Sisters

Cecilia lives to make Francesca laugh. Tonight at bedtime, I tried to persuade Francesca into telling the bedtime story. We've done this a few times, where everyone takes a turn telling a bedtime story but tonight, Francesca was having nothing to do with it. So while I laid inbetween the girls saying, "You could tell a story about something true?" "No - I don't know how." "You could tell about how you feel when you ride your bike?" "I don't remember." "You could tell about when you took GoGo (the neighbor's mini-horse) for a walk?" "No - I don't remember."

Suddenly, Cecilia sits up and sings us a bedtime story, "Once upon a tiiiimmme . . . . There was a mommy with a baby in her tummy . . . (She's singing this like a song, with dramatic pauses inbetween versus) . . . And she had two little girls . . . and they were in the camper . . . and one night . . . a bear came into the camper . . . (I'm looking at Francesca and our eyes bug out in suprise) . . . and the bear pooped on our bed . . . . . (Francesca busts up laughing, mission accomplished.) That's a big improvement from Cecilia's old bedtime stories of, "Once upon a time, there was a ____, and it pooped. The end."

Francesca was so much more timid and apprehensive as a two and a half year old, but Cecilia is all go. Francesca can tell her to do ANYTHING, and she does it - "Cecilia, run down the hill pushing this wagon." Cecilia runs down the hill, loses control and nose-dives after the wagon. Francesca laughs, mission accomplished. While Francesca makes me carry her bike all way down Granny's driveway to the pavement, Cecilia rides her plastic scoot trackter all the way down, like a maniac.