Hit and Run-On

Those of you who hang out here often may have noticed the removal of the personal advice option. There is a really good reason for this. Part of the charm of the idea was to ask the Princess some advice and then transcribe her response here. After serious consideration, I realized that this was pure impossibility. The fact is, the kid has far surpassed me in her ability to talk.

Now to say that I'm loquacious is an understatement. I am gifted with a verbal acuity that rarely leaves me without words for a situation. There are those that would go so far as to say that I'm gifted in my ability to converse on nearly any topic.

Management is not among them. I think garrulous would be the word that management would use to describe this ability. The number of times that I have been mid-sentence when I realized that I was being given the "I can't believe you're still talking" look are beyond measure. (I believe that the reason people who are married sometimes seem more well adjusted that singles is that they are forced to take the way they think of themselves and temper those ideas with the reality of someone who actually has to put up with them.)

Regardless of one's opinion on my constant conversing, I have been usurped as the champion speaker of the house, being outspoken on nearly every occasion and topic. I think what's most impressive about her ability to speak on things is the combination of being able to talk confidently about nearly anything while forming run-on sentences that go on for what seem like days, particularly when doling out advice and suggestions. I realized that in order to properly capture it, I would have to record her and then play it over and over until I got it all down.

Frequently, these meandering monologues will distract her from other, more pressing activities. It's not uncommon for all of us to finish eating dinner only to point out that she's barely touched hers. Suggest that we finish our breakfast so we can go upstairs and get dressed for school and you will be met with a thorough description of how that should go down, something like, "Okay, first you can help me pick out an outfit, and then I'll help you pick out something for the Moose to wear because I helped pick out his clothes yesterday and I did a really good job and you liked the outfit I picked out and then we'll race to see who can get dressed first, but you can't start changing his diaper until I say 'Ready, set, go' because the other day you started changing his diaper before I said you could and that wasn't fair."

Needless to say, breakfast will not be finished.

The other thing she excels at is bargaining. If she has something she wants, she will happily list all of the reasons it's a good idea, countering all of arguments against the action (you wouldn't believe how many reasons there are for having to get a gum ball at the video store, and the extent of the travesty should that gum ball be denied). Ask her to do something she doesn't feel like and she'll spend more time debating with you over why she shouldn't have to than she would have spent just doing what you asked in the first place. What's frightening is that she wins, if only by wearing me down to the point where I simply don't have the resolve to go on arguing about things. She would make a fine lawyer or politician, if not for her complete lack of evil.

Having said all of that, I don't want anyone to think I'm disparaging her for it. While I would like to see occasional breaks for the sake of sentence structure (and inhalation), I'm glad that she has the confidence to talk to us like that. I'm aware that at some point she's not going to be interested in talking to me so much, and I do my best to appreciate that right now she feels the need to share with me the inner details of her thoughts.