![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
But sometimes, she's got this attitude. Okay, admittedly, it's almost cute... but I know enough to know it won't be cute very long, so I'm trying to help nip it in the bud.
So today, I tossed out most of the hair things and bagged the rest to be washed in VERY hot water and dried in a VERY hot drier (I take no chances on bedbugs). We were out of pillowcases, so I used Angelique's bookbag.
And she came upstairs and saw what I was doing, and asked, with great indignation - "CONNIE! Why are you putting my scrunchies in my backpack?!?!?" So I told her that they were going to be washed, and she said, just as indignant "CONNIE! You have to do that with asking*!"
I decided discretion was definitely the better part of valor here, and asked her if it was okay (not that she really had a choice in the matter, but I figured I'd cross that bridge if I came to it, probably by just throwing out *all* the scrunchies and teaching her a valuable life lesson in the process, something about not meddling in the affairs of irritated and bitten-up Connies), and fortunately she said yes, allowing me to shorten my lecture on manners.
The other day, I left her temporarily in the care of a friend as I ran her sister to the bathroom. This friend speaks Spanish to her children, but not to Angelique, because we don't speak Spanish. And she'd told the girl to do something or not do something, I don't know, I didn't hear this story until two days after the fact (and I really wish I'd heard it earlier when I could be more effective) and Angelique said "I don't speak Spanish! Speak English!" and totally ignored her, which is completely not acceptable and two days after the fact I told her so.
Then there's last time it rained. No, time before that. Well, whatever. LAST time it rained, I headed downstairs to get her raingear, and found some toys from the museum gift shop. Brought them upstairs, and Angelique looked at them and tried to tell me that her "Magical special friend" had bought them. I wasn't buying it, and we said sorry to Pam at the front desk who's leaving when we came in. (I only mentioned it once, but Angelique brought it up herself as we walked to the museum, saying she didn't want to say sorry. This gave me a chance to explain that if she wanted to avoid apologizing for things, she really had to not do things without thinking, and that I suspected she didn't want to say sorry because, among other things, she knew she'd done wrong. She didn't argue the point, so I may have been right.)
Not, of course, that it's all problems. We saw a ladybug the other day, so I recited "Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home" for Angelique, and when I was done she made up her own rhyme, something like "Sand, sand, what are you doing? I am going to the store", and she really hit that nursery rhyme rhythm. You know the one I mean.
Evangeline, for her part, is growing by leaps and bounds. Yesterday, after she and her sister made a huge mess of beads on the floor, we cleaned it all up, and I heard Evangeline trying to sing the clean-up song! I loathe and abhor the clean-up song, but when I can barely understand it, it's almost cute! Like bedbugs are cute, in the abstract.
*It took me a while to work this one out. I mean, I understood it, but I had to work out where she got it from. She must have made an analogy between "Don't do that without asking" and "Do that with asking". Normally, of course, we'd say "You have to ask", but her way is just as logical, isn't it?
So today, I tossed out most of the hair things and bagged the rest to be washed in VERY hot water and dried in a VERY hot drier (I take no chances on bedbugs). We were out of pillowcases, so I used Angelique's bookbag.
And she came upstairs and saw what I was doing, and asked, with great indignation - "CONNIE! Why are you putting my scrunchies in my backpack?!?!?" So I told her that they were going to be washed, and she said, just as indignant "CONNIE! You have to do that with asking*!"
I decided discretion was definitely the better part of valor here, and asked her if it was okay (not that she really had a choice in the matter, but I figured I'd cross that bridge if I came to it, probably by just throwing out *all* the scrunchies and teaching her a valuable life lesson in the process, something about not meddling in the affairs of irritated and bitten-up Connies), and fortunately she said yes, allowing me to shorten my lecture on manners.
The other day, I left her temporarily in the care of a friend as I ran her sister to the bathroom. This friend speaks Spanish to her children, but not to Angelique, because we don't speak Spanish. And she'd told the girl to do something or not do something, I don't know, I didn't hear this story until two days after the fact (and I really wish I'd heard it earlier when I could be more effective) and Angelique said "I don't speak Spanish! Speak English!" and totally ignored her, which is completely not acceptable and two days after the fact I told her so.
Then there's last time it rained. No, time before that. Well, whatever. LAST time it rained, I headed downstairs to get her raingear, and found some toys from the museum gift shop. Brought them upstairs, and Angelique looked at them and tried to tell me that her "Magical special friend" had bought them. I wasn't buying it, and we said sorry to Pam at the front desk who's leaving when we came in. (I only mentioned it once, but Angelique brought it up herself as we walked to the museum, saying she didn't want to say sorry. This gave me a chance to explain that if she wanted to avoid apologizing for things, she really had to not do things without thinking, and that I suspected she didn't want to say sorry because, among other things, she knew she'd done wrong. She didn't argue the point, so I may have been right.)
Not, of course, that it's all problems. We saw a ladybug the other day, so I recited "Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home" for Angelique, and when I was done she made up her own rhyme, something like "Sand, sand, what are you doing? I am going to the store", and she really hit that nursery rhyme rhythm. You know the one I mean.
Evangeline, for her part, is growing by leaps and bounds. Yesterday, after she and her sister made a huge mess of beads on the floor, we cleaned it all up, and I heard Evangeline trying to sing the clean-up song! I loathe and abhor the clean-up song, but when I can barely understand it, it's almost cute! Like bedbugs are cute, in the abstract.
*It took me a while to work this one out. I mean, I understood it, but I had to work out where she got it from. She must have made an analogy between "Don't do that without asking" and "Do that with asking". Normally, of course, we'd say "You have to ask", but her way is just as logical, isn't it?
