It's just a normal Monday 'round here

 It's been a morning of educational experiences...For example, if you leave a three year old to her own devices she will improvise a stool or chair out of whatever she can find available.  In this case, overturning the cat's litter box and dragging the box to the desired location to use as height enhancement.  So, in this New Englander's hurricane preparedness kit, there will need to be some wine to balance out the skeeviness factor of being mostly sure, but not absolutely sure that I have cleaned up all the random litter pebbles and wiped down all surfaces that could have been touched. 

 

When the rest of the region is preparing for a hurricane, it is a super time to contract pinkeye as a family.  I mean, no better time.  It keeps things fun and frisky, just not in that Cosmo cover-story kind of way.   Also, as a side note,  our doctor's offices have recently moved into a new complex.  While they are technically closer than before, I failed to factor in the "We've-never-been-here-before-can-we-touch/look at/lick it" factor.  Yes, lick.    I don't know what sensory madness possesses one of my children, but things continue to be touched with the tongue well beyond the age and stage where the world is experienced by the mouth primarily.    So yes, I did enter into the waiting area of our new doctor's office saying "Do not EVER lick the elevator buttons again.  EVER." 

 

Related to the above, there is fabulous art displayed in the entrance and it just happens that the entry is an echo chamber.  We walked the length of the hall with Little One chanting "Echo…echo…echo…Do you hear me?  I'm saying 'echo'."   An older gentleman stopped us and said "Boy, she really likes it here doesn't she!  I bet she could really get running in here if you turned her loose!  It's like a race track!"  Um, thanks, but no.

 

With all of this entertainment, we walked into the waiting room as they were calling our name.  Of course, the fact that four of our collective six eyes were cotton candy pink may have had something to do with getting us out of the waiting room quickly…

 

If you want maximum fun, come home with children who are a little frenzied by the impending storm and the ambient stress of all the adults around them and convince them that you need to put greasy, goopy medicine in their eyes every three hours and just for fun, estimate how frequently you will say "NO! You cannot touch your eyes!"  (HINT:  'cuz I like ya….It's a lot!)

No one to blame but myself...

 

It is the season.  That weirdly  all encompassing Merry HallowThankMas season that moves Miss Five in consumerist kinds of ways.  It begins with the first roadside pumpkin stand which sends us almost immediately into "Ineeedacostuuuuume!" and "Can we put this on my Santa list?".    

Don't get me wrong, I remember when the Penney's catalog would arrive in our mailbox in late August, (bear with me here….I know some of you have no idea what I'm talking about), my sister and I would sit down with our notebook paper and a pen and circle everything we wanted and write out detailed lists that enumerated page number, color, description, etc.   When we were done, we would start again and add things we had missed the first time.  Avarice and greed did not begin with my daughter's generation.    I am a consumer from word one.

Today we went to buy Miss Five's costume.  She is no longer content to be the adorable and cuddly costume wearer.  Now she wants to be fierce and flashy; dangerous and dastardly.  We settled in the middle on a witch costume that was more tricks and treats than "tarty".  I was congratulating myself on our compromise when I turned over the tag.  Are you kidding me?  $45 for a KMart costume?  Now I had to convince her to scale back her costume wishes once again. 

The problem was, I had just done such a good job of convincing her that this costume was the epitome of cronely comeliness  that now she was locked in.    Not budging.  Completely, utterly,  mired to the mudflaps stuck.  And….I had done it to myself.  Damn.

Just for a sidecar of entertainment, it should be noted that Little One has just turned three, no longer wishes to stay in the cart and was free-range in the double wide aisle of simultaneous ghoulish wailing and crepey mummies lurching to the tune of Jingle Bells, while Mickey in a blow-up snow globe frolicked with one of his pals who needed a hefty dose of something designed to treat erectile dysfunction.  Good times people, …good times.
After trying every crafty, loosely disguised bribe I could think of, I finally resorted to holding out the two items I could reasonably both condone and afford and asked her to choose.  She simply could not.  I had derailed her Halloween train and there was no hope of bringing her back.  She allowed me to choose one for her and we walked out of the Holiday zone with her crying and moaning dramatically.  Two aisles later I turned to her as she said "I just don't understand why you told me I could get it and then said I couldn't.  That's so mean I can't stop crying."  True to Miss Five's style, she never brings up a tough conversation when we are alone or in a place where we can have a thoughtful conversation.  We were standing at an end-cap of feminine hygiene products and Little One was flinging box after box into the cart with wild abandon stating loudly "I need these pencils with the flowers on the box!"  (Now from the safety of my home, I can see the humor.  Not so much then.)

In sheer fatigue and desperation,  I finally said to Miss Five "I just can't spend $40 on a costume for one day.  Does that make sense?"  And this is where she shows me that I have still SO much to learn about parenting.  "Mama?  Why didn't you just say that?  $40 for a costume is crazy.  And look how cool this one is!"  

Wait.  What just happened here? 

I'd like to say the heavens opened up and there was glorious birdsong and harp music, but truthfully there were more fits and starts before we got out of the store and the moment was soon forgotten in the craze of two children with four hands and two loud voices and consumer mindsets.  But in that singular moment I was so proud of her and so humbled by her ability to see outside of her own need.    

And then, she was back to her own self  before we were buckled into the car.  "Mom?  Do you think Santa would bring me that too 'spensive costume for Christmas?"

I bet he will.  Right after he does the Monster Mash with a giant turkey bearing a basket of candycanes.    Merry HallowThankMas!