Annalie was digging around in the sparkly pink Caboodles case we use to store the costume jewelry and hair clips she never wears. I idly asked her what she was looking for. “Barrettes,” she answered, handing me a handful. “Can you put all these in my hair for me?”

“Sure,” I said. “You want all of them in your hair?”

“Yes, please.” She rummaged around some more in the case and produced more barrettes. “Oh, and I have to put this one in too, and this one…oh, and this one, of course.”

I gave Annalie’s hair a quick combing and started clipping. We had our usual hairstyling conversation: I remarked that it would go much faster if she would just sit still for two seconds, she responded with her standard but-I-only-wanted-to comeback. Traditions are nice, aren’t they?

The barrettes stayed in her hair for an hour or so, which was 55 minutes longer than I’d expected. I had left Annalie upstairs coloring while I unloaded the dishwasher downstairs, and when I came back upstairs she had moved on to putting various stuffed animals in a toy grocery cart, and there was a neat, colorful pile of discarded barrettes on the cedar chest.

I wish she’d let me put clips in her hair for real occasionally.

When we were at my aunt’s house this week, I knew my mom would disown me (not really, but she would have been disappointed) if I didn’t get a photo of Annalie and my cousin Bob’s kids together. So on our last day there I posed them on the patio swing with their popsicles and asked them to smile.

“C’mon guys, smile! Please?”

Hmm, what can I say to make a 10-year-old boy, a 9-year-old girl, and a 4-year-old girl smile all at the same time?

“I sure hope nobody farts.”

Bingo! You’re welcome, Mom.

Update: As Karen commented below, great minds think alike!

*All photos marked with an asterisk were taken by SAJ. You can see more photos in my set SAJ & BabyBug come to visit! or Brenda’s set Weekend at Bethany’s on Flickr.