Lately Alyssa has just been awesome. AWESOME. Of course, she’s always awesome, but lately she’s been especially awesome. And this post shall consisted of oversized bulletized blurbs of text outlining some of her awesomeness.

• She can navigate basic computer processes/programs and the interwebs on both Windows (her desktop, my netbook) and OS X (my Macbook). The other day I walked into her bedroom to find her playing Minecraft on her desktop, while watching Minecraft how-to guides (that she found on YouTube. BY HERSELF.) on my Macbook.
• She has totally inherited my tone and knack for sarcasm and witty little one-liners. Today, for example, she and Ryan were reading a book in the backseat of our car while we were driving to Red Robin. Ryan was reading out loud about a ladybug who kept questioning the same other bugs over and over about what they were. Alyssa remarked, “that ladybug doesn’t listen very well”. (In writing it doesn’t look so funny, but I swear, both Dan and I seriously cracked the hell up when she made that snarky remark.)
• Reading. Oh em gee. The girl can READ. One month ago she was on level D books. Now? J!
• She is so sweet, and so helpful, and so independent and self-sufficient… and she loves that she has all of these qualities. She embraces them. She defends them fiercely. Me? Help her? Pfft. She’d be a quadruple amputee and she’d still figure out how to make her own cream of wheat in the morning.

Oh, and to explain the blog entry title: today, Alyssa informed me that she and K, her busmate/classmate, are now stepsisters, and they’ve kissed each other. Her first boy kiss was at age 6, and now she’s had her first girl kiss at age 7. At this rate I’ll be slipping birth control pills in her cereal by the time she’s 12. (KIDDING. I’m not saying my daughter is promiscuous, and Dan and I plan to have many open-minded, open-ended conversations about safe sex and birth control options in the coming years.)

P.S. Today we talked about why smoking is bad. Gahhhhhhh. My daughter is growing up too fast! Sometimes I miss my naive, my-world-doesn’t-go-beyond-my-house little girl.

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

This morning I asked Alyssa (and, okay, there may have been some bribery involving hot pink glitter) to let me put her hair in pigtails. Only while I was parting her hair (something I still suck at, despite having a daughter with hair of partable length for a good seven years!), I decided to braid the pigtails, instead. Alyssa’s only concern was that they might stick up or out, so I made sure to do low braids that started behind her ears. Alyssa is definitely a girly-girl – I can definitely envision titanium womens jewelry and Sephora gift cards in her stocking when she’s a teen. But she’s so opposed to doing anything with her hair, or letting me do anything with it. Yet she complains when I have to douse her hair with detangler and water and go after the knots and tangles as gently as possible. But she doesn’t want it cut short, either. Alyssa needs to learn that when it comes to long hair, there is styling and maintenance involved – she can’t have her cake and eat it too.

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Since his hair has gotten longer and has been cut many times since he was born, the swirl isn’t quite as noticeable anymore – in fact, I think only Dan and I are really aware of it being there! But I can contend myself instead with Ryan’s adorable waves and curls (and outright ringlets when his hair is wet) instead! Ryan is insistent that he wants to grow his hair long (it hasn’t been cut since last May), and I am not-so-secretly all for it. He looks really cute with his hair super-short (think buzz cut), but there’s something about his longer, slightly sandyish-colored hair combined with his bright blue eyes and smattering of freckles across his nose and cheekbones that really melts me. ♥

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Granted, his birthday is on July 26th, and he’s only turning five, but what counts is that he knew he wrote 27 instead of 26, and he knew he wrote 10 instead of 5.

♥

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty