Fartail

My daughter has taken to lying lately.   I mean certainly, in the past she has been known to lie.   This is a different type of lying though that belies an underlying state of mind.   She wants to know things other people know.  She also wants to also know things no one knows.

For example, she’s been really into making loom band bracelets lately.   She connects small, one-inch, colorful rubber bands into chains and then hooks the chains together with a c-clip to finish it off as a bracelet, necklace or ring in length.   She was so interested in them I ordered more and our dining room table has been covered with the materials and little containers of rubber bands for over a week now.

One of the things I ordered was some trinkets she could hang off her chains.   When they came in I looked online to find out the best way to connect them.   When I told my daughter I’d figured out how to best hook them in she told me she already knew how.   She didn’t want any help, she knew.   She knew three ways even, she said.  Did she know how?   Well, she came up with something.   It didn’t hang evenly, but it didn’t matter to her.   What mattered was that she didn’t need help and she knew something I hadn’t known.

When Keira came over she asked about the pattern I was making.  I told her I should show her how, that it was several different steps in a row repeated.   My daughter started talking about “startail” and how she was making a startail bracelet.   One of the patterns is called “fishtail” that I’d taught her.   Startail was her own creation.   She talked about it and asked if we wanted to learn it.   She wanted to teach us something—know something no one else did.

We stopped what we were doing and learned her new pattern and complimented her on how it was definitely new and different.   Even while she was teaching us startail she was asking if we wanted to learn “fartail” which was something else she had thought up.   We had to keep her on track with the one thing until we learned it she was so interested in showing off all her ideas.

Today when she came home, Madison came over almost immediately.   My daughter was sitting on the floor in the foyer and said, “I don’t want to play!”  I had opened the door about that time and had put my daughter in a bad spot I suppose, so she lied and said, “I’m sick, I can’t play!”  I told Madison maybe she would want to play later to which my daughter said, “I have a sore throat and I can’t play because I could get Madison sick.”  

I walked outside with the dog and shut the door and then told Madison that she wasn’t sick, but that for some reason she didn’t want to play.   I said I’d text her mother if she changed her mind.   As we hooked up the dog my daughter came out and said, “I’m not sick.  I do want to play actually.”

When Madison came in she said to us, “I got a loom band kit and I learned to make this” pointing to the rings and bracelets on her hand.  I complimented her and asked if she could let my daughter feel them so she’d know what she had made.   I asked Madison if she could show her how she had made it.   My daughter immediately launched into, “I can make fartail and I can show you how.”

She wants to be like everyone else and know things.   She has to have help all the time on so many things.   She wants to be independent so badly.   We’re trying to let her be the teacher any time she can.  It helps her self esteem to be able to do so.

The Big Boy Update:  My son’s cast wrappings continue to come undone.   It’s not his fault, the layers are slipping past each other.   I’ve rewrapped it several times and this morning I’d had enough. I put everything back in place and then wrapped his whole arm in self adherent camouflage wrap.   He was sort of excited about it saying, “now people can sign my cast.”  Thursday we get the main cast.   Hopefully the wrappings will last until then.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter went back to school today.  We sent drops in with her for the nurse to give while she’s at school.  There were complications with the medicine and the form, which was very complicated and convoluted based on county requirements.  My husband had to go to school mid-day to straighten things out.   I think they’re going to be able to do the drops there now.  The nurse was very nice.