Happy Birthday Ya Ya (and Miss Morgan)!

Ella anticipated her birthday for weeks leading up to it, due in large part to the fact that she shares a birthday with her teacher, Miss Morgan.  For anyone who knows Miss Morgan, it should come as no surprise that their mutual birthday has been something to talk about at school the entire month of February (probably more accurately, the last 364 days). Not that she’s egocentric by any means – Miss Morgan is just excited, outgoing and demonstrative.  Miss Morgan loves birthdays and loves that she shares hers with our Ella.

Needless to say, Ella's known her birthday would be here soon since the beginning of February.  All month, she'd randomly utter “Happy Bir-day, Ya Ya.”.  She'd even sing it in her quiet, not so confident voice every once in a while, sometimes initiated by me, other times initiated by herself.  February is a month of extended Leatherman family birthdays – it was hit or miss whether she’d wish the birthday Leatherman a “Happy Bir-day” or wish herself a “Happy Bir-day” under the guise of wishing the real birthday person a “Happy Bir-day” – I don’t think Jimmy Jimmy heard Ella say “Ya Ya” instead of “Jimmy” when we sang Happy Birthday to him last Saturday.

In addition to singing “Happy Bir-day” to herself, Ella learned the correct answer to the question, “How old will you be, Ya Ya?”  “Thdoo!” she consistently responded all month.  I don’t know if she really knew what that meant, but she sure did know she'd be it.

Every once in awhile (before today), I would think to myself last year at this time, she was still nursing.  And two years ago at this time, she was still in my belly.  Two years is so recent, yet those experiences… those states of Ella’s “personhood” seem so distant.  She actually is a person, and it seems that she's been with us as long as Cal has.

This morning I dressed Ella in a jean skirt, a gray shirt with a decorative flower on it, a pair of pink tights and her black mary janes.  She's usually in jeans and a t-shirt, and I wanted her to look special today.  So in her birthday outfit, here's how Ella the person's day went...

First stop: Dr. Persak.  When I made the appointment a month or two ago, I was asked, "You don't want to schedule it actually ON her birthday, do you?"  Amused, I answered that it didn't matter and that it mattered more that I have that 7:45am appointment -- so we kept it, and it worked out really well.  I don't know about Ella, but I like going to see Dr. Persak.  We've been there for several well visits, a few ear infections and even fewer viruses.  Nothing too serious, and it gives me a chance to run an occasional child-rearing question past her (today's was actually about Cal, who at the time was crawling around under the exam table).  Today we learned that Ella is in the 90+ percentile for weight, bmi and head size and in the 70+ percentile for height.  She has a little fluid in her ears (not surprising considering the colds we Leathermans kept exchanging) but otherwise checked out great.  And no shots.  It was a great start to a birthday.

Next up: School.  Though I had the day off from work, I wanted to take the kids to school at least until after their nap so that I could have some much needed alone time and get a few things done and so that Ella could celebrate her birthday with her friends and fellow birthday mate, Miss Morgan.  Ella also had some little goodie bags (with a book, a puzzle, a ball and a Minnie party favor) to give to her friends and a Hello Kitty pin for Miss Morgan to wear (Miss Morgan LOVES Hello Kitty).

The reception for Ella when she arrived at school could not have been better.  Usually, Ella's one of the first in her class to arrive at school -- today, she was the last, which made for a lot more hoopla about her arrival for me to actually witness.  I was so proud -- she is liked!  As for the rest of Ella's day at school, I'll let the pictures that Miss Morgan laid out for us tell the story.

 

And then: Some Trampoline Time.  While the kids were at school, I assembled the toddler trampoline, Dan's and my gift to Ella for her birthday, with the full expectation that she'd share it with Cal.  Once assembled, I put it in our "dining room" which had been comprised of a bar/buffet table and some plants.  The first Ella saw her trampoline was after school.  I picked the kids up early, got them in the house, unloaded the groceries from the car and finally came inside the house myself to find the kids jumping on the trampoline together, smiles plastered on their faces and excited words coming from their mouths.  All I could think was Score!  I think we have a winner.  Of course, that was only five minutes into actually having a trampoline to use, so the verdict is still out.  I haven't thought through all of the monitoring Dan and I will have to do of their use of it (I mean, are they supposed to be jumping on it together?).  But so far, so good.

