4.5.07
Some days getting out of the house is a miracle. Take today, for example. Little Miss and I were going to visit a new baby in our family. She was excited about this both because she loves babies and because she helped shop for the presents.
We had three hours to get ready.
Three hours seems like an awful lot of time for one woman and one small girl to shower, get dressed, and get into the car.
Mm-hmm. You’d think, wouldn’t you?
It started with she couldn’t get in the shower because she was watching something, and then she couldn’t get in the shower because she had to tell me something… “I never met my brother and sister before that first time, Mom. I never met them before so I was shy. And a little nervous, too, Mom. You know, I was nervous.”
It’s probably not polite to laugh when a little girl tells a serious story, but I was choking back the giggles. Nervous? Where on earth did she learn that word? And how does she know to apply it to an experience she had last September? Her vocabulary amazes me at the same time it cracks me right up.
Anyway. After finally showering there’s the whole matter of getting dressed. For her I’d picked blue jeans with adorable decorative stitching and a matching belt, along with a fluffy pink sweater. But… “I want to wear shorts.”
“It’s not shorts weather, silly, it’s pants weather.”
“I want to wear a skirt. Do we have new tights yet?”
“No. We don’t have tights. And it’s pants weather.”
“Are these easy jeans? They don’t look like easy jeans. They have a zipper and a snap – Mom, that’s not easy jeans. I want to wear shorts.”
Go ahead and loop this conversation as many times as you’d like because it never actually ends.
I finally talked her into the jeans and finished getting myself ready.
Dang, it’s socks and shoes time and I think we’ll be walking out the door on time for once.
“Okay, Mom, okay. But I have to pick out my own shoes.” She proceeds to line up two pairs of shoes.
“The pink ones fit better,” I offer.
“Shh – I have to count them. 1, 2, 3, 5. Oh! There’s one missing. I have to count them again. 1, 2, 3, 5.”
“Four,” I say.
“What? What did you say? Huh?”
“Four. You forgot the number four.”
“Oh, yeah, right. 1, 2, 3, 4. Four shoes!”
In the middle of all this I’m trying to sneak the socks over her toes. “No socks while I count! You’re messing up my counting!”
She counts again, decides four is a good number, then chooses the acceptable pair of shoes, and allows socks, shoes, and sweater to be put on her body.
As I grab my own sweater she slips past the gate that’s keeping the dog (read: mudball) in the back porch. “I’m going outside, Mom. Don’t worry, I don’t need my jacket,” and she’s out the door.
I hurry into my boots and coat figuring I’ll catch up with her in the driveway. But too late. Daddy pulls up to the house in his truck. Fast forward to every waking nightmare that one of us runs over our own child. Stop tape when I hear, “What are you doing outside without your jacket? Does your mother have rocks in her head?”
Chaos ensues as child rushes into the house, dog dashes out, husband sighs in exasperation, and I say, “Ha-ha, listen to you sigh. I’m on aggravating moment #58 already today.”
Little Miss says, “Oh no!” and runs outside after the dog.
Of course it’s inevitable… wipeout… wailing… mud from head to toe.
I know my relatives would like to see her because it’s been awhile. But I’m already exhausted. I don’t think I can stand another argumentative change of clothes. Or another fifteen minutes counting shoes. I decide to leave without her. I called after putting gas in the car to see if I should give her another chance to come, but after I left she had a colossal tantrum during which she rolled off her bed and struck her face on the open nightstand drawer. The result was a goose egg, a black eye, and a bloody nose. Wow, that’s a tantrum, all right.
Sigh. Sometimes you bully your way through, but sometimes it’s best to just give up.
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