Nighttime Follies

Last night, as I was cooking dinner, the girls were seated happily on the living room couch, watching an episode of "Super Why."  Suddenly, all peace was disrupted as the television channel blipped out for about thirty seconds.

JULIA AND MADELEINE: Mommy!  The TV turned off!
ME: (cooking)  Okay, hang on.  Did one of you sit on the remote?
JULIA AND MADELEINE: Can you FIX iiiiiiittt?
ME: Hang on!
JULIA: Oh!  It came back on!
ME: Okay, good!

Julia then came into the kitchen to reflect upon the weird phenomenon that had just occurred.  She wondered aloud why the show had turned off temporarily, but before I could tell her that there was any number of explanations, she used her detective-like powers of reasoning to come up with the answer.

JULIA: Mama?  Maybe, like, the person who does the voice for Princess P, like, forgot her line for a second, so she had to look down.

Yes.  That MUST be it.  Quick!  Pause the show!  Cut the cameras while the Princess P voice-over actress hurriedly reviews her script.  Okay!  Got your line?  Lights, camera, ACTION!

While I actually should have been demanding that the girls clean up the horrific avalanche mess of toys they had strewn all over the lower level of the house throughout the day, I knew that without any real motivation, it would be a lost cause, so I left them to their show while I cooked.  After dinner, however, I announced that no child would be having dessert until the living room floor was clean of toys. 

Julia got quickly and efficiently to work, albeit not without bitter complaints about how few toys her sister was managing to put away.

Madeleine was off to a good start, putting pieces of her giant 48-piece floor puzzle back into their container; however, she petered out after putting away about six pieces or so.

MADELEINE: Mama, I'm doing a LOT of WORK.  But it's hard.  I'm getting TIRED OUT.

As the girls slowly lazed along with their cleaning, stopping to get distracted by toys along the way, or, in the case of BOTH children, becoming more interested in trying to make a marker tower that would reach the ceiling than in putting the markers away, I started to lose patience.  In utter dismay over the constant state of disaster of the living room, due to toys, I made a snap decision that it was time to start weeding out the hardly-used and outgrown toys from the bins.  After all, part of the reason that the floors are constantly covered in toys is that the kids haphazardly toss the toys they DON'T want onto the floor as they dig through the bins to find what they DO want.

Well, nothing motivates a child to get her buns in gear than seeing piles of toys ready for toy donation.  As soon as they got wise to what I was doing, both girls were clambering to rescue the toys they actually DO want to keep and putting them in their proper places.  And happily for me, I was also able to fill two bags worth of toys to donate, so that our bins are no longer overflowing with stuff.  Just in time for Julia's birthday and Christmas, we now have space for all the new toys we are soon to receive!

After the girls had some Halloween candy for dessert, Ethan and I each took a child to her bedroom for story time and a lullaby.  As I lay with Madeleine in her bed, the formerly sleepy-eyed child suddenly became alive with thoughts about dragons and lions.

MADELEINE: Mommy?  But what if a mean DRAGON comes to get me?
ME: Don't worry, honey.  Dragons aren't real.
MADELEINE: Oh, yeah!  Dragons aren't REAL!  (silence)  But Mama?  Are lions aren't real?
ME: Lions ARE real, honey, but we don't have any lions anywhere near us.  Lions live in places like Africa, which is far, far away.
MADELEINE: Yeah, and lions live in places like the LION KING.
ME: Uh...yeah.  Lions are on movies like "The Lion King."
MADELEINE: Mommy?  Did you know that lions can TALK, and lions can ROAR, too?
ME: Well, real lions can't really talk.  Lions can talk in movies, but in real life, they can only roar.
MADELEINE: Yeah.  Lions can talk in movies, but in real life, they can only roar.  And lions CAN'T roar in movies, but in real life they can roar.
ME: Um... yeah.  (Sort of.)
MADELEINE: And Mommy?  In "The Lion King," Simba is hiding inside his daddy's TUMMY.  Mommy?  In movies, lions can go inside their daddy's tummy, but in real life, lions CAN'T go inside their daddy's tummy.
ME: Do you know that you used to live inside MY tummy?
MADELEINE: Yeah.  I used to live inside your tummy...and...Julia used to live inside DADDY'S tummy!

What. A. Genius.

Julia was not scared of mean dragons, but she was scared of a spooky shadow in her room, causing her to come downstairs at around 8:15 to secure comfort from us.

ME: (hearing her pad down the stairs) Julia!  Go back to bed.
JULIA: (coming into the kitchen)  Uh, Mom?  There's a spooky shadow in my room and I'm scared of it.
ME: It's just a shadow.  You know that.  Go back to bed, honey.
JULIA: But I want Daddy to walk me back.
ETHAN: Just go back to bed, Julia.  You don't need me to walk you back.
JULIA: But...what if it's a dinosaur?
ME: You tell me, Julia.  Could there really be a dinosaur in your room?
JULIA: (grinning sheepishly) No.
ME: So there's your answer.  Go back to bed.
JULIA: But...what if a dinosaur CAME BACK TO LIFE in my room?
ME: Julia.  Again.  You tell me.  Could that really happen?
JULIA: (grinning even wider) No.
ME: So go to bed.

She tends to come up with reasons to stall every night instead of just getting to bed, but this one took the cake.  A dinosaur coming back to life in her room?  Seriously?!?  Maybe I should have reasoned with her the way I did Madeleine: "In movies, dinosaurs can come back to life.  But in real life, they stay dead."

I guess I can't blame Julia for getting nervous about completely implausible things.  I mean, after all, this is the kid who lived inside her dad's tummy.