She got ridiculously sticky eating it, so Andrew grabbed one of the "moist towelette" packs the waiter had left on the table and offered to clean her up a bit.
"What is this?" she asked.
"It's a moist towelette," Andrew told her.
"Huh," she observed. "It's not even hot! The ones on the airplane are hot!"
We were given hot towels to freshen up with at meals and at waking time on the plane. Miss Fancy Pants thinks that should be normal, apparently.
*****
The other day our housekeeper came by to make up our rooms (we live in a hotel so...) and Phoebe said, "Are you going to vacuum today?"
"Uhh...vacuum?" the housekeeper said. "Yes, yes. Yes, I can! I will vacuum today!! No problem, no problem!"
"I will hide!" Phoebe said.
"You want me to vacuum?" the housekeeper clarified (a little confused by Phoebe's sudden departure).
"Oh, no, no, no!" I said (they don't usually vacuum—there's a vacuum for our use in the hall closet). "She is asking because she's afraid of the vacuum. She doesn't really want you to vacuum. You don't need to vacuum. It's fine."
"So...no vacuum?"
"Yes, no vacuuming today."
*****
Phoebe has had some serious issues about how the housekeepers make up her bed. Everyone seems to do it differently (and all of them seem to do it wrong). If we leave pyjamas out, they will fold them and place them on the bed. They fluff the pillows, they remake everything neatly. They arrange the children's stuffed animals...
And they consistently take Phoebe's blanket off her cot and put it on the big bed that Alex and Zoë are sharing.
This makes Phoebe so mad.
And I'm always just like, "lt's okay. We can just move it back to your bed. Not a big deal."
Today while the housekeeper was here, Phoebe and I were playing a bit in the living room when she suddenly jumped up and ran down the hall.
"Be right back!" she said. "Just gotta check something!"
The housekeeper was, by this time, in the hallway bathroom, having finished making up the children's rooms (we have three bedrooms here). When he came out of the bathroom to tell me he had finished his work for the day, Phoebe gushed, "You made my bed correctly! You're learning!"
And I just about died of embarrassment on the spot.
"Thank you, thank you!" he said, as he closed the front door.
Apparently he had left Phoebe's blanket on her cot instead of moving it to the big bed, which is great. But also...not high on my list of things to tell a housekeeper.
*****
While I was telling Andrew about Phoebe's interactions with the housekeeping staff (as we were getting her ready for bed), he said (both annoyed and entertained), "Aaaargh! And because of social hierarchy mess, they probably internalize all her chatter!"
"I know!" I said. "It's like..."
"You don't have to listen to her!!" we said together.
"She's four!" I said.
"She's just a dumb kid!" Andrew said.
"Yeah!" Phoebe said, completely ignoring what Andrew said. "But he did put my blanket on my bed very nicely!"
*****
After dinner the kids were hankering for dessert so I told Zoë that she could open a little package of cookies to share with everyone.
"Strawberry or coconut?" she asked.
The kids settled on strawberry so Zoë opened the package and Phoebe called out, "Me first! Gimme! Gimme!"
Rather than telling her something like, "Gimme, gimme never gets! Don't you know your manners yet!" (which would have been more than appropriate), I decided to tell Phoebe a fun fact: "You know—there's a band called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes."
"Ooooh!" she exclaimed. "I could be in that band! Put me in!"
Truly, she would thrive in any group with gimme gimme in the name.
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