Booktown

Yesterday morning I was awakened by a wailing Mr. Sneaky Pants. Waaaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah! He had a soak-through in his pullup during the night, and was throwing a fit about that.

Then he threw a fit about having to put his pajamas in the laundry shoot because they were soaking wet.

Then he threw a fit about having to get dressed.

Then he threw a fit about having to put on his socks.

Then he threw a fit because we were going to MOPS and I wouldn’t let him wear sandals through 20 inches of snow outside. (He hasn’t even seen sandals in two months. . . they’re packed away . . . but he was hopping mad).

Then he threw a fit because he had to put on his mittens.

He walked out the door, plunged his knit gloves into a snowbank and thew a fit about how he had snow on his mittens.

I put him in the car and he threw a fit about his hands and feet being cold. (I reminded him that perhaps next time he would not choose to walk through a waist-high snowbank).

He threw a fit all the way to church as we were driving to the Mops meeting.

He threw a fit all the way into the church . . . I’m not even sure why.

He threw a fit inside the church because he had to take his mittens off. And his coat. And his hat.

He threw a fit because he had to go into the nursery.

An hour and a half later, he threw a fit because he had to come out of the nursery.

He threw a fit because his paper that he colored in the nursery had been somehow misplaced.

He threw a fit because he had to put his coat on.

Then, for a brief few minutes, he stopped throwing a fit because I gave him a bag of chocolate chip muffins leftover from the Mops meeting to hold, and they looked tasty.

Then The Banana threw a fit because I had bundled her into the snowsuit first, and she was vastly overheated while I bundled everyone else up.

He threw a fit because on the way to the car, Sarah grabbed his bag of muffins.

At this point one of the other moms pointed out that maybe I was having a bad morning?????

He threw a fit because I wouldn’t let him eat the chocolate chip banana muffins in the car. He threw a fit all the way home.

He threw a fit because when we got in the house he had to put the muffins on the counter.

He threw a fit because he wanted muffins for lunch, not a scrambled egg.

He threw a fit because I recommended that he use his fork to eat the scrambled egg, which was really the last straw for me, and I threw him in his bed and locked the gate on the doorway and told him to take a nap. He threw a fit about that, too.

I put The Banana down for a nap also, and called down the stairs to Sarah (who didn’t have school) that I was going to be in my office for thirty minutes, and she should not bother me because I needed some quiet time.

After thirty minutes I was feeling a little guilty about making her play downstairs, where there really weren’t a lot of exciting Sarah-sized toys out, so I decided to go downstairs and offer to take out some small lego blocks, or help her start a craft project or something, but when I got down the stairs I discovered that she was busy at play. She had taken the basket of board books for The Banana and converted them into a city of tents around a community campfire made out of blocks. Inside the tents were little cars and she was just imagining up a storm. She was so happy to be playing by herself without anyone destroying what she was constructing that she didn’t want to take me up on lego blocks or an art project.

So I snuggled up in some blankets next to the fireplace right where she was playing and basked in the sound of her imaginary conversations and took a nap myself. And when The Banana and Mr. Sneaky Pants woke up THREE hours later, everyone was on much better terms.