Sweet

Fans, the bambini continue their bear cat ways at least some of the time.  This morning, we had a triumph and a failure.  The triumph stemmed from Julie realizing in fairly short order that Joe and Clara weren't simply grunting at each other and laughing, but were, in fact grunting "POOP!" at each other, as though, if you will, pooping, and laughing.  Seriously.  Seriously?  Seriously.  It wasn't even 6:30am.  She calmly separated them, and after a few minutes had passed, calmly told each of them that as they knew, poop was a potty word and was, therefore, only to be used in the same room as the potty.  She added that if she or Daddy heard dirty words coming out of their mouths than there wouldn't be permitted anything sweet the eat--no oranges, no pears, no cookies. . .no cupcakes.  She left them with a swift and frosty, "So clean up your mouth."  Julie felt very Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.

But she felt decidedly less so a little while later when, having abandoned the fun that is grunting poop back and forth with a loved one, the bambini were running around and screaming.  Julie's go-to consequence for running around screaming indoors is to order the bambini to do so outdoors.  It was so ordered with mounting frustration: "O-kay!  [false cheer punctuated with hand claps]  Looks like y'all want TO GO OUTSIDE so let's get your snow pants and boots on!  And your coats and hats and gloves or mittens!  LET'S GO!  [more falsely cheerful hand claps]"  Joe immediately decided this sounded like a terrible idea.  Not because it was all of seven degrees outside, but because it was dark.  He started to cry and Birdie started to cry in solidarity.  No bear cat cries alone!  Julie barreled on even though she sensed that this typically well-tailored consequence to running around inside the house and bellowing at the top of one's lungs wasn't quite as well-tailored given the time and the temperature.  So she soon relented, gnashing her teeth that she was unable to think of an appropriate consequence for the usual lunacy despite the changed circumstances in which the lunacy was occurring.

It is hard to think of the appropriate consequences for misbehavior on the fly.  Tonight, for example, the bambini were back to screaming after having been tucked into bed, and Ted was set to dish out a heaping dose of nothing sweet before Julie said, "No!  That's for potty talk!"

It ain't always sweet, Fans.  But the moments that are make all the rest of them worth it.