Playtime

Here are a couple of videos of the girls playing together. Well, the first one is just of Lilia, playing the piano, and sadly, it looks like it didn't record properly, so it's like a silent film (don't you feel more cultured now, watching a silent film?) but even though you can't hear her making beautiful music, at least you can see how much she's enjoying playing the piano. The piano has become one of Lilia's favorite toys. Sometimes, Lilia will be having so much fun playing the piano that Carolyn will get jealous and try to take it away. If I catch her doing this, I'll put a stop to it, and more often than not, as soon as my back is turned Carolyn will turn the piano off so that even though it's Lilia's turn, she won't want to play with it. But I am onto her and her devious ways, and it goes back on. (To be fair, the piano is technically Carolyn's, but I still don't like her taking it away from Lilia--or clotheslining Lilia away from the piano, which has happened--) Actually, Carolyn will take just about everything away from Lilia. I think she's mothering when she does it. She'll chuckle indulgently and say something like, "No, Leelah. No, no, no. You can't have that," in the most condescending manner imaginable and then pluck it out of Lilia's grasp. I'm sure that in Carolyn's mind, a big sister's work is never done. In the second video, Carolyn is teaching Lilia all about the difference between fast and slow, much to their mutual enjoyment. When they play together, it's so cute. When they don't, it's not much fun, and there is nothing cute about it. In fact, it's exhausting. To be fair, they're playing well together, more and more, the older Lilia gets, but I feel like I'm constantly saying things like, "don't sit on Lilia" , "don't roll on Lilia", "don't trap Lilia under the blanket", "we don't put things around other peoples necks" (eeek!) "don't cover Lilia's mouth", "don't feed Lilia crayons" and on and on it goes. Sometimes, I'll tell Carolyn, "I love you so much. I love you when you're good, I love you when you're bad, I'll love you always and forever, you are special to me." Earlier in the week, Carolyn came up to me with soft eyes full of love and gently stroked my arm with feather-light touches and said, "I love you when you're mad.........."(awkward silence)".......you're special to me, I love you forever." It was very sweet. It made my heart melt and yet...there was nothing to counter balance the "mad". It got me thinking, does Carolyn see me as an angry mom? Am I an angry mom? I don't want to be one. For the rest of the day, I found myself second guessing all of my reactions and maybe adding a healthy helping of syrupy sweetness to all of the admonitions that I doled out. I really don't think it made a difference. I just felt fake. Whether I say it with enough sugar to give cavities to everyone within hearing range or just say it like it is, it seems to have the same effect. Amazingly enough, Carolyn doesn't like having her behavior curtailed or even monitored most of the time. Too bad. Oh well, at least I have a recording of them enjoying one another's company and I can always watch it when I'm feeling discouraged.

A funny story that JT wanted me to add.....

Carolyn loves this show called "Super Why" (I'll have to blog about how Carolyn and Lilia, yes Lilia too, watch way too much t.v. in another post) where Whyatt (that would be the "Super Why" of the show) and his friends, the Super Readers, go into a story book and rewrite the story so that the storybook characters have a happy ending. (i.e. instead of leaving the ball because Cinderella's dress turns into rags, she stays at the ball, parties with the prince, makes her stepsisters green with envy and has a great time because her story is now rewritten to make it end that way.) Well, anyway, lately Carolyn has a hard time keeping her pants on. I think that if she had her way, she'd just run around in a diaper...or less. We have been working with her though, and we're making progress (please ignore the fact that she's not wearing pants in the video above) . Or so I thought... but apparently while I was at work yesterday, Carolyn strolled into the livingroom pants-less. When JT reprimanded her, Carolyn said, "I can't wear pants. It's in my story. 'Carolyn doesn't wear pants'. " JT couldn't keep a straight face, and so another lesson was learned/reinforced....when you're cute, you can get away with a lot.