I never thought I'd say this but....

ENOUGH WITH THE DRESSES ALREADY!

I'm sick of Jessica telling me "no pants, they're for boys." She went apple picking with school today and it was pretty chilly so I insisted she wear pants. Not jeans, which I cannot get her to wear under any circumstance, but corduroys. Pink sparkly corduroys. Even so, it was a really hard sell, accompanied by much complaining. She was in the house about 3 minutes (the first 2 of which were spent on the potty) when she asked to put on a dress. Fortunately, she has about 20 dresses of various sleeve length.

Hmm....

Jessica told me this morning that I "smell like a chicken in a sock stack."

I'm not really sure what that means but I don't think it's good.

Jessica is like a cat

Well, like one cat in particular: Cassie.

Whenever I get up from the couch, even for 10 seconds, the cat immediately jumps onto where I was sitting, presumably because it's warm.

Interestingly enough, Jessica does the same thing. Probably for the same reason. Although she *says* "I'm saving it for you." Saving it from whom?

At least Jessica moves with a verbal command to do so. I have to practically sit on the cat to get her to move.

"You know we're going to beat it with a bat, right?"

Jessica's birthday party is coming up. She asked me, oh, 3 or 4 MONTHS ago to have a pinata at her party. I said yes, at the time. She then wanted to pick one out 3 or 4 MONTHS ago. I told her there was no way I was buying a pinata until it was closer to her birthday.

Now it's closer to her birthday. We were in Target yesterday and she spotted the pinata section. She picked out a horse/pony/donkey type pinata. Apparently it's a girl and is going to have babies. While she was bonding with the pinata, I told her, "you know, we're going to beat it with a bat, right?" She said yes, and continued to bond with her papier-mache animal. After a bit of conversation with it, she told me that the pinata was okay with being hit with a bat.

I hope she feels the same in two weeks.

Remorse

Yesterday we were at the mall and Jessica really wanted to go into the little play area they have, so we did. It was mid afternoon and there were a lot of kids there. Now, technically Jessica is too big for this play area, which says maximum height of 42" and I measured her just this week at 43". But she was far from the tallest kid there.

Anyway, I was reading a parenting magazine which the kids played when all of a sudden I became aware a little girl about Xander's age was crying. Her mother was sitting next to me and I heard her say to someone else "No, she didn't fall down, she was pushed" and give me a dirty look.

I called Jessica over. "Did you knock over that little girl?" She wouldn't answer. I asked her 3 or 4 times before she nodded, unable to speak.

"You need to say you're sorry." Again, I needed to ask her a few times. Finally she whispered, to me, "I'm sorry." At my insistence, she repeated it ago more loudly in the direction of the little girl and her mother.

Then she burst into tears. Such a sensitive soul! I managed to console her enough so she was able to resume playing.

Bedtime ritual

Jessica and I have developed a very satisfying bedtime ritual. After the usual (pajama changing, tooth brushing, book reading), she gets into her bed. I stand on the ladder next to her (I got into that top bunk with her exactly once and almost didn't get out alive). Then we do Hugs and Kisses. She decides how many hugs and kisses she wants. It's different every night. I'll kiss her on the cheeks. She'll kiss me on the cheeks. Then I rub her back for a couple of minutes. It's so sweet. Whenever she doesn't want to get into bed by herself, I just say, "But we have to do Hugs and Kisses," and that's usually enough to get her in.

Lies lies lies

Jessica has an annoying habit of saying Hari or I are lying if we say something that, by mistake, turns out not to be true. Twice this week, she's accused me of telling her a "cruel lie."