Styrofoam Teeth

The girls have been eating in shifts lately.  Not a rule I imposed, but it has served to minimize the fighting between them over breakfast and getting dressed.  Do other people’s children fight as much as mine?  Please tell me they do.

Kallan generally eats first and then gets dressed, with her sister doing things in the reverse order.  Kallan was in a good mood this morning, and came to me holding two pop-tarts in the air.  “Can I have two this morning?” she asked.

What do I care?  “Sure, baby.”

She sat happily at the breakfast counter, messily eating her pop-tarts, yogurt, and banana.

Finished, Kallan swept the remaining crumbs down to the delighted dogs, cleared her dishes, checked her cell phone for messages, and then headed off to get dressed.

Maj came into the kitchen within moments.  Opened the cupboard.  Her face screwed up in anger and disbelief, “KALLAN ATE BOTH OF THE CINNAMON POP-TARTS!  SHE’S SO ANNOYING!  I CAN’T STAND HER!”

I apologized and explained that while Kallan had indeed eaten the last two cinnamon pop-tarts, there were plenty of cherry ones left (which Maj likes).  “I DON’T WANT TO EAT THE CHERRY ONES, MOTHER, THOSE ARE GROSS.” She disgustedly flipped the packet of cherry pop-tarts onto the counter as the dogs watched hungrily, hoping Maj’s little outburst might mean pop-tarts for dogs.  “I WANT TO EAT THE CINNAMON ONES.  SHE KNEW THERE WERE ONLY TWO LEFT AND SHE ATE THEM AND I HATE HER.  PUNISH HER!”

She stared at me and I stared at her.

“WELL?  AREN’T YOU GOING TO PUNISH HER?  SHE’S HORRIBLE!”

“Maj, there’s nothing to be done.  I told her she could eat them, and she ate them.  You want me to punish her for eating breakfast?”

“YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING!”

And then Mark, who had been sitting at the dining room table quietly, and who rarely chimes in during moments like this, yelled out, “Kallan!  Kallan, come down here for a minute!”

Maj eagerly turned to see what her father might be willing to do to rectify this grievous wrong, “What are you going to do to her?”

He took a sip of coffee and looked at Maj, “I’m going to have Kallan barf the pop-tarts back up so you can eat them.”

How cool is that?

Of course, Maj lost it completely.  So worth it, though.  I love him.

I finally had to escort her, sock-footed, out into the back yard, suggesting that she check with the neighbors to see if they had any cinnamon pop-tarts.  “Get it out of your system,” I warned her, “because when you come back into this house, I don’t want to hear the phrase “pop-tart” come out of your mouth again, do you understand?”

“Yes,” she hissed at me as she stood on the back deck in the drizzle, “But what I don’t understand, MOTHER, is why you feel you can’t make that point without ruining my socks.”  She held up a wet muddy foot for me to see, “BECAUSE THAT IS EXCELLENT PARENTING.  YOU MUST BE SO PROUD.”

Kallan, who soooooooooo ate the last cinnamon pop-tarts on purpose, knowing it would drive her sister nuts, waited until they were just about to head out the door to make her next move.  “Maj,” she asked cheerfully, “Guess what I named my salamander?”

Kallan and some friends found three tiny salamanders that Kallan is tending in a small moss-lined box up in her room.  But back to my story . . .

“Maj, guess what I named my salamander?”

“What?”  Maj was still angry.  It was more of a grunt than a word.  But Maj is covetous of the salamanders, and she did want to know what Kallan had named her new pet.

“Cinnamon!” Kallan shouted joyfully as she turned to run to the bus-stop.

Are other people’s children like this?

In other news, I hate styrofoam drinking cups.  Drinking from them sends a little electric jolt of unpleasantness through my teeth and jaw.  I have no idea what that’s about, and when I asked my dentist about it once, the way he said, “Really?” made me think that I should keep this symptom to myself in the future.  But I’m pretty sure it’s an actual physical reality and not a symptom of say, schizophrenia . . . I do not think I am receiving messages through my teeth, unless that message is that styrofoam is evil.

I tell you this because I had a dream last night in which, among other things, my teeth were made of styrofoam.

I wonder what comes up if I Google “dreams . . . teeth . . . styrofoam.”

Hmmmmm . . . nothing about styrofoam teeth.  I am a trailblazer, apparently.  Taken individually, though . . .

To see styrofoam in your dream indicates that you are undergoing some form of transition in your life.

And to dream that your teeth are loose or crumbly symbolizes:

Loss of control, powerlessness, vulnerability, fear of change, future anxiety, transition, fear of failure, and embarrassment.

So that’s not good.