Cute as a button

Well, Chris' time away has nearly come to an end and we are all still alive. We will meet him at the airport tomorrow with three hugs, three kisses, and a cookie, lovingly made by Bela. Just one cookie, you ask? Yes. We ate the other 23. Since yesterday.

Anyway, the last almost 10 days have given me plenty of material for my first edition of 'The Ugly Truth', due out in a few short days. But in the meantime, I wanted to share a little bit about my littlest, my baby. Mae. But Mae as seen through the eyes of a fellow mother.

A friend of mine from work has a son and daughter at the same school as Bela and Mae. In fact, her kids are in Mae's class, so she gets a lot of peeks inside that part of Mae's life that I never see, and she very kindly shares stories with me and has graciously allowed me to repost them here.

October 26, 2010
Hi Katie,

... I saw your posting of Mae in her Dorothy dress and I had to share what D, my son, has been saying for weeks on end at home. Each time I sing in my usual funny-mom way, D will say that I should go to school with him one day to hear how BEAUUUUUUTIFUL Mae Mae sings. He says that she sings better than any teacher he's ever heard. He doesn't bring home a Mae Mae story every day, but when he does, he's always got a happy face.

 January 3, 2011
We could NOT get enough of Mae Mae today. I had to write to tell you she is absolutely adorable...in EVERY sense of the word. She had R cracking up at her knock-knock jokes (the bear in his underwear). At the table during cake time, I told her I heard birdies outside City Garden chirping away saying that Mae Mae was the best singer at City Garden. She smiled and said that it couldn't be true because birdies don't talk. The other kids were mesmerized that a birdie talked to me (or that I understood what it said), but Mae Mae, nope.

January 27, 2011
I wanted to to share a Mae Mae moment: On Monday when we walked into the City Garden classroom kitchen for our parent/teacher conference session with [the teacher], Mae had just gotten up from her nap. She looked adorable with her bright red cheeks. She was also crabby. I said hello and she responded with a big smile. So far so good. I then proceeded to ask how she was. Silence. I asked if she had had a good nap. Silence. At that point she had started eating her tostada chips. She munched away and when I went to say good-bye, she looked over at me, smiled and then pointed to her food and said, "I'm eating right now, so I can't talk." I could swear she muttered, "maybe later." 

Thank you so much for those glimpses into Mae's little world. It always brightens my day when I read them.

PS - You know your husband knows you well when he soberly buys you a stash of buttons from Paris and he knows it is the best imaginable gift ever. That image of the buttons at the top of this page is from him. A "sampling", as he puts it, of what he found for me abroad. Not only does he love the nerd in me, he fully indulges it. You gotta love a man like that.