Mean Girl and Danger Boy

Rachel is at the stage where she's saying things like "I don't care." and "No, I won't.". And the only thing that seems to work is to take away whatever she's playing with at the time.

Which tonight was all the non-cushion pillows from the living room.

So I begin removing them and she starts in with her very loud very fake crying. I ignored it, I've heard it too many times. I know what it is.

So I go over top of the baby gate with the pillows and up the stairs to our room. As I'm coming back down, Ben is at the gate looking at me. I see Rachel coming from the living room, walks right up next to Ben, still crying.

I can tell she knows exactly what she's doing. She moves in close. Ben finally stops looking at me and realizes she's there. And because he just adores her, if she's upset, he's upset and he justs crying. Only his is real.

I'm watching this unfold incredulously. Like a car wreck in slow motion. I knew it was coming, I was powerless to stop it and my options to deal with it even more limited. That was just a stone cold move.

I did the only thing I could, I scooped him up, completely ignoring her. In my arms, he stopped crying immediately. Knowing she was foiled and no one was paying attention, he crying quickly came to a stop as well.

In other news, Ben had his first unplanned visit to the doctor after grabbing an unopened can of vegetables, trying to walk off with it, dropping it, falling onto it and causing what turned out to be a surface cut and scrape that didn't want to stop bleeding on the bridge and tip of his nose, respectively. I arrived home after they all got back from the hospital and hung out with him while Lori was at choir.

He seemed completely unfazed by it, not once doing anything to indicate he was aware of anything amiss or that he was experiencing any pain. Just our happy little laughing baby. Who will sadly have a really scraped and red nose for his first birthday party.

For Your "Listening" Pleasure

"Skinny and tall or fat and short,
Skinny and tall or fat and short,
It's okaaaaay.....
If you're skinny and tall or fat and short!"

Rachel was singing this little ditty today. I asked if she'd heard it somewhere or made it up, and she said she made it up. Nice to know she's being all-inclusive in her songwriting.

Our Budding Auteur

Today Rachel turned the dining room chairs so that they faced the living room, also asking if she could use some of the kitchen table's chairs for her "movie theater." She put stuffed animals in the chairs and had a coaster on the table at each spot, presumably for the patrons' imaginary refreshments.

A little while later, I needed to move the chairs back to the kitchen. As I disrupted her theater, Rachel told me that "They didn't even like the movie. They walked out halfway through and turned the lights out."

I guess it's true that everyone's a critic. Even Piglet and The Brain.

Thank Goodness It's Digital

To set this up... Ben is sleeping in Rachel's room because his room is being painted.  But, he doesn't like it in there and is taking forever to go to sleep.  So tonight, Lori's painting another coat on his wall and Rachel's starting out in our room right next door, to be moved later.  Rachel discovered the new digital camera (I won it recently and it's much smaller than our other one) on Lori's nightstand and proceeded to take some photos.

When she asked for socks, Lori went in to get her some socks and she admitted playing with the camera.  We took the camera out of the room and started looking through the photos she had taken.  Her feet, her toys, the room.  It kept going and going.  The floor.  The ceiling.  The closet.  The dresser.  The nighstands.  The girl, quiet as a mouse, took seventy photos.

If only the Eye-Fi had been on and someone had been at this computer.  Would have been funny to see photos just start popping up in the corner.