Feb 5, 2015

The Daily Mooooooovie, and Other Random Tales In Brief...

Tiny E and I have a daily ritual. We get the boys off to school, and then she says "Mom, I wanna watch a moooooovie." And so each morning she picks out a moooooovie to watch while I do my back exercises and general puttering about the house, and then we go on with our day.

Like most kids (I assume), she goes in spurts with her favorites. We spent several weeks watching all the Shreks, interspersed with a couple weeks of The Princess Bride, along with the occasional Pixar Short Films compilation. And of course over the holidays we upped the electronics consumption so we could indoctrinate them with show all our favorite Christmas movies.

Well our efforts have not been in vain. Here, in the first week of February, Tiny E has decided that she likes A Christmas Story. She says, "I wanna watch A Christmas Story," and I'm all "Really? It's a Christmas movie," and she's all, "Yep, I wanna watch it."

Sometimes I struggle with really small matters of principle. I mean, should I allow this unseasonal consumption? Will it destroy the Christmas magic later in the year? But I decided to allow the movie for several reasons, most of which are inconsequential. Mostly, I decided that it simply doesn't matter that much to me, and for a little kid she has really good taste in movies, and heck I'd rather watch A Christmas Story over the Buddies franchise most any day.

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In other random news, His Highness was getting ready for school today when I looked in his closet and found no pants. No school uniform pants is a problem to begin with, but I was even more surprised to find no pants whatsoever. "Geez, you're completely out of pants. Let me go check the dryer."

Well I went to check the dryer and found that it was still damp from the night before. Dangit. I started it, but upon checking the clock I realized there wasn't time for the clothes to dry properly before the bus came.

I said, "I'm sorry Your Highness, I'm not sure what to do. The pants won't be dry in time."

He replied, surprisingly calmly and somewhat cryptically, "Oh don't worry Mom, I'm sure I can work something out."

I'm all, "Whatever," and ran off to put out a fire or some such Mom nonsense that goes on during school mornings.  I returned to find him putting on pants he had pulled from under his bed. I said, "What, do you have some sort of pants stash under there?" And I took a look and found he did, indeed, have some sort of pants stash under the bed, containing enough clean pants to get him through the rest of the school week.

I questioned him but got no comprehensible answer as to his reasoning for a pants stash. The most logical guess I can make is that when it comes to his newly-acquired responsibility of hanging his own laundry, he didn't want to bother with the pants clips and tossed them under the bed so I wouldn't find them and nag him to hang up his pants already.

I kind of wish I'd thought of that. This kid has a lot to teach about simplifying chores.

*****

And finally, a story about the Littler One. We joke that he'll either grow up to be President of the United States, or the dictator of a small Latin-American country. He's been giving me a hard time about obeying lately. Like, instead of the more passive-aggressive procrastination and overall dilly-dallying, he'll just flat-out refuse in his most intimidating voice. So I've been attempting to tread the line of having compassion, but also not taking any guff, Mister. Which results in some really interesting conversations around our house.

Anyway, last night I was on the final stretch toward bedtime. Everyone was bathed and dressed, and I was herding them toward the hallway for the brushing of the teeth and the reading of the books (The Cat Daddy wisely steered clear, as I do when it's his turn to do bedtime). His Highness and Tiny E had brushed teeth, but the Littler One, as usual, kept finding urgent distractions to keep him from succumbing to this vicious nightly ritual we call rest, while I was being pulled by the distractions of small children trying to trash the place on the way to their bedrooms.  So along the way I kept asking and asking, and he kept disappearing toward the bathroom, only to be pulled toward the siren songs of toys and books.

Well finally, I said, "DID YOU BRUSH?!?!?" and he replied, "YES!!!!" and I said, "I'm going to check your toothbrush!" because I had put the paste on all the brushes so I'd be able to tell if his had been used or not.

So he ran off and shut the bathroom door. I thought for a second and decided that he was full of it, and was only just then brushing his teeth, and lying to me, and I had just had enough. I barged in, and he gave a little yelpy scream and tried to wedge himself and his toothbrush behind the door, but I am strong and wiry and clever, and I wrestled him for his toothbrush and went to feel the bristles, only I came away with more toothpaste on my finger than I had put on the brush to begin with.

I looked, and the toothpaste I now held on my finger was a completely different type than I had put on for him to brush with. It was his sister's toothpaste, which is pink, and which he'd rather die than be caught using, so I was greatly surprised. I said, "What the--"

Suddenly a look of victory came over his face. He was laughing and said, "I trapped you Mom, it was a TRAP!!!"  And he ran off, bragging to His Highness, "Guess what, I trapped Mom!" while I washed the toothpaste off my finger. He was gleeful, in fact. I feel like he felt he had leveled-up somehow in his grasshopper-mom-bewilderment training.

Here's the thing--my kids surprise me in little ways all the time, but they very rarely leave me speechless. However, in this instance I had no words. Like, how do I even enter the process whereby the Littler One thought he would put toothpaste on a toothbrush to trip me up? Was getting toothpaste on my fingers the original goal, or just a happy byproduct of goofing off? And the most obvious question, to remain forever unanswered: did he ever actually brush his teeth, or was that just new toothpaste on top of the original dose I put on there?

All of this points to reasons we won't be surprised if he somehow grows up to overthrow a small Latin-American government and instill himself as dictator. Because he pretty much does whatever he wants, and laughs maniacally when things go his way.

*****

So, how was your Thursday??

1 comment:

Judi said...

Love this post!