Dinner prep time chaos. Buttercup starts crying and yelling at me, and I can't understand her, but eventually I think she just wants me to come over, which I do, and give her my hand. As soon as she understands I'm going to follow her, she calms right down and leads me very seriously into the bedroom. She goes into my closet area and studies it for a while. I have no idea what she is looking for, as I don't think there is anything of interest to her there. She changes course and we go over by the bed, and I'm starting to think she wants me to be there but doesn't have another particular goal in mind. But no: she points to the drawer in the bedside table and says "dat one, dat one." I open it for her. (Note that she has remembered without any reminders whatsoever that children are not supposed to open that drawer, even though she could easily do it herself, sometimes her much older sister claims to have no idea of ever having heard of. Several times a day.) She peers in intently, then points to the little tubes of cream that I have there and says "dat one, dat one, me please mama here" and shows me the spot where she hurt her lip.
She remembered that I have medicine that I put on cuts, and that I have medicine that made her bug bite stop hurting. She knows I keep it in the medical kit, and she brought me to the closet where I keep the medical bag. When she didn't see it there, she remembered that I keep some creams in the bedside table, brought me over to it, remembered not to open it herself, and asked politely. I am impressed.
And I am really sad that she gets nothing in reward for all that thoughtful behavior, because her owie is inside her lip, and you can't put creams inside a lip.
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Thus, lots of screaming and yelling at me. I try to explain to her, but she is too hysterical. I have to get back to the stove, and I invite her to come with me but she is too mad. I go back to the other room, and Hibiscus looks at me and scolds me "listen, Buttercup crying! What you do to Buttercup, makin' her cry!" Luckily, before SHE gets hysterical too, I manage to get my arm around her and ask if she can be my big-girls helper. I try to explain that I can't put cream on the inside of her mouth and why not, which takes several tries. Hibiscus believes that adults can do anything they want, so if they don't help out then they are obviously deliberately torturing the children in question. Having adults genuinely on her side is a new and difficult concept. But finally she decides that I am right and helps comfort her sister. Buttercup is full of stubborn fits, but they don't last long and she welcomes the opportunity to be distracted. Unfortunately, the distraction in question involves putting Buttercup on Hibiscus's back. This is unfortunate only because it means that Hibiscus can then not do any of her work clearing the table, leaving it all with Emerson. To prove the opposite, she makes a mad dash for the silverware drawer, demonstrating that the alternative would be to send Buttercup flying onto the hard tile floor. There is protest from both of them as I remove Buttercup, but I am asking her if she wants to help me peel vegetables, and anything involving food sounds pretty good to Buttercup. Pretty soon she's at her place at the table, while I peel a carrot onto her plate with her hand under mine. Then I leave her with a mostly peeled carrot, which she attacks thoughtfully. "Don't let her do that!" Emerson warns me. "That's how I cut myself! See, this one here!" I tell him that he cut himself because he was peeling the wrong way, but Buttercup is properly peeling away from her body. Because I did the gesture over and over with her, she is just naturally continuing the same gesture, although she doesn't have enough force to actually separate any carrot from its peel!
I am pleased to note that both girls are having much more faith in my ability to take care of them, especially that Hibiscus is trusting me to handle her sister.
And for a light-hearted ending to the dinner story:
Buttercup asked for more mashed potatoes and more carrots, but I tell her she has to eat her egg first.
(Yes, I am the crazy parent who won't give her child seconds on vegetables! Now that she is finally getting healthy and starting to grow, she is apparently determined to go back to her former protein-malnutrition state. It's like her body is finally healthy enough to allow her brain to start to make picky decisions about food, and the main one is to return to her prior simple-carbohydrates-only existence.)
She won't eat her egg. She keeps getting up, because Hibiscus heard a noise and HAD to go investigate, until I tell all three children that the next one to get out of their chair is going straight to bed. I phrase it this way because "done with dinner" sounds too fun, apparently, and I need to clarify that there is no after-dinner playtime. Like every other night. Do you want to go to bed, Buttercup? NOOOOO!!!!!
She lays down on her chair, with the adorable toddler bum-in-the-air posture. I sit her back up. She pushes her egg around. She lays her head on the table. I have finished up my first small serving and serve Hibiscus and myself seconds. Buttercup wants some too, but she hasn't made any progress on the egg. Her head flops and rolls around on the table. I re-phrase my question and ask if she is ready to go brush teeth. She pops up immediately: "Wanna bush teef!" I sigh at my nice hot potatoes and pick her up, and she snuggles into my neck. I remind the big kids to eat politely and start to take Buttercup to the bathroom.
"I'm gonna eat your cheese, since you're wastin' it!" Hibiscus calls after me.
What a reward for the sacrifices of motherhood: have your other children scavenge your plate for the best bits, because you are "wasting" your food by taking care of them!
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