This particular piece of artwork is a keeper

It was octopus hat day at daycare on Tuesday.

I know. Pretty exciting.

We have a monthly calendar on our fridge, compliments of Ms. Mandi, that tells what each day's activity will be, and part of my effort to get Zoey a little more excited about being left at daycare has been to point out, each day, what she'll be working on. We were both intrigued by Tuesday's octopus hat entry, and when I left her (crying and oh so very sad) I reminded her I wanted to hear ALL ABOUT the details of making an octopus hat when I returned to pick her up.

And holy crap. The hat I found stuffed in her cubby at the end of the day cracked me up, even before she modeled it for me.

A black headband fashioned from construction paper had eight large, spindly legs sprouting from it, as well as a decorated-with-markers body (Zoey explained she had drawn a picture of a tea pot on her octopus body). She was quite proud of it, really, and I followed her out the door noting her octopus legs gave her such a wide body span, the tips of her tentacles brushed the door frame.

Wednesday, Zoey wore the hat over to Grandma's house (to scare her, Mommy!) after completely freaking out the cats at home. (The look on Henry's face was priceless: one part horrified and one part girlfriend, who lied to you and told you that looks good?)

We got home Wednesday evening and Zoey was tired, hungry, and very very cranky. Normally, you can feel yourself growing older as you wait for her to get out of the car, and yesterday she stepped it up a notch--a full five minutes, I believe, to get her to un-buckle her seat belt and GET. OUT. while I stood waiting, arms full of bags to haul inside. After yelling at me that I hadn't found her other pink Barbie slipper, I dropped her backpack on the ground and told her she could fend for herself getting in the house, because I wasn't about to stand there and listen to her rude little mouth. I started to walk away and could hear her wailing in protest behind me.

I turned to find her slumping along behind me, dragging her backpack on the ground, exaggerrated frown on her face, octopus tentacles flapping all around her head. And while, only three seconds ago I had kind of wanted to kick her in the shins and leave her outside for the night, I suddenly couldn't stop smiling. It is impossible to be mad at a preschooler in an octopus hat.

That hat totally saved her from getting yelled at and, potentially, a very long time out. It would be in her best interests to keep it around for awhile.