A Bedtime Snack
Claire recently learned how to use the water dispenser on our refrigerator. This makes me happy beyond compare. Honestly. Really, really, really delighted. This newfound independence has effectively deleted one of the many duties that I perform in my role as lady-in-waiting to future Oscar Award Winning Actress Jillian and President, Founder, and The Boss of You (and don't you ever forget it) Claire. Now, whenever they approach me with choruses of "Mommy-ah?" (the "ah" at the end is how I know they're about to ask for something), I can say "There are cups on the counter. Claire? You can get water for yourself and your sister". And she does it. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
One day she asked permission to put ice in the water. She is a little bit afraid of the scrunchy, grinding noise the ice maker makes so I was surpised she wanted to use that but I'm all about conquering fears so I let her. She pressed the button for ice, turned her head, closed her eyes and pushed. Because she held the cup too low (and wasn't looking), cubes of ice shot violently out of the fridge, shattered onto the floor and the shards spiralled all around the kitchen. I gotta tell ya - getting plunked on the head and shoulders by ice cubes wasn't my daughter's idea of a good time. Mine either. Like my mother before me, spills make me crazy. When things spill in this house I feel compelled to to hold my breath till I empurple while I search for my inner happy place. No reason for that sort of reaction really. Spills just seems like an unnecessary use of resources and elbow grease. I considered forbidding ice but since she had been so brave about it I gave her a lesson on just how to hold the cup to get the ice in there and how if she spilled even a fraction of a fraction of a cube she was to put it into the sink as fast as she could so our feet wouldn't get wet hours later. Things have been better since then.
Lately we've been noticing that Jillian almost always has her hands in her drinks. We are always telling her that it isn't mannerly to do such things and tell her to cut it out. She is a pretty good kid and will stop doing it, at least for a few minutes. I couldn't figure out why she only did it with some drinks at some meals and recently it hit me. She is trying to fish out the ice cubes.
Turnes out that Jillian dearly loves ice cubes. She likes how they slip and slide between her fingers and, being the thrill seeker she is, I think she gets a charge out of holding one in her hands and saying "it's really really really really cooooooooooold". I won't let her put her hands into her beverages but once in a while I'll let her do little science experiments with ice cubes and when it starts getting messy, I confiscate the works of it and that's the end.
Now, since Claire started doling out drinks, Jillian gets a bit more say in what she gets. Tonight, after dinner, she must have asked Claire for a cup of ice and received it. When I caught up with them, Jillian was doing this:
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Snacking on ice cubes. She isn't sucking on them. She's chewing them. They make a horrible crunching/squeaking sound as she bites and she honestly has to steel herself to actually bit through the ice:
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