Oranages and Bananas

Rachel and I found ourselves in separate rooms this morning. I try to limit such activities, but occasionally they're bound to occur. While I was in the other room I heard Rachel demanding a banana.

"NANA! NANA!" she yelled.

"Just wait Rachel! Mama will get one! Just wait!"

Getting her own banana would involve getting to the fruit bowl which involves climbing on the table, which I think, as a parent, I'm supposed to discourage for some reason or another. She didn't wait, though, and even before I saw her I could tell that she hadn't because she was no longer yelling. Instead she was sounding very self-satisfied and was singing happily, almost crooning.

"Nana, nana, nana, nana!"

I walked into the room. She wasn't on the table, but she was on one of the chairs. She was cradling a banana in her arms, rocking and stroking it while singing a banana song. When she saw me she held out the banana.

"Hep!" she ordered.

She had already tried to bite through the peel and, unsuccessful, decided to wait until I could help her. I've told her a thousand times that banana peels don't taste very good but she finds biting through the peel so effective that the bad taste doesn't stop her.

"What do you say?" I asked.

"Peeeeeeeese!" she said with her biggest smile.

I opened it for her and handed it back.

"Now what do you say?" I asked a little too late. She had already shoved half the banana in her mouth and couldn't say anything. She nodded her head, though, to let me know that she was grateful.

She polished off her banana in no time, climbed up on the table again (right in front of my eyes--she's quick), and grabbed an orange out of the bowl.

"O-ai!" she said, "O-ai! O-ai!" She signed "More, please," while continuing to yell "O-ai!"

"You just had a banana. You can have an orange at lunch." This simple statement elicited a fantastic temper tantrum.

We ended up coloring as a distraction. She grabbed the orange crayon and snarkily declared "O-ai!" and started coloring with that one. She has such and attitude sometimes!

After coloring for a while we turned on "Little People." During the opening song there is a scene with Eddie waking up to sunshine pouring in his room.

"Eddie!" Rachel squealed.

Sometimes I'm really amazed with Rachel if I just sit back an listen for a few minutes.