Finally: Choo Choo Johnny's... of course.  I don't think anyone would be surprised to hear that we went to Choo Choo Johnny's for Ella's birthday dinner.  Enticed by a birthday coupon and fully aware of what's in store for us, Choo Choo Johnny's is just what we Leathermans do for our kids' birthdays.  This time, Grandma and Papa Leatherman joined us.

It was nice, fairly uneventful and ripe with the daily challenges Dan and I face with these kids -- Cal was in and out of his seat throughout dinner, both kids had to be coaxed to eat their dinners (only one -- Cal -- actually did), Ella was hit or miss (mostly miss and sticky) with the spoon in her fruit cup, and Cal, at times, actually spit food out of his mouth... intentionally.  All very predictable.  What surprised me was Ella's reaction to the Choo Choo Johnny's birthday song and ice cream delivery -- it was very similar to Cal's (see post about Cal's birthday: http://theleatherkidchronicles.blogspot.com/2012/12/happy-birthday-choo-choo-johnnys-style.html).  Just didn't like the attention.  She buried her head into my shoulder as the waitresses sang and people around us clapped along.  Once it was done, Ella re-emerged, smiling.  And she successfully blew out her candle.

In the end, I don't know if the day played out as Ella had anticipated it would.  Probably not.  But I don't think it could have been a more perfect day for my not-so-perfect but perfect baby girl who, at two, is not a baby anymore.

Happy Birthday, my smart, beautiful, funny, stubborn, independent, sweet Ella!

And happy birthday to Miss Morgan, too!

The Sound of Music

As I start this post I have a song from “The Sound of Music” bouncing around in my head.  I’ve heard it enough over the course of the past several weeks that this is not surprising to me.  Climb every mountain… <something> every stream… follow every rainbow… ‘til you find your dream?  Gee, I felt like I knew the words… I should know the words, but clearly I don’t.

Cal does, though.  And to Maria, and Doe, a Deer, and Raindrops on Roses and even to the yodel-lay-hee, yodel-lay-hee yodel-lay-hee-hoo song (whatever the official name of it is).

When we actually started listening to the soundtrack EVERY DAY, I don’t recall.  A month ago, maybe more?  Dan just started playing it just before and during dinner.  Eventually he’d play it late morning or just after naps on the weekends as a, we believe, healthy alternative to TV and something more than just the general noises of the house.  Anytime some non-TV entertainment was warranted, Dan was (and still is) pushing <play>  on the iPod, and “The Sound of Music” was coming on.

It’s actually pretty fun to watch Cal react to the music.  I remember early in our listening to the soundtrack, Cal was chasing Ella around the first floor of our house; when Doe, a Deer came on, he stopped dead in his tracks and just listened, expressionless.  For anyone growing up on Eureka St. in my home town of Lemont in the 70s and 80s, it was like he was playing “Statue Maker” and someone had yelled, “freeze!”  When he noticed I was staring at him, he grinned but continued listening, holding his position.  There was something about the song that drew him in.  (Ella, on the other hand, was still running around as if Cal was still chasing her.)

While I can sing How do you solve a problem like Maria? (the chorus, tune and all), Cal can sing that as well as most of the words leading up to that chorus.  I think there might be a “flippity flip” in there somewhere; but other than that, all I can come up with is the tune.  Not Cal – he’s got the lyrics AND the tune down.

