Inappropriate Comments of All Sorts

Ever since Julia's gymnastics recital, the members of the Rowe household have had "All the Single Ladies" stuck in our heads.  It turned into a particularly bad case of song-stuck-in-the-head last night at dinner, when Julia and Madeleine decided to repeatedly sing the first lines of the song on ad nauseum.  Not only was it hindering them from focusing on eating dinner, but it just drove the song further and further into the heads of Ethan and I.  Eventually, however, Julia managed to finish her dinner, and went off to play, and since Ethan and I had long finished eating, Madeleine was left on her own at the table to sing "All the Single Ladies" - appropriately - all by herself. 

MADELEINE: All da single ladies, all da single ladies, all da single ladies, all da-
ETHAN: (calling from the living room) Madeleine.  Please make sure you're actually eating and not just singing.
MADELEINE: But I wanna SING!
ETHAN: You need to focus on eating your dinner.
MADELEINE: (eating a bite of pasta and resuming her song) All da single ladies, all da single ladies, all da single ladies, all da single ladies...
JULIA: (piping in from the other room) All the single ladies, all the single ladies...

Finally, Madeleine's energy for singing did begin to flag, or at least it would have had she not come up with even better lyrics.

MADELEINE: All da single ladies, all da single ladies...
JULIA: All the single ladies, all the single ladies...
MADELEINE: All da single ladies, all da single ladies, (beginning to peter out) all da single ladies, all...da..bums (immediately grabbing onto this with renewed gusto) ALL DA SINGLE BUMS, ALL DA-
ETHAN: (sternly) Madeleine.  Madeleine.  That's enough.  No potty talk.

Silence.

ETHAN AND I: (chuckling to each other) She's such a stinker.
ME: (mimicking Madeleine) All the single bums, all the single bums...
MADELEINE: Moooom!  You're NOT ALLOWED to do POTTY talk!

She sure showed me.

When they're not busy singing about single ladies and their bums, the girls have been loving the warmer weather of the past few days, and we've spent ample time playing out in the backyard.  In fact, the girls even came up with a very involved pretend-play game that all members of the household get to take part in.  Central to the game's plot is a wooden home, made out of fallen branches which the girls leaned against one of our backyard trees, making up our new family woodland home.  I don't know why we now live in the woods and where we had lived before, but the construction of this new home was what spawned the whole idea for the game.  In fact, Julia was not intially intending to include anyone else in her branch-house building, but unfortunately for her, Madeleine sort of wormed her way right on in.

JULIA: (leaning branches against the tree) Let's see.  My house is almost done.  I need to go back to the woods to find more branches.
MADELEINE: Julia, can I go in your house?
JULIA: No!  Madeleine.  You don't SEE me.  Pretend you don't know that I'm building this house.
MADELEINE: Well Julia.  I want to go in.
JULIA: Okay.  Madeleine.  You can help build it too, but pretend we don't KNOW that the other person is building it.
MADELEINE: Julia, betend I went in your house.
JULIA: No!  Madeleine.  You don't SEE me.
MADELEINE: (waiting patiently for a few moments.)  Hey, sis!
JULIA: No, Madeleine!  You don't SEE me.
MADELEINE: (standing by the branch house patiently for a few more moments.)  Hey, sis!
JULIA: No, Madeleine!  You don't SEE me.
MADELEINE: (silently waiting a few moments longer) Hey, sis!
JULIA: No, Madeleine!  You don't KNOW I'm here!

Finally, we came to some sort of a compromise.  Julia and Madeleine were sisters building their new woodland home, and they were indeed allowed to acknowledge each other's presence.  Before I knew it, I was an integral part of the game as well, and as soon as Ethan joined us outside, he too was ushered in. 

Here's a breakdown of the major characters in this game:

Meggin (played by Julia): a 13-year-old hop-ball champion who loves being outdoors and baby-sitting.  When she's not at school, she's busy attending hop-ball tournaments against other 13-year-olds, whose butts she kicks at hopping each and every time.  Between all her baby-sitting jobs, school, and her hop-ball championships, she often has to forgo sleep and stay up all night long.

Meggin


Allison (later changed to Simba, played by Madeleine): Meggin's 1-year-old sister, who later turned 3 and could, in Madeleine's words, "talk normal now."  Allison/Simba spends most of her time hopping up and down on the turtle shell top to our sandbox, holding her "leash" (a leafy stem she uprooted from the back woods) and singing "Call Me Maybe."  At unexpected, intermittent points during her hopping and singing, she suddenly hops off the shell and instructs me to clap for her, after which she is able to announce that she won at gymnastics and that she's the Camp Champ.

Allison, aka Simba


Josie (played by me): The eldest sister in the branch-house family, who is 18 and looks after Meggin and Allison.  I'm not very interesting and kind of just stand around because I don't really feel like playing this game.

Plurpe (played by Ethan): our father, who is similarly useless in the game.

When Julia caught me sitting in Ethan's lap for a moment on our lawn chairs, she immediately had to incorporate our love into the game.

JULIA: Joooosie, why are you always sitting in our dad's LAP?  Are you guys gonna get MARRIED?  Are you in LOOOOOVE?

The incestuous Josie and Plurpe


I should have just let that one go.  I really should have.  But sometimes your desire to be funny outweighs your knowledge of what is appropriate parenting.  As the game progressed, we learned about Meggin's boyfriend at high school, and how she's planning to marry him when they grow up.  When Meggin asked me, Josie, if I have a boyfriend at high school, I told her, "No, I have a boyfriend who lives in our HOUSE, and he's our dad, and we're going to get married because we're in LOOOOOVE."

I better watch out.  Now Julia probably WILL follow through and write "Betty Bunny merrys her dad," all thanks to me.