Another Fun School Morning

Well, the morning started off well enough, with both kids cheerily greeting me as I went into their bedrooms to get them up.  However, seeing as both girls want to move in their own time zone on school mornings, things quickly took a turn towards the needlessly disagreeable.

Julia, for her part, was more than willing to get dressed as soon as I asked her.  It wasn't until after she was clothed that the morning train got derailed.  Coming downstairs in her outfit, holding her book "Skeleton Hiccups" proudly to her chest, she announced, "Mama, I read 'Skeleton Hiccups' ALL BY MYSELF!"  After she received the necessary praise from me, she implored, "So, can I show you how I can read it?"

I was certainly not opposed to having her read aloud to me.  I simply asked if she could go on the potty and brush her teeth first.  While she was compliant, she was definitely put off by the delay, so once she had finished up and was on the couch with her bagel, I scooted myself next to her and told her I was ready to listen. 

"Uh, after my BAGEL," she told me with her mouth bulging with a bagel bite.

Fine.  So off I went, getting Madeleine into her clothes, which proved to be yet another pointless waste of time. 

"No!  Not THEEEEEEESE pants!  I need the RIIIIIIIIGHT pants!" Madeleine wailed.  Ugh.  How *dare* I not immediately read her mind and know exactly which pants she had expected me to pick out for her?  UNACCEPTABLE, Mom.  I can *clearly* see why she felt the urgent need to strip out of the purple sweatpants I had put on her, only to run up to her room and emerge with a pair of - uh - purple sweatpants.  "Here we go, Mom," she told me brightly.  "I found the RIGHT pants."  Good thing she exchanged one pair of purple sweatpants for another.  God forbid I send her to school in the WRONG pants.

As the morning progressed, the girls became entranced in their episode of "Sesame Street" while they ate bagels, so I busied myself getting everything ready for the school day.  As I stood in the kitchen, hovering over the grilled cheese sandwich I was in the middle of cooking for Julia's lunch, Julia suddenly decided it was a good time to try and read me "Skeleton Hiccups." 

"I'm REEEEAAAAAADYYYYY!" she chirped from the living room. 
"Uh, I'm not!" I called back, which was apparently an intolerable answer.  Before I knew it, Julia had marched into the kitchen to call me out on my lameness.

JULIA: But MAMA, I finished my BAGEL, so I'm ready to read this to you!
ME: Okay, but I'm in the middle of cooking grilled cheese, so I can't really come sit on the couch with you.
JULIA: (crossly) Well, MAMA, can't you just LISTEN from the living room?
ME: Sure.  I can listen from in here if you want to read it from the living room.  But wait, I poured you some milk, so take your cup in with you.
JULIA: (on the verge of whining) But MAMA!  I can't read AND-
ME: Okay, never mind.  I'll carry your milk in when you're ready.

What seemed like a perfectly reasonable compromise to me was not seen as such by Julia, who decided the most appropriate thing to do was stand in the dining room, holding "Skeleton Hiccups" to her chest, sulking.  I then carried her milk cup into the room, placed it on the table, and said to her, "Here, why don't you read me the book, and your milk is right there for you to get when you're done reading."

Nope.  Julia was over it.  Her choice was to stubbornly put "Skeleton Hiccups" in the built-in dining room cupboard. 

ME: Julia Cathryn, you do NOT put "Skeleton Hiccups" in the cupboard just because you're pouting.

Seriously.  Did I really just say that?  Of all the phrases one imagines uttering to a child, who would ever think that reprimanding an almost 6-year-old over defiantly putting "Skeleton Hiccups" in the cupboard would be one of them? 

At long last, I was able to sit on the couch with Julia and have her read me the book, after her very remorseful apologies and hugs.  The reading was off to a good start, as she was successfully breezing through each page without stumbling over any words.  Then, about 3/4 of the way through the book, she suddenly got sucked into the "Elmo's World" that was playing on tv, causing her eyeballs to wander back and forth between the words on the page and the television screen.  Each page was now taking twice as long to get through, with much need for re-direction from me as she searched the page to find what word she had left off on.

"Ghost...made...a..." Julia began, then trailed off, feeling the need instead to sit next to me making forceful snorting sounds out of her nose to try and clear it of its mucus. 

ME: Julia?  Are you going to keep reading?
JULIA: (snorting violently several times) Well, Mama, uh, I-
ME: (taking the book out of her hands) Okay.  Go get a tissue.

And that was the end of "Skeleton Hiccups," at least for the morning.

And finally, to prove that Madeleine really does seem to live in her own universe, as we piled into the car with lunchboxes and backpacks, Madeleine merrily informed her sister, "Julia, I have school today, JUST LIKE YOU!"  After dropping Julia off, Madeleine and I talked all about how excited she was to go to school, so one would think she was fully aware that the next stop was preschool.  However, when we pulled into her school parking lot, she instead remarked, "Mommy?  Why are we going to MY school?  I thought I didn't have school today!"

What goes on inside that child's head is truly a mystery.