Stunningly Beautiful and Smart

I know that I am biased, I am the Mommy I am suppose to be biased, but my Madeline startles me sometimes. I like to think that I am smart, but compared to Madeline I was a blithering idiot when I was her age. She has hit the double digits, she's no longer a little girl, but a tween. Sigh. We had the afternoon together yesterday, Matt took Connor for some Daddy/Connor time before he leaves for his EOD training, so Madeline and I went shopping. I don't normally do a lot of girly things, but Madeline wanted to go to Claires. A store doesn't get more girly than Claires, jewelry, make-up, hats, scarves, etc. We spent a good 30 minutes trying on hats and looking at all of the bling. She looks so cute in hats, I had to buy her one. We then went to a new store called Justice, and she tried on a bunch of clothes, she had a blast and I got to see what her style is, and what colors she likes, she loves things that I wouldn't have normally picked, but she looks great in what she likes. On the way home we were talking about something and she was spelling something, and she couldn't think of a vowel, so she tells me "you know a non-consonant". She loves to talk about metaphors, similes and analogies.

Then this morning I was struggling to get Connor's hair to lay down. No amount of water was getting his swirly to stay put, and I gave up. The kids were in their bathroom brushing their teeth, and I hear Connor complaining about something, and I go in to their bathroom and see that Madeline had gone and gotten a piece of tape to hold down Connor's hair. I had to laugh, it actually worked! I couldn't send the poor kid to school with a piece of tape in his hair, but the tape idea had merit. She is always thinking, maybe not the nicest thing to do to her brother, but it worked.