Sweet Mess

It's been a little tough to be Birdie of late.  It is also tough to be a Birdie's parent of late.

Of late, one is apt to have exchanges with her like this:
Parent: "Birds, it's time to get our coats on.  Can you please put your coat on?"
Birdie: "I don't wanna do it!  I want you to do it!"
Parent: "Well, if you ask appropriately, it might happen."
Birdie: ""Please you put my coat on please?"
Parent: "Sure."
Birdie [as soon as the slightest movement is made to assist her in putting on her coat]: "NO I WANNA DO IT!"

This, in fact, was the exchange Ted had with Birdie in Qdoba Tuesday evening, the evening, you will recall, Dear Readers, of the kindergarten round up when we were, therefore, trying to get home in order to have Clara bathed and in her pajamas before the sitter arrived.  Now, to be fair, is anyone in a good mood at Qdoba?  We're in Qdoba only when the bambini have received a coupon for a free kid's meal with the purchase of an adult's meal for being Read-y McGees and maybe this is why every time we are in there and it's nearly empty, we wonder how they have stayed in business.  (We speculate that the St. Louis Park location has a booming lunch business.)

Clara got her coat on but then the same routine started to unfold with respect to the hat and the mittens.

Whether it was because we were at Qdoba, or Julie had the sore throat that was the harbinger of the cold that settled in that night, or we didn't really have time to send the how-the-hat-and-mittens-were-going-to-get-on bill to committee, Julie told Clara that she was going to count to five and if she wasn't making progress on the hat and the mittens, then Julie was going to pick her up and haul her out to the car without them.

Having drawn the line, for better or worse, Julie couldn't back down.  Clara isn't one to back down either though.  She may have thrown her mittens on the floor all petulant starlet like?

In any case, five was reached, Clara's hat and mittens were on the floor, and so she departed the restaurant in a bawling blaze of glory and was unceremoniously deposited into the car and strapped in to her seat, where she proceed to screech her indignation the entire way home.  You can hear a portion of her tantrum here.  Warning: it starts out on a shrill note, so you might want to turn the volume down--or up, if you want a sort of on the scene feel!

Here's what she says:
"It's too tight."
"I wanna go in the blue car."
"I wanna get out."
"I wanna get out of the Bronzie car."
"I wanna walk."  (With this last, she means walk out of the restaurant to the car, not walk home.)

She's sort of a mess, Brigade.  Is she getting molars?  Was she still feeling run down from the tummy bug?  And the strep throat?  And the cold?  Is she just tow-almost-three?  All of these things?  Whatever the reason, she's a bit of a mess lately.  But--but--she's such a sweet mess.

Tonight, she was up to her usual antics at bedtime, which resulted in the removal of her friends from her bed.  And before you go getting all weepy, Brigade, we hasten to add that she was nonplussed by this.  If we've got her number, she's got ours.

Really, she does.  Because when Julie went in there to do her routine, nightly "I love you Joseph Trump Ekkers" and "I love you Clara Jane Ekkers" benedictions, she found Clara awake, and as Julie leaned over Clara, Birdie reached up and pulled Julie down to her hard.  When Julie started to pull away, Clara pulled her back down hard.  You kinda can't help but fall for her, hard.