Baby Rimes

Look out Keith Haring, we have a new Baby Picasso on our hands.

Today, as is usual on our Mondays, we went to the library.  We played with the puzzles, picked out some books and colored.  Miss R wanted to color hearts.  So as we were coloring hearts, Mommy got a bit distracted about looking for books.  Miss R was happily coloring her heart with a wide range of colored pencils and as I peeked over the book I was looking through-something about Really Loud Songs for Toddlers-she continued happily coloring.

Until I heard, “Mommy, I coloring!”

Now, she never really says this unless she has done something new.  So I look over my book to see her perched on the chair, backwards, pencil in hand, and beaming at the painted post right behind her chair.

Mommy voice comes on, “uh-oh.”

“Miss R, what are you doing?”

“COLORING!”

Yup, you got it.  On the wall.  With pencil.  Does anyone know how HARD it is to get pencil off the wall?  Nearly impossible.  Erasers don’t do it.

So, in typical teacher fashion (which goes against EVERYTHING that is Mommy behavior), I said very quietly, “Miss R, I think you need a time out.”

She took it like a good little 2 year old.  She sat right down looking at me with eyes that said, yup, Mommy you are absolutely right.  What I did was completely wrong and I DO need a time out.

I’m so amazed at how  well she processes things.  I looked at her after cleaning up our coloring mess and suggested we clean up her mess.  She jumped up and said, “yeah.”  So we got some paper towels and did our best to clean up the wall.  She was such a good girl and scrubbed and scrubbed.  She wanted to clean it all up herself.

When we were done, I asked, “What do you think we should do now?” She hung her little blond head and said, “I sorry.”  I kid you not.  Without any prompting, that’s what she said.  I was so proud of her at that moment.

We went up to the librarian, who is not named Marion, but is named Jo, and who Daddy Rimes knows as the mom of one of his friends.  I said, we have something to tell you.  Miss R hung her little head down even further, looked at me and begged me to pick her up.  Jo the librarian was so sweet as Mommy explained what happened.  She even said that Miss R was very brave for coming up and telling her.  She had a stash of Magic Erasers for this very thing and said not to worry about it.

Long story, but the end was so sweet.  Miss R was so sad, and I’ve never really seen her show remorse for something she did.  Which really helped the Mommy side of me from becoming completely embarrassed by something my kid did in public.

But in the end, we went home and made waffles for dinner, which is Miss R’s current favorite pick and made up for a messy afternoon by dancing around the living room to the Corrs after dinner.