Charlie, Evie and Ford

Charlie, Evie and Ford

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

The Tiny Breakable Spoon

As Evie becomes more and more verbal, her conversations with Charlie have become just hilarious.  I love the way they talk and interact, and it is so sweet (and sometimes so frustrating) to see them take each other so seriously.  They love to joke around together, but I also just love their questions and answers.  Charlie is constantly asking Evie about what she wants and treating her answer as the gospel.  One of my favorite exchanges occurred in the car one day when Charlie was asking Evie about her birthday party and what she wanted to do there.  Her answer was "cake" (her current obsession) and she told Charlie she was going to "eat all the cake."  Charlie immediately started worrying and said, "But Evie, what am I going to eat??"  She replied, "cwackers," at which point I got a VERY upset "Moooooom, Evie says I can't have any cake at her party!"  Sometimes, though, they team up, and I'll hear Charlie asking Evie, "Evie, do you want to go to the park now?"  She will answer "Yes," and then he'll say, "Mom, Evie said we can go to the park!"  Other conversations are just very amusing: Charlie: "Evie, are you going to cry at school today?"  Evie: "No." Charlie: "But why did you kind of cry one time?"  Evie: "I dunno."  OR, while watching Thomas the Train, Evie: "Airplane!" Charlie: "No, Evie, that's not an airplane, that's a helicopter.  His name is Harold.  Can you say 'Harold'?"  Evie: "Okay!"

Although Charlie and Evie, for the most part, get along very well, and mostly have very sweet, very amusing conversations, they also find a way to fight about the most bizarre things.  I remember one time, when I was little, my dad getting extremely frustrated about my sister, brother and I fighting during a car trip and he exploded with, "if I gave one of you a piece of poop, you three would fight about it!!"  I thought it was so ridiculous and disgusting at the time (parents SO don't understand anything :), but now I totally get it.  My kids can figure out a way to fight about anything.  The latest is the "tiny breakable spoon," so named because Charlie, when he was little, knew that all of our dishes were "breakable" and assumed that grown-up, stainless steel utensils, must be "breakable" as well.  I was always amused by the way he would refer to our forks, knives, and spoons as breakable, so I've never really corrected it.  Then, a few months ago, Charlie found this spoon, which was given to him at one of his baby showers:
This became the "tiny breakable spoon," and it was the only thing he wanted to use for his cottage cheese in the morning.  Once Evie noticed that it was a Big Deal, she decided she wanted a piece of the tiny breakable spoon action.  The breakfast battle for the spoon became so intense that I had to devise a system where they alternate days for the spoon.  It works ok, except that neither one can resist the urge to torment the other about the spoon, which then sends the non-spoon-day child into sobs of great despair.  I remind Charlie every day to not make it a big deal and just don't show Evie the spoon, but as soon as my back is turned, he can't resist waving it around and saying "Eeeevie, look what I have!  The tiny breakable spoon!  You can't have it today!  You have to eat with a regular spoon!"  This always produces the desired result and Evie has to be placated with lots of distraction on my part and an array of everyotherspoonweown.  I can't get too mad at him, though, because on Evie's days, she loves to benevolently hold the spoon out to him after she's finished her yogurt and say "here Caga, here Caga," as if she's offering it to him.  He always gets so happy and says, "Mom, Evie's letting me use the tiny breakable spoon now!"  But as soon as he reaches for it, she grabs it back furiously, saying "No!  Ebie's!"  Which then forces me, after having gotten him comfortable with the idea of using a different spoon for the morning, to comfort him all over again.  If the whole routine wasn't so amusing and ridiculous, I would think about getting rid of the tiny breakable spoon...but not sure that either of these crazies would let me get away with that. ;)

No comments:

Post a Comment