Curious Naomi

We're officially one month out from Grandpa and Grandma coming to town! Determined to show them that we've made progress since they left in late October, the mama now has the sufficient pressure to get stuff done. So today we (I say that in the loosest of terms - we were all in the same room) launched the final assault on the half dozen remaining boxes in the living room. Among these was the Rubbermaid of Christmas decorations. I reorganized the contents a bit, but failed to note the cylinder of Christmas Clearance ornaments sitting on another stack. I grabbed them and put them atop the pile of stuff stacked to head to laundry room storage. Olaiya came a'calling for some, uh, bathroom help and Naomi called after me as I ran up the stairs, "Open? Open?" And I brushed her off with a, "No, Naomi," and attended to the call of duty. Post-potty I helped Olaiya clean her room ("It's all messy! Naomi did it.").

After a few minutes I came downstairs to find Naomi sitting in a halo of shiny, iridescent pieces of glass. I immediately scolded her and lifted her up, shaking the shards off of her equally pretty and white Barbie wedding dress. I told her no and she repeatedly said, "Sorry. Sorry, mama," yet I'm pretty sure she just understood that mommy is angry and disapproving, not that crushing a Christmas ornament in your hand and playing with the pretty pieces is a bad idea.

So I swept them up, telling Naomi to get back every time she approached, and she returned obediently to a step on the stairs. As I was lining up this shot

of what I swept, Naomi walked up to me and said, "Mama, finger. Finger," and showed me her little hands, finger tips bleeding! Now mom, who while whisking the mess into the pan actually had the thought, "Hmm, maybe those balls aren't made out of glass. Maybe this is like plastic, or acrylic, or something," was so incensed with what she did - disobeying mama by opening what she shouldn't and then breaking something that never saw the trim of the tree - I didn't even think to check if my child was injured! She wasn't freaked out or crying, just wanting to show mama this curious appearance of red on her fingers. One look at the smears on her dress and I had scenes of Carrie flashing through my head. But hey, all washed up and two Strawberry Shortcake bandages later, we were good as new. Big Sister did not want to see or hear anything about the scene until Band-aid application was in full swing. Prior to that, she stood in the hallway with her ears covered (aww, just like her mama - spare us the gory, bloody details, please!) that being the Olaiya-universal sign for "I don't like what I'm being exposed to right now" whether audio, visual, anticipated or imminent.

Naomi, when all was said and done:

I think I'll take last week's drawing on every available surface (including: sun room brick wall, door to basement closet, counter top, cabinet top, table top, side table top, basket, futon and bedroom wall) over today when her dad asked her "What happened to your finger?" and her responding, lip stuck out, "Paint. Paint."