Add personal trainer to the list of Maxine’s future career possibilities. It’s top three along with pilot (or Job likes to shoot the moon on this one with astronaut) and dancer.

She goes ape shit for planes passing over head. She hears them and starts to ramp up the hype. We stayed with friends just outside of Chicago recently who are not too far from O’Hare. Maxine about sprained her pointing finger.

The dancer bit I’ve said for ages now. (At least like 10 of her 18 months.) I’d vote for Broadway but my tiny dancer doesn’t discriminate. She’ll dance to anything. She’ll dance when you clap.

And, now, personal trainer. This because on a recent run Maxine brought along her newest bestie. It’s only recently she’s taken a liking to animals of the stuffed variety and this monkey is definitely (currently) her fav. I had literally just bought the monkey at issue the day before, else, I would have left his stuffed ass out on the road where Maxine dropped him. She often drops things from the stroller when we run, but thus far they’ve all been things that make noise when thrown over. (I think…) But, monkeyface fell silently away as we trudged less than silently along. It was in our cool down (read: the absolute total end of the run on a way too warm early morning) when I was getting Maxine out to walk along side of me that I noticed he was missing.

I debated leaving him behind but once I said “monkey”, as in “Maxine why/where did you drop your #$%@! monkey?”, my fate was sealed. She does this crazy, melt your brain cute move when she’s looking for something or realizes an item has disappeared. She extends both arms out and super rotates at the wrist to splay both hands open in a “Huh?” type gesture. And she kind of screws up her brow at the same time to actually look inquisitive/surprised/incredulous. This is often accompanied by some babbling that were it actual English would totally be “Where is that ?#$@! monkey?”

So, thanks to my little personal trainer, I got to do the whole route pretty much twice.

Personal trainer slash pilot slash dancer slash monkey lover slash monkey loser slash daughter of a total sucker.