Kite fairy

Genevieve did this pencil drawing recently of two parents and a child flying two kites in a partly sunny sky with a kite fairy. I don't know what kite fairies do, but it was a clearly important attribute to her.

In other news, Reesa denied four times with four separate people that were over at our house today the fact that she had experience a pee-pee accident. The wet-looking dark stained crotch was the suspicious factor.

"Hey Reesa," I shouted over from the lawn to the lower patio. "Did you have a pee-pee accident?"

"Nooo!" she replied without a break in her play. "It wasn't a pee-pee accident! I just had a little extra pee-pee that came out."

She certainly doesn't like the label "pee-pee accident."

Illustrated by

• grass -- at bottom
• one flower -- yellow
• caterpillar -- series of circles above flower
• the roof of the fairy princess ballet dance house -- hatch marks to right of caterpillar
• dragonfly -- black, above caterpillar
• butterfly -- circles above dragonfly
• rainbow -- obvious
• mosquitoes (only 2 are allowed in fairy princess land) -- blue spots above caterpillar
• stars (orange) -- top of page
• night sky -- top of page
• writing that says "HI HO! Where is Genevieve? Illustrated by Reesa." -- squiggles on left margin

Power of... stickers as an entertainment device!

Overheard from our back seat on a recent 10 hour car drive after a dance weekend. Notes courtesy of She-Who-Loves-Fatherhood-in-three-easy-lessons. The conversation took place while exchanging and pasting stickers of doe-eyed anime figures over everything in reach of their five-point harnessed position, especially all over themselves.


"We're going to win against the bad girls!"
"The bad girls?"
"Yeah! They're trying to win, but we have to beat them."

"We're mermaids!"
"We're princesses!"

"Do you need some slime? They eat slime."
"Yeah, give me some slime."

"Huh-Huh-Huh!" (cartoon sound of panting)

"Let's use corn power."
"I don't like corn power. I like rainbow power."
"No, I want to use star power!"
"Let's use star-rainbow power."

"Ooooo, she has a lot of slime."

"Huh-Huh-Huh!"

"Oh no! They're winning."

"I'm Rosie and you're Jessica."
"I don't want to be Jessica. I want to be Emma."
"I'm not really a mermaid, I'm a princess."
"I'll be Emma-fairy."

...and on and on for a good hour.

Sky child

She-Who-Gave-Birth-To-Our-Children gave the following report earlier this week:

Genevieve came running into where I was sitting. She was chasing someone I could not see and yelling, "She's supposed to be on the ground, she's a ground child!"

Reesa was hot on her heels and retorted "No! She's not a ground child!"

As Reesa came to the spot Genevieve had left off, she put her arm around the unseen being and started to walk back from whence they had come.

Genevieve conceeded "Okay, she's a sky child."

And they both went back from where they had come and continued to play with one another and the sky child.

Cleanliness

Myth: Now that our children are old enough to bathe themselves, I have them bathe in order to get clean.

Myth debunked: Cleanliness is a fortunate side-effect. Children are sent to the bath for wholesome, confined entertainment while I clean the kitchen in relative peace. I can tell if they're doing okay--the incessant din of their screeches easily reaches the kitchen. Sometimes Reesa will come wandering down the hall, wet and without towel, and will say through chattering teeth, "I'm sh-iv-ery." She does not yet appreciate my explanation about the cooling effect of the evaporative process on human skin.

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News Flash -- The hydrangea fairies live out back. In the hydrangea shrubs. The Lizzy fairy lives in the fairy house off the front stoop. They know each other, and they are good friends but are not related. Of course, none of them are in either place right now, since it is winter and too cold outside. This is very important, so I thought I'd let you all know.

Identical fairies

“Fairies are real. Scientists are still trying to figure this out, but I know.”

Genevieve says that on the top of the roof of our house live ‘identical’ fairies. ‘Identical’ fairies help other fairies; they are fairy doctors and fairy angels.

“Are fairies for real, dad?”

“Well, how would we figure that out?”

“Ask the computer.”

So we look on the computer, and lo and behold, there are pictures and paintings of fairies. When you see it on the computer, that is proof that they are real. The other night we saw a planet next to the moon, and looked it up on the computer and the computer knew that there was a planet next to the moon, and had a picture of exactly what it looked like, and knew it was Venus. So, the computer knows things that are real.

Nocturnal friends

One recent week, my girls deduced that Santa, the Aardvark, fairies, and the Easter Bunny are all homeys. They don't share the same pad, but the girls know that the foursome are down with each other because they are all nocturnal (which was the word of the day). Obviously, anyone that is routinely awake a night will be friends with everyone else awake at night.

