New Adventures in Parenting

Last night was another night Grant was in class, so it was just the girls and me in the evening. I thought it would be nice to make cookies together. Now that the weather is really beginning to feel cooler, I’ve been in the mood for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. It was getting a bit late, it was already after five, but we had had a late lunch. Dinner was something simple, so I figured we could eat dinner while the cookies baked.

Unfortunately, I got to the point where I needed to add flour and realized I was running very low on flour. No problem. I almost always have some extra stashed around here somewhere. I looked in the back of my baking cupboard. Nope. I looked at the top of the pantry. As I was standing on the stool to look around at the top of the pantry, Phaedra was climbing up behind me. While I was trying to tell her to get down, a bottle of mayo fell. Thank goodness for plastic mayo bottles! No one was hurt, and I put the mayo back where it belonged. I got Phaedra to back off a little so I could peruse the top of the pantry undisturbed.

I wasn’t finding what I needed, and I remembered the conversation I had with Grant a month or so ago where I mentioned that I probably wouldn’t buy any more of the goods we have in food storage because we need to rotate our food storage and get some things fresh. Grant had said that we don’t have the money to replace any food storage we use right now, so I shouldn’t use what we have even if it’s getting old. Too bad I didn’t remember his part of the conversation last time I was at the grocery store! As I came to this realization and started putting things back in their place, there went that kamikaze bottle of mayo again. This time, it somehow landed behind me, hit directly on its side, and blew its top off, splattering mayo all over my kitchen and floor.

What an evening! I managed to get things cleaned up, the kids fed dinner (thanks to my mother dropping by for a little visit), and the cookie dough mixed (thanks to my food storage), but I didn’t bake any cookies. I stashed the dough in the fridge for the night, admitting defeat.

Fast forward to later that evening, after putting the kids to bed. Phaedra was awake in her bed for a long time, talking and singing to herself. She never cried out, so I didn’t bother with her. When she was still up by the time Grant came home around 10, I was starting to feel like I should go make sure everything was alright. I couldn’t force myself to go in there if I didn’t have to, and she still wasn’t crying. She fell asleep soon after Grant got home, so I figured she just had to wind down. She has done this before.

This morning, right around 4:30, Phaedra started to cry. Grant went in to get her and returned to our room with our buck naked daughter, saying, “Look what I found in a puddle of urine.” Apparently, she had taken off her zipper jammies and her diaper before falling asleep (which, I’m sure, is why it took so long for her to fall asleep). Seriously! I got the shower warm and rinsed her off while Grant dealt with the bedding. I don’t know what we’re going to do with this girl!

Whenever I’ve talked to her about it today, to try to tell her it was a bad choice to take off her jammies and diaper, she just kept saying, “Me shower.” She remembers having to shower in the middle of the night. I only hope she didn’t enjoy it too much and see it as motivation to do it again. Tonight, as I got her ready for bed (with a onesie under her jammies), I talked with her about it again. I would tell her you don’t take your jammies off. You leave them on. Then I would try to get her to say it back to me. I’d ask, “Are you going to leave your jammies on or take them off?”

She’d reply, “Take jammies off.”

I said no, she was going to leave them on, and then I tried rephrasing the question, thinking she was just repeating the last thing I said. “Are you going to take your jammies off or leave them on?”

She replied again, “Take jammies off,” a smirk growing across her face.

I tried not to smile back. I told her it was a no-no to take her jammies off. I asked, “Are you going to take your jammies off tonight in your bed?”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling with mischief twinkling in her eyes.

“No,” I corrected her, “You don’t take your jammies off in your bed.”

I don’t know if she was just enjoying messing with me, or if she really wants to do it again. As far as I can tell, she’s asleep now, so she probably didn’t take them off tonight. I certainly hope she doesn’t do it again!