Ana has picked up two speech habits from her classmates that *really* irritate me.

[conuly]

Mines instead of mine, and double negatives. I know, I know, dialectical variation and all that, but it still grates to hear! And of course two days after Ana picked them up, Evangeline stole them directly from her. (It's really remarkable how much Evangeline idolizes her big sister.)

Evangeline (today, while "putting on a show"): Connie, ask me if I want a cookie.
Me (thinking that she didn't say please): *silence*
Evangeline: Connie, you didn't say nothing!
Me: On the contrary, I most certainly did say nothing.
Evangeline: Bu- SAY SOMETHING! Please?

You can't trip up these girls about anything, you know :)

~~~~~~~~

Evangeline has a quirk with certain past tenses. I'm trying to work out how this quirk exactly works - every time I notice it I think I should write it down, and then by the time I get where I can and I also remember to do so, I've forgotten the exact situation!

With words like had and got, she tends to go "hadded" and "gotted". This is new. I remember hearing the words, but I seem to remember that there was something interesting about it, not just a case of her trying to both use what she knows is the correct form and ALSO use what she knows is the right way to past-tense a verb. But maybe I'm misremembering. When I see them again (they're up with their grandmother for the week) I'll pay closer attention.

~~~~~~~~

Today, the girls were outside making HUMONGOUS bubbles and the baby next door, Madison, came over to pop them. Madison was having a BLAST toddling around after the "big" girls and grinning like... something... that... grins a lot. And the girls were having fun with her. Evangeline came running up to tell me she came over (because a Connie hath not eyes to see, apparently), and then ran back down so she could "be nice to her".

And I'm looking at this kid, who is only as much younger than Evangeline as Evangeline is than Ana, and they DWARFED her. She looked so TINY, and they both looked so BIG, my little nieces.

But you know what struck me? In comparison to Madison, the two of them looked just about the same height. Evangeline, when I bother to look, I can see that she's barely half a head shorter than her sister, and she's more filled out as well - Ana is a skinny Minnie, really. And the two of them are only one size apart as far as shoes go. The shoes they got recently are the same make, and they've both made mistakes picking which shoes to wear until Ana got the idea to always check the tag first.

In a few years, I'll be surprised if Evangeline isn't the same height as or even taller than her sister. Don't know how Ana will take that....

Comments

[ncp.livejournal.com]

"Grinning like a Cheshire cat"?

My husband's cousin has two girls (well, three, but this is about the older two) who are two years apart in age. The older one (S) is a skinny thing, while the younger one (P) is quite solidly built. They are about the same height. P might actually be a bit taller. When I pointed out "Hey S, P is a bit taller than you", she said "That's OK, our aunt is taller than our mom." Their aunt is several years younger than their mother.

[conuly]

I considered but rejected that phrase because I associate it with grinning mischievously, and that's not the mood there.

My sister and I were the same height growing up. I didn't mind, but my sister was a bit put out.

[jillianfish.livejournal.com]

My sister is seven years younger than me and she's a good six inches taller than I am. Of course, I am freakishly short and she (by doctor's estimation) will be freakishly tall.

It helps that I've always been shorter than everyone I know, so I'm totally used to being dwarfed by my sister.