Geetle’s Bookstore

On Saturday Geetle was a pistol.¬† She was defiant, telling us “nope” and “I’m not gonna do it” when we would ask her to do things.¬† She refused to hold BAGD’s hand crossing the parking lot, because she was a girl and girls are supposed to hold Mom’s hand, girls stay with girls.¬†¬† She told BAGD “you can do it for me” when he told her to put her bike away.¬†¬† She took a stand against hearing “Fuzzy and Blue” from the Sesame Street CD in the car.¬† She told us that she could not put her own shoes on, walk like a normal person or keep her fork from falling out of her hand at lunch.¬†¬† BAGD dragged her out of Bakers Square for a talking to in the lobby before she was allowed to come back to the table and finish her lunch.¬† She screamed because I “brushed her neck” while combing out her ponytail at bedtime.¬† She was clearly in a bad mood, because we are pretty certain we heard her say “Oh craps” when something did not go her way. ¬† It was a long day.

On Sunday, we tried to set her on another path, knowing that Saturday just snowballed and should not have gone on so long.¬† On Sunday morning she announced she wanted to make a card for her friend’s birthday party on Saturday.¬† I said great and got her out a bunch of supplies.¬† Somehow the card turned into a book.¬† Before you know it, she was making more and more paper books.¬† She said she needed them for her book sale.¬† Great.¬† Lets go with that.¬† She made books for an hour. I helped staple the pages together and cut pictures out for her to glue inside.¬† When she had enough books, she ran downstairs for her cash register and said she was ready to set up the book sale on the porch.¬† Two problems…it was pouring rain and we were due to leave for a tour of the birthing center at the hospital.¬† She was willing to wait until we got back and discuss it then.¬† That would have been a major incident on Saturday.

When we got back from the hospital, she made 1 or 2 more books. ¬† I suggested she set up her book sale on the table in our library.¬† She agreed.¬† When they were all laid out, she said she would need a sign; we made one.¬† I asked her if she needed bags, she excitedly said yes. ¬† Before long, she had bags, a sign, a display, change for her register and a name tag to wear when she rang up the purchases.¬† We even added a cup full of bookmarks, free with purchase.¬† She named her store; (it is called “The books are for sale and you come buy them”) and waited for customers.¬† BAGD and I each bought a few books. ¬† Pookie browsed, but did not buy.

She was very pleased.  She reopened her store Monday morning and sold a book to Mamaw and one to Papaw.   We will keep it open until Aunt Kel comes to visit on Wednesday.  On a walk today, she found some acorns and gathered them up.  They are also free with purchase of a book.

The moral of the story here is that she was not at all sassy on Sunday or Monday.¬† I think it was because she was so fully engaged in this project.¬† We talked about it all day, she made even more books with Mamaw on Monday.¬† When she was not making books, she was looking for magazines to cut up or practicing putting the prices into the cash register, pushing each button very carefully. ¬† She worried that she would run out of bags and decorated a few more.¬† She sold me a book when I came up from the home office at lunch time.¬† When I came back upstairs an hour later to go to the bathroom, she asked me how I “enjoyed” my book.

I always knew that diverting my kids attention could help improve their behavior.  But this project was the best example of that in a long time.  All she wanted was some mind candy.   She must have been bored on Saturday and she showed it by being naughty.  I do not believe in constantly entertaining my kids, they need to learn to do that themselves and that sometimes life is boring.  But I do think its a good idea to engage them in everything they do.  On Saturday we could have set her on a better path by giving her a shopping list to check off as we ran our errands.  We could have let her push the cart.  We could have let her carry the money and pay the clerk at the post office.   We were in such a hurry to get our errands done that we just expected the kids to follow along behind us.  Usually they do OK at that, but on Saturday she was in a touchy mood and that was just not going to work.

I am glad that she got so interested in her book store.  After such a long day on Saturday it was nice to see her happy and having fun.   I am also glad that she found a creative project that held her interest for so long.  I know she is more like the Sunday/Monday girl than the one we saw on Saturday.

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