7.5.20

Quarantine Life with Ellie

Wanna know what quarantine life looks like with Ellie?  Here you go.

She wants to wear glasses so badly.  I have no idea why.  I've caught her before walking around the house wearing my glasses when I'm not.  She tells me she can "see better" with them on.  So, yes, we'll be taking a trip to the eye doctor as soon as this state opens up.  I'm not convinced she needs glasses to help her see.  I'm convinced she just wants glasses to wear.

Case in point.  She took an old pair of sunglasses and poked the lenses out so she could wear the frames.  She actually broke the frame when she took the first lens out and had to glue it back together.  She did pretty good in that regard.  She got Mason to poke the other side out so she wouldn't risk breaking the frame again.  She wore these glasses ALL. DAY. today, even when we went swimming. 

I would say the past couple of months have been quite challenging for her.  She is a very active child.  She enjoys variety throughout the day.  She doesn't necessarily entertain herself well for an extended period of time.  She prefers to be doing something, working on something.  She can make and bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies from scratch all by herself.  She'll take out the garbage without being asked because it's something for her to do.  She will fold clothes.  Whereas her older siblings, particularly Hannah Kate, enjoy their own personal time and even need time to themselves, she does not.  I have tried to keep her as engaged as possible during all of our time at home these past however many days it's been, but I'm also trying to help her learn how to be okay by herself for short periods of time.

A couple of weeks ago, I took some time after we finished schooling to work on a BSF lecture.  The big kids were studying.  I didn't know what Ellie was doing exactly, which isn't necessarily a good idea, but I wasn't concerned enough to find out.  About thirty minutes later she came in here and told me the toilet was smoking.  I just looked at her.  She told me again that I needed to come see because the toilet was smoking.  She wasn't laughing or smiling.  She was rather insistent but nor did she seem overly concerned.  
So, of course, I'm thinking there's a fire of some sort in the bathroom.  It took me about two and a half seconds to convince myself that I heard an unusual noise from the toilet earlier in the day so maybe something really was wrong with it.  I get up and reluctantly follow her to the bathroom, and I'm hopeful because I'm not smelling smoke yet.  So then we get in there, and Ellie does her best Vanna White.  Ta-da!  

At first I didn't get it.  I really didn't.  I was just standing there staring and so confused.  Ellie is like, "Mom, the toilet is SMOKING.  Get it?!  SMOKING!"  And then I realized what I was looking at.  (And I also understood why she was so insistent on changing the paper towel roll earlier in the day.)

I started laughing.  Ellie was laughing and so proud of herself.  And then I just couldn't help myself . . . I could not stop laughing.  It felt so good to laugh so long and deep.  Finally I asked her how in the world she came up with that.  She has no frame of reference for smoking so I knew it wasn't wholly her idea.  Apparently she saw a meme of such and decided to try it out.

She has also managed to scrape a big section of paint off the wall in her room (and, of course, she has "no idea" how that happened), draw on her decorative pillow with marker (I mean, don't you do that?), spill half a canister of cornstarch all over the floor, cabinets and oven and scare the daylights out of me with a duck call.

In some regards, I've mellowed in my old age.  Poor Mason . . . he NEVER would've gotten away with any of that at the age of seven!