For the last two weeks, The Littlest Critic has been bereft of her stuffed giraffe, Dedan. A gift from Grandma, this toy accompanied the book Dedan Saves the Day. She took it to school to have at naptime and we put it neatly into her cubby.
Then someone stole it or did something else nefarious to it, and this little brute did it before naptime, so TLC was without Dedan for naptime. Needless to say, she did not nap. That night, she told me there was another little boy there who had a giraffe similar to Dedan and the last time she'd taken hers to school, he had thought hers was his. Not unlike the plot of the recent, excellent sequel Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity. (If you're unfamiliar with Mo Willems, stop being a chump and check him out!)
Try as I might, I couldn't get TLC to cough up a name of the little boy, then she later began denying the story and muddying the waters with conflicting accounts. This, this is why children are so rarely called to the witness stand.
We searched high and low, myself, The Wife, the teachers, the teachers' aides. Everyone. We looked in the stack of cots, we triple checked her cubby, we rooted through the tubs of blankets & pillows, we checked shelves. Everywhere.
Nada. Dead end. A notice was placed on the dry erase board: "Missing: One giraffe." And we waited. And waited.
Meanwhile, over the past two months, TLC has been trying desperately to learn how to snap her fingers. She's rubbed her finger on her thumb over and over. She's wept bitter tears at her failure. She's made me snap my fingers over and over to watch how it's done and we've done that until she's just been mad at me for being able to snap my fingers.
Yesterday, The Wife went to pick up TLC at school, and my daughter ran to her and said, "It's a beautiful day! I got Dedan back and look!" Whereupon she awesomely snapped her fingers again and again. "I can snap!"
And she snapped all day and she snapped all night. And when it was bedtime, she lay in bed, holding Dedan clutched under one arm, snapping her fingers in the dark.
It really was a beautiful day.
2 comments:
Oh, this is so sweet! And timely, too! I was just thinking this morning about how I forgot to give you some advice when you went back to working an 8 to 5 job (based on my personal observations while I was still employed.)
When you pick up TLC from school, you are to continue talking into your cellphone or Bluetooth headset. Do not break off your conversation on your phone, or even establish eye contact with TLC, not even for one measly "Hi, honey. How was your day?"
I broke this rule while picking up my children and I think I've been permanently demoted to the lower third of my neighborhood pecking order as a result.
I thought I was going to be demoted last night. For the last three months, I've been persona non grata with her. During story times, the moment her mother shows up, it's all, "Mommy's here, Mommy's here, time to take over, Mommy." And I'm kicked out. That sort of thing.
She used to flip flop back and forth between us, but the last three months have been consistent.
Anyway, so TLC, like a lot of four year olds, thinks spitting is funny, and last night during stories, she spit in my eye. Accidentally, I think.
She was very stirred up all that night from being up later than usual and not having had a full nap at school and from sneaking candy (I think).
I tried to talk to her about why spitting is mean, why we don't do it, why we don't do it in the house, and why we definitely don't do it at another person.
All the while she was sticking her tongue out and making "lalalala" noises. I explained that if she didn't listen, storytime was over and I'd turn out the light. She continued lalalala-ing, so off went the light.
She flipped even worse than usual, kicking her legs, screaming, the works. I got her calmed down by explaining that there are consequences for being bad and this is one of them. I said, you can have your choice of punishments. I can do something mean back to you, like spank you or slap you, or I can take something good away from you, like more stories or some of your toys. I explained that I didn't like option one, because I don't believe in spankings, but that she'd probably like option one even less than she was liking option two.
I went on to explain that if she kept up the tantrum about no more stories, there'd be an additional consequence she wouldn't like.
Eventually, she settled down and fell asleep. I was sure by morning I'd be back to being nobody, but I must have lucked out because we were still best buds again at morning.
It must be the less shouting that's behind my rise in the polls.
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