Cal knows he knows the words pretty well, too.  He has disagreements with Dan on what the exact words in a particular section of a song are.  One of the disagreements was about Doe, a Deer – Cal insisted it was “Far… a long, long way to run,” Dan had it correctly at “Fa… a long, long way to run.”  Another was later in the same song – “When you know the notes to sing, you <?> sing most anything.”  Dan said it was “may,” Cal correctly said it was “can.”  They disagreed about it, gave it a listen and, with much anticipation for and attention to that line of the song, Dan admitted defeat – Cal was right.  Not that anyone’s looking to keep score, but I believe they’ve each been right (and, incidentally, wrong) once each.

Cal’s Grandma and Papa Leatherman paid us a visit a couple of weekends ago.  With this came some new “blood” with whom to share our appreciation for “The Sound of Music” music (Cal used to say “muse-gick” when he was 2… but I digress).  Soon after their arrival it became the Cal-and-Grandma-Sing-The-Sound-of-Music show – what a fantastic scene this was!  Grandma knows all of the words, too; so they sang together.

That was on Saturday evening.  On Sunday morning we threw the DVD in to actually watch the movie.  Nearly three more hours of “The Sound of Music.”  Well, three hours for Grandma and me; Cal made it to the intermission and then occasionally peeked in on the movie throughout the second half.  I’m not sure what happened to Dan.  And Ella?  I think she was distracted by her Mickey board books, Zoe attacking her and wanting some “mulk.”

When we picked the kids up from school on Friday, Cal’s teacher asked me, “Do you guys listen to “The Sound of Music” a lot at home?”  She has no idea.  Apparently, Cal has his classmates singing songs from the musical during clean-up and other class activity times.

As with anything else our kids latch onto, this could just be a phase that Cal will either tire of or simply replace with something else.  There’s something about this music thing, though, that has us wondering if it’s not a phase.  Early on, he was hooked on Fergie (until he was 3-1/2, he’d fall asleep to her album; at 2-1/2, he could sing most of “Glamorous”).  During the Fergie phase, he also learned the Notre Dame Fight Song, which he still sings today.  Also during the Fergie phase, he latched on to what he called “Bad Fergie,” a song from this relaxing “Dreamland Baby” album sung by someone named Eric Manana.  Now he’s moved on to “The Sound of Music.”  Dan and I talk about getting him enrolled in a music class or lessons of some sort, and I think this is the right time to do so.  Strike while the iron is hot, so to speak.  He sure seems interested.  And he listens to – and hears – both the music and the lyrics, something that I still find challenging myself today.  How do you solve a problem like Maria?  How do you catch a something… something… la… la… la…

My Saturday

I had a real doozy of a Saturday this past weekend, one from which I have not yet fully recovered.  I was sick, tired and pushed beyond my tolerance for the utter lack of cooperation from our obstreperous first born.  So I exploded, almost literally.  Note: this story is difficult for me to share, but I’m hoping to find something therapeutic about doing so.  I have no idea where this is going to go by the time I finish it.

We had just eaten lunch and pulled the Legos back out.  Dan had grabbed Ella a little early for her nap, and Cal and I continued to sit at the kitchen table as he stacked and snapped Legos together.  Legos aren’t easy, especially for a still somewhat clumsy, tired 4-year-old who is unfortunately well on his way to being a perfectionist (if he’s not already there).  He was struggling and audibly frustrated.  So I told him that it was time for his nap – he was just tired and could pick this up after his nap.

This was met with a series of loud “Nos,” some angry tears and a lot of insistence that he wasn’t tired.  I backed off a bit figuring a 5-minute warning might help.  It didn’t.  I had already set the naptime ball in motion – it could not be stopped.  Realizing this, I got Cal moving to the stairs, resisting verbally but cooperating physically.

When we got to the top of the stairs, I asked, “Please go potty first.”  (This was to mitigate the risk of an accident during his nap, which almost always happens at home but almost never at school.)  I said this politely but sternly, leaving as little opening to resistance as possible.  This, too, didn’t work.

“I DON’T HAVE TO GO POTTY!!!!!” Cal exclaimed angrily.  Ella was already napping in her room just down the hall.

