I am one of those people who sort of walks around the house aimlessly while I talk on the telephone. Last night I was on the phone with my mother when Scarlette snuck stealthily up behind me and switched all the lights off, plunging us into total darkness. She continued to do that at random until I told her to go play in her room while I finished my conversation.
When I hung up I walked into the hallway to find her lying in the middle of the floor tucked completely inside of her pillow case with every bit of the bedding in our house strewn around here.
I asked her what she was doing and she casually replied “Oh, I just habing a little sleepover.”
This is why we do not have an Elf on the Shelf in this house. I have enough shenanigans going on around here. I don’t want to give this kid any more ideas.
♥
Once a week Scarlette attends chapel at her preschool and so a couple of weeks ago I asked her to tell me what she learned in chapel that day. And she said succinctly “GOD.” So then I said “Okay, well can you tell me a little bit more about God?”
And she sighed heavily and said “Mommy. If you want to know about God, maybe you should talk to Pastor C.”
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We had to go to the doctor the other day and Scarlette asked me if she could take her toys along. I told her that she could take one toy and she chose to take her Anna doll. When we arrived at the doctor’s office this conversation occurred:
SCARLETTE: Oh hi. Are you the doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes I am.
SCARLETTE: Can you hear me?
DOCTOR: I sure can.
SCARLETTE: Can you hear my Anna doll?
DOCTOR: Oh, does your Anna doll need a checkup?
SCARLETTE: No, I just needing you to tell me what she saying.
And that was when I realized that Scarlette thought that her doctor could legit talk to dolls, on account of how I let her watch Doc McStuffins, which is a show about a little girl who pretends to be a doctor and is the only person in her house who can hear her toys talking.
♥
On Scarlette’s birthday I said “You’re four years old today! You’re getting so big!” And she said “Yeah, but actually I still can’t reach lots of things.”
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Scarlette is a complete charmer and I am afraid it is becoming a little bit of a problem. Like, everywhere we go strangers try to give her stuff. She was panning for gems at the museum recently and told the man working there “Oh wow, dese will be perfect in my rock collection!” Then he gave her a handful of rocks for free, to add to her special collection. She does not even have a rock collection. I mean I guess she does now.
And I know that seems harmless but then seriously, the other day I told her that she could not have something at the store and a total stranger offered to buy it for her. I don’t even know what to do with that. The lady said “She just seems to love it so much that it would just make me so happy to get it for her.”
And I felt incredibly awkward because I wasn’t sure how to explain that Scarlette shows that amount of overly passionate exuberance at any small thing that captures her attention. I can not stress this enough. Like, literally today we were at the mall and she saw a cracker that someone had dropped on the floor and she took off running towards it with her face all lit up like a little sunbeam while yelling excitedly and somewhat dramatically “A CWACKER! I ALWAYS WANTED A CWACKER! I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW!”
(And I was all “FOR THE LOVE OF PETE DO NOT PUT THAT CRACKER IN YOUR MOUTH SCARLETTE DROP THE CRACKER RIGHT THIS SECOND SERIOUSLY!” and then doused her with sanitizing spray because gross.)
And I did not want to deny this sweet woman but I really A) did not want to own another Olaf doll and B) did not want to teach Scarlette that random people at Target will buy her things. The whole situation was very awkward for me.
Then it got worse because at some point I saw Scarlette holding a paper version of an iPhone, the kind that come in those display boxes of phone cases. And so I took her to the front of the store and had her give it back to the lady behind the counter because I was pretty sure that she had taken it out of the display when I was trying to find which car charger would fit my phone.
(It’s 2015. Why do we not all just have universally fitting chargers?)
Anyhow, the lady behind the counter told Scarlette that she could keep the little paper phone AND THEN TRIED TO GIVE HER A BALLOON!
And I was all “No wait, I am pretty sure my kid just stole something. I think I need to teach her a lesson about not taking things that do not belong to her and also about how we keep our hands to ourselves in the store and I feel as though a balloon does not reinforce any of these things!”
I was not even kidding when I said that it is a little bit of a problem. I mean, I know that it takes a village and all most of the time I really appreciate and love the way people interact with Scarlette but in this particular instance I’m feeling like the village kind of backfired.
Help me, Rhonda.
(No really, I am incredibly curious to know if you would have let the very-sweet-pulling-at-my-heartstrings lady in the store buy your kid a toy that you had said a firm no to. I did not but I felt very awkward about it. I did let Scarlette keep the balloon though, because I felt like refusing that might make the sweet balloon lady feel awkward. It was an intense shopping trip, y’all.)
(I know. I constantly find myself in awkward situations. Wait until I tell you about what happened in Asheville.)
