Leprechauns, pancakes, and toilet paper

Tuesdays are my long day on campus. I have two classes that day, for about five hours of total in-class instruction. And then I work between classes (either doing work-work or schoolwork) and squeeze in every in-person meeting possible. It's a tiring day often made more tiring since I seem unable to get a good night's rest any Monday night. 

For example, this Monday, Phoebe was very nervous about St. Patrick's Day. 

She couldn't find any pyjamas that had green on them and she was convinced that someone was going to wake her up with a big St. Patrick's Day pinch (even though we assured her that in our house there is a rule against pyjama pinches). So she had trouble sleeping. 

When she got up in the night crying about this I tried to convince her to just put on some green clothes.

But green clothes aren't pyjamas so she wouldn't be able to sleep in those (duh). 

She ended up getting up permanently around 4:00 in the morning and I...got about 3 hours of sleep total. 

That's not very much sleep to be running on when you're expected to be lucid enough to participate in five hours of instruction time. I'm just saying...

Phoebe was quite excited about St. Patrick's Day, however! She put on her green clothes long before any potential pinchers were awake. And then when they went downstairs and saw what a "Leprechaun" had done to our kitchen table, she just about had a panic attack.

"Stop saying this was a leprechaun!" she shouted at her siblings. "It was Mom! I know it was Mom! It has to be Mom! I don't want any leprechauns in my house! Just stop!"

So, Santa is okay...but she draws the line at leprechauns.

She was right, though, the decorations came from someone who had thrown a party over the weekend (I'm typically not organized to throw together something like this otherwise). Phoebe enjoyed the sparkly stickers.

And here she is with Zoë and Alexander (while Benjamin was still in bed and Miriam was still at seminary):

Although we technically do have that aforementioned "no pyjama pinches" rule, Andrew wisely wore a green t-shirt to bed. The kids were overflowing with St. Patrick's Day spirit by the time they ran upstairs to pounce on Daddy and...let's just say that green t-shirt prevented a few pinches that I'm certain would have happened otherwise.

We of course pulled out the fun St. Patrick's Day hats Auntie K sent years ago, along with the bean bag toss Naanii sent several years back. I didn't get many pictures with those, however, because...I was on campus all day. But the kids had fun!

They worked on some limericks and...had something horrible for dinner. I can't remember what. All I know is that Zoë had told Phoebe early in the morning that she would make green pancakes for dinner...but then she forgot and Tuesday dinners are always a bit of a rush so they had...nachos! That's what they had. Just a real quick something-before-getting-Benjamin-to-swimming meal. 

Phoebe had forgotten about green pancakes right until the moment she stuffed a chip into her mouth. She immediately started crying (see: woke up at 4 am, above).

"I wanted green pancakes!" she wailed, bits of chips flying out of her mouth. 

*****

So we had green pancakes for dinner on Wednesday night. Benjamin doesn't have swimming that evening so dinner is a little more relaxed that day. In fact, we had Benjamin make the pancakes and he did an amazing job!

The first time he made pancakes they were...nasty. Like, burnt on the outside and runny on the inside and just...not great. We politely powered through them but, uh, they were abysmal. 

He's made them a couple more times by himself since then, however, and I've got to say—Wednesday's pancakes were marvelous! Golden brown on the outside, fluffy on the inside! Just perfect! 

A little green, perhaps...but that was intentional. 

*****

Tonight the older kids had a stake Easter activity, so it was just me and Andrew and Phoebe and Alexander for dinner. We had leftovers (super fancy), including pancakes. 

Phoebe was determined to prepare her own pancake. She wanted butter and syrup. 

She started worked before we'd entirely sat down for dinner, so Andrew and I were still talking and bringing things to the table. Phoebe grabbed the butter, dug the knife in, and then...sling-shotted a chunk of butter into the air. 

It went zooming across the room—right in front of our faces (very surprising!)—and then landed with a *splat* on the bench on the other side of the table. 

