Aunties Are Here!

The Rowe household is bustling with excitement right now, as both Aunties Shannon and Caitlyn are here for a visit.  In fact, last night, the girls were heart-broken about having to go to bed and miss out on late night auntie time.  In the last ten minutes or so before we began their bedtime routine, the girls sat with Auntie Caitlyn, drawing and writing in the little lined-paper notebooks Auntie C had given to them as a gift.  Julia was content to write strings of words she now knows how to spell herself:

Meanwhile, Madeleine decided to try and write her name in the most ridiculously OCD manner possible.  Completely unwilling to tolerate even the slightest imperfection in any of her letter-making, she repeatedly ditched her efforts to start anew, certain that the next time she would truly achieve the epitome of sublime name-writing.  Hence, the simple task of writing her name quickly before we started brushing teeth and getting on pajamas became a major ordeal, as she continued to sigh disgustedly at her ruinous letter-writing attempts.  Here are a few of her efforts:

While an onlooker might assume she was just professing love for her home state by writing MA all over the page, those of us who were there to witness her neurotic aggravation over what to her was an imperfect "A" caused her to repeatedly start her name over, only to get stumped once again by that wily "A."

Caitlyn and I argue that she really could have completed the effort on the bottom of this page.  I'm not sure what she found so unappealing about the letters she was making down there, but for whatever reason, she refused to continue.  I mean, I can understand the problem with her upper-most and middle attempts.  The "A" on top is just a total failure.  And she could have actually made the middle one work if she had kept the letters a consistent size instead of deciding, from the first E onwards, to increase the size of each subsequent letter exponentially. 

Well, this one is obvious.  The top "MA": TERRIBLE.  The following "Ms": totally off base.  Way too many lines.  FAIL.

Man, Madeleine.  Way to screw up.  The M on top: not symmetrical.  FAIL.  On the bottom: uh, did you forget how to spell your name?  MADELL?  And just WAY too ginormous to fit the whole name.  FAIL.

 Too big, once again.  Ran out of room.  FAIL.

Those are some pretty good "Ms" on top, but last I checked, your name is not MMADELEINE.  FAIL.  On the bottom: overshot again.  Ran out of room.  FAIL.

Well that "M" on top is just a disgrace.  Not sure what's wrong with the "MA" on bottom, but clearly she decided it was unacceptable.

 "MM" again.  WRONG.  FAIL.

And then, thank the Heavens, DING! DING! DING!  We have a winner!!  At long last, the bedtime routine could commence.

Not that we should have even bothered.  Almost no one slept last night.  And it was almost all due to someone else in the house, with the exception of Ethan.

ETHAN (couch): kept up all night because of a work emergency.
AUNTIE SHANNON (Julia's bed): kept up all night because of her chihuahua Clara.
CLARA (Julia's bed): Kept up all night because she was scared of Julia.
JULIA (Julia's bed, then my bed): Kept up all night because she was too excited that her Aunties are here.
ME (My bed, with Julia from 2am on): Kept up all night because of Julia loudly snorting through her snotty nose and refusing to go get a tissue.  Also because of Julia's incessant wiggling.
AUNTIE CAITLYN (Madeleine's bed): Kept up all night because of Madeleine having sleep-talking nightmares and wailing: "No!  That's MINE!  Don't TAAAAKE IIIIIIT!"
MADELEINE (Madeleine's bed): Slept.

It's going to be a tired day here in the Rowe household.