"Some day I'll land in the nut house
With all the nuts and the squirrels
There I'll stay
Until the prohibition of
Little girls."
-Annie, the musical
I love my duo of girlies. I
love that they are creative and imaginative.
I'm just drowning in little girl accessories and cast-offs right now and
a little overwhelmed and this song has been cycling through my head most of the
morning. Can you hear Carol Burnett
cackling as Miss Hannigan? I can.
Because I feel like I don't have enough time to spend with them
during the week and then our weekend time is often used up with errands,
grocery shopping and house cleaning, I
easily get suckered into "projicks".
"But this one isn't messy!" they cry. "We'll pick it up!" they protest.
And just like the infomercial for losing half your body weight
without diet or pesky exercise, I fall for it.
Currently, (and let me say that this "projick" started
somewhere in the 6:00 a.m. time frame),
Miss 5 has cut two dozen construction paper hearts out of the very
center of each piece of paper, abandoning the scraps in her wake. She has pulled down markers to write her
messages "Hape Holuda" (Happy
Holidays) and left them scattered across the table sans caps. Two paper plates have been taken from the
pantry and ragged eyeholes cut into them.
Mid-"projick" the string to hold it onto ones head was deemed
too short, so both masks and the related props have been relocated to the
living room floor on the way to a more desirable venture.
Tape. Let's pause for a
moment to reflect on the magnificence of tape.
Miss 5 has found the tape and has made a remarkable bandage for one of her
dolls. She has also taped each and every
one of her Barbie dolls eyes and has moved onto the button-eyed scare-master,
Lalaloopsy.
"I'm giving them contacts." she tells me. Well, of course.
She is clearly running an understaffed office as she is currently
the doctor, receptionist, and patient's mother.
The split personality conversation in the other room is about the only
thing that is keeping me from crying.
My favorite so far is "Where is your shirt?! You went to the doctor without a shirt? What were you thinking?...(quick aside) "The rest of you will have to wait your
turn. I don't have any more
shirts." I don't know what's going
on in this office, but I think I may cancel my appointment.
Everywhere you go in our play space, you'll find a Barbie
shoe. Vampy, trampy, plastic
detritus. They look cute in the box,
they're even remotely cute on her feet.
(The one and only one time they were ON her feet.) But mostly, they are just underfoot. Irritatingly pokish, but low on the Lego scale
of pain induction. Our vacuum has
hoovered up a few. Several are somewhere
in the dogs digestive system. And yet,
everywhere I go, there they are.
It seems that everything a little girl might desire comes with
many, many little accessories. As do the
little girls themselves. Miss 5 has just
donned her third party dress in an hour and I'm sure the rejects are lying in a
heap on her floor. Little One aspires to
be as well dressed and has come downstairs in an outfit of her own making. (Read undies, tank top, wool hat and snow
boots.) The volume of laundry in our
house is stunning already. The addition
of "I needed a new ow-fit" to our repertoire is not helping. And let's be honest, sometimes it really is
easier to potentially needlessly rewash it than it is to run through the
three-point cleanliness check for each item.
Socks and undies are an automatic re-wash. Some things I just don't want to inspect too
closely.
It was way easier when they couldn't open gates, reach the top
shelf, move a chair to create a ladder, etc.
This independence that I longed for is turning on me.
