Just some random pictures...

The top one is of Imogen's latest tooth loss, a loss from which she has still not recovered. (Physically, I mean. That tooth refuses to grow back.)

Then, Genevieve being pouty. Needs no explanation.

Then, Imogen's new haircut, which is now not as new as it was in these pictures. It's actually quite cute because she's got the natural waves in her hair which make it a flattering look.

Yeah, so I've been busy...

This is a picture of my desk taken on... Friday I think? Ironically, I look around and I've cleaned up my desk and other stuff seems to have taken that stuff's place. Hm...

We have this backwards somehow...

So, Imogen wakes up with a stomach ache this morning. Stomach aches are so vague. There's not a lot you can do for them, their causes are mysterious and they're hard to verify. Is it diarrhea or apendi-whatever? Is it a stomach flu or a cleverly chosen, unprovable, difficult to solve symptom of simply wishing to stay home? A fever, I can handle. The kid is hot, or she is not. Easy. We have the magic number (98.6 or 96.8, I can never remember...) and we have the magic thermometer that tells us (provided it has not again been misplaced). And we have Tylenol to fix it. (I have a hard time inflicting pepto bismol on a person I like. Some cures are worse than the disease.)

So I told Imogen she could stay home from school. I had one final and it wasn't till tonight, so it was no inconvenience to me. However, she came to me 20 minutes later (20 minutes past when she should have been getting dressed according to my oft-ignored morning schedule that only I care about) and announced that her stomach felt much better and she would be going to school. She was in her uniform, and I do use the word "in" loosely in this context. Her shirt untucked and unbuttoned, socks of drastically differing lengths and hair still messy. Still, this was all fixable within the allotted time, though I had to tell Genevieve to get dressed. She seemed to think a day at home was as good a reason as any to spend it nude.

Imogen school called me at around 2:45, not long before I would have left to pick her up anyway. Her stomach hurt, they said, and I needed to come get her. When I arrived they explained that she had seemed kind of down all day long but refused to complain and finally the teacher noticed her clutching her stomach and flinching.

So here I have a child who, instead of pretending to be ill to stay home from school, when sick, will pretend to be well so she can go to school.

That makes me happy.

Sorry for lack of posts...

My semester is winding down and that means everything is due and I'm pretty busy. I'm looking forward to summer.

The girls are partially to blame, by refusing to say or do anything of remarkable cuteness. Children are not so fascinating that I'm willing to type out their breakfast menus or petty spats with each other. They must do their part by being interesting. It's the least they can do for the attention lavished upon them.

Imogen has been going to school quite ordinarily without being either deplorably bad or angelically good. She has nothing more exciting than a spelling bee and History Day coming up. For history day she will dress as a Native American from Montana and recite a paragraph about the state. Montana is a dull state but all the interesting ones were taken. There is a shortage of interesting states and they don't go very far in a class of 14.

Genevieve has also been neither atrocious nor saintly. Perhaps I should be grateful. I'm very suspicious of saintly behavior, viewing it as either a cover up for what is really happening or a short stage to be followed by a disproportionately long period of the aforementioned atrociousness.

Yesterday we went to Incredible Pizza. Think Chuck E Cheese's, but with better games. The girls had a great time, and as they were crawling through those plastic tubes from ball pits to slides, I collapsed on a bench to look around me. I shouted a compliment to the woman sitting next to me regarding the prettiness of the baby on her lap and I could not help but think that this place was everything that is wrong with parenting. It's brightly colored and plastic (in other words, unattractive). It's loud with shouting, music, and a discordant symphony of beeps from the various rides and games. It was so overstimulating that Imogen was wired for the rest of the day and Genevieve came home and fell asleep before dinner.

And they loved every moment of it. Oh well.

Dreams

Imogen asked me several nights ago, "Do grown ups have dreams?" I laughed and said, "Of course." Now, every night, she tells me to have sweet dreams.

One mustn't be inaccurate in our pleasantries.

Chess

Some of my fondest memories of childhood include playing chess with my father. It was time I spent with just him. My mother and I spent time shopping, trading jokes and laughter. My father and I shared books and chess. I haven't played in years and I'm honestly no good at it. But today we bought a chessboard and sat down with the girls to teach them.

