Two Things About Phoebe

1. Phoebe removes her shoes immediately upon entering the house. Even if she's fallen asleep in the car, and I'm carrying her, still sleeping, into the house, her shoes hit the floor within a few steps of crossing the threshold.

2. Phoebe is never still. If she's sitting in "her" chair watching TV, she has to be scraping something around on the floor with her toe, or banging the doors of the TV cabinet, or fiddling with the blinds. If she's on my lap, she squirms and twitches, or she digs her toes into my legs to maneuver into a different position. If she's on my lap, watching TV, and eating popcorn, she rustles around in the popcorn bowl, lets it spill between her fingers, crumples up each piece, tries to cram kernels in my mouth. In her car seat, she zings the seat belt beside her back and forth, back and forth. In bed, she twists and flops and flips her pillow over and then over again and kicks off her blankets and pulls them back up. It is such a relief when she finally falls asleep. About an hour before she wakes up for good, though, she starts the flopping and flailing and rustling and turning all over again. And then she gets up for another non-stop, skip-hoppy day.

Comments

aimee said…

Rhett is like that (never wants to be still). So it doesn't get better with age. :)

11:22 AM

Merry Christmas to Joey, too!

Scene: After the Christmas pageant. Me: You did great, Mallory, we're proud of you! Mallory: What was your favorite part? Me: Hmm. I liked the "Whatcha Gonna Call That Baby?" song. Chris: I liked that one too. Me: But I also liked "Joy to the World." Mallory: Joey in the world? What's that? Me: No, joy to the world, the song you just sang. Mallory: Oh yeah. Me: That's one of my favorite songs. Phoebe: A favorite song is a song that's your favorite and you like it and you sing. (Pause) Phoebe: And you dance. Mallory, before the show, in front of our haphazardly decorated Christmas tree. Phoebe declined to be photographed. All I was able to photograph of the event itself: Phoebe, objecting to the camera's flash: Now she closes her eyes before I snap every picture. Sigh. But she's cute anyway! And so is Mallory! And their dresses match! We're thinking Arby's: Okay, that's it! Recently read: The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife . ...

It's what's for dinner

One of the things that I failed to appreciate about my mom until I left home is that she always made dinner (although I think we called it supper then), by which I mean, something hot, usually involving a vegetable. I don't remember my mom ever saying sheepishly to her hungry spouse and offspring, "I don't feel like cooking, how about a bowl of cereal?" I hate making dinner. Haaate it. It's my least favorite chore. It's not necessarily because I can't cook. I can usually manage to create something edible, although I have yet to perfect the science of getting, say, the chicken and the broccoli and the rice and the rolls all ready at the same time. (There are those among you who may be surprised that I make and serve broccoli. It's true! It's best when roasted: Toss with olive oil and salt, spread on a baking sheet, put in 400 degree oven for about 8 minutes. It's delicious! Delicious as broccoli can be, at least.) It's also not necessarily t...

Little sisters

Mallory was invited for a sleepover tonight; this morning, as she was packing her suitcase, Phoebe came in and said, "Me too!" When Chris found her suitcase, and gently told her that she wasn't invited to the sleepover, she cried for an hour. I think I'll always have a special sort of sympathy for Phoebe, my second child, because I was the second child too*. (And it's odd, because although I have younger siblings as well, I always think of myself as a little sister, or as the younger older sister, if that makes sense. I think that's because Jana, my big sister, was so good at being the oldest, responsible and, uh, authoritarian, and I am, well, fundamentally irresponsible. We all bowed to her! In a good way. I could never live up to that.) I often feel sorry for Phoebe, left behind while Mallory goes to school all day, because I well remember the long, lonely boring days I spent waiting for Jana to come home from school (not counting the days I spent playing i...

Always Remember That

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