Momnesia

Why I Don't Let Her Eat Sugar - Take Note, Grandparents of the World

I should have been suspicious from the start.

"Where are you going?" I asked Emmie as she trotted past me out of the room. She had been eating her lunch and watching (yet another) princess movie as we cooled off from our morning excursions to the Canal and the park.

"I go to da kitchen," she answered blithely.

"Oh."

I continued to type an answer to an e-mail. No, Mom, those shoes you found are not a pair I left behind on my last visit. But if you come across a $100 bill, heh heh, definitely mine.

Emmie sprints past me, disturbing my plans for annoying the crap out of my mother with a sense of humor she sometimes finds disturbing (search this blog for "sport tampons"). I glance over my shoulder. She's entranced by the entrance of Prince Edward: "I've been dreaming of a true love's kiss..." Blech.

"Mama!" she commands.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Can I hab sum i cream, pwease?" she asks sweetly.

"We don't have any ice cream, honey, but maybe we can get some when we go out later," I blow her a kiss.

"Oh. Okay," she answers, a definite note of disappointment in her voice. After all, Nona ALWAYS has ice cream.

Not 20 seconds later, she's dragging her blue plastic chair across the wooden floor. "I beed dweameed ub a twue wuves kiss..." she sings softly along to the DVD that I don't hate as much as other princess movies.

"Whatcha got there?" I ask, amused by an anecdote about my precocious daughter - currently dragging a chair past me - that I'm relating to my mother.

"I got a chair," she answers, not looking at me as she drags it through the doorway.

"Where you going with that chair?" I ask, amused. Of course I see that you have a chair. Now how will that help you to implement your evil plan is what I want to know.

"I going to da kitchen," she scoffs at me.

"What are you doing in the kitchen?" I ask, and then I am distracted by a sudden blast of dragon fire on the television. I didn't know the volume went to 11, geez! I walk over to turn it down, and begin gathering the detritus from her lunchtime jamboree. How does she make such a mess?! I toss a half-eaten bit of string cheese to the dog, gather the scattered escapees from raisin land, and walk the crap to the kitchen.

I see her. She sees me. We both freeze. She is perched on top of the back of her chair, leaning across the kitchen counter with one hand in the sugar canister.

"Hey!" I exclaim.

So quickly that I swear I feel a mini-sonic boom, she stuffs one fist in her mouth and scrambles for another handful from the container. I toss the crap on the counter and sprint over, dragging her hand from the container as she reaches in with the other. I grab that one as she stuffs the other one in her mouth, giggling so hard I'm afraid she's going to inhale the sugar into her lungs. I grab both wrists and pry her off the counter.

She stands, laughing like a maniac and licking her hands while I survey the damage. Looks like the aftermath of a night at Studio 54. Sugar granules crunch under my bare feet. Awesome. As I clean the mess and Emmie tries to explain: "I sowwy, mama. I jus' look at flourcoffeesugar. I jus' looking."

"Baby, you look with your eyes, not with your hands and mouth," I explain, sighing. "No more of this crap, Emmie. If you want something sweet, ask Mommy. We don't eat sugar out of the jar, okay? Let's go have a time-out. You count to 30 and when you're ready to apologize, you can come out."

She goes dutifully to her snowman pillow in her room and sits down with a frowny face, still trying to explain what is clearly a misunderstanding on my part. "But I jus' looking at da flourcoffeesugar," she insists, hands raised in a universal sign of understanding. I close the door and return to sweep the kitchen floor.

How much did she eat?! I wonder. I find out soon. And all afternoon.

There is no nap. No reading time. No quiet time. Nothing. Even when I sit her down with a plastic plate of paint and plenty of brushes and paper, it's like she can't focus even her eyes long enough to accomplish anything.

"Mommylookatme?!" she shrieks, puts one arm up over her head, the other behind her back, makes a goofy face and hops on one foot. "Bleeehblehblehblehbleh!"

She giggles hysterically.

"Wow, that's great, honey. Would you like to help Mommy do some dishes?"

"No!NoIdon'wannadodishesIwannagoowside! Lesgoowsidemama! Lesgo! Lesgo!" she grabs my hand and we careen out the door. She spends 30 minutes alternately playing tag with the fence and climbing up and leaping off of her Little Tykes slide set. Our neighbor comes out of the other apartment, sees us, and observes the crazed monkey I've unleashed in the open air.

"Wow," she says. "I've never seen her like this."
"Yeah. We forgot her the medication," I drawl. She looks at me askance.
"I'm joking," I explain. "She got into the sugar."
"Ohhhh," she nods, grinning. "Well, she'll crash soon."

Actually, she spent most of the afternoon alternately chasing and poking me with her "arrmatey," and when I took that away she got the broom, which set the dog to barking (he hates the broom). All in all, I think I burned more calories yesterday than I have in the last two weeks.