Momnesia

Lesson Learned: Never Turn Your Back

Emmie: Mama, can I hab sum i-cream?
Me (distracted): I don't think we have any, sweetie.
Emmie: Oh. Okay. (toddles off to play)

Minutes later, she sprints by me, grabs her chair and drags it from the room.

Me: Whatcha doing, Doodle?
Emmie: I go to da kichen and (devolves into mumbling as she turns the corner)...
Me (still distracted): Mmkay...

(clunk clunk clatter registers somewhere in my consciousness, but I'm so tired and stressed that it does little to jar me out of my marketing campaign planning)

Emmie (shrieking): MAMAAAA!
Me (fully jolted): What?! What is it?
Emmie: MAMA COMERE!

I tear into the kitchen at a dead run and stop. She stands on her red wooden chair and points, having managed to pull open the freezer door.

Emmie: See? We HAB i-cream! I foun'it!

I bend over, laughing into my knees. It doesn't matter what you tell her. I should remember that she was born with a healthy sense of "I'll believe it when I see it," a skepticism that permeates everything around her. It makes her watchful, but unafraid; cautious, but still headstrong. Although some parents would firmly remove her from her perch, scold her for dragging furniture through the house, and feel some sense of power-struggle pending upon her questioning of my statement that, as I believed, there was no ice cream in the house...

I like it. I want to encourage her to think independently; to not accept things at face value. She wasn't mean-spirited about it. She's just learned early on that Mommies make mistakes, too, and I make sure to own up to them and to apologize when I possibly can. If I expect her to do it, I have to hold myself to it. So she reacted with her characteristic enthusiasm when, this time, the mistake went her way.

So ice cream it is - low fat peach ice cream that tastes like something akin to old feet, if you ask me. Emmie isn't asking. She knows it's cold and fruity and full of the carefully regulated substance that she craves: sugar.

Me: Emster, how was your ice cream?
Emmie: Good. I got a poo-poo.

You're welcome.