Squirrels

For some reason, Madeleine has decided that she wants to beguile the backyard squirrels into thinking she, herself, is a squirrel, so that she can get to be friends with them.  Her plan to carry out this deception is to dress in all brown and make herself a tail so that she will look like the SPITTING IMAGE of a squirrel.

When Madeleine found out that she was having a play-date with one of her best friends this week, she was ecstatic.

MADELEINE: I wonder what color she's gonna wear!  I hope it's brownie-brown-brown!

ME: Why?

MADELEINE: Because!

ME: Is she gonna be a squirrel too?

MADELEINE: Yeah!  We're gonna build our animal clubhouse outside and we're gonna be squirrels so we can attract squirrels to the clubhouse!  Wait!  I have a GREAT idea!  This time, we'll be squirrels, but when it's spring, we'll be BIRDS!

When the day of the play-date finally arrived, Madeleine began stage one of her plan: dressing in all brown.  She had a long-sleeved brown shirt, but no brown pants.  This prompted her to don her brown capri pants, despite the fact that it was about 40 degrees for the walk to school.

ME: Honey, why don't you wear pants to school and you can change into capris when you get home and start your play-date?

MADELEINE: Well, Mommy...it's just a lot EASIER to wear my brown capris now, because after school we're just gonna wanna get PLAYING outside, so it would take too long to change into capris.

Yes, God forbid the play-date be delayed a minute or two while Madeleine changes from one pair of pants to another.

True to her word, Madeleine got straight to squirrel work with her friend the minute they walked through the door.  They made their tails:

and headed outside.  Then they literally spent the next hour traipsing around our back woods, hauling large fallen tree limbs up the hill and arranging them into collections all around the yard.  Thankfully, we now have all sorts of piles of wood animal clubhouses all over the place:

I can't wait to see what new and useful things come into our yard once Madeleine is a bird.