Forget the Cavalry—Send in the Mommy

~Posted by Ang

There are days –like today—when I have to remind myself that although Amelia often reasons and acts like an 8-year old, she’s still only 3!

This morning I walked into her room to get her some play clothes, and I discovered a casualty on the floor beside her bed: one of her favorite bedtime books with torn pages and pieces scattered across the floor like so much confetti. A huge mental “AAAAARRRGGGGGH” crossed my brain and a disgruntled groan escaped my lips. A few weeks ago she had committed a similar offense, albeit a much MUCH less destructive one, having torn only a page or two (whole pages, mind you, not just random torn pieces) out of another book. I was surprised because normally she is so careful which is why I allowed to her to use such books unsupervised in the first place. Regardless, since it happened, we scolded her about it and took the book away, expecting that the natural consequence of having disfigured her book and lost the privilege of reading it for a time would be enough to teach her not to repeat the behavior. Apparently I was wrong.

Later in the morning while Addysen was asleep, I had an opportunity to confront Amelia with the matter. I hadn’t even touched the book or the pages since finding them, and instead I had her come with me upstairs to her room to observe and clean up the mess herself. Not only had she ripped up a book, she had also made a royal mess of her play space. (I’m assuming all of this took place after we put her to bed last night when she normally reads and talks to herself until she goes to sleep.) Again, I talked to her about how we don’t tear up our books, we need to take care of them, yadayadayada. I also removed all such books from her room (those with actual pages, not the board books), and she will no longer be allowed to look at them without permission or supervision, at least for a season.

After she had picked up each piece of paper and placed them in a pile and I was satisfying myself with her making amends (to an extent) by cleaning it all up, I heard these words, “Mommy, you need to tape it back together.” SIGH. Yeah, she knows me too well! I just can’t leave a book in pieces, not when I have the power to put it back together. I hope her knowledge of this re-enforces the principle of personal responsibility we're trying to teach, that when we break something we fix it and when we make a mess we clean it up. I certainly don't want her to look at it as an escape route by which she can mess things up knowing Mommy or Daddy will fix them! If she were old enough, I'd be having HER tape the thing back together! Anyway...moving on...

During Amelia’s nap this afternoon, I spent half an hour figuring out how all the pieces fit together and where they go in the book (nearly every page of the 20-page book had been torn in some way). Thirty minutes and a couple yards of Scotch tape later, VOILA it was repaired. It’s not pretty, and it’s not as good as Golden (the publisher, although the turn of phrase is also appropriate); but at least it’s readable.

All of this got me to thinking…when Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall, all the kings horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again. I’m just speculating here, but perhaps this tragedy could have been avoided if only the king had sent in Humpty Dumpty’s mother instead.