Pumpkins, Corn Maze and Tears

I failed to mention that our neighbors also accompanied us to the pumpkin patch on Saturday. They have daughters aged seven and three. Their eldest daughter has been known to drive me more than a little crazy because she is so different than my own daughter. Her Highness is usually fairly quiet and is content to read Junie B. Jones or play Barbies but when this other child is in the mix, the crazy level and volume reach unknown heights.

It's not like this little girl is bad. She's not. She's silly and ornery; she just occasionally could benefit from some pharmaceuticals. That's all. The pumpkin farm seemed the perfect place to go with a high energy child like Princess W because of the wide open spaces, fresh air and a 5 acre corn maze. Surely she couldn't drive me batty there.

And she didn't. Thank God. She actually fulfilled a role in our group that my own daughter has become so adept at fulfilling. That is the role of the sourpuss. The whiner. The complainer. You know what I am talking about: the child who wears their proverbial heart upon their little sleeves and the slightest bump causes it to tumble to the ground and shatter into a bazillion pieces.

Little things such as her little sister getting to hold the bunny first set her off. She flung her jacket to the ground and stomped off. Another time, she was asked to hold still for a picture and almost exploded into a thousand pieces of anger and tears. Her parents became frustrated. Her father fumed and fussed. Her mother made excuses.

I nodded in agreement that, yes, this is just being seven. Isn't it a difficult age? I shrugged off the behavior to the fretting father, assuring him that it was fine; it happens often at our home. But, inside, I was gloating. Thank God it wasn't my child. No, indeed. My lovely, well-behaved, emotionally stable daughter was playing nicely with the others, her sensitive nature shrouded this day by the excitement of pumpkins and a corn maze.

On that day, my kid kept her emotions in check. She was not the one embarrassing me and appearing as a pampered, coddled, spoiled little brat (which, sigh, she kinda is). Those moments made me so glad that we went to the farm with the other family because someone had to be the crybaby and, for once, my kid was off duty.

Overheard...

Yesterday afternoon, we went to visit my mother and took Princess W, a neighbor girl, with us. Leaving our neighborhood, we drove past a new two-story home under construction. I remarked to RxMan that it was going to be pretty when it was completed. The two seven-year olds in the back, little eavesdroppers that they are, struck up a conversation on their own regarding the new home.

Princess W: "Hey, Her Highness, that is a big house."

HH: "Yeah, it is. It's gonna be pretty, huh?"

PW: "I wanna go in there but the people are always there and my dad won't take me in."

HH: "I know. I want a big house like that when I get big."

PW: "Not me. I want a three-story house."

HH: "I want a mansion!" (giggles all around)

PW: "How much you think a mansion costs?"

HH: "I don't know........probably, like, thousand dollars."

PW: "Wow, that's a lot of money."

Oh, to be seven and clueless again, right???

Lunch With The Princesses

Today, we do not have school. Why we are already having a teacher inservice day only seven days after school came into session is beyond me, but, hey, I don't make the schedule. I volunteered to keep Princess W at our house so Her Highness would have someone to pal around with and so that her folks wouldn't have to pay for a sitter.

Things were going well so RxMan (who is on vacation for a week) and I decided to take Her Highness, PW and The Conqueror out for lunch and errand running. We opted for Pizza Hut because of the speediness of its buffet and casual atmosphere that is conducive to a hollering nearly eight month old.

It was actually a pretty nice lunch. TC behaved and thoroughly enjoyed the mac 'n cheese, the pizza was good and so were the princesses. RxMan and I were surprised by how much both girls ate. HH ate 3 slices and had pudding, breadsticks, strawberries and wafer cookies. PW ate 4 slices and had lots of the other things on the buffet that HH did, too. I remarked to RxMan that PW ate more than I did but thought little of it because she is a big girl with a big appetite.

Next, we slid through Starbucks. I am totally addicted to the Raspberry Mocha right now since I have discovered that my consumption of chocolate doesn't affect TC anymore (Holla!). I usually get HH a kid's hot chocolate because, hey, even little princesses should get to experience the deliciousness and decadence that is Starbucks. HH said she was too full but PW wanted one so RxMan obliged.

The last stop was my school; classes begin Tuesday and I needed to get my books. I was in the bookstore for maybe 5 minutes and came back out to discover PW and HH out of the car, resting on the curb. I was suspicious immediately.

Turns out that PW had overindulged. The four slices, 6 breadsticks, 2 cinna-sticks, pudding, 5 strawberries and various other foods did not sit well in her delicate system. Her tummy hurt. Real bad, she said. She thought she was going to puke. Sigh.

I mean, c'mon. Can she not, at seven, figure out when she is full? Her parents do not eat out often with her but I know that it is not something that she does so rarely that she has to eat like it is the last meal she will have this month. Well, she never did puke. Thank heavens.

I am not a very nurturing person. I don't come from nurturing people. My mom was not the one who sat with you and rubbed your back while you vomited. She did not put cool cloths on your head and bring you ginger ale. She told you there was 7 Up in the fridge and to clean up your mess when you were through. What could she do, really? So, the idea of having to love on some one else's kid was not even a little appealing to me. Particularly because she did it to herself by acting like a hog.

So, that is a lesson: don't take kids to a buffet if they have impulse control issues.