Misunderstood, again.

Clara has a tendency to scream when something goes wrong. It doesn't necessarily occur to her to just tell someone what's wrong, or ask for help, she just throws herself into full-on-screaming.

I'm not a fan of this. I try to discourage it.

The other day, we were in the car. I was just backing out of a parking spot in the coffee shop, and she started SCREAMING. As it turns out, she dropped her sticky bun.

I immediately became annoyed with her overreaction. I stopped the car, turned around, and told her there was no reason to scream. If she just asked nicely, in a normal voice, I'd pick up the sticky bun, and hand it back to her. But I'm not going to help if she keeps screaming.

Sounds reasonable, no?

Discourage the 'bad' behaviour, encourage the 'good' behaviour?

Well, no.

She kept screaming.

Hysterics ensued.

I repeated a few times that she just had to ask nicely, and she just kept screaming.

Fine.

I left the sticky bun on the floor, and pulled out of the parking lot.

After a few more minutes of screaming, we were stopped at a red light. I turned around and asked her "Clara, do you want me to pick up your sticky bun?"

She answered "Yes, but if YOU were clipped into this carseat, and YOU couldn't reach our own sticky bun, YOU would be upset too!"

Wow.

I get it.

She didn't WANT to ask me nicely to help her pick up her sticky bun.

She didn't WANT to ask me at all.

She just wanted to get it herself, like everyone else in the car could do.

I wonder how often I completely miss her point like that?

Forlost.

Of all the made up words our kids have used, the best one by far is 'forlost', invented by Clara.

It means something between forgot and lost. I guess, when you're three, the concepts of losing something and forgetting something can get kind of blurred, hence the need for a word like 'forlost'.

For a long time, Philip kept trying to correct Clara. He'd tell her "No Clara, it's FORGOT. The real word is FORGOT." But since I loved forlost so much, and I couldn't bear to correct her when she said it, I kept telling Philip to just let her say the word if she wants.

One day, we were on the way to school/daycare.

Clara yelled out: "Stop! I forgot my puppy!"

Philip then said: "Don't you mean forLOST, Clara?"

Clara looked at him, rather annoyed and answered: "I didn't forLOSE it! I know where my puppy is... I just forGOT to bring it!"

Wow. She actually knew the words forgot, lost, and forlost. They were all separate words, with specific meanings to her. And she actually conjugated forlost!

Awesome.

Getting more numbers...

It's been a long, loooong time since I last posted. Major guilt is setting in. But, instead of wasting time on guilt, I'll just jump back in with some recent gems.

Philip and I were talking the other day. We were talking about growing, and I told him how adults don't grow any bigger. Once you're an adult, you're all done growing, and you just stay the same size.

He thought about it for a moment, and asked: "So, on your birthday, you just get more numbers, but you don't grow?"

Yes, I guess so. You just 'get' numbers.

I wonder if he thinks he grows on his birthday specifically? As in, he wakes up on December 25th, bigger, because he's a year older?