Try telling a four year old that piece of adult wisdom, and what you'll get is something like their version of "Yeah, whatever...." because they think that you're sharing that with them to deprive them of yet another of material Heaven, and yet that's really not your motivation or desire in the slightest.
Yesterday, I awoke to find my daughter chowing down--in her room with the door shut--the last few handfuls of what had been a full bag of blueberry 'crazins'. Before opening her door I knew it was going to be good because of her makeshift scaffolding that was sitting in front of the wide open mouth of that which would be the hallway food pantry. She had a dinning room chair there to which she had crowned with the likes of her own little, red plastic art stool: a father's fright, to put it mildly. I knew that all had gone according to her smooth plan because all I can hear in the quiet of the house is the crinkling of a plastic plastic bag from behind her closed door. At four years old, they still don't really get that sound travels through walls quite well. They might 'get it', but they don't really seem to do much about the obvious nature of it at this age: Good for us. :) Aside from this though are the obvious clues as to what's going down because in the excitement of the conquest she doesn't stop to think that maybe she should dismantle her climbing structure. What's a closed door do for ya, when your tools of adventure are sprawled out for all to see? Funny. It kinds of reminds me of the early days of 'peek-a-boo' when they think that you can't see them sitting there in the open because they've covered their eyes, and if they can't see you then why on Earth should you be able to see them?? Cute stuff. So I knock on her door, thinking of the cuteness of the whole situation, and she says,
"Come in..."
I open the door and she's laying there draped across her rocking chair with all the relaxed nature of the Virgin Islands --like the cat who got the bird and can't stop the gloating,
"I'm eating craaaaaazzzins Daddy. *big smile*"
"I see that. What else have you had to eat? Is that all?"
"No, I had some animal crackers too." I'm looking all around, glancing here and there for the bag, to get a take on exactly how many of those she's consumed. Finally, I go and look in the cupboard, on the fourth shelf up where they go, and Bam! There they are. She actually went to the trouble to put those back...how funny.
"Well I sure hope that all that doesn't bother your stomach. That's a lot of concentrated, rich, snack food for such a little body." I am slowly learning to pick my battles with this one, so I consider this infraction a rather trivial one in the broader scope. After all, what's done is done. She keeps snacking and I let her. What the hell, maybe it's a kind of subconscious reward (on my part) for her being bold and daring enough, let alone expending the energy required to climb up to it, to get at what she wanted. I just didn't even want to go there besides, so I let this one go. Everybody gets a 'get out of jail free' card every once in a while. This one was her's, and on a Saturday morning--how fitting.
Things are 'peachy' (post hedonistic snack onslaught) for about another 1/2 hour, then the tummy complaints start rolling in. They were mild at first, "My tummy is aching."
(I let a little silence hang there to hopefully reinforce that she, and she alone drove herself to this 'spot' of uncomfortableness)........
"I'm not at all surprised Shayla. That's one of the possible side effects of binging on sweets and snacks like you did. Maybe you shouldn't eat So Much of that kind of thing at one sitting??"
(No response, of course. I really wasn't expecting one anyway.) So we go on about our morning and then 5 minutes later she tells me,
"My tummy REALLY hurts Daddy!"
"I'm sorry that's happening to you. Let's see... Have you had enough water today? Now would be a good time to drink a good bit of water. (I am thinking of ways to maybe allay the severity of her symptoms here.) She drinks a little bit of water, but not really all that much. She takes a few swallows and then immediately says,
"It's not helping!"
