She's Baa-ack

Miss C's curiosities have been quite interesting to observe over the past few weeks.
I mentioned here that we donated some Disney princess dresses which were starting our day on a frenzied note each morning, and replaced them with a plain old princess dress, and a powwow dancing dress.

C wore the plain old princess dress exactly 3 times, then moved on.
She wore the Powwow dress once.
This, after she'd been starting her day as Cinderella or Snow White for months.

After reading this page in a Berenstain Bears book,

she became obsessed with bones, muscles, and organs.  I say obsessed because 3 year old's have no other mode of operation: it's obsessed, or uninterested. 
So ever since seeing that page and learning about the inner workings of a bear, she will come up and tell me that her bladder is full of urine and that poop wants to come out of her rectum.  
This is all good until she announces it loudly in public, and then I kind of miss the DP dresses that otherwise occupied her brain. 


Another topic she's become extremely inquisitive about has been the universe, piqued after doing this puzzle at a friend's house: 


My remaining knowledge of the solar system is a mixture 5th grade diorama and Goodnight Moon, so as she's been asking, we've been learning together. 

Since there can't be a period of time in which this abundance of joyful learning is not interrupted, this screeching halt occurred over the weekend.  Our neighborhood was having it's annual garage sale, and we took a bike ride to explore our neighbor's wares.  C dropped her bike at one driveway and ran full speed to a box that contained trains.  Which she has never showed much interest in before.  For a couple bucks, we brought home a box of trains and set up the railroad set.  Later that day, I was thinking about all the parts of her I'm learning about, the little interests that emerge because her energy is not tied into an obsession with Princesses.  And then, as we played in the backyard, C wandered over to an older neighbor's home and talked with them as they packed away their tables of goods.  I was trailing her by about 10 yards, and in that short span of time, C ran back to me beaming, and opened her hand.  "Look what Ms. Jackie gave me."

Nestled into her palm was Ariel.

Ms. Jackie looked pleased as well, and mentioned that she had all these toys from when her kids were young, "I'm so glad to share this one with you," she told C.

It has been four days now, and the trains have been collecting dust.  The pointed questions about Venus and Neptune have ceased.  Figuring out what lies beneath our skin has become boring.  But, Ariel.  She has been taken into the car, in the bathroom, to bed, and on bike rides.

This is familiar territory, but I'm no less fascinated to realize that for C, her bouts of inquiry about the world seem to occur when DP's are just not around.  When they are here, everything else pales in comparison. Even a bladder full of urine.