“Cal, please just try to go potty,” I insisted, again politely yet sternly and went to grab an Underjam.

“BUT I DON’T HAVE TO GO POTTY!!!!!” Cal exclaimed angrily again.  My proverbial blood was starting to boil.

“Cal, you don’t have accidents at school.  Why is that?  Huh?  Because you go potty before your nap.” And I pulled his pants down and steered him to the toilet.  I was frustrated and showing it.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

“Fine,” and then I threw his Underjam on him and then steered him to his bedroom and into his bed, uttering further frustrated statements as I did.  And then he made the innocent mistake of insisting that he wear pants to bed – a simple, understandable request which I knew even in the moment… but I was already “gone.”  I grabbed a pair of pajama pants and tossed them at him lying in his bed and screamed (I mean screamed) something to the effect of “why does everything have to be so hard, Cal?!?!!!  Everything I ask you to do you say “no” to! EVERY SINGLE THING?!?!!  Why, Cal?!?!!!  Why is that?!?!!!” as I pounded my hands into his mattress.  I even included an “I’m sick” somewhere in there (I really was)… I don’t know why… it just seemed significant at the time.

I then stormed out of his room in tears and headed downstairs – all the way downstairs to the basement – slamming gates and doors behind me.  I lay on the bed in the guestroom in the basement and proceeded to cry out loud (no kidding – I sobbed) for a good 15-30 minutes (I wasn’t keeping track – it felt like hours, really).  I cried myself to a much needed sleep.

The events that had gotten me to that point alone were not enough to justify the tears – in-the-moment frustration, yes; but the tears, not really.  When I asked Cal why EVERYTHING I ask him to do is met with resistance, I meant it.  It’s exhausting, and my capacity to brush it off as his just being a 4-year-old had been dwindling for several weeks.  At that moment, I had no more capacity left to tolerate his blatant disregard for the requests I was making, requests that were more for his benefit than they were for mine.

Someone close to me told me that it’s good that he’s standing up for himself, that he’s voicing his opinions, that he’s not just laying down to authority.  It’s a good trait to have.  I can respect that, but I need him to start balancing it with a hint of reason and calmness.  Not that I want to have to justify everything I ask him to do all the time, but I’d take a reasonable conversation over a fight any day.  “Please go potty, Cal,” I might ask.  “I don’t have to – why do you want me to go potty, Mommy?” Cal might respond calmly.  “To help you not have an accident during your nap,” I might respond.  And then he could come back with “okay” or “I’ll try really hard not to have an accident.”  Even though the latter doesn’t get me what I really want (for him to go potty before nap), there’s a hint of recognition of why I’m asking him to go potty; and I might actually accept it (and prepare myself for certain clean-up later).

I don’t think I’m going to get the “break” that I want.  Cal’s four.  Four-year-olds are unreasonable and do this (so I’m told – this is my first time with one, so I can only go on what others say).  I can’t control how he’s going to react to a situation.  There are two things that are in my control, however – one, I can mitigate the risk of an explosive, negative response and two, I can control how I react. 

It’s now Wednesday.  This happened on Saturday.  All day Sunday and then again on Monday morning and evening (when I saw him) Cal was an angel.  He did things immediately upon being asked and was even proactive, doing things because he knew we would ask but before we actually did ask.  He even pointed this out a handful of times.  “Daddy, I washed my hands before you asked,” he indicated.  It was heavenly, almost sickeningly pleasant.  I have to figure my blow-up played a role in this.

Unfortunately, my blow-up also left me defeated and doubting myself as a parent.  What am I doing wrong?  I know my reaction wasn’t the right one – what IS the right reaction?  Worst of all, I felt I put a distance between Cal and me, one that he had already started filling with more Daddy time – “I want DADDY to put me to bed ALL the time,” Cal stated later on Sunday, which made me sad.  Now, Cal has told me on more than one occasion, “I don’t like you, Mommy.”  The first time he said this, it hurt; the second and third, not as much; and today, not at all.  But coming off the heels of our fight, this was a set-back.  I couldn’t help but wonder if he even liked me anymore.