"Well you've only just started trying to do something about this little dilemma; you've got to give it a little more time." Even at this point, I'm not thinking that this little complaint is headed to where It IS headed. As the minutes pass on her complaints grow in severity until she is starting to get a little worked up over it, as am I, and is begining to grab her stomach and cry a little. At this point her mother and I start to try and problem solve with her about the best course of action. It's interesting to try and diagnose exactly what's going on with a four year old as they're not exactly capable of spelling out the intricacies of what's going on with their body. Is it 'trapped gas' because of the concentrated nature of the sweet food combined with the fact that she has't been drinking much in the way of water today? Or is it more of an upset stomach that needs to be soothed? Are we 'evacuating', and from which direction as this changes our tack and approach to the problem itself?? It's a little funny in retrospect, but certainly not so much at the time! We look over at her and she has her face planted into the couch with her butt in the air, whimpering and complaining, going back and forth between grabbing her stomach and grabbing her bottom. Okay we think, it's a definite: she has to have a bowel movement. So, on we move toward this end.
"Okay Honey, let's get you in to the bathroom with a big glass of water that you can drink while you're in there, and see what happens, okay?"
"Okay."
"You do have to go, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do", she says. Okay, so now we're in the bathroom with her, her mother and I. Shayla's on the potty and mommy is hunkered down in front of her and I'm standing there right next to both of them and Shayla proceeds to get this look on her face. It's that classic look of bearing down in order defecate, and we're all there......waiting.......but just when we think that she is about to have a release, she throws up all over her mother who is sitting there at face level with her! Wow, that was unexpected! No complaints of dizziness prior or any other mentioned clue that this was going to be the inevitable course of action! Poor momma! At least it didn't wind up in her face. We can be thankful for that. (We're laughing about it now, but not at that time, that's for sure.) Momma and Shayla promptly take a shower while I clean up the mess. Luckily it's not quite so bad as it was just dried cranberries and animal crackers. It could've been worse, for sure. They get out of the shower and off I go to the pharmacy.
I come back with Pedialyte (a Kid's electrolyte solution) and some Mylicon (for gas), because we'll still need to help this process along. Well, it all worked out well as the day progressed. Shayla had her bowel movement and drank the Pedialyte throughout the day. The question really is, will she remember that chain of cause and effect events that led to her feeling poorly and try to avoid them? Probably not. It will likely take several more of those types of experiences before natural caution will have a viable chance of taking hold. That's okay though. We love it; it's part of what being a parent must be about. We know these are the easy days and I am thankful for that, and while these experiences are trivial in the greater umbrella of parenting they are kind of funny nonetheless.
Yesterday, I awoke to find my daughter chowing down--in her room with the door shut--the last few handfuls of what had been a full bag of blueberry 'crazins'. Before opening her door I knew it was going to be good because of her makeshift scaffolding that was sitting in front of the wide open mouth of that which would be the hallway food pantry. She had a dinning room chair there to which she had crowned with the likes of her own little, red plastic art stool: a father's fright, to put it mildly. I knew that all had gone according to her smooth plan because all I can hear in the quiet of the house is the crinkling of a plastic plastic bag from behind her closed door. At four years old, they still don't really get that sound travels through walls quite well. They might 'get it', but they don't really seem to do much about the obvious nature of it at this age: Good for us. :) Aside from this though are the obvious clues as to what's going down because in the excitement of the conquest she doesn't stop to think that maybe she should dismantle her climbing structure. What's a closed door do for ya, when your tools of adventure are sprawled out for all to see? Funny. It kinds of reminds me of the early days of 'peek-a-boo' when they think that you can't see them sitting there in the open because they've covered their eyes, and if they can't see you then why on Earth should you be able to see them?? Cute stuff. So I knock on her door, thinking of the cuteness of the whole situation, and she says,
"Come in..."
I open the door and she's laying there draped across her rocking chair with all the relaxed nature of the Virgin Islands --like the cat who got the bird and can't stop the gloating,
"I'm eating craaaaaazzzins Daddy. *big smile*"
"I see that. What else have you had to eat? Is that all?"
"No, I had some animal crackers too." I'm looking all around, glancing here and there for the bag, to get a take on exactly how many of those she's consumed. Finally, I go and look in the cupboard, on the fourth shelf up where they go, and Bam! There they are. She actually went to the trouble to put those back...how funny.
