Ephemerence Enigmatica A fleeting look at the puzzle that is my life

…sometimes.

My night last night:

[I am sitting in the kitchen, with Stewie. It is after bath, but before bed. Dinner was finished a mere hour ago.]

Stewie (sitting on the counter, eating peas). Finishes bowl of peas, and announces, “Want more peas.”

Naomi gets more peas. (YES, he is eating PEAS. As a snack. Before bed. By choice. And I did make him say please) “It’s time for bed, Stewie, eat your peas.”

S: Eats peas. Stops. “I have to pee & poo.” (stall tactic).

N: Takes Stewie off the counter, and watches as he RUNS up the stairs (yelling that he’s “gonna beat me up”).

Stewie Gets to bathroom, takes off pants and I sit him on the toilet. Meanwhile, I put a load of laundry in the machine. Just as I’m finishing, I hear clamoring from the bathroom…

S: “I want to push the button!!” (on the washing machine). I pick him up, and he pushes the button. “I want to put the soap!!” (I’d already put the soap, but to avoid a tantrum – yes, a tantrum, tears and all – I gave him a cup of water to pour in.)

Stewie then runs back to the kitchen (he is naked from the waist down at this point) and demands that he get to finish his peas.  Back on the counter he goes, and continues to eat the peas.  Finishes them, and asks for more.  I try to convince him that there are no more, but he starts to cry, so I give him some more, but tell him that that’s it.

He eats the peas.  As he’s about to eat the last handful, he announces that he has to pee again.

Down off the counter he goes.  Runs to the bathroom again, this time on the same floor as the kitchen.  Pees.  Then pees again.  And again.  Puts seat down.  Goes to put the lid down, stops, looks at me, and says, “I watch it go down?”

N: (stifling a giggle) “Yes, Stewie, you can watch it go down.”

Stewie flushes, watching the pee, then closes the lid.  Washes his hands, and heads back to the kitchen.  This time he stands on the stool (that he carried in from the bathroom earlier in the evening) at the counter, and finishes his peas.

“Want grapes,” he announces.  There is a bowl of grapes on the counter waiting for him.  He eats grapes every night before bed.  Every. Single. Night.

Instead of eating the grapes, he takes them all off the stems and moves them to the bowl that held the peas.  We eat them together.

He stops me. “Bite it, mummy,” and he shows me how he bit the grape in half.

Stewie finishes his bowl of grapes (with several pauses for water).

“Want blueberries, mummy.”

At this point, almost 30 minutes after the whole endeavour began, I drag him upstairs to bed.

This scenario, or some reasonable facsimile thereof occurs every night.