With the passing of days, it seems that Cal has fully recovered from my blow-up as if it never happened.  Me, I’m still working on forgiving myself for losing my composure and still a little on eggshells as I proceed to parent.  I said earlier that while I can’t control how Cal reacts to a situation, I can mitigate the risk of his lack of cooperation and I can control how I react.  For the former, we’ve recently made good progress with things like having Cal lay out his clothes at night for the next day to eliminate "wishy-washiness" when getting ready for school.  Maybe it’s time we re-introduce the Reward Chart.  Maybe there’s another mitigation idea “out there.”  For the latter, I need to figure this out – I can’t give in to his lack of cooperation; but I can’t blow up, either.  I need to find some middle ground, which may be a mixture of picking my battles and responding coolly accordingly.  He has to take a nap… he has to pick up his toys and books… he has to wash his hands before dinner and brush his teeth before bed.  These are things on which I will not budge.  But maybe the pre-nap potty routine should be more of a recommendation than a rule.

Tonight, Cal ate all of his dinner which qualified him to pick a treat from his Valentine’s Day goodies.  He chose a bite-sized Milky Way.  Standing next to me, he took a bite of it and then asked me if I wanted a bite, too.  Appreciative of and touched by his offer, I took the smallest of bites.  He really is a sweetheart, a good kid.  And he does love me.

Maybe the occasional blow-up isn’t so much damaging as a reason to step back, reassess and make some adjustments.  Maybe Cal inherently knows this.  Maybe I needed to write this to figure it out... and almost believe it.

Cal's Un-Valentines

Our Valentines to Our Kids
(homemade cards and cupcakes)

Dan said on Wednesday that Valentine’s Day is “just another Hallmark holiday.”  I disagree (I think he may, too), and that opinion is not based on any knowledge of the history of the holiday.  I liken Valentine’s Day to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day – it’s a nice checkpoint during the year to go out of your way a bit and let the special people in your lives know that you love and/or appreciate them in a not-so-everyday way.

Getting to Valentine’s Day was hard work, though, in large part due to a head-strong, uncooperative Cal.  Over the weekend, I bought some Valentines for the kids to give to their friends at school.  I remember when I was in school at the handing-out-Valentines age, Valentines were pretty much a palm-sized piece of heavy paper with a cute picture on it, tagged with a simple message like “Be Mine” or “You’re Cool” or “Too Cute.”  On the back were two lines labeled “To” and “From” for kids to fill out accordingly.

Even the most basic of Valentines today are fancier.  They “do” something.  The Valentines I bought for Cal were car-themed – a fairly generic car on one side that folded around a small sheet of stickers that were to be used to decorate the generic car.  There were four different cars with four different sets of stickers, and each had a simple “Happy Valentine’s Day” sentiment on it.  I chose these Valentines because I figured the kids might enjoy decorating the cars with the stickers.  For Ella I bought some Minnie Mouse Valentines that had the traditional simple Valentine messages on the front of them (four different messages on four different cards) and two hearts on the back in which the “To” and “From” names could be written.  What made these fancy were that they came with Minnie pencils – there were two slots on the side of each card through which a Minnie pencil could be positioned.

Fortunately, the kids are in the daycare kind of school where class sizes are limited.  If there are 8 kids in Ella’s class, I’d be surprised.  There are more than that in Cal’s (I think), but not more than 12.  The Valentines I bought came in packs of 16 for 3 bucks a pack.  So my kids each had 16 Valentines to “sign.”

I started the process of getting Cal to sign his Valentines on Monday.  I asked a couple of times, “Cal, do you want to sign your Valentines now?” Each time he responded, “No.”  We had time, so I didn’t press him.  Tuesday came around, and I asked him again.  He actually did sit down at the table and filled out three Valentines, all of his choice – one for Ethan, one for Kalen and one for Ella.  How sweet. Instead of doing more, say, for Mahima or Carmen or Alex, he opted to draw another Valentine for Kalen using the Sharpie pen I had foolishly handed to him to sign his Valentines.  This “project” evolved to involving scissors and ultimately some tape and never amounted to whatever it was he had envisioned in his head and which never would land in Kalen’s hands.