Three of the amigos are in a related line of work. Santa brings toys to children, and the Aardvark takes away toys that have not been put away. The girls have decided that the Aardvark is one of Santa's suppliers, and I have to tip my hat to the cost-effectiveness of the relationship. The Easter Bunny is also in the gifting gig, except he deals chocolate and candy. I don't know what the fairies do, perhaps just live off of some inheritance--they seem to have lots of parties and teas. Maybe the parties double as kitchenware or beauty-product marketing? As a guy, I'm definitely not in the know about fairies.

Speaking of nocturnal, Genevieve has been trying to go to sleep for two-and-a-half hours. I rarely have insomnia now, but I remember many nights as a child when it was difficult to get to sleep. The unconsciousness of sleep was merely an opportunity to miss something that might happen. Now, I look upon getting to bed late as something I'll pay for over the course of the next day.

Fairy, fairy, quite contrary

Some people build bird houses, some make bat houses, and some make bee houses. My wife and the children built a fairy house this summer. You know--to attract fairies.

It was very nice, a flowerpot roof, flowerpot walls and floor, sheltered by the front stairs on one side and a yew on the other. They furnished it with a bed, table, chair, ladder, interior decor (including seashells), and a little exterior landscaping. Very chic, nice neighborhood, good fairy school district, and what do you know? Some fairies moved in.

How do we know that fairies moved in? Well, stuff that was put out for the them would disappear. Duh. So that's proof. No, we never saw them of course, because they are shy, and they were busy during the day. They stayed at night, when we were in bed.

Oh, and they wrote letters to the girls. In little teeny-weeny 8pt font on teeny pieces of fairy paper. They were polite, thankful for the house and furnishings, but they'd ask for other things. Typical tenants, always making demands of the landlords.

Fairies are very popular around here. Genevieve's Halloween costume this year was initially "Fairy Pink Princess," though she did later claim to be Snow White (but was still sans white in the pink get-up, so does that make her Snow Pink?). Fairy books are always a popular find at the library, and my wife is reading a second book in the Fairy Chronicles series.

Lately, we've noticed that the fairy house is looking shabby, and that the fairies must not be living there anymore. The girls decided that the fairies must have migrated (or maybe I planted that thought there... I can't remember) for the winter. Which is good, because I have enough work shoveling out the driveway without worrying about digging out a fairy house this winter.

Arthur eaten

I experienced a first tonight. I was in a car with my wife and both daughters, and Reesa was the loud, non-stop chatterbox while her sister Genevieve sat quietly enough to be almost unnoticed. Reesa kept talking about her best friends, Arthur, DW and Jenny. What was it she said? That the monster was impolite? Something like that. (My verification source, a.k.a. wife, is currently unavailable for fact check services. She's sleeping.) Anyway, we asked why she thought the monster was impolite, and she said, "Because, it ate Ahfur, and DW, and Jenny."

Hmm. I suppose it is considered rude to eat your friends.

Lucy the snowman

During the car ride after picking her up from daycare, Reesa was talking about Lucy, her “best friend.” I have no idea of Lucy is a real classmate or imaginary friend, but Reesa announced, “she hugs me, and cuddles me, and strokes me.”

Lucy sounds a lot like Hugo the Abominable Snowman: “I will hug him, and stroke him, and cuddle him, and sing to him, and call him George, duh.”

Genevieve asked Reesa if Lucy is a child or a grown-up, and Reesa said, “she’s a girl, not a grown-up.” And this is all in her soft, sweet voice—I wish that I had a recording of that conversation. Time to see if there’s a real Lucy in class. I’ll bring my camera in case there is a snowgirl sighting.

Loser boyfriend?

Olivia was complaining that Tombo was calling her stupid, so I said that he’d have to go home for the remainder of the day. When she claimed that Tombo’s mom and dad and house all died, we told her that he could go to his aunt’s house.

“No, but I love Tombo!”

So now she's creating imaginary loser boyfriends for me to deal with? At age three?

The three friends of Olivia

Olivia hasn’t had access to children her age for over a year. She’ll be starting a new pre-school this week, where she will be with 15 other children her age twice a week. In the meantime, if she can’t or doesn’t want to play with her sister, she plays with Reynacassel, Palley, and Tombo. The idea of Tombo comes from the movie “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” but her friend Tombo is not merely a copy in the character of the movie. Her Tombo has developed beyond that. Sort of like when a character in a popular TV series is spun-off to their own show. As for Reynacassel and Palley…well, they have no known existence prior to or beyond her own creation of them.

Lately, Reynacassel is sort of a black sheep. She is constantly calling Olivia “stupid,” which is duly reported to her nearest parent, who will usually advise her tell Reynacassel that she won’t play with her anymore until she can be nicer, or something along those lines. When I see Olivia alone in another room suddenly push the air near her and say, “Go away!” I can be fairly certain it is Reynacassel at work. Palley is frequently sick, so is more of a discussion topic than playmate. Tombo is the only one that can counted on to play nice with Olivia.