Well, there has been a lot of negativity in my life with my kids lately--just emotional how we relate to each other kind of stuff, and me wanting to give it all up, but I think I am past that for the time being. So I am going to relate a few funny stories.

Today-Bug. She doesn't want to go to gym class anymore, and this morning while getting into the car told me that she wasn't going today and that I should see if I could cancel it. I told her I probably wouldn't be able to get my money back, and that if she didn't go back to gym, she would have to do something else for exercise. She wanted to know why and I told her it was for her health. She said with quite an attitude, "Why? It's not like I have asthma or something, geez!" I wasn't sure what asthma has to do with it, but a few years ago she watched an Arthur video and exercise was touted as good for dealing with asthma, but of course you have to be careful too, right? Anyway, this afternoon I had forgotten what her response was and asked her what she had told me. So she told me again and then said, "I'm going to stop telling you things so you can't put them on the Internet anymore."

Last Night-Bean. The power went out last night as Bean and Bug were up in her room, getting ready to go to bed. Bean freaked out and her dad brought her down to get a flashlight. I got candles and took them up and we went to bed. DH was in the room with Bean and Bug while I was getting ready to come up the stairs, and the wind blew really hard, causing Bean to scream right in her dad's ear. He decided he was done and left them in the room. Bean was too frightented to sleep with Bug, and she came in the room with me and through her tears told me she was afraid that the trees were going to start walking. She had seen a preview for Bridge To Terabithia and it was coming back to haunt her, in spite of the fact that she has seen much scarier things. DH explained that it was all pretend and that trees don't really walk. She perked up from that. She understands pretend and seemed calmer once she realized that walking trees weren't possible. I thought that was interesting since Bug will be afraid of things that she knows aren't real, but it is an irrational fear that she just can't help--like the kind of I have.

Saturday-Bean. She and her sister stayed with a babysitter while I went to see Rent. Apparently Bean had a discussion with her about diapers and potty learning. Josephine told Bean that she wouldn't be able to fit in diapers pretty soon and Bean replied with, "Helloh-ohhhh?" Josephine said, "Hello what?" Bean said, "Hello! They make diapers for grown ladies." ROFL. She doesn't seem like a 3 year old to me sometimes.

Well, I can't read my comment but I just noticed there was a message feature and I have 2 messages. One was from early December. That's pretty sad I didn't notice until now.

To add to the non-lactivism, today was a rainy day and there was motor oil all over the parking lot of the video store where I was, so I was kind of freaking out about it. I took Bean's boots off as soon as she got in the car. I put paper down for Bug to step on. She is constantly telling me my concerns about the cleanliness of my car are overblown, and I'm getting a little tired of her discounting my feelings when she has such strong ones herself. So as I was putting the paper in, I heard a guy talking behind me. I turned around, realized he wanted money, turned back around to the car to get some although I have basically none. He thought I was blowing him off, ignoring him and started talking louder, telling me why he needs the 85 cents. Normally people ask for change I give them a dollar or two or five if I have it. I had not a penny in my wallet, but some change in my change receptacle in my car. So I turned back around to tell him I didn't have much cash, only change, and I'd give him that. I probably gave him over a dollar, I didn't count, but it pretty much cleaned me out.

Bug was annoyed. Even as he was standing there she was asking, "Why does he need money? That's stupid, he shouldn't ask you for your money!" So I was explaining he needed money to buy things and I didn't really know why he needed the money (nor do I care, really, I figure he needs it and I'll give it to him). So driving home she got downright truculent. "Well he shouldn't get your money that you earned, that's not right!" I explained that I was freely giving it because he asked me, and it was my choice. "Well, you shouldn't have given it to him!"

Doggone! The kid is coming with me to the next Family Promise thing at church.

