Sink baths, first sleepovers, and Harry Potter

A couple of kids from seminary were in their high school production of Mamma Mia!. Since Grandpa is a seminary teacher this year and since Rachel and Miriam are peers with the young performers, Grandpa took Rachel and Miriam (and Benjamin and Zoë and Darla) to watch it yesterday evening. 

I stayed home with Alexander and Phoebe. 

Andrew was at work. 

We were pretty boring. Alexander wanted to play Switch Sports. Phoebe wanted to read stories. So we did those things. And then we started getting ready for bed. 

Once we had our pyjamas on I told the kids we were going to spend a few minutes tidying their bedrooms. 

Once the bedrooms were tidier, Alexander declared that it was the perfect space for a fort! 

That's why you clean, right? So you can make another even better mess!

I told him that he could make a fort. He wanted to make a fort to sleep in. And he wanted to use the big blue foam tiles from downstairs. And he wanted me to help because he tried it once and wasn't very successful (and I'd done such a good job helping Benjamin with his bushcraft that I'd probably find domestic fort building much simpler). 

I told him that I could help him make a fort. 

This activity involved several trips to the basement to bring up the blue foam tiles. 

Trekking up and down to the basement meant that Phoebe was, at times, left unsupervised. 

And she's a quick one! She just so easily finds trouble...

Evidently she took herself potty (yay!) while we were downstairs and she knows that after going potty she's supposed to wash her hands. She's still so small, though, that she's never managed this on her own. She can't reach the faucet handles from the stool, so she needs help turning the water on. 

So, Alexander and I came up from downstairs and Phoebe was no where to be seen. 

"Where are you, Phoebe?" I called out. 

"I'm dus washin' mine haaaaans!" she called back to me. 

Just washing her hands?! I can see into the bathroom from the stairs but didn't see her in there. There was no child standing on the stool trying to wash their hands!

That's because...

She was tucked out of sight, sitting inside the sink!

She was so cute that I ran to grab my camera so I could take a picture to send to Andrew (before taking her out of the sink), but I couldn't immediately find my phone (shocker, I know), so I grabbed the big camera because it was out (because I took some engagement pictures for Reid and Darla yesterday). The settings weren't right for the evening light, but I snapped a few good pictures...

And then I remembered where I had put my phone, which I knew would be an easier way to send pictures to Andrew (easier than taking them off the big camera and shrinking them down and then sending them). So I ran to grab my phone, which I admit was a questionable parenting move. 

I know that behaviours—like sitting in the bathroom sink—should to be corrected, but I also know that there's little harm in capturing these funny moments for the future. Except...I should have noticed which direction the faucet was facing. It's turned on full-throttle to hot! 

It takes a considerable amount of time for the hot water to make its way from the water heater in the basement to the top floor of our house, so Phoebe had been enjoying herself just fine in the cold, but slowly warming water. 

When I left to find my phone, however  (which was just around the corner on my desk), Phoebe started howling in terror and pain. So I forgot the phone and ran back in to her. The hot water had finally hit her and it was...much hotter than she wanted it to be (bad parenting, right there—but, on the plus side, natural consequences, right? Now she knows playing in the sink isn't always fun and games). 

I yanked her out of the sink and flipped the handle to cold and then...put her back in to help cool her scalded skin...and got my phone to take a few pictures to send to Andrew (but you can tell she's less excited to be there this time, poor baby (she's fine)):

After she was cooled off, we changed her jammies to dry ones, finished building our fort, and got her settled for bed, though settled is a generous word because she had a hard time settling. She kept poking her head out and saying, "Me so ti-terd, Mommy!"

"Then lie down and go to sleep," I'd suggest. 

Then a few minutes later, "Me so ti-terd!"

"Right, lie down and go to sleep."

She also needed to get up to get a couple of drinks (this picture was taken before we'd turned out the lights; obviously the room would be darker when she was trying to sleep):

She had to get up to try to go potty a few times. She had to get up to find various stuffed animals. 

Eventually I morphed from "accommodating mommy" to "threatening mommy."

"Phoebe, if you get up again, you'll have to move back into your own bed," I told her. 

And then eventually I did grab her stuff and start moving it back to her own bed. 

"No, Mommy! Nooooo!" she wailed. "Me nezzy gets to seep over!"

Why does my two-year-old know about sleepovers? Because she's the youngest of six. That's why. And she's never gotten to sleep over! Not when the kids sleep in a tent in the backyard. Not in the basement at Christmas. Just never! 

The reason is because she still gets up to find Mommy in the middle of the night, but she has wanted to try a sleepover for a long time now. 

Sleeping over in Alexander's fort is probably the best possible scenario for her, since the route to Mommy's room from there is about the same as it is from her bed. So I told her that if she could lie still and go to sleep, she could have one more try to sleep over in the fort. We put her things back in the fort and got her tucked in and...she fell asleep!

She woke up at 2:00 am, but gladly went back to lie down beside Alexander. I didn't even stay with her, because Alexander said I could go, and Phoebe agreed. 

And then she climbed into bed with me around 5:00, ending her sleepover with Alexander a little early. 

I suppose I should point out to Phoebe that she has had a sleepover in Mommy and Daddy's room every single day of her life!

*****

One final note: I finished reading the first Harry Potter book to Phoebe and Alexander last night. 

We had begun reading The Borrowers with Zoë, but then we got COVID and stopped reading with Zoë because she was quarantining. Instead I started Harry Potter with Alexander, because Zoë has read that before and wouldn't mind missing out. She's been in and out of our evening reads since getting better.

Alexander is very excited to watch the first Harry Potter movie tonight, though he was a little upset when I told him that his favourite line would not be featured in the movie.

"WHAT?!" he shrieked. 

"What's your favourite line?" Andrew asked.

"Shan't say nothing if you don't say please!" Alexander said impishly. 

"Ah, yes, Peeves isn't in the movies."

"Peeves isn't in the movies?!!!" 

Peeves isn't in the movies. A true disappointment. 

We're just lucky that Phoebe managed to fall asleep while I was reading the final chapter. At one point she was still so wired that I told Alexander to go ahead and fetch the second book for me while I got her settled (again) because I was sure we'd need more bedtime reading. But, she fell asleep with a few paragraphs to spare!