GlitterGirl did not respond well to the “X is not for Y” phrase. She’d try to explain to me why I was wrong. Her thought processes basically being that she was doing Y with X and it seemed to be working just fine. Even before she could talk, you could see it in her eyes. She was doing it without a problem and I obviously did not know what I was talking about. It worked better to just say “Don’t do Y with X” along with a simple explanation of the reason why, and then provide logical consequences when she did it again. (You’ll note I didn’t say if she did it again, but when she did it again.)

But that “X is not for Y” phrase works beautifully with TwinkleToes. I say it, she gets this look like “oh, okay, then I shouldn’t do that”, and she stops. And doesn’t do it again!

That is, it works when GlitterGirl is not around. When GlitterGirl is around those phrases crack her up, and then TwinkleToes thinks it is funny, too. And then TwinkleToes does it again. And then GlitterGirl repeats the X is not for Y phrase that I just said, and then they both fall in the floor laughing. All this happening while I’m trying not to laugh while at the same time being very frustrated.

I can’t really blame GlitterGirl, some of them do sound pretty funny. Toilets are not for standing on. Shoes are not for licking.

GlitterGirl and I had a conversation this afternoon. I told her I had a problem, that I was trying to teach TwinkleToes things, but that her laughter was making TwinkleToes think these things were a joke. She tells me she can’t help but laugh, that those things are just silly things to say. I explained that TwinkleToes doesn’t know these things until I tell her. That no matter how silly they sound to us, they are “new” to TwinkleToes. So we talked about our dilemma: I need to give this information to TwinkleToes, and GlitterGirl finds them so funny that she can’t help but laugh. I asked her if she had any ideas for how to solve our dilemma.

GlitterGirl has agreed that if she needs to laugh she will go into another room to do so. I don’t know if that will help or not. We’ll see.

I love that they are bonding so well as sisters. I love to watch them fall in the floor laughing. I just wish it weren’t as a joke about how funny a misbehavior is.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 am and is filed under Daily Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.