Chapter 21: Emma and the
Terrible Twos
While Jack and Johnathan
were off having their adventure, Karen had been having one of her own. Sarah
had spent the morning upstairs reading, while Ellie had gone outside to look
after things right after breakfast. These days they had to take a basket out to
collect all of the eggs. Karen sat Joe down and they were going to do some
reading together.
These days she would read
him a book and ask him to sound out words here and there. She had placed Emma
on the floor with some blocks and puzzles, but had lost track of her when she
was engrossed with Joe. When she and Joe had finished their story, she looked
up and saw that Emma had toddled off and things were quiet, too quiet. Karen
had an “oh no” moment. This wasn’t good. Quiet was almost never good with a two
year old. She called “Emma!” and got up to start looking around. She didn’t
find her in the kitchen or the living room, but then Karen noticed a light on
in the bathroom. An awful smell came from there.
With a feeling of dread she
looked in and saw Emma in the middle of the floor, diaperless, with poo all
over her hands and streaks of it all over the walls. Emma said, “Me go potty!”
Karen said, “Oh, Emma, what
a mess.” She wanted to throw up. The whole mess was so revolting. The smell was
awful. She grabbed Emma under the arms and holding her at arms length, ran her
upstairs to the bathtub. She and Emma spent a good half hour in there getting
Emma cleaned up. Karen was just about done and was toweling Emma off when she
heard a retching sound downstairs.
Joe came in and said “Ellie
go blah” and then from downstairs an anguished sob.
“MOM!!” Karen put her head
in her hands. This was going to be a bad day. Why did things have to happen in
these little storms?
She said, “Sarah! Please
come here! I need your help!” Sarah had been completely oblivious this whole
time. She was disappearing more and more in her own world these days, and Karen
was at a loss of what to do with her sometimes.
Sarah got up and came into
the bathroom. Karen said, “Please get Emma diapered and dressed, and be
careful. She’s decided that taking her diaper off is fun. I gotta go help
Ellie!”
With that, she ran out of
the room and downstairs. Poor Ellie had taken one look at the bathroom
downstairs and upchucked her breakfast all over the living room rug. She was in
tears, “I’m so sorry mom!”
Karen went to go get her
some towels and to clean up the mess. Now she had two messes to clean up, and
quite frankly she was feeling a little queasy herself. As the mom, though, she
had had to learn how to not do what Ellie had just done. It would just make the
whole situation ten times worse. Somebody had to keep their composure!
She gave Ellie a rag and
told her to go up and shower off and then set to work cleaning up the mess.
This had not been one of her favorite mornings. It was almost as bad as when
everyone had been sick at the same time. She crossed her fingers and prayed
that this was her quota for the week. If she could just keep Emma from doing
that again...
Emma was becoming
progressively headstrong. People always talk about the terrible twos. Not all
of her kids had been “terrible” at two. Sarah had always been a cautious and
rather quiet little girl. Jack had been headstrong but easily distracted. Ellie
had been difficult, and it seemed Emma was taking after her. It wasn’t
malicious, they were just interested in everything and therefore into
everything, and didn’t understand why they weren’t allowed to do whatever they
wanted. They got upset and then got upset all over again when they couldn’t
communicate what they wanted.
Emma had just probably not
liked the feel of her dirty diaper, and having discovered how to get it off,
had also discovered what was in it. Well, that was quite enough finger painting
for one morning! She sent Joe to supervise the dressing of Emma while Ellie
showered. From upstairs she heard “No! No pan. No pan!” (This meant no pants in
Emma language.) She got some lunch going, hoping her stomach would settle soon.
She’d put Emma down for a nap soon. Hopefully that would work out. This was
another difficult area; Emma seemed to be on the cusp of not needing a nap but
was too cranky still to stay up. If that worked at all, she would work with the
older two on their schoolwork for a bit in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, Emma refused
her nap and was whiney and cranky the rest of the afternoon. This made it very
difficult for the other kids to work. Who could multiply fractions with a
screaming toddler running around and looking for things to destroy? Joe also
wanted some attention, so she ended up just taking everyone, except Sarah,
outside. Sarah had her online class to attend to, and this was the only way to
give her some quiet for that. It was especially hard sometimes trying to
homeschool with a toddler around.
They roamed about visiting with
the chickens and the goats. They also took a look at the garden and did some
weeding (and mud throwing). At the end of that, Emma was tired enough that she
did finally go inside and fall asleep on the couch, but it was late enough that
Karen worried sleep in the evening was going to be a problem.
Karen had not actually
planned for Emma. After Joe came along, she had felt that she had quite enough
kids, but in the way fate seemed to decree things sometimes, Emma had come
along unplanned. Karen had a lot of energy, but Emma was almost more that she
could handle sometimes. She just felt more and more tired and old trying to
keep up with this fifth toddler of hers. Thank goodness she had the older kids
to help out at this point, and since they were all home together most of the
time, the kids mostly got along with each other and were able to be mentors and
friends to each other.
She scrambled to get the
dishes and laundry done while Emma slept and Joe watched his favorite show on
TV. Maybe tomorrow would be better.
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