On a power trip

Once upon a time, Imogen and Genevieve had their own rooms.

But Imogen emptied the dresser full of clothing onto the floor in her room every day so I got mad and created a play room (where they both slept) and a clothes room (which contained the dressers and whatever other random junk we didn't know what to do with).

And so time passed.

But to make a long story short, I cleaned out the clothes room and now it is Imogen's room. She has a new large twin size bed and a desk and will soon be getting a new dresser to replace the dilapidated one she has now.

And there was much rejoicing.

Seriously, if I had known how to get rid of her I would have done this a long time ago. She spends a lot of time in her room now. She set up her hop scotch foamy pad things and came to me and Jeremy.

"Please don't mess up my hop scotch. You don't have to hop scotch into my room, but I want Genevieve to. But please don't mess it up."

Jeremy took her aside and told her very kindly to get a grip. Somehow it has not occurred to Genevieve that she has the same set of powers that Imogen has over her room. It's harder for Genevieve because her room is not new or special and Imogen has spent a long time living in there. Still, I'm sure she'll figure it out and I'll get to hear all the joyful screaming about who is allowed in who's room and what set of actions are necessary to gain entrance into the other room and how far one much bend over backwards to avoid expulsion from said room. But for now, Genevieve is excited to be invited into Imogen's room and mentions that she hopes to sleep in there one day, which Imogen, with the air of a benevolent ruler, promises that she will.

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.

Earrings

Genevieve got her ears pierced today. When we got there the woman said she was the only one there who could do it so we would have to do them one at a time. I had warned Genevieve that it would hurt, but I've never heard of a four year old getting them done one at a time. I asked her if it would be ok, and she insisted that it would.

In a sudden and strange turn of event she chose pale blue stones for her ears over pink. It gave me hope that she wasn't quite herself this morning (and would handle pain with a little more dignity than is her custom.) She sat very still and quiet and looked very grim while her ears were washed and the dots were marked and remarked till they were even.

Then she did the first one. Genevieve flinched and gasped. No tears, no screams, no insistance that she really only wanted one earring. Same thing other side. She picked a blue sucker to match her earring (we can't be seen eating clashing candy, apparently).

Later Jeremy commented that he's not too surprised. Genevieve's got an extreme stubborn streak and when she decides she wants something, very little will stand in her way.

Scary movies

"Go away, I'm watching a scary preview."
I- "I like scary movies."
"This one is too scary."
I- "I like movies that are too scary!"
G- "Yeah! I like movies that are all-the-way-scary."

Tennessee

Overheard:

Genevieve: "Where am I from..." in squeaky voice for pony.
Imogen: "California?"
Genevieve: "No."
Imogen: "Colorado?"
"No."
"Connecticut?"
"No."
"Delaware?"

Etc.

The other day Imogen came home from school and asked if we could go visit Tennessee. Who wants to go to Tennessee? What's even in Tennessee?

Genevieve's "kids"

So, I walk into the living room the other day and the girls are playing Uno. There are Uno cards scattered around on the floor in messy piles in the middle of a circle of not only Imogen and Genevieve but the three miniature stuffed animals that Genevieve calls her "kids". A little pink pig, a little pink bunny and the "red-head stepchild" of the group, a little gray elephant.

"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Playing Uno," Imogen answers.
"Why do you have so many cards out?"
"Because Genevieve's kids are playing too," Imogen answers.

I watched them go around the circle, playing a card for each stuffed animal. They speak for the animals in squeeky voices replying in their normal voices.

Genevieve sleeps with these animals, reminding me of my little sister who used to sleep with so many stuffed animals, you couldn't see the bed around her and you had a hard time piling them all on so that they wouldn't fall off. At least Genevieve's addiction hasn't reached such a critical stage.

Instead of working on stuff, I'm posting this

Me.


My messy desk. The coloring is funky because I have this pink lamp that bathes everything in a pink light. It makes me happy.

Halloween

I don't have my camera back yet, so you'll have to settle for a low quality webcam picture.

As you can see they decided to go as frilly as they could this year. Imogen is a fairy and Genevieve is a princess, but there's precious little difference. Both are pink and poofy.

Strawberry milk

At the store I said I would buy the girls some chocolate milk. But then Genevieve noticed the strawberry milk. Chocolate milk has a surprising lack of pinkness I guess.

"How do they make strawberry milk?" she asked.
"Well," I said "you have to get a pink cow. And feed it strawberries."
"Really?" her eyes lit up. She was enchanted. I could see the baby pink cows frolicking in the strawberry fields of her mind.
"No, not really," I said.

The other day we were at Wal-mart and Genevieve made a comment about when she was a grown up.

"You'll be old by then," she said. While I was grappling with this statement, she ammended it. "Actually, you'll be dead."

Wow.

Anger 101: How to Let Them Know You're Really Mad
taught by Genevieve

Covering such versitile topics like:
Screaming: volume really is everything
Door Slamming: when one slam isn't enough, open the door and slam it again
Apologies: make them come to you
Comprimises: why they're never worth it
Changing your demands so you can keep crying

Pictures

Write that down...

The girls have been wreched the last couple times we went to Walmart. So I reviewed with them four rules that they must follow at the store and made them memorize them.

1. Stay with me at all times.
2. No touching anything.
3. No crying about not getting anything.
4. Keep hands on the cart in the parking lot.

These are rules not only for my own sanity, but also for safety. These are rules that I've been training them to follow since they were old enough to walk and that I consider their responsibility to follow and not mine to enforce. These are rules that are not followed with anything approaching perfection. But I was happy with the previous level of imperfection as compared to the current level of imperfection. When I have a five year old standing in the checkout crying about not getting a candy bar (really!), I really have to wonder what in the world she is thinking.

So we've summed up all expected shopping behaviors into four rules which Imogen really digs. I asked her the rules yesterday on the way to the store yesterday. She rattled them off with passable accuracy then said she would write them in her head. She pretended to write on the top of her head.

"I have lots of lists in my head. I have lots of paper in my head so I can write down my lists," she explains to me. Genevieve immediately repeats this. Imogen goes on to prattle happily about all the rules she must write down and remember. Genevieve gets confused and asks if Imogen will teach her the game to which all these rules belong. To Genevieve, rules are for games. To Imogen, rules are for EVERYTHING.

Random pictures

Briefly considers going as a box of Honey Nut Cheerios for Halloween...
Sorry it's sideways. I'm too lazy to fix it at the moment...


Pretending to be asleep.

Asleep for real.

Imogen being weird (aka, herself).

The dot you see on her nose is not a picture mistake. It was either a bug bite or a Zues bite. She never could get her story straight. :)

How old are you? :)

Picture issues

Still no camera. I seem to be unable to resize these pictures, so we'll see how this works. Just a few birthday pics.

Birthday girl

Genevieve's birthday went well. She got toys and clothes in varying shades of pink, wrapped in paper of varying shades of pink. I took pictures. I was grabbing the camera to get one last shot of her in her new pink sunglasses before posting them on here when I realized the button was missing. Uh oh. I still don't know if I can get the pictures off my camera and for how long it's going to be out of order. Basically right now, we're just searching for the button...