Untamable Laughter

Ava has dance on Friday mornings. This event is by far the highlight of her week. She is ready to leave from the moment she wakes up. The problem is that the class doesn't start until 10:30. This means a bit of a stressful morning for me for two reasons: 1) Ava asks a million times "Is it time to go yet?" and 2)It falls smack dab in the middle of Phins morning nap.

In order to avoid both questions I tried for a few weeks to leave at 9am (Phin's naptime) and allow him to sleep in the car and drive around until ballet with Ava chatting, listening to books on CD, singing, etc. I thought this would be an ingenious solution and it worked well as far as Ava was concerned. She knew she was "on the way" to ballet and she was happy. It did not work well for Phin. He's just gotten to an age where he is too interested in the world to sleep, unless he's beyond exhausted.

Today I knew I had to nap Phin BEFORE we left and just wake him up at the last minute to go. At least then I had a risk of a mildly grumpy baby vs. a guarantee of a very tired, very grumpy little lad. Ava has just on pins and needles. She was in her ballet tights and leotard before I was even out of bed. She talked about tap and ballet all through breakfast and was just crushed when I changed the old "plan" and put Phin to nap before leaving. She was sure she was going to "be late".

In order to avoid getting frustrated, I put on a "Olivia" episode. She was distracted and I was able to get showered and changed and even clean up after breakfast before it was time to wake up Phin and head out. I didn't want to lose any sleep for Phin so I waited to wake him up until it was time to get into the car. When I told Ava to grab her bag while I got Phin, she was delighted. She said, "it's time to go?!" with such exuberence, you'd think she'd won the lottery. (Is there anything better than the pure joy children so easily express?) She started jumping up and down and for some unknown reason she grabbed a Campari Tomato from the counter. I don't know what she was thinking and I am sure she has no idea herself. She treated the tomato as one of those egg shaker and as she took her first "shake", she obviously also squeezed. The tomato burst and was all over Ava AND all over my jeans.

I burst out laughing. Ava was stunned. She stood there for a few seconds and I thought she could laugh too...only I was wrong. She started crying...and crying...and crying. As badly as I wanted to stop laughing I couldn't. My laughter was only exacerbated by her repeating "that pamato spit on me". I cleaned her up, dug tomato seeds out of her hair and scrubbed the juice off her leotard. She calmed a bit, but was still crying as I rushed her into the car. My laughing turned to a bit of anxiety as I realized this little episode might make us late and in her three year old mind our lateness would now be associated by her "random" action but by MY giving Phin a nap before we left. We made it JUST as class was to begin and she enjoyed every second of her tappin' and turning.

I still crack up when I see the tomoatoes on my counter. She will certainly think twice before picking them up again...she seemed so shocked by the whole thing, I wouldn't be surprised if she develops a tomatoe phobia...is there such a thing?