Making arguments

Last night, I was called in to referee an argument. I had been working on a punee in the livingroom and had heard them in the back bedroom, carrying on at length. It had been mostly Maia, talking a mile a minute.

"Mommy mad," Maia said, appearing at my elbow. "And Maia mad, too," she continued.

Kristina explained that the argument had to do with whether Maia should try to go peepee before going to bed. Kristina had not been able to persuade Maia. She was also barely able to contain her laughter.

"Just try, Sweetie," she said.

"Don't have to," Maia responded.

"But Sweetie, you can't always control it. Like when you peepee'd there," Kristina continued, indicating a spot in the livingroom that Maia had baptized.

"I did that on purpose," Maia said.

"What?"

"I did that on purpose," Maia repeated.

This was a revelation. Maia had been furious because I had turned the television off for dinner. She had had a little tantrum, screaming at me and then peepee'ing. At the time, both Kristina and I had put it down to loss of control in the moment. An accident.

"Then you ought to be spanked," Kristina said.

"Not spanked," Maia said.

"Okay, not spanked," I said.

Maia knows that spanking isn't something we approve of. Kristina hasn't ever done it, but I have, four times (but not in the incident mentioned above), regretting it later each time. "But you make us so mad when you do that," I continued, "that sometimes we'd like to. And anyway," I said, trying to get the conversation back on the peepee track, "sometimes you can't control it."

"Your brain controls it," Maia said, tracing a line down from her head to where she peepees.

"Yes, that's right," I said, "but do you ever dream that you're sitting on the toilet, and you go, and then you wake up and you're really in bed?" I asked her.

She thought about this and nodded.

"Last night," she said.

"See," I said. "It's better to peepee before you go to bed and empty your bladder. Then you don't have to worry about it."

She thought about this. "Oh, man," she finally said, putting her head down against the punee. Then off the two of them went to the bathroom.

When she gets going in an argument, she's really amazing. Very inventive, and she just keeps at it.

In the postmorten of this, Kristina told me that Maia had knocked over a syrup container earlier in the day. It was one of those containers that you get from McDonald's for pancakes. Kristina had put it on a plate on a counter in the kitchen to guard against spillage. Maia had reached up to see what was there and had knocked it over.

"See Maia," said Kristina, who had just warned her to be careful, "you spilled it."

"Only on the plate," Maia had retorted.

Maia has changed so much since March. More than in all the time from May, 2004 till then. It's just amazing. In March, she still seemed like a toddler to me. Now, there's no question but that she's a little girl.

John, Tuesday, September 5, 2006