Give the girl a lawyer…she’s cheating on pink!

This morning I got up early with Rachel, at least earlier than I wanted to get up with her, so when Andrew woke up I informed him that I would be going back to bed for a while or I wouldn’t make it through the day—I had a primary meeting in the afternoon and then he had an evening class and I was already grumpy.

Rachel was being a good girl and was entertaining herself quite nicely so I didn’t think it would be too much of a problem for him to watch her while doing homework. I don’t know why it was even a problem for me; I just was grumpy today. Perhaps it’s a combination of pregnancy, phone stalking, insurance woes and general Egypt malady all combining forces against me.

So I went back to bed, Andrew broke out a textbook, and Rachel headed off to her coloring table. After about twenty minutes or so, I was woken up with Rachel screaming,

“I want my mom!!”

This is her new thing to yell when she gets in trouble—a plea to be joined by what she hopes will be an unbiased third party. If I catch her doing something she knows she’ll get in trouble for she screams for Daddy; if he catches her she screams for me. It’s as if she’s asking to call a lawyer so that she doesn’t risk self-incrimination.

Felt pens are kind of a new medium in our house and there are a lot of rules surrounding them, like pushing the cap until you hear the ‘click’ and, now that she can reach the top of my desk, she has to ask permission before getting them down. Then there’s that only-draw-on-designated-paper rule. That’s a tricky one…because when you have a new medium to work with there is so much experimenting to be done.

This morning, while Andrew dutifully did his homework—glancing up every few minutes to make sure Rachel was still on task—Rachel started experimenting. She was rather smart about it. She stayed at her drawing table the whole time, with her back to Andrew and her paper in front of her. She was being so good that he decided to come over to the drawing table to admire her picture.

Much to his surprise, the paper in front of her was blank. She, however, had been coloured a brilliant orange.

“Rachel!” Andrew moaned.

“I WANT MY MOM!!” Rachel screamed. And then she cried and cried and cried.

Andrew’s so patient with her—more patient than I am—and he just reprimanded her softly, taking away marker privileges for the rest of the day, and reminding her that we colour on paper only. Then she had a bath. I continued my nap.

From this incident we can assume that Rachel is most definitely right-handed since her left arm is orange and her right arm is relatively unmarkered upon.

She’s getting so independent and always wants to try to do things herself. I think it’s called the “My Do It” stage, or something like that.

“Let my do it!”

“My put on my shoes!”

“I want my pour my milk!”

She’s actually a very good pourer, she’s just not very good at stopping pouring after she starts. That’s kind of where we butt heads.

I’ve caught her with milk, juice, water, cereal…just about anything that can be poured, she’s tried to pour. Luckily most often our juice and milk cartons have screw-on lids, but we ran out of milk a while ago (because we didn’t go shopping for like three weeks or something) so I whipped up some powdered milk in a pitcher.

I stopped her within seconds of a spilt-milk disaster. She had it lifted, tilted and was all ready to go when I rushed in to take over.

A few days ago I was not so speedy. I had given her a bowl of cereal and was in the kitchen making breakfast for myself. I don’t really like cold cereal so I usually have oatmeal or a sandwich or leftovers. I think this particular day I was making a sandwich when I heard Rachel yelling.

“Mom! I want more! I want more! I want more!”

“Hold on a sec, Rachel! I’m coming!” I yelled back, smearing peanut butter as fast as I could.

“I want more! I want more! I want more!” she chanted.

“I heard you! I’m coming!”

And then the chanting stopped. That’s when I ran out of the kitchen and into the dining room at top speed. Silence is never good unless it’s bedtime.

“My did it!” she happily announced.

Yes, yes, you did. You did just dump the rest of the cereal into your bowl, which was still full of milk. You did.

Luckily the package was almost empty, anyway. Andrew had corn flakes for breakfast and Rachel had the rest for lunch and no soggy corn flakes went to waste.

I just love happy endings, don’t you?

So to end on a happy note…while orange is not Rachel’s official “favourite colour” it does make her happy. Her favourite is pink (and sometimes she’ll list a close-second favourite or a not-as-much favourite, too). Her happiness colours are blue and orange.

“My favourite my colour is pink!” she’ll say, or, “Orange makes me happy!” She’ll never answer that her favourite colour is orange or say that pink makes her happy.

I don’t really understand the difference but she seems to think there is one. Shouldn’t your favourite colours also be listed in your happy colours? Favourites make you happy, right?

And perhaps it’s just me, but didn’t orange seem more of a guilty-pleasure colour this morning than a happy colour? I wonder if pink knows about this…