Friday "Blues"

For those of you that know Sophia, you know that she is a very bright and curious little girl.  I love these qualities about her although, sometimes, they create some "challenging" moments.  These moments are usually quite comical, however, not always at first.  I cannot make up comedy better than my children provide for me, and for that reason, I am simply going to tell you the story of yesterday morning:

It was a typical morning.  Francesca was down for her morning nap, I was nursing Eva in the rocking chair in my bedroom, and Sophia and Asher were watching cartoons from inside their newly-constructed tent of couch cushions and blankets, or so I thought...

Asher came into my room to announce, "MOM! You have to see Soph's tongue! Seriously!"  I assumed that Asher was exaggerating, as usual, so I calmly called to Sophia and asked her to come upstairs to see me.

She arrived in my room with a very nervous look on her face.  As I surveyed her mouth, I noticed some blue around her lips.  Then I asked to see her tongue.  She opened her mouth, and it was entirely blue! Royal blue!  Even her teeth.  I asked her what happened and she replied that she didn't know.  I explained that it was important to tell me the truth because if she put something dangerous in her mouth I need to take her to the doctor so I needed to know EXACTLY what happened.  She was reluctant, but then out came "the ugly truth."

The Culprit

"Mommy, my hand picked up that blue marker, you know, the one that smells like blueberries, and I wanted to see if it tasted like blueberries too.  My brain stopped my hand for a second, and asked, 'Should I do this?' (We have been working with Sophia on this concept trying to teach her about self-control.  Obviously, we have been only partially successful.)  My brain answered, 'No!' but my hand didn't listen.  And my hand colored my tongue and my teeth blue.  Mommy, it doesn't taste like blueberries, and now I can't get it off."

Holding back laughter, I asked what she had tried to do to remove it.  She showed me her shirt streaked with blue marker remnants and said she had also tried the soap in the bathroom and the kitchen.  I suggested that she try to brush her teeth too.  She did, and after a couple hours of a combination of scrubbing, brushing, rinsing, and scraping her tongue on her teeth, her mouth had returned to normal.

Unfortunately, I couldn't go and get my camera because I was feeding the baby, and my dinosaur 3G iPhone camera wouldn't work to take a picture, but oh that would have been a priceless photo!  So, hopefully lesson learned.  "What lesson is that?', you may ask.  Well, when I asked Soph what she learned she said, "Don't put things in my mouth that shouldn't go there, and make sure that my hands listen to my brain next time."  Then she asked me if she was going to get punished and, if so, could just her hands be punished because, "My brain didn't really disobey." Hmmm.  I had to think about that one. So, I punished her hands by making them help me clean the toilets, wipe counter tops, and perform other various cleaning tasks.  After about 30 minutes of work, she told me that her brain sort of felt like it was being punished too.  I encouraged her to just tell her hands to tell her brain that it was actually having fun! :)