Imogen's attention span toward it (and I suspect, her aptitude) was greater than Genevieve's. First we taught the names of the pieces and then we set up the board. While Imogen concentrated on this, Genevieve made the king and queen kiss. The differences between my daughters are very apparent.

We taught them how the pieces moved and set up very simple situations to teach capturing. Imogen was thrilled at such revelations like when a knight is on a white square, all the squares he is covering are black and when a bishop starts on a certain color, he will only ever touch that color square. She was excited by every capture. She traded her queen for a knight and congratulated herself. Jeremy played intentionally badly so she could find ways out of as many checking situations as possible and that is mostly what her game consisted of. No plan was formulated, no attack was mounted. But who cares. She had fun and it was her first game. And she gets to spend time with her daddy, who is much better at chess than me, and will probably play many more games with her than I will.

Not kid pictures

But they are cool pictures.

more black and whites

And another

another

pictures

Imogen's first get-rich-quick scheme

I have a little entrepreneur on my hands. Either that or a scam artist. At any rate, the kid has been losing teeth. And making money at it. After that third tooth came out, well, let's just say that if she were a cartoon character, there would have been a lightbulb over her head and a wicked grin on her face.

She found a little white rock, roughly the same size and shape as a little tooth. You know where this is going. She put it in an envelope and labeled it herself "Imogens fourth tooth" and stuck it under her pillow. Genevieve loved the plan. Honestly, she was salivating for how brilliant she thought it was. Genius, pure genius! No way the tooth fairy would see through this one.

Unfortunately, the tooth fairy did see through it. She left a note for the young businesswoman of the house that she can not be fooled and she only pays for teeth, not rocks.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Imogen got a haircut last week (because she started it herself) and I'll be putting a picture of that up soon.

Genevieve's stitches

Looks gruesome, hm?

Today the doctor was taking them out and she asked "Do you want to save them?" I was revolted. "People DO that??" I asked. "Yes, for baby books and stuff. You know, first stitches and all," she said.

And I thought it was a little morbid to take pictures of them. The last thing I need is a bunch of scabby dried up bits of black string to commemorate this event. The very thought makes me twitch.

Will work for ice cream...

The girls were supposed to pick up the living room. We piled everything in a pile in the middle of the floor, mostly laundry and toys, but school papers end up there as well. But that's a boring thing to do with one's weekend, and they found themselves easily distracted. After numerous reminders and warnings, I finally got tired of it. I called them to me in the next room and said "I want that pile cleaned up. Whoever cleans up most will get ice cream." Jaws dropped and they ran out of the room to clean up.

Jeremy looked at me incredulously. "Are you going to watch them?" he asked. "No," I said.

About five minutes later they came rushing back, assuring me that they each picked up the most. I made a production of walking into the living room to somehow determine who had done the most. Imogen started picking up the coloring book mess. "Look!" she said loudly, "I'm picking up things that are NOT in the pile!" Genevieve scrambled to help. After a short deliberation and analysis, I concluded that they both picked up the same amount of stuff and thus would both get ice cream.

Which was the point from the start. But if you promise that they'll both get ice cream when they are finished with the chore, then what's the motivation to do it quickly? And if you put a time limit on that, then they must compete with a clock, which is insubstantial and rather abstract to a child. But seeing your sister pick up with your own eyes, knowing that she might be the one to get the ice cream? That's motivation.

Categories

In movies, a child's drawing offer exciting and plot-relevant insight into the child's point of view. Children draw relatives dying three days before that character dies a gruesome on-screen death. They draw memories of past lives, or ghosts that only they can see.

But in the mundane real world, children's drawings tend to be a little more generic. It's true that each child has their own style. Imogen's people have disturbingly short legs and Genevieve's have no body at all, but their limbs simply grow out of their heads. "Look mommy, I drew you as a mutant!" But mostly they are just drawings.

However, sometimes you get a drawing that does actually offer insight into your child's mind, and while it may not be a supernatural indication that your child is ready for therapy, it can be interesting nonetheless.