"Well I sure hope that all that doesn't bother your stomach. That's a lot of concentrated, rich, snack food for such a little body." I am slowly learning to pick my battles with this one, so I consider this infraction a rather trivial one in the broader scope. After all, what's done is done. She keeps snacking and I let her. What the hell, maybe it's a kind of subconscious reward (on my part) for her being bold and daring enough, let alone expending the energy required to climb up to it, to get at what she wanted. I just didn't even want to go there besides, so I let this one go. Everybody gets a 'get out of jail free' card every once in a while. This one was her's, and on a Saturday morning--how fitting.
Things are 'peachy' (post hedonistic snack onslaught) for about another 1/2 hour, then the tummy complaints start rolling in. They were mild at first, "My tummy is aching."
(I let a little silence hang there to hopefully reinforce that she, and she alone drove herself to this 'spot' of uncomfortableness)........
"I'm not at all surprised Shayla. That's one of the possible side effects of binging on sweets and snacks like you did. Maybe you shouldn't eat So Much of that kind of thing at one sitting??"
(No response, of course. I really wasn't expecting one anyway.) So we go on about our morning and then 5 minutes later she tells me,
"My tummy REALLY hurts Daddy!"
"I'm sorry that's happening to you. Let's see... Have you had enough water today? Now would be a good time to drink a good bit of water. (I am thinking of ways to maybe allay the severity of her symptoms here.) She drinks a little bit of water, but not really all that much. She takes a few swallows and then immediately says,
"It's not helping!"
"Well you've only just started trying to do something about this little dilemma; you've got to give it a little more time." Even at this point, I'm not thinking that this little complaint is headed to where It IS headed. As the minutes pass on her complaints grow in severity until she is starting to get a little worked up over it, as am I, and is begining to grab her stomach and cry a little. At this point her mother and I start to try and problem solve with her about the best course of action. It's interesting to try and diagnose exactly what's going on with a four year old as they're not exactly capable of spelling out the intricacies of what's going on with their body. Is it 'trapped gas' because of the concentrated nature of the sweet food combined with the fact that she has't been drinking much in the way of water today? Or is it more of an upset stomach that needs to be soothed? Are we 'evacuating', and from which direction as this changes our tack and approach to the problem itself?? It's a little funny in retrospect, but certainly not so much at the time! We look over at her and she has her face planted into the couch with her butt in the air, whimpering and complaining, going back and forth between grabbing her stomach and grabbing her bottom. Okay we think, it's a definite: she has to have a bowel movement. So, on we move toward this end.
"Okay Honey, let's get you in to the bathroom with a big glass of water that you can drink while you're in there, and see what happens, okay?"
"Okay."
"You do have to go, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do", she says. Okay, so now we're in the bathroom with her, her mother and I. Shayla's on the potty and mommy is hunkered down in front of her and I'm standing there right next to both of them and Shayla proceeds to get this look on her face. It's that classic look of bearing down in order defecate, and we're all there......waiting.......but just when we think that she is about to have a release, she throws up all over her mother who is sitting there at face level with her! Wow, that was unexpected! No complaints of dizziness prior or any other mentioned clue that this was going to be the inevitable course of action! Poor momma! At least it didn't wind up in her face. We can be thankful for that. (We're laughing about it now, but not at that time, that's for sure.) Momma and Shayla promptly take a shower while I clean up the mess. Luckily it's not quite so bad as it was just dried cranberries and animal crackers. It could've been worse, for sure. They get out of the shower and off I go to the pharmacy.
I come back with Pedialyte (a Kid's electrolyte solution) and some Mylicon (for gas), because we'll still need to help this process along. Well, it all worked out well as the day progressed. Shayla had her bowel movement and drank the Pedialyte throughout the day. The question really is, will she remember that chain of cause and effect events that led to her feeling poorly and try to avoid them? Probably not. It will likely take several more of those types of experiences before natural caution will have a viable chance of taking hold. That's okay though. We love it; it's part of what being a parent must be about. We know these are the easy days and I am thankful for that, and while these experiences are trivial in the greater umbrella of parenting they are kind of funny nonetheless.