. . . when your two-year-old daughter spits on the floor in her bedroom.
Blatantly, shamelessly spits on her bedroom floor.
I didn’t even have to say anything. I think the appalled look on my face must have told her that behavior was completely unacceptable.
She quickly scuffed her shoe over the spit on the floor and smiled nervously. “Don’t worry, Mom. I cleaned it up with my shoe!”
So, if I die, I guess Mara can raise Micah.
This afternoon, as they were playing, I watched her hand him a toy police car. And then I watched him fling it across the room.
Mara calmly went to pick up the car and brought it back to Micah. (This is a major improvement over some of their previous interactions, let me tell you!)
“The Bible tells us, ‘Be kind to one another,'” she declared emphatically. “Now: ‘Be kind to one another,’ Micah! And take this!” she added, thrusting the police car back into his hands.
He took it.
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Mara (to me): We have a lot of things to do today.
Me (repeating): We have a lot of things to do today?
Mara: Yeah! We have to ice cream shop! We want some ice cream!
She is her father’s daughter!
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Tonight I took some pictures of the kids sitting together in their Halloween PJs. I always tell them “Say [something]” (to get a smile) and tonight I was saying, “Say ‘babyyyyy!’ . . . Say ‘little sisterrrrrrr’!”
But Mara had her own idea. As I’m taking the picture, she’s saying: “We’re potty-trainnnnned!”
I put the camera down. “Why are you saying that?”
“Because we’re potty-trained,” she answered.
“No, you’re potty-trained,” I told her. “Micah is not. He still wears diapers.”
“But I’m potty trained, and you’re potty-trained. And Daddy’s potty-trained.” She looked quite pleased with her conclusion. And said it again: “We’re potty-trainnnnned!”
Oh, my. . . she should be a lawyer for sure.
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Daniel gets off at 8 p.m. tonight, and the Phillies are playing the Yankees tonight in the World Series.
So this morning before Daniel left, we told Mara that, if she took a long nap, she could get up and watch the Phillies when Daddy came home.
I had her go to bed after her bath, just to rest a bit before the game.
As I went to turn out her light, I overheard . . .
Pink Bear (albeit Mara’s voice): “What we going to watch in the morning when Daddy comes home?”
Mara: “Phillies!”
Pink Bear: “Phillies?!?!”
Mara (to me since I stood frozen by the light): “He was asking.”
Me: “Ah. Good night.” I turned out the light and closed the door.
Last week I found myself once again in the grocery store with two toddlers.
Honestly, it is getting MUCH better! Micah is learning that he has to stay in the shopping cart without fussing (and no, he cannot stand up in the seat!), and Mara rides (or walks beside me) without incident most of the time. In the grocery store parking lot, Mara’s eyes are fixed on the shopping cart selection, hoping against hope that a “little blue car” (with two steering wheels–one for her, one for Micah) will be available.
Well, on this particular day, we did find a cart, but being in the inner-city, someone had removed both steering wheels, rendering the cars, in Mara’s mind, useless.
An elderly man walked by and smiled at the kids. “Are you driving?” he asked cheerfully.
With a doleful expression, Mara shook her head. “Nooo. It doesn’t have a steering wheel.”
Soon enough she cheered up though, when I told her the other option was to ride in a regular shopping cart.
She then began alternately shouting “Prepare to DIE!!!” and loudly singing “YOU are ALWAYS with me, JESUS! Where can I GOOOOOO? Where can I HIIIIIDE?” (from Sovereign Grace’s Awesome God CD).
We made it through my list without incident. Although it was almost noon, so the kids were getting hungrier by the minute.
As I bagged the groceries in the checkout line and tried to watch the cashier ring up each item, Micah kept reaching for everything I put in the back of the shopping cart.
He reached for bananas. He reached for grapes. Ginger snaps.
And suddenly I turned around to see my 16-month-old son sitting there in the shopping cart, holding a pork chop! It happened in just an instant, while my back was turned. Apparently he had reached into the bag behind him, clawed through the cellophane wrap and pulled out the raw meat!
It’s moments like these when you want to grab the raw pork chop out of your son’s hands, look around the store and exclaim, ‘Has anybody seen his mother?!’
People around us were laughing–and, quite frankly, I was surprised how quickly a small child could capture the attention of several checkout lines without making a sound. A Shoprite employee grabbed the meat and offered to re-wrap the remaining portion. Another brought me paper towels doused in hand sanitizer to wipe Micah’s hands.
The cashier said, “I think he’s hungry.”
And as I was leaving, a man a few lines down called out, “Take that boy home and FEED him!”
———-
As if I didn’t feel sufficiently inept to be a stay-at-home mom after the grocery store episode . . . I dropped the bag holding two dozen eggs on the floor as soon as I got home.
And the casserole that was supposed to bake at 350 for an hour? . . . Somehow it baked at 500 for the first 45 minutes . . . ??
Wow . . . what a day!
From the dining room, I could see Mara standing motionless holding–of all things–one of the dog bones!
“What are you doing, Mara?” I called to her.
“I’m doing church!” she exclaimed.
And I knew exactly what she was doing. Every week, we have communion. Someone at the front of the church holds the bread, and we all file past them, pulling off a piece of bread and dipping it in the cup.
Mara was pretending to hold the bread for communion.
I thought it was pretty funny, so I took her picture. After which, she said, “Can I see?”
She took one look at her picture and said, “Take it again.”
Instantly, she lowered her head and looked ever so solemnly and the “bread.” (Quite frankly this pose looks much more like someone actually serving communion!) I guess she realized she didn’t have the proper stance in the first picture!
This girl cracks me up!
