Transcendent

Elliana has been trying to make sense of the whole concept of death. She is often perplexed about it, especially when she sees a relative in pictures and learns that she cannot meet them. Naturally, this works its way into her play. So, when she informed me that both her parents were dead, in an attempt to help her understand the permanence of it, I responded by saying "I'm so sorry. That's very sad."

She looked at me, quite seriously, and said "AND terrible" as if making sure I understood the gravity of the situation. So, I thought we'd made some headway.

She then proceeded to fill me in on the rest:

"My babysitter died too. And all my Grandpeople. And months and months passed but they didn't get better. So, I'm going to take a hot air balloon to go visit them. I know how to visit them."

True to form, this conversation went in a direction I'd never suspected.

Inside Scoop

While we were preparing dinner, Elliana was in the living room with my mom. They were coloring and having a heart-to-heart about some of the changes in our lives this year. My mom commented on how it must be hard, sometimes, alluding to the challenge of having two baby sisters. Elliana's response was:

"It's tough to live here sometimes. We have some real characters around here."

As she said that, she rolled her eyes in our direction. Apparently, she's been putting up with us.

You Fool

Me, of course.

Elliana has basically abandoned her little potty for a bigger throne. So, you can imagine my surprise when she lifted up the lid to reveal a gelatinous substance with a wad of paper stuck in the middle. Apparently, she’d peed quite a while ago and it had never been emptied. The odor was sickening.

So, I quickly whisked the potty pail downstairs to be sanitized. It occurred to me, in a fleeting thought, that it could be dangerous to leave the potty accessible when the pail wasn’t in place. This is especially true because it’s not immediately obvious if the pail is absent. I have to admit, the thought crossed my mind more than once, which should have told me I was on to something. Instead, I dismissed it to attend to more pressing matters. The pail sat, idle, for days.

Along came Wednesday, and with it Elliana was in rare form. She was wound up and ended up spending some time in her room to calm down so we could all coexist safely (a.k.a. not harm her sisters by insane indoor gymnastics or “accidentally” biting one of them). The retreat didn’t seem to bother her at all, and soon she was immersed with dollhouse play.

After a little while, I went upstairs to have a discussion with Elliana about safely playing with her little sisters. However, by the time I was on the top stair, I could see she was fervently trying to clean up her carpet. She looked relieved to see me.

While she’d been playing, she had needed a stool in order to access a portion of her dollhouse. So, she took the bathroom stool into her room. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem. However, this wasn’t just any stool. It’s the famous potty that doubles as a step stool.  During the course of play, she must have needed to go to the bathroom and decided there was no reason to leave her bedroom since she already had a potty right there.

The pee rode the curve that was intended to hug the potty pail and sailed out onto the carpet. I could see where it clung to the base of the potty and created a puddle line. Elliana also had a partially drenched towel in her hand. Had she saved ALL her pee from the last 12 hours for this?!

There was no time to discuss the downstairs incident, as the carpet needed attention quickly. I extracted the potty from the bedroom and returned it to the bathroom. Then, I raced around for supplies to remove all traces of the urine that now decorated her bedroom floor.

Truly, I had this coming. I didn’t know how, or when, but by leaving the main component of this unit MIA for days…something was bound to happen. Now, I know what.