During one visit to Papa and Nana’s house, Papa, Nana, Green Grandma, Bunny and I went out to eat at a buffet restaurant. Buffets are great when you have a growing child. There‘s many different foods to eat, and when the child is really young, buffets are usually free. Great stuff.
Bunny was just about a year old. She already had a large vocabulary at this point, but hadn’t made any sentences so far.
So, we’re sitting down to eat, and Bunny starts making this frustrated “eeeeeeeeeeeee!” sound, complete with a grumpy face. “Eeeeeeeeeeeee!” She’s wriggling in her chair, “eeeeeeeeeeeee!” completely flustered. “Eeeeeeeeeeeee!” It‘s like nails on a chalkboard. “Eeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Dining out with a toddler is frequently a challenge, but this was above and beyond. We’re all going nuts.
Bunny’s Nana is a social worker. She’s calm, cool, collected. She leaned over and said:
NANA: Use your words, Bunny.
So she does. Bunny channeled every bit of her frustration into words. It sounded like she was possessed by a legion of demons. Every word was slow and deliberate. And shouted at the top of her lungs.
BUNNY:GET! IT! OFF! ME!
We all stared at her for a moment with a mixture of surprise, horror, and awe. Nana was the first one to recover.
NANA: Get what off you , Bunny? BUNNY:SHOE!
So we took off her shoes, and Bunny was content. We could finally eat in peace.
Life with Bunny is never dull. We’re fortunate that Bunny goes to a very small school, and it’s in a multi-level classroom. Her class is K-3. Although she’s age-wise in kindergarten, she’s reading at fifth-grade level. Her comprehension is “only” at second-grade level, so the teacher’s working to get her comprehension up to her reading level.
All of which means Bunny was assigned the Beatrix Potter story, Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, for school the other day. We had to read it every day, to help with the comprehension. On this particular day, when we were done with the story, she had to write out the setting, the characters, the problem, and the solution.
Bunny was all done with the homework, when I realized that she hadn’t put the title or author on worksheet. I decided to fill it in for her. I turned the story face-down so she couldn’t see the title page.
MOMMY BUNNY: What’s the title of this story? BUNNY: The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin. MOMMY BUNNY: Right! And who’s the author? Do you remember?
Instead of saying "Beatrix Potter", without missing a beat, she said…
It's very cool to watch kids learn and grow. Last month, Bunny had a three-inch growth spurt. Of course, we were on vacation, and she outgrew everything we had packed--including the underwear!
This month, it was time for a brain spurt. We've noticed that just before her brain grows, she binges on one food. Once, it was salmon. Last time, she scarfed nine scrambled eggs in one sitting. This time, it was Eggo waffles. Seven of them, to be exact. Pretty impressive for a four-year old.
Well, the brain spurt happened. How do we know? Because this week, we heard:
BUNNY: These books are too easy. I need to go to the library to get something harder.
The reading level was grade 2.1. Go Bunny!
BUNNY: Daddy, that mosquito just alighted upon my leg.
Bunny is going through a helping phase. The other day at the pool, she didn’t want to leave until she helped the lifeguards put away all the pool floats. A few days ago, she helped by mopping the floor. And earlier this week, she helped me pack up some boxes.
We found a box that we thought was full of coathangers. At the bottom of the box, we found about thirty pairs of shoes. Bunny helped me put the shoes into totes to be properly stored. As we sorted through the shoes, Bunny found a pair of my high heels with an ankle strap. She told me that she really liked the shoes, and she put one on. Just one.
After we were done with the shoes, Bunny tried to walk in the shoe. With every step, she said “AARGH!” Step. Aargh. Step. Aargh. Step. Aargh. Eventually, I asked her what she was doing.
Yesterday was errand day. If you’ve never had the experience of running errands with a toddler, it’s quite an adventure. If you run errands for more than an hour or two, the child gets bored or exhausted, and you need to take a break. Otherwise, bad manners will result. I knew this going in.
We did errands anyway. Not just for two hours, mind you, but for eight. I didn’t want to do it that way, but sometimes you have to.
By hour number seven, it had been a long day for the both of us, and drama was in the air. She had started to act up at Home Depot, and the thought of making one last stop was discouraging. But, we needed toilet paper, and they sure don’t sell it there. I checked.
Onward to the super-mega-mart, where you can get almost everything under the sun. All I wanted was toilet paper. I envision how I can make this trip as quick as possible:
1) Put the Bunny in a cart; 2) Put toilet paper in the cart; and, 3) Pay at self-checkout.
In and out in less than five minutes. As we pull into the parking lot, I hear the dreaded words:
BUNNY: Mommy? I’m hungry. I’m staaarving. I wanna eat here.
And so we did. I had a salad, and she had a carton of blueberries. Her blueberry container boasted that she was consuming “Mighty Blues: The Powerful Snack”. With every blueberry she ate, she would display her muscles, thus confirming to everyone at the surrounding tables that she indeed was getting power from these Mighty Blues. Very cute and very entertaining. This “dinner and a show” made me hopeful that the rest of the night would go as smoothly.
It didn’t. After an impressive ballet-spin-gone-wrong and a more-impressive face plant in the middle of the dairy aisle, Bunny got put in the cart. She then went straight for the drama. Her “knee pads” hurt and she needed ice. When I refused, she copped an attitude, complete with bad manners and rudeness. I’m tired. She’s tired. It’s all downhill from here.
When we got to the register, I got her out of the cart, mainly because she had been using the lasagna-we-suddenly-needed as an ice pack. Bunny now went into full drama mode. So I asked her:
MOMMY BUNNY: When we came in here, you had good manners. Where did they go? BUNNY: I dunno. The good ones musta changed into bad ones. Two bags of bad manners. That’s all I got. MOMMY BUNNY: Well, you need to throw those bad manners away. BUNNY: Okay.
And she does. She goes over to the trash can, and mimes throwing away the two bags of bad manners. She then reaches into her mouth and pulls out the imaginary bad manners and throws them away. She walks back over. She’s hunching with her hands behind her back, and she’s pacing. She looks like a mini Groucho Marx. It’s damn amusing.
MOMMY BUNNY: What are you doing? BUNNY: I don’t have any manners yet. I don’t know how to act. CLERK: How do you get your manners? BUNNY: My bunnies give them to me. CLERK: She’s four, isn’t she?
Finally, her imaginary bunnies gave her good manners. We’re in the car and on the road. Things were going well. One quick stop at the dump to throw away two pieces of wood, and then onward towards home…
Until Daddy Bunny called. He just made it into town, and he’s hungry. Do we want to meet for dinner? Hold on, let me ask her.
MOMMY BUNNY: When we get home, Bunny, you need to go potty, brush your teeth, and get ready for bed. BUNNY: But Mommy! I’m so hungry! I’m staaarving!
So, we’re sitting down to eat, and Bunny starts making this frustrated “eeeeeeeeeeeee!” sound, complete with a grumpy face. “Eeeeeeeeeeeee!” She’s wriggling in her chair, “eeeeeeeeeeeee!” completely flustered. “Eeeeeeeeeeeee!” It‘s like nails on a chalkboard. “Eeeeeeeeeeeee!”