See the drawing above. Imogen brought this home from school. This is her family, from right to left, Genevieve, Imogen, myself, and Jeremy. Hair is a defining feature here, classifying each family member into the tiny group in which they belong. We are grouped as a family and then sub grouped into people who are similar.

I've always hated labeling people. In high school you have all these labels. Skater, goth, punk, emo, jock, alpha, etc. People like Imogen invented those labels, I'm convinced of it, out of a need to categorize.

This week so far...

Sunday:

Genevieve walked into the kitchen after we told her to brush her hair with her hair neatly brushed and wet as usual, and smelling strange; not as usual. The smell was familiar... I tried to ask what it was and her big eyes got bigger and she said nothing. This is a bad sign. I knew for sure that it was a bathroom product of some sort. So I went to the bathroom to investigate. I found my facial toner on the counter, cap off and a good two inches emptier than usual. I tried to be angry but I was laughing too hard.

Monday:

I'm sitting outside of my Art History class waiting for it to start when my cell phone rings. It's Genevieve's day care. The director says she's fallen and hit her face and she needs stitches. She ended up with six stitches next to her eye (I'll post a picture later). That was about the least fun I've had in a while.

Tuesday:

I get a phone call from Imogen's school saying to come pick her up a little early because she had just vomited on her desk. I walked into the office to see her sitting on the bench holding a small trash can on her lap.

Wenesday, 4:45 pm:

Still waiting for today's little dose of disaster.

School, etc

Imogen commented that in chapel at school she gets to sit next to the teacher a lot. She paused to consider this, then commented "It's probably becauase I'm so good all the time." Jeremy and I just looked at each other and laughed.

I'm SURE that's the reason the teacher has my child sit next to her. My child who has gotten in trouble all last week for humming during lectures. My child who's solution for other people talking when she wants to talk is to simply talk louder (and start over so that they catch everything you want to say). My very squirmy child who sometimes forgets not to play with her friends.

However, her teacher also assures me that she's doing very very well in school. She reads quickly without sounding out most of the words, only the longer ones. I've barely lifted a finger to make her practice reading, beyond buying plenty of books for her to practice on. I'll get up in the morning and she'll be in bed with the light on reading instead of getting ready for school.

As for Genevieve, she makes the oddest off the wall observations. We were driving around the other day and out of the blue she says "Babies are smaller than trash cans, that are bigger than the trash can that is in my room." ??? I mean, what do you even SAY to that??

You can teach a kid anything

I have this huge art book laying around for an art history class and I flipped to a couple paintings thinking I could teach the girls some of them. They learned the Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa and the Van Gogh painted Starry Night. I taught them this months ago. Yesterday we were cleaning up the living room and Genevieve came across some junk mail that we had let them play with. It was a credit card offer and it had a picture of several different credit cards on it with the various customizations you could get.

"Starry night!" she said. We all stopped working. She was pointing to one of the tiny credit cards. Jeremy and I bent over to look. Indeed, the design on the credit card was a piece of Starry Night.

They also sort of know the names of the president, vice president, secretary of state and speaker of the house. Meaning, they often need hints, but then, we've only been working on that for a few days. Imogen didn't want to learn the secretary of state's name because she's not in the line of succession (as far as her mother knows anyway). :)

Bambi is lame

I just spent a gift card from my mother for Christmas and one of the things I got was the movie Bambie for the girls.

I'd forgotten how lame it was. Or actually, I didn't realize just how lame it is. Don't get me wrong, the girls love it. Imogen was beside herself with excitement when it arrived. They also got Cars but nooo, they won't watch that one. They've been giggling at this girlie-named-deer's antics the whole movie.

There's these long musical numbers. And they aren't Lion King, Little Mermaid music numbers that you can actually sing to. Bambi's mother is annoying. I think she's drugged. She speaks in this stupid monotone saying these wise-sounding-but-not lines. "Man... is in the forrest..." and "Winter has come." Thank you Lady Obvious. Fortunately, dialogue in general is rare this movie.

