Watering the Flower

Tis the Halloween season. There are lots of reasons to be out and about in costumes. This last Saturday night  we went to a church Halloween night with my parents. Bug was supposed to be a lion, but she refused to wear her hoodie with the tail and lion face, and Monkey was a purple flower. Monkey's costume is basically a purple, knee length dress with purple tulle flowers on the bodice, "petals" for the skirt, and green trim.

As we were walking to the car after the festivities were over, I overheard my mom and Monkey talking about her being a flower. My mom had a cup of water and was teasing Monkey that she was going to water her. Monkey was laughing and running away and playing with my mom about it. About a minute later, Monkey was walking in front of me and I couldn't resist. I threw the water that I had on her. She screamed. She cried. I laughed.

She was so upset. She went into insta-drama mode, crying and yelling at me. "Why would you do that?!" "That's not nice!" I told her that she was a flower and that I thought she needed water. Her response was fantastic:

"I'm not a real flower! I don't need to be watered!"

Bear tried to get her to calm down. He tried to explain to her that there was no reason to be so upset. She maintained that it wasn't nice of me to throw water on her and that it was mean of me to surprise her by doing so.

I didn't get her costume wet. She was wearing flip flops, so she didn't have to wear wet shoes or socks. She was dry within a couple minutes.

I knew that by doing that I was going to awaken the drama queen. At least this time I knew what I was doing. It wasn't a random crying fit because of some perceived slight against her. It was totally worth it.

I blame my mom for my sense of humor in torturing my children. She did it to me. I do it to my kids. And I am sure the cycle will continue. I also know that karma comes around, and I am only getting back what I gave my mom. That gives me confidence that one day my kids will find humor in the things from their childhood and not take life too seriously when they have their own kids.

Multi-Purpose Cream

As a parent, certain things raise red flags. Crying and loud banging noises, shattering glass or pouring liquid. However, the biggest warning sign of all is silence.

Despite the saying, Silence is NOT golden.

Everyone in the house was doing their own thing. I was sewing. Bear was reading. Monkey was watching TV. Bug was.... uhm.... unaccounted for. She wasn't making any noise. She was not watching TV. Bear and I had the parental spidey sense at the same time. As I went walking down the hall to find our wonderful Bug, I heard Bear already talking to her. He beat me to it by about 10 seconds. But we found her.

She was washing her hands. And brushing her teeth. And brushing her hair. She wasn't using soap, toothpaste, or gel. She was using a tube of diaper rash cream. For all three things.

Her hands and the counter were covered in a moderate layer of the cream. We could not even see her skin. She had clumps and smears of cream on and around her mouth. And finally, she had her hair smeared straight up like Sonic the Hedgehog. I grabbed her up and swooped her away to the shower.

The shower was a pain all by its self. Diaper rash cream is water resistant. Lots of real soap. Lots of scrubbing with a hand towel, and still she came out of the shower a bit greasy.

I think I need to have my parent radar updated. It was a little slow on the pick up of the shenanigans of Bug.

Teamwork

Bug likes to color. In fact... she likes to color ON EVERYTHING. Recently this included her white bedroom door meeting a purple crayon.

I took away her crayon and got after her about coloring on the door. I told her she made a mess and had to clean it up. I went to the kitchen and got her a scrubbie and set her to work.

Monkey came along and asked what was going on. Somehow Bug convinced her to take over the cleaning project. It reminded me of Tom Sawyer convincing other kids to whitewash the fence.

There is no way that this was fair so I went and got Bug another scrubbie and made her help her sister.

They "cleaned" for about half an hour. At the end of the day though, the only thing that is really going to make the purple go away is a fresh coat of paint. At this point... that is going to have to wait until Bug ends this habit of drawing on the walls, doors, and tiles in the house.

The Conversation

Monkey is in kindergarten now. For the first few weeks we let her buy breakfast or lunch once a week. She decided that she liked it so much that she would just get lunch/breakfast whenever she wanted. This is the problem...

My husband or I pack her a lunch every day. On the off days that she is allowed to buy, we give her money. So, when she was getting lunch when she wasn't supposed to it created two problems. First, she wasn't eating what we packed for her. So in some cases, the food was getting wasted. Secondly, they weren't denying her the lunch or breakfast. Instead, they fed her (can't deny a hungry child) and she basically created a tab at the school. Now I owe the school money and look like scumbag parent for not giving her lunch or money.

Needless to say, when we found out, my husband and I were less than happy about her choice. Her rationale was that it was "free" because they would give it to her without her giving them money. We talked to her about it, she said she wouldn't do it again, and life moved on.

The very next week she did it again.

This time our discussion involved losing toys and such if she did it again. She said (again) that she wouldn't do it.

Three weeks later...

Monkey and I are sitting at the dinner table finishing up our meals. Bear and Bug are already done and off doing their own things. Monkey set her fork down, laced her fingers together, set her hands on the table and said "Mom I want to have a conversation with you." I asked her what it was about and she said buying lunches. I called Bear into the room and told him Monkey wanted to have a "conversation" with us.

It went like this:
"I would like to have a conversation with you about buying lunches again. I have been very good at doing my chores, not buying breakfast or lunch when I am not supposed to, and I have been behaving in school. I was wondering if I could start buying lunch once a week again"

It took every ounce of self control I had not to laugh. Not because it was funny, but I was just blown away at the level of maturity that she was showing. She isn't even six yet! I took a deep breath and told her that as long as she continued to do all of those things, she could buy lunches again. She said "Okay, thank you" and left the table to go play.

If these are the conversations we have with her at the age of (almost) six... I am scared already for the future.