Two steps forward, one step back

Violet has been doing better at listening to her swim teacher.  After we gave her a very stern talking-to and no dessert on Monday, her teacher reported that she listened to everything he said the last two days.  He even used the word "phenomenal."  I'm sure I just jinxed it.

In typical Violet fashion, however, it's two steps forward, one step back.  Now that swim seems to be going, uh, swimmingly, she is not loving Bible school.  In fact, she told me today she didn't want to go.  Every year, most vacation Bible schools have some sort of theme for the week. This year, it's Kingdom Rock, which basically means old-fashioned kings, knights, castles, that sort of thing.  In keeping with this theme, they do an opening skit at the beginning of the day.  Yesterday, they apparently had some guy dressed up as a red knight and he pretended to eat a pickled skeleton bone or something weird.  Jack thought it was hilarious.  Violet thought it was so scary that this one five-second bit has put her off the entire rest of the week. Thankfully, one of the organizers of her group is a very nice lady who assured me that she would be happy to walk Violet around outside during the skit.  A better mom would have told that nice lady that it was ok, we don't need to indulge a three-year-old's neurosis, she needs to learn to get over it.  I, however, just said, "Thanks!" and skedaddled out of there before she had a chance to change her mind.

A couple of weeks ago, I bragged about how well Violet was swimming.  We went to a friend's pool, and she jumped in all by herself and swam from the wall to the steps.  It was the first time she'd ever jumped in on her own and the first time she'd ever swum that far.  We were so proud of her.  But perhaps we made too big a deal of what a big girl she was, because she asserted her lingering babyness by insisting that she sleep in her crib that night.

The bunk beds are not an unqualified success.  At first, they did seem to eliminate most of the bedtime stalling, but that's starting to creep back in.  Beyond that, however, she finds various aspects of the bed and her new bedroom to be "scary."  She doesn't like the clock in the room, so we have a blanket acting as a curtain for her bed so she can't see it.  She decided just tonight that she doesn't like the Tigger on her Winnie the Pooh comforter, because "he's not funny."  Every few days, she will cry in the middle of the night or early in the morning, and I'll have to bring her into my room with me so she doesn't wake Jack.

I posted this on Facebook, but we had a little incident this afternoon that sort of encapsulates the challenges I've been having with her.  She and Jack were playing in my room while I was in the office.  Everything was going well until I heard her start screaming and crying.  I then saw Jack come down the hall.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"Violet scratched me," he told me and showed me the mark that she left.

"Why did she scratch you?" I asked.

"I have no idea!" he said.

Violet quickly followed him and came into my office, bawling.  She stood there, looked at me, pulled the saddest face she could make, and went, "Waaahhhh!"  Just to make sure I saw how upset she was.

"What happened, Violet?" I asked her.

"Jack leaved me!" she wailed pathetically.

"Jack left you? Why did he leave you?" I asked.

"Because I hurt him! Waaaahhhh!"

We then had a little conversation about how people won't want to stay and play with you if you hurt them.

"Are you going to hurt Jack again?" I asked.

"Uh-huh," she nodded.

Great.  Just try not to cry too hard the next time you injure your brother, because that would be so sad. :P