I showed her how you take delicate scrapes of butter rather than digging the knife in deep and forcing it straight up (sending the butter into the stratosphere).

This is something I've been working on with Alexander as well. Like when he scoops rice (or whatever), he'll dig the spoon straight down and then fling everything upwards. I'm always like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold it so you're scooping sideways..."

They'll get it. 

*****

Independence is difficult to accept. I don't particularly want to admit that my baby—my baby!—is four years old. But she is! The cousins she's closest in age to will be starting kindergarten this year (technically Phoebe misses the cutoff so she won't be in kindergarten until next year). So she's growing up. 

I don't like it. 

And I do.

She also has her misgivings about growing up. 

On the one hand, she enjoyed going to the primary Easter choir practice today. It was two hours long. I had my misgivings about bringing her because it wasn't so long ago that she was howling in the hallway, refusing to enter her Sunbeams classroom. But she was like, "I absolutely want to join the choir with the rest of the kids."

So we took her to the rehearsal today and she was on point the whole time.

"We did an activity where if you didn't know the words you could look at the poster while you were singing but if you did know the words you could look somewhere else in the room," she bragged. "And I didn't look at the poster one time! I didn't know where to look so I just looked where Alexi was looking. But I didn't even look at the poster!"

Big words coming from a lady with rather...primitive...reading skills (like, would it have mattered if she was looking at the poster?! I guess so because that would have meant she didn't know the words but...I'm not sure how much the poster would have helped her...I mean...she can read...but...we're still working on fluency). 

Anyway, she handled herself well the whole time.

Comportment: A+

I sat in a room nearby and did homework and...helped direct kids to the bathroom (the number of children who came by the classroom wondering if it was the bathroom was both astonishing and hilarious).

*****

While Phoebe enjoyed getting to join the choir, there are other parts of growing up that are...more difficult...for her.

Sleeping in her own bed is one easy answer. She wishes she could sleep in our bed all the time. And while I do love snuggling with her...she is such a wiggly, kicky sleeper that I just can't have her in my bed all the time.

Another area she struggles with is...the bathroom.

She is...reluctant...to learn how to wipe her bottom.

She has always struggled with...poop. She just finds it so, so gross. When we were potty training her she would sometimes throw up while pooping because she just found it that gross. Even now a really stinky...toot...can set her gagging. She just does not like poop. At all. 

Sometimes certain foods even set her off...

All this is to say that convincing her to wipe herself after a bowel movement has been and continues to be a...challenge. But we're working through it.

The other day she called me into the bathroom to help her get toilet paper. Se can't really reach the paper from the toilet and for a number of reasons she doesn't like to get off the toilet to get the paper herself, so I help her get it still. That's a concession I'm willing to make. 

"I have an idea of a game we can play," she said conversationally. 

"Oh, yeah?" I said, handing her a carefully-measured portion of toilet paper (she is inclined to want to use the whole roll to avoid accidentally touching any poop, but I insist that she use four squares at a time, neatly folded instead of bunched, which will limit both accidental poop-touchage and clogging the toilet). 

"Yeah! I already pooped this morning and wiped my own bum, but I thought it would be fun if we took turns!" she explained with great enthusiasm. "So now it can be your turn to wipe my bum!"

"Unfortunately, you've reached the age where it's your turn every time you poop," I said with what I thought was a great degree of sympathy.

"WHAT?!" she gasped. "For how long?!"

"For the rest of your life."

That information was just about enough to drive her to tears, but we talked through it and I assured her I could still be there for moral support (even through the most stinkiest of her toilet adventures). It was just time for her to gain the dexterity and...stomach...necessary to take care of herself. Without that I can't really send her off to a friend's house to play or anything like that. Like, she has to be able to take care of herself in the bathroom.

That seemed to sit well with her logically. 

She is growing up, after all, and she's beginning to imagine what it might be like to get to spend time away from Mommy (rude...but fair...I guess) and you really can't do that if you still need your Mommy to wipe your bum. So...she's determined to figure it out for herself.