Phoebe-isms

Today Phoebe was running into our bedroom at top speed—which requires multiple turns down a hallway and a brave dash past the scary full-sized portrait of a falconer—when she "stabbed" her toe. 

"I stabbed my toe!" she shrilly announced. 

"You did what?" I asked. 

"Stabbed my toe!" she repeated. "I stabbed it right into the wall!"

She meant "stubbed."

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Every time we get on an escalator—which is a lot these days—Phoebe makes some remark about getting to ride the "excavator."

She also saw a sign at the airport in Turkey that used the word "travelator" for "moving sidewalks" and since that was her first exposure to them, that is 100% what they are to her. She will not be convinced otherwise. 

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Tonight we had two different kinds of soup for dinner—tomato and, as far as I understood the French, "Green Vegetable."

Phoebe wanted both soups "convided."

I'm...not entirely sure what she was going for here. If you divide things, and di- means to, like, take something apart, then surely con- (which means together or with) will be the opposite of divide...right?

Divide. Convide. Makes sense.

Or perhaps she was trying for "combined"?

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We were playing a game with her Littlest Pet Shops the other morning and...I was really bad at it. 

I wanted my character to take a turn in this spinny chair thing, but was informed that I could not because that chair belonged to The Dog of All Knowledge. 

"No!" she said urgently. "You can't! That's The Dog of All Knowledge's! It's his throne! So you can't use it. But—you can have a turn on the slide."

Behold The Dog of All Knowledge

"Your feet aren't kinetic, though," she went on. "So you can only go down the slide, not up."

The slide, for the record, has a magnetic lever that will cling to any Littlest Pet Shop (LPS) critter that has a magnetic foot. So then the critter can be pulled up and down the slide using this lever, seeming to use the slide all by themselves! 

But other LPS critters have, like, a little hole...in their feet...that lets them perch on things (like a peg hole) and they can't use the magnetic attractions in the LPS world. Or at least they can't use them to their full extent.

Phoebe is all about adaptation, however, at least when it comes to her characters. In the picture above you can see Ella, the beloved armless, legless doll that has been following our family around the world for several years now (shedding limbs all along the way, apparently). 

Anyway, Phoebe built Ella a special chair to sit in at the breakfast table so she could join the other babies for a meal, since she can't sit up in a regular chair. She also set out a cup with a straw for Ella to use...since she doesn't have arms.

I will have to take a picture of that set up if she still has it in the doll house.

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Tonight Phoebe was getting herself her nightly vitamin when she decided to take some time to read the bottle...and realized what a charade we've been putting on. 

She stormed into our bedroom, shaking the vitamin bottle furiously (and stabbing her toe—if only she'd made her way through the hallway with a little less...oomph). 

Luckily the toe-stabbing wasn't terrible and she soon recovered because...she had a bone to pick with us.

"Two gummies for children ages four and up!" she read off the bottle with complete consternation.

She lowered the bottle and stared daggers at Andrew for several seconds before repeating herself, in case we didn't hear the first time, or perhaps misunderstood. This time she decided to cite her sources—the instructions on the bottle: "The destructions say two gummies for children ages four and up! Why have you only been giving me one?! I need another one! Because I can have two! I am supposed to have two! The destructions say I can have two!"

Oh, the injustice!

We...have had this moment with each of the children. 

Our reasoning is thus:

1) Vitamins are expensive.

2) We have a lot of kids.
3) Half a dose makes a bottle last twice as long. 

4) We eat a lot of fruits and veggies at our house so get vitamins that way, too. 

I mean, it's not like Phoebe is a child who says no to vegetables. She's a vegetable vacuum. 

She loves carrots. Baby bell peppers are her favourite treat. 

And remember when Alexander was Phoebe's age and his favourite food was mixed vegetables? 

I rest my case (and only give my children half a dose of vitamins).