Back to bed

I am so glad that Linnea was at home today and could go back to bed. She woke early, because of the daylight or a toilet trip or something, and was as cheerful and charming as a rabid weasel with toothache until I sent her to bed about noon. She was asleep in minutes and I'm quite certain she will be in better humour and more able to tackle her swimming lesson when she wakes up.

Emer, meanwhile, is buzzing around the house tidying up, painting, making phonecalls, doing laundry, and other important life-enhancing things.

This and that

From Twitter: A: "Here, I found some sums that might interest you." L: "Yay, thanks!" *turns printout over, draws diagram of digestive system on the back*

In brighter news, we have a wireless printer which works sometimes. Sadly, because of childproofing the wireless router, it's stored on top of a wardrobe and I almost came a cropper trying to reboot it today, so we shall have to figure something else out soon. I love being able to print things out whenever I want, though, so I am determined to get it sorted.

And we recently got a copy of The Cat in Numberland and both children enjoyed it so much, as a bedtime story, that as soon as it was finished they asked for it again, immediately. I haven't been privileged to partake of most of the readings, because bedtime is a Daddy thing, but I heard three chapters at various times and they seemed excellent to me. Emer is "just" following the story and Linnea is delighted with More Stuff About Infinity (and also, incidentally, spent three days unable to count past ten, for her own reasons).

We absolutely have to get Linnea to the Science Museum as soon as I can handle a trip of that magnitude. I should look up whether one can borrow a wheelchair while there, actually, as one can at Kew.

She got a copy of Roald Dahl's The Magic Finger and won't let us read it aloud to her yet. She is "looking at the pictures, leave me alone" by herself, first.

Gender conformity

My eldest is all about the pink at the moment... and wants her hair buzzed off with the clippers. The only downside is that some people will think she's a boy sometimes, which makes her blink back tears. She is going away to think about it.

She considered wearing dresses all the time, but decided she would get cold and sometimes not be able to climb things, which wouldn't work for her. And of course if she waits until puberty, her new body shape will probably mean no-one thinks she's a boy even if her hair is shorter than mine.

Meanwhile, she might settle for a very very short bob, much shorter than she has now.

I'm not totally clear on why it's so important to her, but I do remember my little sister having a gorgeous feminine pixie cut (because her face was so finely structured that my mother couldn't resist the aesthetic appeal of it), and lots of people thought she was a boy and it upset her hugely. I never had short hair until after my second baby was born, so I can't really compare my own experiences, but I don't think I'd have minded being mistaken for a boy so much.

It's her head, and her gender-identity, so I'm staying as far out of it as I can; she wants two things which she isn't sure she can have at once, and will have to decide.

Being six may not be as easy as she'd hoped.