Thursday in Three Acts

Act I

It's 7:53 am. Time to pile into the truck to take Chris to work. Madeline is happily playing with her Little People Farm and not particularly interested in getting a move on. Chris tries to win her co-operation, "Dad gets to be the Bad Guy," he says, moving to scoop her up, "Time to go!" Madeline moves away from his arms as quickly as she can, squealing. Back to playing with the wee plastic cow, pig, and rooster. My turn to try. "Madeline, I think that your animals would love to go for a car-ride with you!" I say, thinking that I'd hit upon a win-win situation for my two favourite people. Alas, no bite either.

Two different tactics, same result. A remote-controlled toddler would come in handy on some mornings.

Act II

Dinnertime. Madeline is intent on mastering the art of the spaghetti slurp. Sometimes she does it wonderfully. Sometimes she gets mixed up and instead of sucking in, she blows out. Stray noodles go flying all over the table.

Act III

The gingerbread house sits on the dining table, and Madeline pulls me over. "Ginger-house, please" she says. I did promise a bite of gingerbread if she ate most of her dinner. I ask her what part she'd like, and she picks one of the tree-shaped cookies that she and Chris decorated this past weekend. I start the task of removing all of the jellybeans and hard candies from the tree before passing it to her. Madeline's little hand reaches out and grabs a red jellybean. "Have this?" she asks, and I shake my head. "But I big boy!" she insists, "I big boy!" I want to laugh my head off, but I just give her a hug. And eat the jellybean myself.

Comments

[Ada]

Heart melts....

[Alexandra]

I laughed out loud at the idea of spaghetti flying all over the place, although I am sure that it was not as amusing to pick it all up. How did your day at Madeline's school go? Inquiring minds want to know.