Fickle, Thy Name is a Five Year Old

'You're NOT cute!' Door slams.

'La la la la'

'Mop, stop it or else I'm not playing with you for the rest of my life.'

'La la la la'

The Mop knows exactly what she is doing. It's cute (or was the first time), it's repetitive, it's tuneless and it's annoying.

'Be QUIET!' Door slams again. Sort of anyway. Thank heavens for those rubber stoppers that prevent the doors being fully closed no matter how much it would help in an argument such as this.

'La la la la'

The Mop is rather cleverly sitting just inside her room, technically on her own turf and therefore untouchable for her increasingly irate older sister. However the fact that their rooms face each other across a small hall means that they can't really escape each other. Especially since mean old mum put stoppers on the doors so they can't close them in each other's face.

'Be quiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeet,' pleads the Bombshell.

'La la la la.' 

Begging is not working, so she tries a new tack.

'I hate you and I love the baby,' the Bombshell says.

There is a brief pause as this sinks in.

'La la la la'

No deal.

'Right. I'm not playing with you for the rest of my life,' she declares.

Door slams. Sort of.

Meanwhile, Baldy Baby and I are at the other end of the house listening to the drama unfold over the baby monitor that I left in the Mop's room for occasions such as this. I try and only intervene when it looks like blood will be spilt.

But Baldy thinks it's all too fascinating, and now she has finally figured out how to crawl, she decides she wants a front row seat at the Colosseum.

I hear her as she makes her rhythmically thumping progress over the old floorboards, down the hall, round the corner where she would come to a stop right between her two older sister's rooms.

There is silence. Has one been smothered with a flower pillow?

One minutes later I head down to see what happened.

Naturally, the blood sports have been forgotten and all three are playing together in front of the dolls house.

Until The Bombshell grabs at a toy the Mop was playing with.

'La la la la...'