Two Stories

First, a Monkey story. Last night, getting ready for bed, Monkey climbed on the outside rung of her crib, grabbed the top rail, and kind of arched her back. I told her not to do that and she asked, "Will it break, Momma?" I said, "No the crib won't break, but you might break something. Remember when Lucy (a doll in her favorite Little Bear book) fell out of the tree and broke her arm? That can happen to you, too, but I can't use tape to fix it like Little Bear. I'd have to take you to the hospital for a doctor to fix it."

She looked at me with big eyes and I saw my poor girl visibly shrink before me. She and Turtle started talking about all the ways they could break their arms, and I tried to backtrack. "Oh, you know, maybe you wouldn't break anything, maybe you'd just get an ouchie on your head and you'd cry and need ice, but even then you know, Mommy will always be here to take care of you." Blah Blah Blah. It was too late. I crushed Monkey's skiing/gymnastics/horseback riding career before she ever had a chance to dream about it. The last words she said as I tucked her in were "on ladders, in cribs, in trees, in LOTS of places."

Now, a Turtle story. Tonight we were pretty late getting the girls to bed because I took them out to a little potluck dinner going-away party for their Heartsong Music teacher, who is moving to go to graduate school. Once home, we rushed to hustle the girls into bed and I was trying to help Turtle brush her teeth. She wouldn't open her mouth, she sucked on the toothbrush, and was generally uncooperative, so I gave that up and moved on to trying to wash her hands. She wrestled with me over it and then she kind of screamed and flailed her hands under the faucet, splashing water all over the sink and mirror. I took a step back, put my hands on my hips without saying anything, and gave her a raised-eyebrows "I'm not happy about this" look in the mirror. She met my gaze in the mirror. Then she said, "This is not going well."

After Twin Daddy and I stopped laughing, we got them to bed without much trouble.