Adventures of a bad secret-keeper

"It's a surprise. I can't tell.... We're singing 'Mary did you know?'"
"I thought you said it was a surprise."
"It is. You don't know that song."
"Yes I do."
"You do?? How did you learn it??"

Imogen is bad at secrets, bad at surprises. Today I got a Christmas gift from her. She walked in darting her eyes around and clutching something in her hands. She sat next to me on the couch and slipped her hand into my pocket. "You can read that later," she said. "Ok, I'll read it later," I said, and continued to read something on my computer. She waited about 30 seconds. "You can read it now," she said. (The endless patience of a five year old.) It was a little piece of a paper that had a drawing of us holding hands and said "I *heart* you. MY" (MY are, apparently, my initials. M for mommy.)

I thought it was so sweet and I thanked her. Thus encouraged, she said "I'm going to make another one. But it's a surprise. So don't look at it. I'll make it in my closet so you don't see. Don't come in there. I won't tell you where in my closet I'm going to be." (Note: the closets here are very small.)

Jeremy tried to explain that when you want to surprise someone you simply don't say anything about it but I'm not sure that'll sink in.

Imogen, uptight

I'm one of those people that gets on the nerves of people like Imogen. I've talked before about how rule-oriented she is and how she loves to classify everything in her world. She sees very much in black and white. There are ways in which certain things are to be done, and there is no wiggle room. It's right or it's wrong and it really NEEDS to be right. And I'm just really not like that.

At her school, they are teaching her etiquette and manners. One thing they are teaching her is how to set the table. We're usually so busy and in a rush that no table gets set around here. But since school has been out, I cook more, and she's been bugging me to set the table, and tonight I let her. Genevieve helped. And then, she became unhelpful. Imogen insisted that Genevieve's glass belonged on one side. Genevieve wanted it on the other. Genevieve was not moving any glass but her own and Imogen was freaking out about it. Crying, yelling and stomping her feet about how she can't possibly sit at the table and eat while looking at this glass on the wrong side of the plate. I sent her to her room to calm down.

She came out and I tried to explain that Genevieve's glass placement preferences are not important in the slightest and that Imogen was overreacting and needed to calm down and content herself with the symmetry of the rest of the table. She became upset again, crying that it simply wasn't possible to overlook such a glaring violation of the laws of nature. I sent her back to her room and didn't bring it up again when she came back.

pictures

Imogen looking evil or something. :)


Our Christmas tree, or at least most of it. It's very pretty. :)


Genevieve putting on her shoes. You can see her new earing. And her new haircut.


I bought the girls hats and gloves the other day. Genevieve modeled her's for her daddy just before bed.