Once upon a time

Squishy, slurpy sounds dominated the silence of the dinner table. Andrew and I found ourselves wondering, once more, why Rachel refuses to use her fork after the first few bites. Tonight we had spaghetti and Rachel was absolutely plastered with spaghetti sauce. She was squishing her hands together, spreading tomato sauce up her arms and all over her tummy. I sighed.

Then I remembered a story.

"Once..." I said before being cut off by Rachel, whose storytelling skills were suddenly stimulated by the fairytale beginning of "once."

"Once 'pona time," Rachel said, "Two chitwen--Hansel, Gretel--tooked walked. Oooh! Starewsy witch!"

Andrew and I both started laughing; I was laughing so hard I was almost crying and this concerned Rachel. Andrew had to tell her that Mommy was happy, not sad, and that everything was alright. It was just too perfect. She's completely conditioned to link "once" and "upon a time." Kind of how she's conditioned us to wait until after she's finished telling us about Nephi before we break from prayers. Sure, we say "amen" before she tells us about Nephi, but no one says or does anything until she at least squeaks out, "Nephi built ship!"

Anyway, my story was about this one time that I sat with my friend Danielle during sacrament meeting so that I could help her watch her little sister Dana because their mom had to sit up on the stand. Danielle and I were about 11, which means Dana would have been about 4. We were given strict instructions to not let Dana get up to go to the bathroom or get a drink, and not to let her play with any toys or use her crayons until sacrament was over.

It just so happened that in the middle of the sacrament, Dana sneezed. She looked up at Danielle with her hands cupped over mouth and nose.

"I need a kleenex," she sniffled.

"Just a minute," Danielle hissed out, "Wait until the sacrament is over."

"I can't wait," said Dana, "I have to go to the bathroom."

"Yes, you can wait," said Danielle.

So Dana waited. For a while she sat there with her hands still cupped over her nose and mouth, but when she got bored of that, she brought them down to her lap. We glanced over and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Sure, she had a little snot running down her nose, but she was four. What else was new?

And then we heard it...

Squish. Squash. Squishy, squashy, squish. Sluuurrrp. Squish. Sluuuurrp. Squish.

Dana had had a full on snot attack and was currently rubbing it up and down her arms like lotion.

It was so gross, as I'm sure you can imagine. Sometimes it's better to listen than ignore. Sometimes exceptions to rules have to be made. This was one of those times.

Rachel is clean again and is still telling her story to Andrew.

Hansel Gretel took walk...to Road 9. They played and went to the store to buy a ladder to climb up a tree. They slept in the tree. When they woke up they went back to Road 9. Something about a witch...who cut off Rapunzel's hair and put a guy in the desert.

I think she's mixing up stories now...