"Mommy, can you read me five-and-a-half stories?" she asked.
"Five-and-a-half stories?" I repeated.
"Mommy, you're weird," she said.
"You request five-and-a-half stories and I'm the one who's weird?"
"Yes. Every morning when I press my nose into your skin and sniff you...you smell so...weird."
"Oh. Well, thank you."
"You're welpum."
And then she squirmed out of the bed and picked five books from the shelf. We actually ended up getting through only four-and-a-half of them before she decided it was time for breakfast.
*****
I hardly have any idea what happened for the rest of the day because I had the unhinged idea that we should paint Benjamin's bedroom while everything is moved out of it anyway.
We gave away the bunk bed that Phoebe and Zoë have been using the past three-and-a-half years, and I scored a loft bed on the Buy Nothing group.
Now that Zoë has moved all her things downstairs to what was once Rachel and Miriam's bedroom, but which is now Miriam and Zoë's bedroom, the room that once was Zoë and Phoebe's bedroom, but which is soon to be Benjamin's bedroom is quite empty.
This poor old house could have used a fresh coat of paint when we moved in, but we didn't really have the luxury of preparing the house to move in. We had to just consider it move-in ready. Although we've painted the basement (twice—thanks constant flooding!) and the dining room and Andrew's office, oh, and the hallway bathrooms (thanks one bathroom collapsing into the other!), we haven't painted much else.
So we asked Benjamin to pick out a colour from afar. He sent me a list of seven colours to choose from. We went with Alaskan Grey. And I worked all day putting that stuff on the walls.
It was tricky because when it was wet it was nearly the same colour as the original wall colour. But it dried darker and then I was able to do some touch ups quite easily.
Anyway, I was painting for most of the day (though we did do some poetry and math and science and a reading lesson and music practice and a bunch of other homeschool stuff, so I suppose I simply painted all afternoon and into the evening).
Our goal was to have the little kids in there sleeping again, but instead Andrew moved their mattresses down to the TV room to have a sleepover there.
(Benjamin and Alexander's room isn't ready for Alexander and Phoebe yet for various reasons, not the least of which was that Benjamin decided to helpfully (?) pack up all his stuff and leave it in the middle of the floor...so there isn't much walking room in there right now).
*****
Phoebe was so excited about the TV room sleepover. At dinner she said, "I will just need to bring three things downstairs."
"Sounds reasonable," we said.
"My blanket, my stuffed animals, and my phone so I can listen to my primary music," she said, ticking items off her fingers.
"Item number two sound like it will have various sub-categories," I observed.
And, indeed, she ended up with an entire army of stuffed animals downstairs, which she arranged neatly beside her mattress.
"Oh, dear!" she gasped. "I have no where to put my head."
"Nope, you don't," Andrew agreed.
"How am I supposed to sleep without a pillow?"
"I guess you'll have to go get your pillow."
"Well, that's a fourth thing I need," she said, shaking her head and heading upstairs.
*****
If Phoebe were her cousin Millie she would not have forgotten her pillow. Millie doesn't have a favourite stuffed animal or doll or blanket that she likes to carry around. She has a favourite pillow—and has for a couple of years now. I've seen it with her at the breakfast table, just to be in close proximity. I've heard her ask for it on video calls when she's feeling tired or sad. It's kind of funny.
I think that if Millie had been in Phoebe's shoes the first thing she would have listed would have been her pillow.
No comments:
Post a Comment