Love and bebove

Poor Phoebe does not get along well with the little neighbour girl her age, and by "not get along well" I mean that [Child] has simply had a vendetta against Phoebe since they were crawling. I honestly don't know why. Sometimes they'll play quite nicely together (especially if grown ups are mediating), but often they simply don't. 

Literally the first full sentence I heard [Child] speak was to Phoebe and it was, "You're not my best friend! Haha! You're not my best friend! Haha!"

Now that they're older, she's constantly spewing out things like: "If you don't ______ then you're not my friend," and "I don't like you," and "You can't play with me," and "No Phoebes allowed."

And I'm honestly not sure why she's like that because...her parents aren't like that (and don't like that behaviour). And, again, Phoebe has done nothing particular to warrant this treatment because this profound dislike has been going on since they were barely toddling around. But, nonetheless, that's where we're at. (I honestly would check in at her daycare to see whether she's being bullied there and is passing it along to Phoebe, but...that's just my gut.)

Today Phoebe was playing outside with her siblings and another neighbour, but when [Child] came outside to play, Phoebe came inside to play.

"Don't you want to play outside with the other kids?" I asked her.

"No, thanks," she said. "[Child] doesn't like me. I'd rather play inside where everybody loves me."

Obviously this is a problem that will eventually need to be solved somehow, because it isn't fair for Phoebe to have to hide away inside so that [Child] won't say mean things to her. But it's nice that home is where she feels safe. 

*****

On another note, we were playing Magnatiles together ("Mom, I love spending time with you!" she told me...probably to coax me into playing with her longer...and it worked) and I was reminded of another funny thing Phoebe says consistently: bebove. 

Bebove is the opposite of below or beneath. 

So if you were to swim down to the very bobbom of the pool, you would have a lot of water bebove you.

I think it's rather cute!