Changing Rooms

Gertie's room is having a makeover.

The deal was that if she could keep her room tidy for the entire month of February, she could choose wallpaper, see Guerilla Littering, and if she continued the tidiness through Lent then she could have the whole room done.

Given her propensity to create mess, I didn't expect to be in the position that we are in now.  Hearth-father is busy with the sander; the wallpaper is up on two 'feature' walls; the remaining walls are painted in 'silver mist', and we are rid of three sacks of clothes and toys.

All good.  Except that the designs Gertie has chosen suggest that she has gone from a six-year-old to a teenager overnight.

Here's the old one:

Sweet, girly, pink (probably too much, but hey ho) innocent, doll-filled, pretty.

Here's the new one (unfinished):

It needs a rug to cover those pristine white floorboards (I'm wincing already as I imagine what they will look like in a few weeks time) But mostly screaming purple, grown-up, boudoir-ish.

Can someone tell me where my little girl went?


Currently reading: Heresy by SJ Parris

The F-Word

My very sweet, intelligent, beautiful (innocent) five year old seems to have turned into a stroppy teenager in the space of a few short days.

Monosyllabic responses to the simplest of requests and questions, a form of amnesia directly related to saying please and thank you, and a pout that makes Angelina Jolie look a bit tight-lipped.

But she came home from school the other day with a question:  "Mummy, what's the F-word?"  When I declined to explain, she complained that people had been talking about how naughty it is and how you shouldn't say it, but she felt silly because she didn't know what it was.

I said that I agreed with the people who said it was naughty and that you shouldn't say it (whilst metaphorically mouthing it to myself as I was undoing her plaits).

Then she asked if she could guess what it was.  I had no idea what was coming next, and took a big gulp.

"Is it....fire?" she asked.

Perhaps my sweet, innocent, beautiful little girl is still hiding in there, after all.

My Teenage Toddler

My toddler is displaying all the characteristics of a stroppy teenager. I can see exactly how things are going to be in a dozen years' time.

Tonight I called Gertie in to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She wouldn't come because, she moodily informed me, she was "a bit busy". She was 'a bit busy' having a tea-party in her room, but no doubt in a decade it will be the latest games console that is distracting her.

On the way home from nursery tonight she told me defiantly when I asked after Harrison (the courduroy-clad two-year-old love interest from Valentine's weekend) that he is now her 'ex-boyfriend'. Where did she even learn a concept like this?!

She won't be three until May, but at this rate I am fully expecting the first dismissive "Whatever!" when we discuss plans for the celebrations.