Tickles, Ponies and Rockers

JULIA: Mom?  So, today at school we were talking about when it's GOOD to touch someone and when it DOESN'T feel good to touch someone.
ME: Oh, yeah?
JULIA: Yeah!  We had to tell our ideas of what ISN'T good touching.  And I shared about how one time Daddy was tickling me and I started CRYING.

Awesome.  I'm so glad she shared this, especially in a way that makes a totally benign incident sound borderline skeevy.

Especially considering the fact that the girls both looooove rough-housing with Daddy and particularly enjoy getting tickled by either parent.  Even when they protest, they don't usually *actually* want the tickle-fest to stop.

For example, giving Madeleine tickles usually goes something like this:

ME: Here comes a TICKLE!  (tickling her belly)
MADELEINE: (squealing with delight) DON'T TICKLE MEEEEEEEE!
ME: (stopping the tickles)
MADELEINE: (with gleeful anticipation) Mommy.  Don't tiiiiiiickle meeeeee!
ME: Okay.
MADELEINE: (sitting eagerly with her belly out, awaiting tickles)
ME: (still not tickling her)
MADELEINE: Uh, Mom?  Can you tickle me?

Furthermore, the incident in which Julia cried actually had nothing to do with the tickles, and everything to do with Julia thinking she was in trouble.  Ethan had let the girls watch a movie up in our bedroom with a bowl of popcorn, and his one condition was that for every piece of stray popcorn that was found in our bed at the end of the movie, the girls would receive one tickle.  When the movie was over and he found five pieces of popcorn, Julia could not handle the weight of her own guilt and responsibility over failing the cleanliness test she perceived she had been put to, and completely fell apart when he announced she would be receiving five tickles.

But was any of that explained in class?  Nope.  Just the creepy daddy who tickles her until she cries.  Nice.

On another note, the girls have had LOTS of pretend-play fantasy-land fun this morning, without even requiring very much to get them going.  Julia worked on her piano practicing, with my help, and when I suggested she play through her last song one more time, she announced buoyantly, "Ooookaaaaay, but when I'm done, I'm going to play with the people!"

Play with our collection of Little People?  Or Polly Pockets?  Or Barbies? 
Nope.

These are the people Julia wanted to play with, fresh from the page of music she was working on:

She took great joy in making each dancing person speak aloud, announcing his or her upcoming dance, then acting out the dance all around the living room:

I even had to pick my favorite dancing person.  Julia has two favorites.  Both are girls.  What a surprise.

Meanwhile, as this went on, Madeleine was cheerfully chattering away as she colored in her "My Little Pony" book, making the various ponies speak to each other and occasionally sing songs about what antics they were up to:

The ponies faced some great challenges and battled adversity in Madeleine's pretend world.  Over the sound of Julia's "Rockin' on 6" people rockin' out, I could overhear Madeleine's pony drama.

MADELEINE: An AMPIRE?  Yes, let's make it NICE.  You CAN'T make an ampire NICE!  Ohhhhh!  Whaaaat have I done?? 


I'm guessing that part of why Madeleine's ponies were facing such extreme dangers has to do with a conversation she had with Ethan earlier in the day today.  As she sat coloring in her pony book, her attention was drawn to the vase full of post-gymnastic-show flowers that sits atop our dining room table:

Madeleine wanted to know why the flowers have started to wilt, to which Ethan answered that all living things eventually die.  Now, Madeleine has very limited experience with death.  The only cases she knows of are Jesus (who died because mean people were "frowing" rocks at him) and my father (who died from smoking.)  Therefore, she has a bit of trouble actually understanding this topic, as is pretty typical with kids of her age.

MADELEINE: (looking down at her coloring book) Well, PONIES don't die because they don't SMOKE.
ETHAN: Well, everything that's living will eventually die.  First living things are born, and they're very small, and then they grow, and get bigger, and finally they grow old and then they die.
MADELEINE: (staring at Ethan blankly.)

With our luck, Madeleine will wind up going to school and telling the whole class that her Daddy said everybody is going to die.  Then Ethan will REALLY look like Father of the Year.