In other news, before that we had been to a new dentist for Bug to have a cleaning and check-up. It's been over a year and the last time she went was when I posted here (hey, I have a record of the date, cool, I just thought of that) about how upset I was when the dentist pushed on her teeth and said they'd be falling out soon anyway, because, you know, she's still my baby. The man's insurance changed and our old dentist wasn't there, so I finally got them set up with this new office. I like the waiting room in the other place better, This one has better magazines, but it is longer and narrower and the space is shared with the chiropractor's office on the other side. That office was closed for the day, but I could see how it might be a problem to find a place to get out of the way when they have patients too. Anyway, some teen boys were there and Bean was doing her normal crawling on the floor, angry hissing cat routine. So I was reading an old People, trying to get the article finished before I had to leave, and I could hear the boys laughing pretty hard at times. Apparently Bean amused them. She would go right up and crawl on their shoes. She would climb up on the chair between them and act silly. She even was biting the one guy's tennis shoes. Ummm, yeah, OK. I distracted her with the kids' table which I had overlooked as it was right by the entrance, and I read her a book and did a puzzle with her and such. Then she crawled away and a man almost tripped over her getting a new magazine. He sat down and petted her as she crawled by, though. He seemed amused by her too. I ended up taking her outside to splash in the parking lot because I felt like a little Bean can go a long way.

My daughter, the non-lactivist

Bug has told me before that she was going to bottlefeed, or that she has problems with breastfeeding. Today she was showing me some pictures that she had drawn in her I can draw 100 things booklet. Yesterday was the 100th day of school, and there were special activities there. Bug was home sick, so she gets to do all the work at home that she missed during the classroom day. For 10 soft things she drew 10 babies in pajamas. "And look, this baby is wiping the milk off his lip, and this baby is holding is bottle, and all the others have pacifiers." I couldn't resist and said in a dismayed kind of tone, "Oh, you mean they aren't breastfed?" She said, "well, this will probably hurt your feelings, but I want to give my babies bottles." I have heard this before, but I still test the issue when it arises. I asked her why she wanted to bottlefeed, and she said that she thinks it is better. I told her it wasn't better, that breastfeeding is.

A little while later she wanted to know why bottlefeeding is bad and I told her it's not that it is bad, but that mammals are meant to get milk from their mothers and anything else just isn't as good, it's just a matter of biology. So her response was, "But mama, we aren't like other mammals." Well, that is certainly true enough.

I feel like I haven't journaled enough about Bean. She says things to me that seem like a sophisticated way of thinking, yet in that little voice with its odd R's and S's it is hard to tell. She has always claimed to have green eyes. I haven't been able to tell what her eye color is, frankly, but she says they are green. I figured someone told her she has green eyes at some point, but I don't really remember anyone ever saying it in our family. Her eyes are a kind of grayish green with an almost yellowness to them in the middle. I thought maybe that was the brown mixing with the blue and that they are considered hazel, but they are a kind of greenish color.

A few days ago I was nursing her and I was looking at her eyes in the bright room and they looked green to me. I said, "Wow, you have green eyes." And she replied, "Yes I do!" Then she said, "I can see *everything* with my eyes" She was so enthusiastic and happy about it.

She says a lot of bad words. Today I dropped Bug off at school and I don't think she made it into the class before the final bell. So I parked the car in an open space on the street and I got out to see if I could tell anything, but I couldn't. I never heard the bell ring. We've had so many tardies this year, right after they changed the starting time of school back a half an hour and it messed up our cycles. The principal just sent a letter home and I'm to the point that I would rather she just miss school than be late. I think she was late today. Anyway, I didn't go too far down the sidewalk since Bean was in the car. When I got back into the car, she said, "I told you to get in the car." Not in the way where she was ordering me, but like she was explaining that while I was out, she was telling me to get back in the car and then I did. I responded with, "Oh you did, cool." Then she said, "Yeah, I told you to get in the fucking car."

She uses a lot of negative phrases. She calls things stupid all the time, says I hate you, calls people dumbasses (stupid dumbasses, fat dumbasses, probably fucking dumbasses although I'm not sure I've heard that combo yet). I never really cared about the swearing and I tried to ignore it and not give the words any weight, but I get upset when she is hurling insults around, and lately I've tried to tamp down on the swearing because people will interpret it negatively and it might upset them. I told her to stop saying those words as people will not like them. Bean replied with, "I'm not going to stop, I don't want to say nice words."