At any rate, I didn’t press him to sign more Valentines on Tuesday, knowing we still had Wednesday.  Big mistake, Mommy.  Don’t you know your head-strong kid?  Wednesday came around and we must have asked him 15 times over the course of our short evening (before dinner… after dinner… probably even during dinner) if he wanted to sign his Valentines.  Each time he answered, “No” and opted instead to jump on the couch or swing his pseudo cowboy rope (aka robe tie) around like a whip.

Why does this have to be so difficult?  Images of Cal’s friends cooperating fully and signing their Valentines for their friends flashed through my head.  Some (like Addie and Carmen) were fully engaged; others (Connor and Kalen) were distracted by the goings on in the background in their homes.  But they were all signing away.

Well, what do we do with this?  I first tried peer pressure.  I thought that maybe if he saw Ella enjoying “signing” her Valentines, he might jump in and want to sign his.  So I propped Ella on my lap as we sat at the island in the kitchen and… gulp… handed her a pen.  Her Minnie Valentines were spread out in front of us back-side up to maximize likelihood that she’d hit paper instead of counter.  And then I guided her through the signing process.  I’d loudly spell her name, enunciating every letter to draw it out a bit, “Eeee… ELlll…ELlll… Aaaa.”  As I spelled she spelled, “Eeeeeeeeeee… Yaaaaaaaaaaa!” and scribbled to her heart’s content.  We did this with every one of her 16 Valentines, giggling as we worked our way through them.  Every one of them was "signed" by our not-yet-2-year-old.  And not once over the course of those 20 minutes or so did Cal sit down at the counter to join us.  Peer pressure did not work.

In the grand scheme of things, whether Cal gives a card that costs less than 19 cents to each of his friends who can't read anyway is not life altering for any of these kids.  I don't actually remember if Perry Romanowski or David Bosko skipped giving me a Valentine one year as kids (heck, maybe they didn't ever give me a Valentine).  The gesture alone is not significant; but the collection of like gestures is.  Giving Valentines is like making a simple "happy birthday" phone call to your cousin on his birthday.  It's simple, doesn't take much time or effort and makes the recipient feel good.  It's just a nice thing to do.  And I want my kids to learn that.

Note to Miss Ally

But I don't want to do it for them. What would they learn from that?  So with Cal's cards unsigned as he went to bed on Valentine's Day "Eve," I knew I wasn't going to sign them for him. I also knew I wasn't going to send him to school without Valentines.  I figured (perhaps more appropriately "hoped") he might regret not having some Valentines to give to his friends during the festivities the next day, and this made me sad.  And to be honest, there was a small piece of me that just didn't want to be "that mom" who "forgot" to buy Valentines for her kid (even though I hadn't forgotten and even though what others think of me without the full story doesn't matter).  So I threw his unsigned Valentines into a Ziploc bag and included a note to his teacher that basically said that we tried but couldn't get Cal to sign his Valentines and that I thought he might want to sign them before giving them to his friends in the moment.

I really believed that would work.  I believed that he would get caught up in the excitement of the moment and sign them (or buckle to peer pressure when he saw other had signed theirs) before handing them to his friends.

Cal returned from school that day with a bag full of Valentines from his friends as well as the Ziploc bag full of his unsigned Valentines.  The kid didn't even hand them out.  When I asked him why he muttered something about Miss Ally either saying "no" or just not reminding him to do it. Whatever it was, I wasn't buying it.

As we opened all of the Valentines and Valentines gift bags from his friends, Cal didn't pay much attention to whom each was from but briefly played with each of the toys in the bags.  And with every Valentine I jealously said to myself, "see, Olivia signed hers... Sydney signed hers... Mahima, Kalen and Connor signed theirs..."

