But the line between ‘should be’ and reality is pretty blurred at our house. We do manage to all sit down together for dinner on most nights, and sometimes the food is good and the conversation is enjoyable. Other nights, the food is hotdogs, milk gets spilled, Coco talks with her mouth full, Allison tattles on Coco for talking with her mouth full, and Chris and I spend half our time telling the kids to be polite and the other half wondering why we insist on this ‘quality’ family time in the first place.
Last night, dinner was one of the other nights. Thursday nights often are. Allison has swim lessons and Nicole has pre-school, so we pretty much all roll in at the same time, hungry and tired. Well, Chris and I are usually tired. The girls, having somehow acquired boundless energy, make up for not seeing one another all day by chasing each other in circles around the table and alternately laughing and screaming like banshees until dinner is served.
Fortunately, we are usually guaranteed at least two solid minutes of peace at the beginning of the meal while everyone digs in. It was just after this two minute reprieve that Coco finished pushing her macaroni around her plate and announced that she was ‘all done.’ “Allie done?” she asked hopefully. (We make the girls wait for each other before being excused from the table.) Allie shook her head.
“Awwww, wait Allie,” said Nicole, resignedly. Of course, Nicole has never actually waited patiently for her sister to finish eating. Most nights, she just repeatedly asks, “Allie done?” every 17 seconds until Allie is, in fact, finished.
Coco had only asked twice before she suddenly stood up in her chair. “Me WHOAA Daddy!” she shouted (which translates roughly as, “I’m as tall as Daddy!”)
“Yes, good for you. Sit down, please,” I said. But from her ‘whoa, Daddy’ vantage point, she spotted the capital letter ‘P’ magnet on our fridge. This was clearly an exciting find for our three year old.
Coco leaped out of her chair and galloped over to the fridge while shouting, “Hey! P! My P! My school!!!!”
“Did you learn about P at school?” I asked. “Is P for Papa?”
“NO!” she shouted back. “P piss!!!!”
I looked at Chris. “Did she just say P is for piss?” We figured we must have misunderstood. “Is P for please?” I asked, because I thought that made more sense.
“No, P piss!” she shouted again. Chris and I exchanged another look. “P is for push?”
Nicole was beginning to get aggravated at our slowness. We continued to guess P words--”Pear? Piece? Pick? Pig?” but to no avail. Even Allison had a few guesses (Pumpkin! Paper!!!) Coco got madder and madder. She sighed. She yelled. She screamed, “No, P piss” over and over again.
We asked her if she could act it out; she’s an extraordinary mime. No good. I tried a few more p-words, but Chris pointed out that I was making her even more agitated. He tried a different tact--lying. “Okay, P. We got it. We understand.”
Nicole saw right thought that one. “NOOOOOOO,” she bellowed. “P PISS!!!” Then she rolled her eyes way back into her head and hurled the P across the floor. She grabbed her blanket, plopped down on the couch and popped her thumb in her mouth. It’s probably pretty stressful having such dimwitted parents.
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| Little Miss Misunderstood |
On the bright side, Nicole had her speech evaluation at the early childhood center, and we are hopeful that she will qualify for speech therapy. Maybe soon she’ll be able to tell us what P is really for.
In the meantime, we’ll continue to have our expert prescribed family dinners. It may not always be peaceful, but dinner at the Claussen’s is certainly never dull.
