Monday, September 13, 2010

Last night

Bath time went well. As usual, I played the role of the "salon girl" giving Will her special treatments. A conditioning shampoo, body scrub, blow dry.

There was a minor struggle over brushing her hair, and the stories weren't quite finished by 8:30, my goal on these new school nights. But she was yawning, and seemed quite content with her little pile of books when I went downstairs a few minutes later.

An hour after that, when she appeared at the top of the stairs, crying that she needed me, I thought she had been asleep and had woken up suddenly. Then I got upstairs.

"My lipstick is broken and it's everywhere. My one lipstick is broken."

I could smell the orange on her hands but didn't see the chapstick anywhere. "Where is your lipstick?"

"In Mommy and Daddy's closet. I'll show you."

"Have you been in our closet this whole time?"

She took me to the closet and retrieved the broken chapstick. I sent her to the garbage with it before I exploded. There were open markers and colouring marks all over the carpet. Matchbox cars and puzzle pieces beside them on the floor. On the middle of our bed was a pile of discarded bandaid wrappings.

Then I looked more closely at my daughter: marker was coloured all over her legs and feet and arms and face. Each leg was then covered with four or five princess bandaids, with another one on each forearm. There was chapstick and mucus in her hair.

I could not believe she had gotten out of bed (not an unusual occurrence in and of itself) and had gone into our room to play. When there was preschool in the morning! When she knew that wasn't the right thing to do! And she already wasn't feeling too well!

I told her all of this (in a loud, stern voice) while I scrubbed her limbs and pulled off the bandaids, crumpling them up to throw away. It was the destruction of the bandaids that made her hysterical. I could hear myself saying things like "NOT. ACCEPTABLE." as I continued to scrub and search desperately for a brush for the mess of her hair.

Things finally calmed down and she apologized, then got worked up again because "everyone says sorry!" and she wanted me to "say sorry for yelling at me," all the while looking up at me with giant pitiful tears running down her face. So I did apologize for the yelling, but told her that I was not sorry for the things I said because what she had done was NOT. ACCEPTABLE. and we rehashed it again until she said, "I understand." (Although it took her some time to agree to not do it again because she was "too sad to say that." Right, kid.)

Despite the drama, she got up for preschool and is there at this very moment while I enjoy my coffee in peace. Until I have to go and get her in half an hour. Two hours alone was not nearly enough time to recuperate.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Look who's a preschooler!

She picked out her new striped sweater dress and two pony tails.

She had her owl backpack and her indoor shoes.

Of course, it helped that her mom was duty parent for the day, and got to hang out and help for the entire morning. The new teacher is fine. Not spectacular, but fine. It's going to be a good experience, learning to follow a specific routine and having to jostle for time at the play stations. And I'm happy with our decision to register for two days a week. That's just the right amount of time for my little preschooler.