When we picked the kids up at school this evening, I had the pleasure of having this brief, sweet exchange with Carmen, a friend of Cal's in school, one who's been at the school as long as he has:

Carmen: "Did you like my Valentine?"

Me: "We really did!"

Carmen <excited>: "We made it. My mommy did the owl and I cut the paper!"

Me: "You did?! You did an excellent job!  It was very creative.  We really liked it!"

Carmen <not yet satisfied>: "Did CAL like it?"

Me: "He did!"

And that's what it's all about.

Mascara, Medicine and My Maniacs

I feel like in recent weeks my kids’ penchants for getting into things they shouldn’t have grown exponentially.  Both of them.   I hesitate to use the term “grown” -- it’s a bit misleading as it inherently connotes positive things.  Vocabulary grows.  Artistic abilities grow.  Hair grows (which, in the case of bald-when-born Ella, is a good thing to highlight).

At any rate, I’ve seen an uptick in having to respond to situations where my kids are doing something they shouldn’t, specifically, getting into something that could cause them harm.  This was never more noticeable than it was during about a 15-minute window last Sunday. 

I had just gotten out of the shower, which was cut short by a fear that something bad was about to happen.  From the shower stall (conveniently placed with a direct line of sight into the bedroom), I had been keeping an eye on flashes of little bodies dart across my bedroom from the door to the bed and back.  And then I didn’t see the flashes anymore.  This can’t be good, I thought to myself as I ended my shower and exited the stall to quickly towel myself off.  With the shower not running, I could vividly hear the sounds of the kids’ laughter coming from my bedroom.  This brought me both relief and new stress all at the same time.  They were okay; however I had a good guess what they were doing -- they were jumping on the bed.

Now, I know every kid in America wants to jump on his parents’ bed at some time in his life.  I did it.  I’m sure Dan did it.  It’s a rite of passage.  I respect that.  But Ella is not yet 2 and does not have the surest of foot just yet.  And she was “jumping” (to call it that would be misleading; bending her knees and proudly exploding up to her tippy toes would be more appropriate) next to her 4-year-old sibling, Cal… who is… well… a boy.  Images of Cal accidentally taking Ella down by undercutting her and Ella then tumbling off of the bed and into a nearby dresser flashed through my mind.  Laughter turned to painful tears followed by a hurried stuffing of kids in the car for a trip to the Emergency Room.

Needless to say, I put an end to the jumping on the bed, the news of which the kids actually took pretty well.  They then darted out of my room and into Cal’s to frolic in there, unmonitored by Mommy, while I got dressed, the sounds of the kids playing projecting from Cal’s room as I did so.

A few minutes later, I went to check on them.  When I entered the room, I saw the bottom drawer of Cal’s armoire open and barely hanging on to its track.  Ella was stepping away from the drawer, looking at me as she did so – clearly I had interrupted her plan to climb into the drawer.  The doors to the armoire were shut, but there was a noticeable jiggle to the armoire and the shuffling sounds of a body coming from inside it.  Well, I’m finally witnessing this one, I thought to myself.  Dan had told me earlier about Cal’s latest thing to do, which was to climb into his armoire.  How’d he get the doors shut by himself? I wondered.  Ah… Ella. Wait, focus on the situation.

I opened the doors and sternly urged Cal out of the armoire.  I did not have to escalate to threats in order to get him out.  He knew he was in the wrong.  I simply rattled off a bunch of pointed statements to him with the general theme of “get out” and “don’t climb into the armoire anymore.”  I then examined the shelf he had been lying on and noticed it was caving a bit in the front.  I backed up my insistence that he not climb in there anymore with a “see, you’re breaking the shelf, Cal” to which he responded, “Where? Show me.”  So I did, and I think he actually paid attention and saw what I was talking about.

