The Damp Mop

As I write this blog, it is 12:30 at night and I have 8 awake girls in my basement. They don't seem to be running out of energy, so I finally encouraged them to put on a quiet movie and turn the lights out. I'm hoping that they will finally pass out so that I can go to bed. I am going to need a very long nap tomorrow.

I just wanted to share a humorous Christina story. Her class uses a reading program called Open Court Reading, and as part of the program, she brings home short stories that she reads to me. One of the short stories that she brought home this week was called Panda Band.

Let me give you the gist of the Panda Band short story. It is about a Panda that cleans a jazz club for a living. She is sick of her job and wants to be on stage and play the saxophone. I was pretty surprised that I didn't get a hundred questions about what a jazz club is, but that is not the point of the story.

Each story emphasizes a new sound. The sound for this story was the mp sound as in lamp. The panda in the story is pushing a damp mop. Here is the funny part:

Christina has always had speech issues. Most have cleared up, but she still has problems with the r sound. She also seems to have issues with the mp sound. She just pronounces it as a straight m sound.

Here is the story (as I remember most of it) of Panda Band. Imagine a child that can't pronounce the p in damp:

"I work at a place that plays jazz music. I push a damp mop. I am tried of pushing the damp mop. I want to be on stage and play the sax..." and then the panda ends up playing saxophone and being on stage ..."I don't have to push the damp mop anymore."

As Christina was reading this story I was really trying my hardest not to laugh, but it was so hilarious. She has no clue, either. I am convinced that the story was written by a former janitor or cleaning lady that was sick of their trade. There can't be any way that the writers didn't know what they were doing.

I needed the laugh that day. It was stressful. I enjoyed hearing Christina read it so much that I had her read it to whatever adult I ran into that afternoon. Maybe I'll share this story for her one day. She just thought that I was proud at how well she could read. If she only knew...

He pulled my hair first!

This blog is somewhat of a flashback, but I was reminded of this incident yesterday.

A few months ago, when Christina was just breaking her thumb sucking habit, she was an emotional wreck. Apparently, thumb sucking was her main coping mechanism. She was a real *joy* that first week.

Well, one day that week Christina, Isaiah and I were hanging out in my bedroom. They were playing together and I was folding clothes. Isaiah (about 7 months old at the time) grabbed Christina's hair and yanked it. Now, I'm sure what happened next had to be an impulsive reaction--Christina reached over and yanked his hair back.

Isaiah started screaming. I looked at Christina, "What did you do that for?"

"He pulled my hair first." She said it as matter-of-fact as possible.

This is one of those moments when I really want to say something really sarcastic, but I know that by doing so I might cause my child emotional harm and I'll hear stories for the rest of her life about having to go to a therapist, so I bit my tongue. All I said was, "He's just a baby. He doesn't know that he pulled your hair."

Cue watery eyes. I think she thought about what she did. Then she looked at her brother, who was still screaming as I cuddled him. All of the sudden, the most blood-curdling wail came from her mouth. She proceeded to throw the most dramatic crying fit ever.

I am not kidding--Christina threw herself from the bed to the floor and started the biggest temper tantrum/crying fit since she was 2 years old. I was speechless. I mean, she literally hadn't had a temper tantrum in about 3 years, and I was watching her throw one on my bedroom floor. It was so dramatic that Isaiah stopped crying and looked down to watch it. After about a minute she took her thumb and started rubbing it on her cheek. It seemed to calm her down a little bit.

At that point I knew that we were going to have to work on learning some coping mechanisms. During that long month she spent a lot of time to herself trying to find new ways to deal with issues. I had no idea that thumb sucking was such a crutch. (I've been lucky enough to only have 1 thumb sucker out of my 4 kids.)

She managed to survive the month thumb free, but now she's starting to revert 2 months later. I think I need to find a more effective substitute for thumb sucking. If you have any ideas, please let me know! I really don't want to deal with that drama again.