four young children makes that an absolute impossibility.

So I cut her hair short. I'm going for strength-reduction, Samson-style. Not really, but this gives me a good transition to show you pictures of her recently bobbed hair.

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Here's my four babies, all 6-8 weeks of age. Can you find Abram?

I'll give you a hint by labeling the first picture (thanks Tracy and family for the adorable onesie!):

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Exhibit D: