Still working on it...

I put up a post yesterday about Lucy's misunderstanding of the common phrase She who smelled it, dealt it, but what I didn't put up was the long, drawn-out conversation we had wherein I tried to explain her mistake.

Somewhere along the way, it occurred to me that Lucy was forming the impression that any talk about smell whatsoever really just means that somebody passed gas and is trying to hide it.  So I started to backtrack, and then found myself getting tripped up, and by the end of our 15 minute long exegesis of She who Smelled it, Dealt It I knew that Lucy still had no idea what the phrase really means.

So today I was sitting at the computer when Lucy came up to me wearing a shimmery costume.  She ran her hands over the silky material and then asked me if I knew why she was doing so.

"Does the fabric feel nice on your hands?" I asked.
"No, Mom," she said, exasperated.  "I'm feeling my dress."
 I still couldn't tell what she was getting at.
"Mom," she said, slowly and very patiently, "I'm doing this because she who felt it, dealt it."

I give up.  I just give up.

Straight from the source

I went down to the basement to check on Lucy after putting Ruth down for her nap, and as I got to the bottom of the steps it became pretty clear that the air there had recently been polluted.

"Can you smell that stinky?" Lucy asked me.  I nodded.
"Do you know who did it?" she asked.
"Well, Lucy," I said, "You're the only one down here."
She shrugged her shoulders, as though that was not the answer she was looking for.
"Also I knew it must be me," she said, "because...you know, 'She who felt it, dealt it.' "

Update on Ruth....

She did manage to eat one actual food item today: a piece of pumpernickel bagel. 

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure she was only willing to put it in her mouth because it was a similar color to chocolate....

Hunger Games

Ruth is refusing to eat.

It began on Sunday, when I (as I always do, because I believe fully in the feasting aspect of Easter!) let the girls eat candy out of their baskets before breakfast.

Ruth is kind of a choco-holic.  I mean, she really really loves chocolate.  When I make chocolate-chip pumpkin muffins, she very carefully mines out all of the chocolate chips and eats them, then throws the rest of the muffin on the floor.  I switched to those tiny little mini-chocolate chips in an effort to thwart her, but she has her pincher grip down pretty good and just takes the extra time to excavate those teeny little nuggets of chocolate.

So now that she knows there is chocolate in the house, she is refusing to eat anything else.  On Easter, she refused the delicious ham, homemade bread rolls, marshmallow fruit salad and candied carrots that her Grandma had so lovingly set out.  At home she has refused oatmeal (with chocolate chips, no less, because I'm getting desperate!), bananas, grapes, cheese, peanut butter sandwiches:  all of her favorite foods are being laid  before her, and she is stubbornly resisting it all. 

If any of the girls foolishly leave a basket laying around we can be sure to find Ruth, with a stealthy silence that would amaze an elf, carefully picking out and unwrapping chocolate eggs. 

If I had more time, or was a better writer (or maybe a better mother) I would find some way to connect this to the tendency we all struggle against, to pass over the joys laid before us in our anxiety to reach for some other good that exists only in imagination.  Or something like that. 

Instead, I am going to use the remainder of bath-time (the one time of day, aside from glorious nap-time, when I can do stuff around the house unhindered) to hunt down and hide every last trace of chocolate.  And I am going to hope that eventually Ruth's need for real food will overpower her disordered desire for chocolate, and she will again be in a position to appreciate the feast set before her. 

I believe the technical term for recognizing the value of what is in front of you is virtue. 

Feasting is awesome, but you ruin it when what you're pining for is not what you've been given but the one you've set your heart on.  Or something like that.