![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
I have to get this little boastful post made, bear with me....
She did this twice. Once in Spanish, very shyly telling the Spanish teacher that "de nada means you're welcome", and then later, on the bus, interrupting somebody's conversation in Spanish to inform them of this.
(Luckily, bus-people thought this was adorable and sweet, instead of intrusive and bad manners. I already had to deal with (okay, I caved and just gave her candy. I know it's a scary bad precedent, but it was too crowded to take her DOWN, and gee, one of these days, looks really *might* kill) the baby screaming on my back.)
Today, Angelique carefully (at my behest) sounded out the word rabbit, in the way her mom and I both seem to have accidentally taught her - first, she figured out the consonants, then she slotted the vowels into their places. Vowels are just so tricky in English writing!
That was pretty cool. But wait! There's more!
She and her friend Patrick were sitting on the stage, and Patrick said (probably not out of nowhere, but I don't know the context) "Hat. Cat. Hey, those rhyme!"
Angelique knows about rhyming, so she joined in - "I know that! It's A T !"
Of course, Patrick didn't get it. "Ay tee? They don't rhyme, Ana.", so I jumped in before Angelique could get really frustrated at this and declare Patrick an unfriend again.
Later, Angelique and Patrick went outside to race. Thing is, Patrick is also four. (As I told Ana later, he's only four, and just like her, sometimes he doesn't know the right thing to do.) So he'd start running first, or he'd declare the target to be someplace he was nearer to than she was, or both.
And so he won a lot.
Angelique got more and more frustrated, and finally she just walked off, crying. Of course, Patrick asked why she was doing this, and when I explained, ran after her, yelling that he'd stand still and let her win this time.
Which didn't work, and when his dad and I caught up, he'd started off on his own sulk and declared that "We're mad at each other."
Well, I moved on a little further to Angelique, and this is what she told me:
1. Patrick didn't let her win, and she thought she'd be mad until tomorrow.
2. She didn't want to say goodbye to Patrick, but she would anyway (and she did).
3. She knew Patrick had offered to let her win, but that wasn't fair, she wanted to really win. (I didn't bother to explain that Patrick had, in fact, been cheating - why make things worse?)
4. No, she didn't think Patrick was being mean on purpose, she thought he just liked winning like she does, but she still was mad.
5. When she was mad at Patrick, her heart beat fast, and do you know why? Because her heart was mad at Patrick too.
That last bit? Gold, pure gold.
Okay, here's the truth - they've learned to tag team. One of them will distract me, while the other gets in trouble. Once I caught on, it became less effective, because they're still not that good at it, but they definitely understand the concept. So Evangeline will "cry", and when she deigns to talk to me, inform me that it was really her dolly crying, and can I play with her? Meanwhile, Angelique is moseying over to the bathroom to fill teapots with water. Or Angelique will ask me to find her shoes, and her sister will get into the toothpaste. (I feel so weird scolding them for brushing their teeth, but even cheap toothpaste is expensive, and they use Tom's of Maine, so.)
Scary.
Yesterday, both children had time-outs. Evangeline got two - one for the toothpaste, and one for biting her sister.
Now, after time-outs, I ask "Why did you get a time-out?" and wait to see what they say. With Evangeline, I usually fill in the blank. With Angelique, I usually spend a lot of time going "No. I mean, that was bad, but you didn't do that until after I told you that you were getting a time-out" until she backtracks her way right back to the actual crime.
But yesterday, both times, Evangeline was able to answer the question herself! The first time, I was so surprised, I hit entirely the wrong tone at first. "That's right! You did take the toothpaste! ^.^ Uh... and that was very wrong. VERY WRONG."
The second time went a bit better.
As for Angelique, her time-out was because, when I told her she needed to be in the bedroom with me instead of sneaking off to the kitchen to... do whatever mischief she probably wanted to do... her answer was "WHY SHOULD I???", and... well... the only polite way to phrase that doesn't involve ALL CAPS, nor the words "Why should I", so... yeah. She threw a tantrum, I'm sorry to say.
When her tantrum and time-out were over, and we talked about it, Angelique said, out of nowhere, that she thought we wouldn't make cookies after all (and she was right, by the way) because she had misbehaved.
I agreed - really bad tantrums do not lead to special treats.
I had wanted those cookies, too.
It's so... so much all at once! I could just die, I'm so happy. (Yes, I know it's a weird turn of phrase. Deal with it.)
