"Errrr!! I hate my hair!" Violet yells as she comes storming out of the bathroom into the living room.
"What's the problem?" I ask her can't believe I'm having this conversation with someone who's not even five yet.
"It's all bumpy on top! Everyone one is my class will see that and laugh at me!" I know this is not true. The kids in her preschool class still pick their nose and eat it, but this hardly seems the time to bring that up.
"Ok. First -stop yelling at me. If you want me to fix it, you need to ask me politely for help. Second - You are way to young to care about this stuff. Look at your sister," I point over to Lila sitting in the rocker. "She's 8, has a snarl on her head the size of a small cat and she doesn't care one bit. She'd go to school like that if I let her."
"You bet!" Lila says through a mouthfull of granola bar.
None of this has settled Violet. Her arms are crossed and she's dangerously close to stamping her foot at any moment.
"Ok, come here. I can fix this." I pull her into my lap and generously cover her head with tangle spray. I even out all the bumps and smooth the hair down both sides. "Go check that out and see if that's ok." I tell her. She comes back from the bathroom all smiles.
"That's great! Thank you Momma."
Crisis averted.
*************************
"Hey Momma, why do we celebrate Easter?" Lila asks me from the back seat of the car.
"Well, Easter is a religious holiday but we're more of the chocolate eggs and rabbits kind of family." I tell her.
"Why do they celebrate it, like, what does it mean?" She asks me.
I have to stop and think for a minute. We're not a devote family. I never grew up that way, so the finer points of these occasions slip me up sometimes.
"I think," I tell her "That Easter celebrates the day that Jesus rose from the dead."
"Oh Man! That's disgusting!" Violet yells from the back.
I quickly realise the only real experience my girls have had with Resurrection has come in the form of a cartoon where a boy gets his hamster back after it dies. It comes back as it
is, all bones and puss, not as it
was, all fuzzy and cute.
"No! No, Vi! It's not like that. It's a miracle and he's just fine! He's in good shape!" I tell her, but she is clearly not convinced.
"So, why would they want to celebrate that anyway?" Lila continues.
"Well, he's their savior, so it's a pretty big deal." I am well aware of what a mockery I'm making of this. This is just not my area and I'm winging it here just waiting for the questions to stop.
"But what does he do?" She asks
I am so deep over my head that I do the only thing I can at this point. "You are going to need to ask Grandma that." I tell her. My mother in law is a good catholic. The balls in her court now. Maybe she can save my heathen children because Jesus don't want me for a sunbeam.
************************
"Hey Momma! I just saved my own life!" Violet tells me as I walk into the kitchen.
"Really? What happened?"
"Well, I cut my finger real bad, but I got my own band aid and covered it up!" She holds up her hand and I see the Barbie band aid stuck to her thumb.
"Good for you, but how did cut your finger?"
"Well, that's not important. I just saved my own life! I had to open the band aid with my teeth because the blood was dripping everywhere and I couldn't use this hand." She shakes her bandaged hand at me.
She's clearly very impressed with herself. Almost a little shocked too that she managed to pull this off with out crying.
"May I check the cut, please. I want to make sure it's clean." I hold out my hand to her.
"I washed it and everything. It's great."
"Please." I tell her, still holding out my hand. She puts her hand in mine and I pull back the band aid. It's a pretty good puncture wound and it's still bleeding.
"I know you washed this out, but I'd like to do it again with some soap." I take her to the bathroom and clean up the cut and apply some antibiotic cream. As we're putting on a fresh Barbie band aid I ask her again how this happened.
"A spoon?" she says as she looks up at me through her lashes.
"Really? Spoons aren't sharp. Even the handles are mild. Was it really a spoon?" She nods.
"Ok, go get this spoon, I'd like to have a look at it." Violet heads up to her room and comes down a few minutes later with her wooden club house sign.
"Actually Momma, there was a pokey piece of wood on this sign but I took it off and threw it away so it's ok now." I inspect the sign that she and her Dad made. It's fairly smooth and sanded with no places for splinters to peel off from.
"Violet, this sign did not cut you. I'm going to ask you one more time and I want the truth. What did you get cut on?"
She hangs her head "A fork." She whispers. This makes more sense, but I'm still afraid she has gotten a hold of a knife.
"Go get the fork please." I tell her.
"I already washed all the blood off it, it's ok!"
"Go." I tell her.
She comes back down stairs with the fork. It's very likely this is the culprit. "Ok," I ask her "What were you doing when you got cut?"
"Well, you wouldn't help me so I was taking the paper off the can myself."
20 minutes earlier Violet had asked me to take the label off of a coffee can and I told her I couldn't help her right now. At that time I was on my hands and knees scrapping up several inches of powder from the bathroom floor. She had "accidentally" spilled it all over her bath toys, across the floor, in the trash can and worst of all in the corner by the tub. The shower always leaks in that spot so the powder was a gluey mess. This was not so much an accident but rather her amusement at the fwoosh noise the powder bottle made when she squeezed it. She's been testing the boundaries lately with her lying. So far, they've been mild and she's had no more than a stern look and warning. Now she's hurt herself and covered it up with lies. The fork must have slipped and gouged her as she was trying to pry the paper off the can.
"Ok. I believe that happened." I tell her. "But how do I know that you didn't get a knife and cut yourself on that?" I ask.
"I didn't! It was the fork! I wouldn't use a knife!"
"But you lied to me twice about how this happened. How I can I know that your not lying now?" I ask her.
"Really Momma, I'm not lying now!" the tears are welling up in her eyes. She looks shocked that I don't believe her.
I look her straight in the eyes "This is why it's not ok to lie. No one will ever be able to believe you because they won't know when you are telling the truth. It's never ok to lie when you get hurt. I have to know exactly what happened so I can take care of you."
I pull a chair over to the pantry door and motion for her to climb into it. "Have seat here for awhile and think that over." I tell her. She climbs in, hangs her head and lets out a big sigh.
This kid is going to be tough. She is so different from my other two. They would have been bawling at the first site of the blood, too scared to worry about being in trouble. That puncture had to hurt and it was bleeding pretty good too (I found the wads of bloody toilet paper in the trash can). Still, she sucked it up and "saved" her own life. At this point, I'm torn between pride and fear.
A few minutes later I tell her she can get up from the chair. "I'm sorry I lied Momma." She tells me.
"Good. I'm sorry you lied too. Please don't do it anymore." She gives me a smile and heads off upstairs.
Violet and Middle School is going to be a bitch. I can just feel it already.
Labels: bad hair days, lying, rising from the dead, Violet
