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May 22, 2006 Please Please Please? 
"Can I hold you?" asks Frances. "Please please please?" "Can you read this book?" asks Frances, walking towards me holding my least favourite book from her library. "Please please please?" "I'd like to go on the big bed," she whispers, one hand held by her ear in her imitation of how most people amplify their voices by holding their hands around their mouths. "Please please please?" "Can I have some cheese please? Please please please?" "I'd like to do some fingerpainting. Please please please?" Yes. She has figured out the power of the multiple pleases, which turns Mummy and Daddy into warm putty. "Fingerpainting? Oh, sweetie, it's almost lunch time, I don't .... Oh, all right." And it gets worse. Babies, we all know, are not smart enough to be manipulative. All of their statements and wishes are honest because they don't know enough to lie. Yet more proof that Frances is not a baby anymore: she is capable of turning it on at any point in time to suit her own nefarious purposes. She will cry--with real tears that require kissing--if we ask her to put down a toy she likes or leave a play area or put her down for a nap. It's partly fake crying, and partly not fake; but it's impossible to tell how much of which because she's so damned good at it. Real tears! On and off like a switch. It's amazing. If she's crying in her crib and I go in and she stops, but had real tears, and then pick her up and cosset her and give her a hug and go to put her back down again and she says to me, lip trembling, eyes wet, "I'm going to cry!" What is a mom to do? Or this evening, when she cried after we put her to bed and Erik went in, and I listened in on the monitor downstairs. "OK Frances, it's time to go back to bed." A quavering Frances voice popped up, "I love you Daddy!" Good thing it was him and not me, because that would have me absolutely paralyzed. I should put her back to bed. But she just said she loves me and she's sad and she's going to cry and how can I put her back to bed? Clever clever girl. Posted by Andrea at May 22, 2006 10:12 AM under Beanie Baby Brags EMAIL this entry (comments fields are below this section) Comments AW, sweet sweet Francis. Posted by: Amy at May 22, 2006 11:16 AM
*snort* Man, she's got you but good, huh? I'm slightly more immune, but only because I have older kids and have been thru this shameless manipulation game before. Still. It does require an iron will. Posted by: julia at May 22, 2006 11:51 AM
It's hard to say no to the cuteness. Posted by: liz at May 22, 2006 3:27 PM
Ooooo..... how could a mommy resist that? Posted by: Miche at May 22, 2006 4:07 PM
Miche--she doesn't! Julia--oh sure, laugh it up! Posted by: Andrea at May 22, 2006 7:21 PM
and just when you steel yourself against this she will find a new chink in your armor. the real tears kill me too... I don't know what I'll do when he starts talking. Posted by: Bridget at May 23, 2006 6:41 AM
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Change is God (Octavia Butler, Parable Series) "Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate." Albert Schweitzer Email Frances! frances AT athenadreaming DOT org You can email her mother too (that's me):
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