Then there's the scene where she dies. The farmer shoots, misses. She runs away... He continues to shoot and miss, finally, he manages to chase her down and land a shot. Now, deer in the forrest are pretty fast, so I'm not sure how this was accomplished. You never see the hunter, and I've concluded that he managed to chase her down in his flying spacecraft.

Hey, I know some people are into this movie. I remember as a child I wasn't too into it as well, and I attempt not to impose too much of my taste on my kids unless they like something so awful I worry about it permanently damaging them. :)

Cleaning rooms

The girls each have their own unique way of cleaning their room. Genevieve works quickly without complaint. She picks up any trash and throws it away and crams the rest in her closet. Then she goes about her business playing with her toys and if you ask about her room she confidently assures you that it is spotless and suggests that you go check it. It should be noted that her closet doesn't have a door.

Imogen on the other hand complains extensively. This is obviously the greatest injustice in the history of mankind but when she manages to get over herself and clean her room she meticulously makes her bed. She ignores laundry and toys all over the floor. She spreads blanket after blanket carefully, straightening them again and again. She's been known to unmake and remake her bed.

So today, I was asked to inspect their rooms.

Me: "Did you throw everything into your closet?" (Don't you love how parents ask the dumbest questions?)
Genevieve (completely unconcerned): "I wanted to."

And across the hall, I stare confusedly at the floor and Imogen speaks up. "Just check the bed."

Ice storm

It's hard to exaggerate how much ice there was around here. I went two full weeks without power. We were among the last people to be turned on and they only got around to us on Friday night at 5:30. I won't go into just how miserable that was.

Last night we moved home to find one of our rooms flooded. So Jeremy and I spent the day cleaning that up while the girls spent yet another night at their grandparents' house. My back hurts. Imogen and Genevieve just walked in and are thrilled to be home.

"I missed this house!" Genevieve said. They keep picking up toys and talking about how much they missed each one.

We're glad to be home, but we still have a lot of work to do in the office/utility room. If 2007 doesn't improve very soon I'm going to run away.

You might be a redneck...

Christmas pictures, late

Genevieve is relaxing on her beanbag she got for Christmas.


Zach was very lively and a wonderful conversationalist on Christmas.


Best smile in the world.



Genevieve is under there... somewhere.



Ben believes in maintaining his dignity at all times.

A very nice thing

Imogen commented to me that on Christmas her grandmother did a VERY nice thing. (Not just somewhat nice.)

"What nice thing did she do?" I asked disinterestedly, expecting something very typical like a gift or a treat of some grandmotherly fashion.

"She letted us wash the windows!" Imogen said, her eyes wide with the enormity of what she was revealing to me.

And I was very impressed with Jeremy's mother. She not only got my children to clean up her house, but she has managed to do so in such a way that this is put down in their little minds as a "nice thing". An example of generosity in the tradition of Tom Sawyer, white washing a fence. This was so impressive a display of benevolence, it goes beyond the mild giving out of candy. This random act of charity will be remembered for years to come as a highlight of the holiday season.

I wonder if I can get my bathroom cleaned like this...

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...

Learning to do stuff

Imogen has this fabulous determination to learn things. Her piano teacher gave her a difficult (for her) piece recently. The music covered two pages (one side each page) and must be played with both hands, switching back and forth often. She was expected to know the first line and a half the first week. She had some kind of mental block on this music and it was very frustrating. She cried, she stomped around in frustration, she made me promise that she didn't have to play it at the recital if she hadn't learned it in time. It took two weeks to learn the first section, but after that the rest of the song has been easy for her.

Whistling was the same way. She's wanted to whistle for months. She's puckered up her lips and squeeked as high as she could to imitate the sound of whistling. She cried about it. She tried to get me to commit to an age when she would magically be able to whistle. And finally, within the last few weeks, she actually learned to whistle, a real genuine whistle.

Incidentally, a couple days later, Genevieve learned to whistle as well. That's Genevieve: two days later, eighteen months earlier.

Imogen's next project is learning how to snap. She keeps track of which of her classmates can snap their fingers (or have convinced her that they can snap their fingers). Sometimes she comes home and tells me that her classmates' older siblings can snap as if this is some kind of evidence that she is failing dreadfully to do something that obviously a multitude of people can do.