She did this twice. Once in Spanish, very shyly telling the Spanish teacher that "de nada means you're welcome", and then later, on the bus, interrupting somebody's conversation in Spanish to inform them of this.
(Luckily, bus-people thought this was adorable and sweet, instead of intrusive and bad manners. I already had to deal with (okay, I caved and just gave her candy. I know it's a scary bad precedent, but it was too crowded to take her DOWN, and gee, one of these days, looks really *might* kill) the baby screaming on my back.)
Today, Angelique carefully (at my behest) sounded out the word rabbit, in the way her mom and I both seem to have accidentally taught her - first, she figured out the consonants, then she slotted the vowels into their places. Vowels are just so tricky in English writing!
That was pretty cool. But wait! There's more!
She and her friend Patrick were sitting on the stage, and Patrick said (probably not out of nowhere, but I don't know the context) "Hat. Cat. Hey, those rhyme!"
Angelique knows about rhyming, so she joined in - "I know that! It's A T !"
Of course, Patrick didn't get it. "Ay tee? They don't rhyme, Ana.", so I jumped in before Angelique could get really frustrated at this and declare Patrick an unfriend again.
Later, Angelique and Patrick went outside to race. Thing is, Patrick is also four. (As I told Ana later, he's only four, and just like her, sometimes he doesn't know the right thing to do.) So he'd start running first, or he'd declare the target to be someplace he was nearer to than she was, or both.
And so he won a lot.
Angelique got more and more frustrated, and finally she just walked off, crying. Of course, Patrick asked why she was doing this, and when I explained, ran after her, yelling that he'd stand still and let her win this time.
Which didn't work, and when his dad and I caught up, he'd started off on his own sulk and declared that "We're mad at each other."
Well, I moved on a little further to Angelique, and this is what she told me:
1. Patrick didn't let her win, and she thought she'd be mad until tomorrow.
2. She didn't want to say goodbye to Patrick, but she would anyway (and she did).
3. She knew Patrick had offered to let her win, but that wasn't fair, she wanted to really win. (I didn't bother to explain that Patrick had, in fact, been cheating - why make things worse?)
4. No, she didn't think Patrick was being mean on purpose, she thought he just liked winning like she does, but she still was mad.
5. When she was mad at Patrick, her heart beat fast, and do you know why? Because her heart was mad at Patrick too.
That last bit? Gold, pure gold.
Okay, here's the truth - they've learned to tag team. One of them will distract me, while the other gets in trouble. Once I caught on, it became less effective, because they're still not that good at it, but they definitely understand the concept. So Evangeline will "cry", and when she deigns to talk to me, inform me that it was really her dolly crying, and can I play with her? Meanwhile, Angelique is moseying over to the bathroom to fill teapots with water. Or Angelique will ask me to find her shoes, and her sister will get into the toothpaste. (I feel so weird scolding them for brushing their teeth, but even cheap toothpaste is expensive, and they use Tom's of Maine, so.)
Scary.
Yesterday, both children had time-outs. Evangeline got two - one for the toothpaste, and one for biting her sister.
Now, after time-outs, I ask "Why did you get a time-out?" and wait to see what they say. With Evangeline, I usually fill in the blank. With Angelique, I usually spend a lot of time going "No. I mean, that was bad, but you didn't do that until after I told you that you were getting a time-out" until she backtracks her way right back to the actual crime.
But yesterday, both times, Evangeline was able to answer the question herself! The first time, I was so surprised, I hit entirely the wrong tone at first. "That's right! You did take the toothpaste! ^.^ Uh... and that was very wrong. VERY WRONG."
The second time went a bit better.
As for Angelique, her time-out was because, when I told her she needed to be in the bedroom with me instead of sneaking off to the kitchen to... do whatever mischief she probably wanted to do... her answer was "WHY SHOULD I???", and... well... the only polite way to phrase that doesn't involve ALL CAPS, nor the words "Why should I", so... yeah. She threw a tantrum, I'm sorry to say.
When her tantrum and time-out were over, and we talked about it, Angelique said, out of nowhere, that she thought we wouldn't make cookies after all (and she was right, by the way) because she had misbehaved.
I agreed - really bad tantrums do not lead to special treats.
I had wanted those cookies, too.
It's so... so much all at once! I could just die, I'm so happy. (Yes, I know it's a weird turn of phrase. Deal with it.)
