Thursday, July 24, 2008

Do NOT Disturb the Beast as It Slumbers

This is my darling and adorable Ellis (5) when I walk into her room to wake her up every morning.

Cranky does not even begin to describe her mood in the mornings. She is the Destroyer of Worlds. Seriously, she scares me in the mornings.

The following is a for reals True Story!*

I creep gently into her room last week and gently shake her shoulder.

“Ellis,” I whisper, “Baby, it’s time to get up.”

Nothing. She doesn’t even budge.

A little louder, “Ellis, schmoopy-pants, it’s a school day. Let’s get going.”

She makes a little grunting sound. She moves her shoulder and body away from my hand as if I’m on fire.

“Ellis! School! Come on! Let’s shake it, baby!” I am the very picture of chipper and good cheer. I shake her a bit more and rub her back.

She moves away again until she’s wedged up against the wall.

“Hey! You can’t get away from me. Come here! Let’s go!” and I move the cover from off her body.

She violently pulls the covers back over her head.

She hasn’t yet opened her eyes at all.

“Ellis. Fru-foo Muffin. Let’s go!”

More grunting, but she’s begun to stretch.

“Hey! Look at that! You are awake and stretching. Excellent! I’m going to go pour you some cereal. Be back in a sec.”

I go pour cereal and start making her lunch. I come back to her room and she has gotten up, turned off the lights and closed the door.

And locked it.

“Ellis!” I yell through the door, “This isn’t helping anything. I can unlock the door.”

I run fetch the key, unlock the door and see that she’s deeply hidden herself under the covers.

“OK, I’m done playing Gibble Monkey, I’m going to pick you up by your toes now.”

“DON’T CALL ME GIBBLE MONKEY! My name is Ellis.”

“I know that, E. but hey, look, you are awake! Let’s get dressed. What do you want to wear today?” I should have tried this angle earlier. She loves picking out her clothes.

“Dress.”

“Which dress?”

“Pink dress.”

“Which pink dress?”

“…”

“Ellis? You there, sweetie?”

“…”

She’s back asleep. Maybe. “OK, I’m getting out your jeans and the green shirt.”

“NO! NO! NO! I WANT THE PINK DRESS!”

“OK! Let’s get cranking on that! And can we hurry? It’s starting to get late.”

For the first time, she cracks open her eyes. It’s a demonic stare, aimed directly at my forehead. I turn around to her closet to get her dress and realize that I have made a tragic error.

She wore the pink dress earlier this week, it’s dirty and buried in the laundry basket. Quick! Grab the cute khaki skirt and the pink polo shirt! Maybe she’ll buy off on it.

“Uh-oh, Ellis, looks like the pink dress is in the wash. How about this darling skirt and cute pink shirt?”

“NO!”

Hellfire.

“OK, here. How about this. Get up and come choose what you want to wear.”

She flings the covers off and makes a beeline for the dirty clothes hamper in the corner and begins to dig, “I want to wear the pink dress.”

“Ellis, Poopy Cluster. You can’t. It’s dirty. Look, there’s cupcake frosting on the front. You can’t wear that. How about you choose between the skirt and polo shirt and this dress?” A blue dress she loathes, what the crap am I thinking trying to pass this off on her? She’s going to hit me. And when she hits me, she’s exactly at the height of my crotch and that HURTS like you wouldn’t believe.

“DON’T CALL ME POOPY CLUSTER. My name is Ellis. It’s not that dirty. Wash it.”

“Ellis, I can’t wash it right now. We don’t have time to do that. We are about to start really running late now. We have to get a move on.”

“I can wear this. It’s fine!” and she stretches once more, grunts loudly and huffs out the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Pee.”

“OK, remember to wash your hands and here, take the skirt and shirt and put them on while you are in the bathroom.”

“Wanna wear the pink dress.”

I follow behind her out into the hall, “I know. But it’s DIRTY. Please put on the skirt and shirt. Please.”

“Peeing now. GO AWAY, DADDY!”

“I’m putting these clothes on your bed. Put them on and come eat breakfast. I’ll go pour the milk on your cereal.”

“I want oatmeal.”

“Ellis, we don’t have time for oatmeal. Cereal or nothing.”

Five minutes later she shows up in the kitchen, wearing the pink dress.

“Ellis. It’s DIRTY. You can’t wear it again until we wash it.”

“Where is the oatmeal?”

“No time for oatmeal. Here is your cereal.”

“What kind of cereal?”

“Cinnamon Life.” Just like every day this week.

“I want Regular Life.”

“Are you doing this on purpose?”

“What?”

“Never mind. We are officially late now.”

Pop quiz time!


  1. Did the Beast wear the pink dress to school that day?

  2. Did she get a new bowl of Regular Life cereal?

  3. Did my head explode?

Pop quiz answers!


  1. Yep. A wet washcloth did quite the number on the dried frosting. Sure there was a bit of a stain, but you could hardly tell if she kept her arms crossed. All day.

  2. Yeah. That one was easy. I gave her a fresh bowl of Regular Life cereal and ate her old bowl of Cinnamon Life in the car on the way to her school. Ooh, Extra Credit BONUS question! Did I spill half the bowl of Cinnamon Life cereal in my lap when we pulled up to the school and then have to go back home and change my pants? Duh, of course.

  3. A little bit.

*Not a true story.

** That’s not actually true. That whole story is true. Except I changed the names.

*** Um. Yeah, turns out all the names are real. It’s all true.

Jon scribbled this mess on 07/24/08 at 01:05 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

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