Week 241: TV, Sand, and Carnivals

Though still generally sweet and, appropriately enough, childlike, Mandy has started to explore some areas of behavior that are shall we say undesirable. The other day I was lying on the couch when Mandy walked up to me, gave me a beautiful smile, and then slapped me as hard as she could on the nose. And then there was the incident that happened the other day. Sam had decided she wanted to watch some Bob the Builder, so Geralyn put it on for her, fenced off the stairs with safety gates, and ran upstairs to take care of something while leaving Sam and Mandy downstairs. Mandy wandered out the sliding glass door to our enclosed patio where she began playing in the makeshift sand box I had made for them. Apparently, though, she decided that in addition to building sand castles she ALSO wanted to go watch Bob the Builder with her big sister, and having never been informed of any proscriptions against combining the two activities, she filled a bucket with sand, carried it into the living room, and proceeded to dump it all over the carpet, her chair, and the coffee table.

And of course the best part of the story is that Sammy actually just calmly sat there watching Mandy do this, waiting only until the bucket was empty to shout to Geralyn to “come see what Mandy did.” My guess is that Sam was too impressed by the mayhem to put any stop to it.

This leave us wondering how best to chastise and punish Mandy, though. I can’t remember when we started instituting time outs for Sam, but I don’t think it was this early. Besides, I’m pretty sure that if we told Mandy to stand in the corner she’d just wander off after a couple of seconds, feigning miscomprehension as an excuse. Knowing her, she’d probably even mutter “No hablo Engles” on her way past you to get another bucket of sand, which is REALLY a dead giveaway but I’m still out of ideas.

You may have noticed many pictures of the girls involved in some carnival-like festivities. Apparently these kinds of neighborhood events are quite common around here, and we keep going to them. This one was not quite as good as previous carnivals, though. I had a corn dog and curly fries that jointly comprise the most disgusting thing anyone has ever expected me to eat, and somehow we spent $40 on 90 seconds of ride –TOTAL. Seriously, Sam would get on some ride, spin around twice, and the disinterested operator would punch at the “Stop” button with a niccotine stained finger and expect us to enjoy it.

Well, actually Sam did seem to enjoy it. Mandy, unfortunately, seemed to fall short on the height requirements except for the merry-go-round, which she loved.

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One thought on “Week 241: TV, Sand, and Carnivals

  1. Mandy looks like she is standing in front of one of those signs they have in convenience stores to indicate the height of robbers 🙂

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