Friday, December 7, 2012

A Few Words About the Girl

I wrote not that long ago about how we seemed to be in a really hard phase with Brighton. I wouldn't exactly say that it is always smooth sailing with her now, but she does seem to be a little more in control of her emotions (provided she's not overly tired or hangry) and is generally much more pleasant to be around.

She still talks SO much. When she's not talking, she's singing a narration of whatever she might be doing at the time. It's all sort of charming for the first couple of hours of the day but by evening my eardrums are bleeding and I'm fantasizing about solitary confinement.

Her imagination is running absolutely wild right now. She loves pretend play and loves nothing more than for me to participate. If by participate I mean follow an exact script she feeds to me line by line. She can be rather...bossy. Pacey is very cooperative, until he's not, and then she comes to me to ask me how she can command him to follow orders.

Right now she is in the guest bathroom with her giraffe-topped whisk, making her "famous soup." This involves filling up the sink with water, adding copious amounts of nice hand soap and whisking it into a froth. It will be ready in five minutes, she tells me.

She is a competitor. The kids BEG to play games, which I keep guarded in an off-limits closet - partly because I can't stand the thought of the pieces being spread throughout the house, but mostly because I don't love playing games and they still need supervision for most of them - and every now and then I relent and we play a few rounds. The other day Brighton was trailing behind in a particular game and she got very upset, saying she didn't want to play any more (since she projected that she wouldn't win). We had the usual talk about being a good sport, how winning wasn't everything, blah blah blah, and she looked at me, deadly serious and said, "But mom, it's so important!" Oh, my husband's daughter she is.

When she's upset with me, she gives me this look:




It's comically impudent, but she also tells me frequently and unprompted how much she loves me, so I forgive her.

Better go, I have to go sample some soap bubble soup.

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