Yesterday Betty and Alice were sitting at the drawing table. Suddenly Alice was hunched over crying. When Miranda asked what had happened, Alice said that Betty had smacked her with a Barbie doll.
I was thinking about that Barbie doll hit on Alice since sometimes I hear Richard talk to Michael’s feet or Alice’s hands. For example, “Michael’s feet? Michael’s feet?”, I hear Richard call. And then Michael runs over to his dad to see what Richard wants. So I was quietly wondering about Betty’s hands that had let her anger at Alice run through them into a good smack with a doll.
A while later the children and I were all going outside.
My goal was to have Alice practise putting chalk on her hands every time she uses the monkey bars.
Alice’s hands are so wratched up from Alice moving on the monkey bars that I am worried their family is going to be reported for abusing her somehow when someone outside the family gets a peek at those hands.
Anyway, we have been putting lotion on her hands, and Miranda has her carry the chalk bag in her back pack to school to use when she is on the monkey bars there.
I checked Michael’s hands to see if the same callouses are there, but he told me no, he plays tag at recess. He doesn’t go to the monkey bars.
At any rate, I am trying to put all of this together. I told Betty she couldn’t come out and play with the other three of us, because she is the owner of a mean Barbie doll and she would have to stay inside with that mean doll until it learned to be nice again and not hit her sister. Of course Betty didn’t like that.
Now I am not down on Betty. But from my interactions with her, it would seem like it. On the plus side for me, I took her cardboard home of her Corgi Doggie back to my place last night to glue it. Miranda told me that glue would not work to keep it together. Still, I glued it, but this morning I could see why Miranda told me that glue wouldn’t work. While the glue is keeping the cardboard together, I could see that Betty’s little hands are going to pick at the underside of the cardboard dog house and work all of those pieces apart. That is just the nature of Betty’s brain. She wants to see things come apart. So while the glue is working, I am going to take Miranda’s idea and use tape that will be very difficult to unpick.
Watching these little people has brought to my mind one of my own earliest memories. The story came back to me because Mary told me she has transported a cactus off of the plains of Lethbridge and into her house to watch it grow, but not before someone else tried to pick a cactus up and got spiked with it. I can only think that Mary can take care of the cactus best by never watering it and by letting gales of air blow on it, maybe from a floor vent.
At any rate that reminded me of one of the first memories of my childhood. I was looking out a window and picking off flies that were buzzing on the low window pane. I would grab one and then put it on my mother's cactus which was also down low. I used the cactus to hold my flies there while I grabbed yet another one.
The reason I can remember this is that Wyora bawled me out and I couldn't really figure out why she was mad, even after I got the lecture. Was it killing the flies? I had seen her kill flies.
I just didn't get the idea that my mother didn't want a cactus decorated in pilloried flies. I didn’t figure that out until I tried to write some of the earliest memories of my childhood.
Now this is too long for a blog post, but here it is, so I will see if I can draw this together. I think I am saying that watching these little people is so much fun. I can see why some older people really like watching little people. What the little ones are going to do next is such a mystery, as is why they are going to do it.
Who wouldn't want to watch a reality show like that.
Arta
I was thinking about that Barbie doll hit on Alice since sometimes I hear Richard talk to Michael’s feet or Alice’s hands. For example, “Michael’s feet? Michael’s feet?”, I hear Richard call. And then Michael runs over to his dad to see what Richard wants. So I was quietly wondering about Betty’s hands that had let her anger at Alice run through them into a good smack with a doll.
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| Alice letting her mom braid her hair Summer 2019 |
My goal was to have Alice practise putting chalk on her hands every time she uses the monkey bars.
Alice’s hands are so wratched up from Alice moving on the monkey bars that I am worried their family is going to be reported for abusing her somehow when someone outside the family gets a peek at those hands.
Anyway, we have been putting lotion on her hands, and Miranda has her carry the chalk bag in her back pack to school to use when she is on the monkey bars there.
I checked Michael’s hands to see if the same callouses are there, but he told me no, he plays tag at recess. He doesn’t go to the monkey bars.
At any rate, I am trying to put all of this together. I told Betty she couldn’t come out and play with the other three of us, because she is the owner of a mean Barbie doll and she would have to stay inside with that mean doll until it learned to be nice again and not hit her sister. Of course Betty didn’t like that.
Now I am not down on Betty. But from my interactions with her, it would seem like it. On the plus side for me, I took her cardboard home of her Corgi Doggie back to my place last night to glue it. Miranda told me that glue would not work to keep it together. Still, I glued it, but this morning I could see why Miranda told me that glue wouldn’t work. While the glue is keeping the cardboard together, I could see that Betty’s little hands are going to pick at the underside of the cardboard dog house and work all of those pieces apart. That is just the nature of Betty’s brain. She wants to see things come apart. So while the glue is working, I am going to take Miranda’s idea and use tape that will be very difficult to unpick.
Watching these little people has brought to my mind one of my own earliest memories. The story came back to me because Mary told me she has transported a cactus off of the plains of Lethbridge and into her house to watch it grow, but not before someone else tried to pick a cactus up and got spiked with it. I can only think that Mary can take care of the cactus best by never watering it and by letting gales of air blow on it, maybe from a floor vent.
At any rate that reminded me of one of the first memories of my childhood. I was looking out a window and picking off flies that were buzzing on the low window pane. I would grab one and then put it on my mother's cactus which was also down low. I used the cactus to hold my flies there while I grabbed yet another one.
The reason I can remember this is that Wyora bawled me out and I couldn't really figure out why she was mad, even after I got the lecture. Was it killing the flies? I had seen her kill flies.
I just didn't get the idea that my mother didn't want a cactus decorated in pilloried flies. I didn’t figure that out until I tried to write some of the earliest memories of my childhood.
Now this is too long for a blog post, but here it is, so I will see if I can draw this together. I think I am saying that watching these little people is so much fun. I can see why some older people really like watching little people. What the little ones are going to do next is such a mystery, as is why they are going to do it.
Who wouldn't want to watch a reality show like that.
Arta
I wonder how old you were when you first became adept at catching flies. I can see how those cactus needles would seem like the perfect storage place. It sounds like you were operating from a functional/pratical perspective in that childhood moment rather than some philosophical position. Perhaps Betty's hands were also being quite pragmatic in that moment. Not that the intention is any balm for the cheek of the sister who was wacked.
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