I then headed back to my room to brush my teeth and put my hair up.  Next thing I knew, Cal was rushing into my room to tell me Ella was making her eye black with my makeup.  Goodness.  She must have grabbed my mascara when my attention was on Cal and the armoire.  I rushed in to Cal’s room to find Ella up against the curtains, holding my tube of mascara in one hand, the wand in another.  The tube had black streaks all over it, as did the hand holding the tube.  Her right eye was caked with mascara under it, over it and on each side of it; and she had a couple of blackened bunches of hair.

(Note: the picture on the right is from an earlier Ella-mascara encounter and does not give this latest one justice. When I say the mascara was caked around her eye, it was CAKED.)

Miraculously, her eye was untouched.

I moved swiftly and unthreateningly and cornered her to snatch the mascara tube and wand from her hands.  Once I had the mascara, I grabbed her and hauled her back to my bathroom to clean her up with an unsoaped, wet rag.  I was not gentle as I wiped her clean – I didn’t want her to enjoy this Mommy-Ella time she had created.  As I did so, I also uttered a bunch of warnings that she not do this anymore (it wasn’t the first time), that Mommy’s mascara could really hurt her.  All of that went in one ear and out the other, if it even went into an ear at all.  I likened it to the repeated insistence that she not touch Mommy’s computer yet still does.

And then I smelled it – her diaper needed to be changed.  So with Ella’s eye cleaned up and diaper likely filled with poop, I hauled her off to her room for a diaper change.

I was pulling Ella’s pants up and giving her post-diaper-change kisses when Cal interrupted me by saying it was time for his medicine.  He had been sick with a nasty cough for several days, and we had been giving him some safe-for-kids cough medicine to sooth his throat… medicine that we foolishly had been leaving sitting on our bathroom counter.  I looked up to see him proudly holding the bottle of medicine and the measuring cup that came with it.  I stood up and told him that I would pour it for him; and then I saw it – the medicine bottle was capless, and the 5-tsp measuring cup was filled.  Goodness.  Why aren’t there child-safety caps on these things? I questioned.  With a similar approach used to snatch the mascara from Ella a few minutes prior, I managed to grab the medicine from Cal’s hands, event-free.

I then rattled off another set of rules.  I said things like, “Cal, never give yourself medicine.  Only Mommy or Daddy can give you medicine.”  I may have included “teacher” and “doctor” as qualified medicine-givers in that sentence, just in case he was actually taking me seriously.  “Medicine helps you, but it can be very, very dangerous.”  And I tried to explain what medicine is and how it’s not natural for his body and has strong stuff to fight bad things in his body and how I wished Uncle Perry were there to help me explain that part.  I then bailed on the “what is medicine?” explanation and left it at, “If you take too much medicine, it can hurt you really, really, really bad.”

With the kids, I typically end a barrage of rules with questions for them to be sure they were listening.  With this one, it went like:

Me: “Okay, Cal, are you supposed to give yourself medicine?”

Cal: “No.”

Me:  “Right. And who can give you medicine?”

Cal: “Only Mommy or Daddy.”

I praised him for being a good listener, probably threw in one more don’t-take-medicine-yourself warning to really drive it home and then gave him his tsp of cough medicine to sooth his throat.

It was a high-stress, highly educational 15 minutes of Mommy-kids time; and I hope we all learned something.  I do expect more jumping on the bed and more misused-makeup confrontations with Ella.  But there was something about how Cal reacted to my rants about not climbing in the armoire and about not giving himself medicine that makes me think we actually may not run into that again.  He was intrigued.  I had proof of bad things, at least for the don’t-climb-on-the-armoire shelf one.

As for me, I learned that as child-proof as our house is, we still have a long way to go.  I have since put the medicine out of the kids’ reach and have moved my makeup (what little of it there is) to the back of the counter, just out of Ella’s reach until I come up with a permanent solution that is safe for Ella and not terribly inconvenient for me.  We’ll see how that goes.  In the end, even a lot of inconvenience would be a small price to pay to ensure my curious, trouble-finding kids are safe.