She's got a bit of a competative streak.

It's all in your head

I was peacefully painting at the dining room table when a shriek from outside told me that Genevieve was once again calmly handling her self inflicted injuries. Now, this is the child that Jeremy offered to throw a party for if she would go an entire week without hurting herself to the point of leaving obvious wounds. This includes both scabbing and bruising. This is a child that I'm half afraid to take out in public lest someone call family services on me for my obvious abuse of her. She is the single greatest consumer of bandaids in our household, by a lot. Her day care repeatedly sends home accident reports in duplicate for me to sign and send back as if it's such a unique occurrence that a single copy of the form would be insufficient to detail it.

Unfortunately, not only does she inflict bodily harm on herself with alarming frequency, but she's never been one to downplay these incidents. Screaming bloody murder as if one's fingers have been removed by a hacksaw is certainly not an overreaction for a splinter.

So perhaps I can be forgiven for my complacency at the gasping sobs as Genevieve made her way inside while I continued to paint calmly. When she sputtered out "I fell!" I noticed that her knee was actually bleeding quite a bit. Knowing these things really can hurt I was all sympathy as I cleaned up the knee and covered it with a bandaid. I examined the palms of her hands carefully. They were red, but no scratches, so I cleaned them, kissed them and sent her on her way.

Well, that wasn't going to cut it. Sure, the knee was fine, but the hands were grossly neglected and the screams were unabated. I checked once again to make sure there were no open wounds with bone shards poking out that I had somehow missed in my negligence. My sympathy was evaporating fast. "What do you want me to do?" I asked, through gritted teeth. "MY HAAANDS HUUUURRRT!!!" she suggested reasonably, shattering several windows. "Fine," I said, "you want some medicine?" She nodded.

The bathroom where most of the medicine is kept was occupied, but I didn't really care. I don't have any topical painkiller unless you count the sunburn ointment which was nowhere to be found. I grabbed the nearest thing I could find that didn't seem poisonous, which was Vick's vapor rub. I made a production of wiping a thin layer on the palms of her hands, and the crying ceased immediately. The potent odor proved... something or another. "They feel better," she informed me. "They smell better," I said.

Perspective

To Genevieve, french fries and chicken nuggets are simply the tools one uses to eat katsup. No part of getting dressed is too insignificant to draw the battle lines and prepare for war over, from the color of one's panties to the choice of shoes. And life gets really good when you turn four and can consider yourself a "big kid" instead of just a "little bit big".

Genevieve alone

With Imogen at school till 3:30, I have afternoons alone with Genevieve, and it's been fun to get to know her better. When Imogen is home, Genevieve willingly lives in her shadow, following her lead, or fighting with her. Genevieve alone is different though.

For one thing, she's very easy to be around. Imogen is the extrovert in the family. Genevieve has her parents' ability to be alone with her thoughts. Whereas Imogen relies on the people around her for conversation and to keep her occupied, Genevieve has a rich fantasy life and I find her having conversations with her toys constantly. Imogen has a mad desire to classify everything around her, to bring all objects and behaviors under the domain of some rule or another so that she can order her life accordingly. This results in more questions than I ever knew existed. Genevieve asks questions like a normal child, which seems very rare compared to her sister. Genevieve isn't curious and is willing to have mysteries in her life, or willing to make up answers to whatever questions might occur to her.

Today I discovered that Genevieve is the perfect shopping companion. For one thing, you almost can't lose her. At her age, Imogen was trying to go home with other people at the park and last year she lined up with other classes at school. She regularly gave her teacher a heart attack thinking she'd been lost for good this time. Genevieve trails along behind me or holds my hand, always aware of where I am.

But also, Genevieve is actually enthusiastic about shopping. We wandered into the lingerie section today. A Mecca of femininity. She helped me pick out bras, fingering the silk and lace and gushing at the bright colors and the pink all around her. She even got excited at the shoe section, pointing out several pairs that she liked.

Speaking of the pink obsession, it's getting worse. Today in the bathroom she was extatic that the soap that I squirted into her hands was pink. "I LOVE pink soap!" she said.