Ella's Fruit-Loop Necklace

One of Ella’s teachers told me a story yesterday while I was picking the kids up from school.  She started it by telling me that they’re working on Ella’s listening skills (sweet – Mommy and Daddy need some help); and at the center of this listening exercise was a Fruit-Loop necklace, handmade primarily by Ella by looping a string through a bunch of Fruit Loops and then tied together by her teacher to form a necklace that she could put on or off herself by simply pulling it over her head.

One can imagine the temptation that a Fruit-Loop necklace might present to a kid, particularly one who doesn’t usually get to eat Fruit Loops.  We regularly buy Frosted Mini Wheats (“Daddy’s cereal”), Honey Bunches of Oats (“Mommy’s cereal”) or Oatmeal Squares and (unfortunately) have a half-eaten thing of tastes-like-eating-bark Grape Nuts from a diet attempt that’s just taking up good cereal space in our pantry.

Needless to say, Ella gave in to the temptation soon after putting her new necklace around her neck and ate a Fruit Loop off of it.  Her teacher, Ms. Cece, saw this and politely told her that she was not supposed to eat any of the Fruit Loops off of the necklace until Mommy and Daddy said it was okay to do so later.

Ella proceeded to eat more of them.  Ms. Cece reminded her of the rule and specifically asked her not to “eat all of the Fruit Loops” off of her necklace.

Some time passed by, and Ms. Cece looked again at Ella and noticed that most of the Fruit Loops were now gone from Ella’s necklace (three were left) and confronted her about it.  She asked her why she had eaten "all of the Fruit Loops" after having been asked not to do so a couple of times.

Ella responded with shock in her tone, “Ms. Cece, I didn’t eat all of the Fruit Loops!” and showed Ms. Cece that she still had a few on her necklace.

Ella & what's left of her
Fruit-Loop Necklace

Ella had gotten Ms. Cece on a technicality.  Ms. Cece knew it, and I’m certain Ella knew it.

Ella managed to make it all the way to Cal’s swimming lesson that night without eating her three remaining Fruit Loops.  Half way through his lesson, Ella actually asked me if she could eat them.  I told her that she couldn’t because they don’t allow people to eat food in the pool area.  She proceeded to eat them… all three of them.

No technicality there – she had completely disregarded my direction.  I didn’t even do anything about it.  I just did my “whatever” smirk, shook my head slightly back and forth and rolled my eyes.  I really didn’t want to get into it with her at that moment over three Fruit Loops.  I just wanted to watch Cal swim and also knew that still ahead of me was our daily battle getting her into bed for the night.  I wonder if we can recruit Ms. Cece to help with that.