An embarrassment of riches

For a long time, Sophie has required Pato's presence at bedtime.

When we put her in daycare, we sources another Pato to send with her to school for nap times.

Now that daycare is over for the summer, Pato the second has returned home to stay. Which means that now she has two Patos.

Which you'd think would make things easier, since now we have a spare.

But no.

A couple of days ago, Sophie protested vigorously because she now wants both Patos to attend her at bedtime.

First-World Problems

She lives in the United States in the twenty-first century.

She has excellent medical care; she's never been really hungry; she's never been really scared. She's never seen anyone yell at or strike someone else.

We provide her a range of enriching activities: swimming lessons, camping, biking, art projects, trips to the library, trips to the zoo, pottery painting, face painting, "Busy Beaver Camp".

She regularly rides on rides at the mall that for some inexplicable reason cost 75 cents for three minutes of gentle rocking back and forth.

And still she finds reasons to pitch a fit.

Most recently she was enraged—screaming, red-faced, incredulous, end-of-the-world enraged—that we told he to content herself with the iPod Touch rather than immediately handing over the iPhone.

Saving Face

As she enters into a negotiating phase it becomes important to give her a face-saving way of backing down.

So, for instance, she was allowed to leave a book open on a chair tonight in return for agreeing to put away (or to have us put away) the rest of her drawing materials.

In the event that she attempts to negotiate a non-negotiable, when, e.g. it becomes clear that we are going to the grocery store and not the playground, she deploys one of the following face-saving utterances:

• "I was just joking" (as in: "I wasn't crying, I just joking")
• "I know!" or "Daddy, DaddyDaddy—I know!"
• "I gotta tell you something. I gotta tell! you! something!" ("Yes, what is it?" "Um,... I, I already knowed that!")

glue stick as lipstick--fail

Sophie used the glue stick as lipstick. She repeatedly denied that she did, but when I rubbed my finger over her lip, it stuck to it. She stuck to her story though, she DID NOT use the glue as lipstick. Telling the truth has been a sticky issue lately.

Biking on the Creeper

Sophie had her sort-of first, overnight biking trip. We went down to Damascus, VA--v. cute and rode about 16 miles the first day on a fairly flat rail to trail. Half way down the trail, Sophie fell asleep with her head bobbing from one side to the other.

We aren't quite ready to take all of our camping equipment with us yet so we just got a hotel in Damascus. After showers, we hung out on the swing on the front porch and talked to some guys walking the Appalachian Trail, that also runs through the town.

The next day we did a 26+ mile trip. Sophie was awesome. It rained like crazy at the end and we were all muddy and wet, but in good spirits after a late lunch. Even at one point Sophie asked if we were going to bike again the next day.

We'll try a three or four day trip next.

Road Trip Ruler

We just got back from a trip driving to Indianapolis to visit friends, an 8+ hour drive each way and not a tear was shed by Sophie. In fact, she hardly complained and held up wonderfully. Amazing what 6 episodes of Olivia on an Itouch can do to keep a child occupied. Or a game of stick as many grapes in your mouth as possible (we did ask Sophie to stop because of the obvious hazard).

I hope she had a wonderful time. We visited the Indianapolis Zoo and the Dayton Children's Museum. This year was somewhat uncanny because she's clearly now has an awareness she didn't so much last time we were at the Indianapolis Zoo about this time last year. This time she rode the carrousel by herself--I remember when we went to San Francisco and she had no idea she was even sitting on a horse at their carrousel at the Children's Museum.

Teamwork

While kicking her soccer ball back and forth:

"We a good team! We not fighting!"