The Kidling has taken a keen dislike for blueberries. Once her favorite fruit, she now specifically requests her yogurt sans those tasty little morsels of berry goodness. The Dada commented on the transformation, telling Alice, “You used to gobble blueberries down like candy!” Without missing a beat, The Kidling replied, “Now I don’t! Now I gobble candy down!”
And she’s right. Sigh.
We were out running errands one recent weekend when I loaded the trunk with The Family’s exciting new acquisitions (Toilet paper and kale. Jealous yet?), closed the trunk, and hopped in the car. As we were preparing to drive away, The Kidling noticed that the trunk was cracked open. You see, the back seat of our new-to-us car has a nifty fold down arm rest with even niftier storage hidden inside. This means
The result of item two is that Alice has a view into the trunk. This can be funny, such as the time she told me she really wanted to climb into the trunk NOW before her bottom gets too big to fit.
Let’s pretend she didn’t get that from watching me try to squeeze under the couch, okay?
It can also, apparently, be useful. Such was the case on this day, when The Kidling yelled to notify me of the deficiency in my trunk closing abilities. I thanked her, and she responded,
“Sometimes I can be a big helper. Like now! I helped you that time. And it was good.”
And on the seventh day, The Kidling rested.
The Mama went on a business trip, The Kidling went on vacation, and The Dada had Our House to himself.
Not a bad deal, really.
Upon The Family’s reunion, I asked The Dada how he enjoyed his time alone:
The Mama: (to The Dada) Did you like having a nice, quiet house?
The Dada: (nods)
Alice: Now there’s lot’s of chit-chat and stinky smells. (to The Mama) Toot in your own room!
Heh heh. Why, um… Kids say the darndest things…
As in “wear.” Underwear.
This post might not be suitable for adolescent boys, my father, stepfather, or father-in-law.
Consider yourself warned.
The Mama has a fondness for fancy panties. Not to be confused with fancy pants, fancy panties are a clandestine indulgence for my comfort and general happiness. I am boring about said panties, and have exactly one style in two colors: black and nude.
Practical, no? I never said it was exciting.
The problem with my beloved, if practical, fancy panties is that I have a tendency to leave them on the floor. And I have a dog. Who has a tendency to chew on anything made of paper or fabric that she finds on or near the floor. And did I mention that I am cheap? While I obviously throw away anything that gets destroyed, I might or might not have a few pairs of fancy panties with a small hole.
The Mama is one classy lady.
Which brings me to this anecdote. I know you wondered where the hell I was going with this one. I was getting ready for work yesterday when The Kidling noticed a small hole near the waistband of my boring fancy panties.
“Mom, you have a hole in those,” she informed me.
I pretended I didn’t know it was there and thanked her onto pointing out the deficiency. She, in turn, offered some unsolicited advice: “Maybe you should throw them away so there isn’t a hole where you pee from.” *
Throw them away? Waste not, want not, girlie. Nice try.
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* Which, by the way, was not actually the case. But it was darned funny.
Last week, The Mama traveled for work.
And The Dada carted The Kidling off to Nana and Papa’s house.
Before you judge (which I obviously set you up to do), this was kind of justified. The Dada stayed home with The Kidling for four of seven work days (three because pre-school was closed for conferences, and one because she was sick). Then I got sick. Then he got sick.
Oh yeah, and it was his birthday.
See? A fully justified abdication of parenting duties.
The Kidling was lucky to spend the weekend with Nana, Papa and her cousin, The Kidd-0.
And Nell. The cutest damn dog on the planet.
The Dada being a good dada-type, he drove to Nearby Town to pick up The Kidling and The Kidd-o and cart them back to Our Town.
And our car on the drive home is the setting for this story. You see, the girls spent approximately 3/4 of the drive drawing pictures in notebooks. They are both five, and you might have heard that five-year-old children do not realistic artists make.
Suddenly, The Kidling had an idea. She thought that one girl should draw a picture and the other should guess what the drawing is meant to depict. The Kidd-0 took the first turn as artist. When it came time for Alice to make her guesses, she scrutinized the drawing carefully. After several moments, she guessed.
Alice: Is that some kind of weird-looking robot?
The Kidd-o: No.
Alice: Is it a strange underwater sea creature?
“No,” The Kidd-o lamented, “it’s a sheep!”
What do these things have in common? Besides, of course, evidence of my need to stay away from Sephora and our local drugstore.
12 oz. Suave Kids 2-in-1 Shampoo Smoothers in Strawberry
6 oz. Bumble and bumble Sunday Shampoo
4 oz. Bumble and bumble Super Rich Conditioner
10 squirts TRESemme Touchable Softness Shampoo
3 squirts Laura Mercier Flawless Skin Face Polish
The drain. They have the drain in common. As in, The Kidling decided they really don’t belong in their respective bottles; rather, they belong in the drain. In our drain, specifically.
Those of you who know me in real life might recall a certain Facebook lament regarding a rather pricy bottle of shampoo. It went something like this, “Saturday lesson: don’t leave a five-year-old child alone in the shower with a $25 bottle of shampoo.”
Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I hate being shamed.
Alas, I deserve every little bit of shame you might choose to bestow for an incident that occurred one recent evening. I went into the bathroom to get The Kidling out of the shower and noticed the fill line on my super terrific, super expensive Super Rich conditioner was significantly lower than it had been upon her entrance into said shower. Before saying anything to Alice, I took stock of the situation. I observed:
Shit.
So I began the inquisition.
I asked The Kidling which products she had used. She gave me count of the number of squirts she had taken, including a confession that she had used “lots” of squirts from several of the bottles. I asked what she did with so many squirts, and she told me she had washed her hair and body as well as the shower’s walls and floor.
It is hard to be angry with a kid who did exactly what she was told to do in the shower and then decided to clean up after herself just to be nice.
So I laughed. Then I asked, “And when you were done, did you use a little more just to be sure?”
Silence.
Then, “Yeah.”
I hope she never grows up.
Monday night, The Kidling improvised a magnificent song. It was a lilting ballad, sung in her pitch-perfect contralto. A love song, if you will, and the object of her affection was The Mama—Not muffins. Not Nana. Not Clifford, spaghetti, nor even the mighty theropod. No, on this one, glorious evening, her lyric told a story of love, and it was all for The Mama.
That’s right. Me.
And she delivered every note of this wee tune whilst staring at The Dada.
I didn’t bother to stifle my giggle.
“I always tell— Most of the time I tell the truth. But sometimes I tell lies.”
-Alice Munchkin Kidling
January 17, 2013
