Domestic Felicity (Deo volente): Daddy's Girl

And by that I do mean Charlotte. Mike's dream girl used to be Christina Applegate but when Charlotte was born she became his favorite blond. (Now that we have 2 girls, the slot for favorite will be filled based on superior shooting skills.)

Charlotte being "so cool."

Charlotte is our prettiest crayon in the box but perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Whereas Victor uses his considerable language skills to convey thoughts, ideas & blueprints, Charlotte uses her also considerable language skills to hear the sound of her own voice. Talk, make train talk to cat, cat will reply to train , Charlotte will tell you & Victor what the cat & train are talking about though you are 6" away & heard the exchange, it gets turned into a song mixed w/ whatever her favorite book for the week is, repeat for 9 hours. Mike asks her to stop & she will but not longer than 5 seconds. I think it is supposed to be her internal monologue but some bypass switch has been flipped.

Hungry & needing a nap.

She doesn't try to force her way like Victor will but uses her wiles. Instead of a full on tantrum she'll just fall to the floor, cry & cut her eyes sideways to see what you're going to do about it. Crying is the one thing I can't seem to make her quit. She always has an invisible ouch that needs a kiss. Truthfully, I'm always ready to give a kiss & she is a bit of a klutz. She bangs her head, hurts her fingers, stubs her toes more than... maybe not, I seem to remember Victor doing that too. But a giant can of pumpkin did fall from the counter & land on he toe in the midst of a pie creation. Her toe turned many colors & has earned the moniker "broccoli toe". I couldn't tell you how that came about if I tried.

Being a flapperesque weirdo.

Being a girl, pretty things top her list. Laces, trims, sparkly geegaws, barrettes, what have you. Pink is her favorite color. She organizes us all by our favorite colors.

"I like pink & Brother likes green.."
"NO Chalotte! I like 8 colors!"
"And Mommy likes pink but brown is her favorite & Daddy likes green."
I hear this at least 5 times a day. And though she loves pretty clothes & pink, she always wants to do whatever Brother is doing.

I got him a gun at the flea market & it was new w/ flashing lights, bayonet, recoiling barrel, scope... it was cool! But it was made in China & fell apart in a week. I usually don't make them share new toys right away, usually after a week has gone by I'll push the "Let's be generous & share" lesson. He wouldn't let her touch it & she went crying to daddy, "Get me a gun!" I was walking by w/ a pile of laundry & an automatic correction,"Is that how we ask for things?" She gulped, thought carefully for a moment & said "Get me a pink gun please sir?" I could not believe it but my man went straight to Wal-Mart & bought a much sturdier gun for Victor, & a shotgun for Charlotte + a can of pink spray paint. They played so nicely together for nearly 3 weeks.

Safe on their "boat".

She much prefers Victor to Miranda & has lately refused to even use her name. Should I say "Charlotte, leave your door open" I'm likely to hear

"No! Babyzilla may not have my trains!"

She loves Victors old Thomas trains & is always trying to coax him away from Legos to come & build a valley for her. He will if he can add a robot & considering everything that goes wrong on the Island of Sodor, a robot seems just as likely to me as anything else. Her trains like to eat at the table w/ her (not allowed during supper), go pee pee w/ her (allowed if she is staying dry) & when I walked into her room this morning to see what she was doing while everyone else was still sleeping she was playing very quietly stark naked so excited to see me w/ her desk pulled out & Molly, Percy Edward & Thomas all lined up around a blue block.

"Look mama, the trains are sew'n me a dress! It's a pretty pink twirly dress!"

Charlotte in one of her valleys.

So to humor her I pulled down a dress (brown but w/ pink dots) & made the trains say "Here is your dress Charlotte, lots of pink dots for you."

Her mouth falls open when I pretend w/ her though I do it several times a day. Then every single train had to say in a different voice "Wow! That's alot of pretty pink spots!" Which is why I don't pretend w/ her for too long because it gets very involved w/ a ton of characters.

Then we have lots of morning cuddles. I try to give her some extra during the day because Victor gets alot of 1 on 1 w/ his school stories & Miranda because she is my nursling. Charlotte has no interest in Bible stories or Story of the World. Story stories w/ pictures are all she cares for though she does like to color.

She drew me a very good angry picture when she was mad & I got tired of running in verbiage circles. I don't remember where I read this trick but I said that I could see that she was very mad & could she draw me a picture of how mad she was? She dried right up & went to our drawing station & walked me through every stoke. "Here are my blue eyes. Here is my nose. Here is my yellow hair. Here is my mouth. Here are my arms." It was a like a Picasso & I'm not sure I would have gotten it w/out the explanation But I asked her where the mad part was & frowned for her. I have a pretty deep frown line in my forehead so she drew one of those & then covered her nice picture w/ red. I thought it was neat that she picked red for anger w/out prompting & after that all was smiles again. I do remember that that never worked on Victor.

The weirdest thing about Charlotte is that she is almost savant like. When she's excited to tell you something her eyes turn into saucers & she will tell you about something 3 weeks ago. Nothing in her head is current; she has a huge backlog of excitement to sort through. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT for the month of December at supper all we could hear about was how much fun we had on the tractor ride. It was an enjoyable ride though sedate & I couldn't tell that she much like it at the time. We were in a trailer w/ the library group to tour the apple orchard. Back in September. Or at breakfast on Sunday before church. "Daddy the snake spits out egg shells!"

3 weeks ago we spent 20 minutes on Youtube watching videos of snakes eating & regurgitating things. It was pretty cool, but again it took 3 weeks for the excitement to catch up w/ her.

Her newest play is the tea party. We read A Bargain for Frances & I didn't give her time to think about it but set up a party for her. She was enchanted & knew just what to do! It was sweet; she donned her lady hat & graciously began to ask Mona & Susan (dolls), Dotty (special cat friend), Molly (the yellow train) & Squirm (Victor's stuffed snake) if they would like some crackers, tea w/ sugar or milk, how are you, Mona I like your hat etc. The book had none of that & we've never been to a tea party so I don't know where she got all of that but it was sweet to see her practice hospitality. Until...