Tootsie Roll Heaven

"On Zomboomafoo it says that when dogs are puppies they are as small as a ball. But I think those guys must be cwazy...or dumb...cause it wouldn't be a puppy if it were as big as a BEACH BALL."

Max begins laughing hysterically at her own logic. I'm distracted by the crap in Elijah's diaper that I have to clean up. I don't laugh immediately, in fact, I'm hardly paying attention to Max at all. This is not okay with her.

"MOM. What the hec...I mean, MOM why are you not listening to meeee?"

She's actually got her hands on her hips and she's stomping her tiny little feet. I blankly look up from my dastardly son's ass at Max and say,

"Sorry!"

before I continue wiping. Max is not usually the most interactive of children. She likes to play by herself and makes sly comments here and there throughout the day. Chatty is not a good description of her on a usual day, but for some reason this morning she fell into the Chatty Kathy role perfectly.

"Mom. When I was on the comp-oo-ter earlier, I was playing this game on PBS Kids and there was all these cats and I had to count them. Then I won a prize for keeping all the kittens with the mom and... MOM. Are you listening?"

"Yes, Max. Computers and kittens. Very interesting."

"And then Elijah was there and I tried to show him the game and he wouldn't look and I wanted to pinch him so bad but I didn't...."

And on and on she went. I couldn't help but listen intently. This was an unprecedented amount of talk for her. If it was Olivia it would be commonplace for her to talk about nothing for hours on end, but this was Maxine Jane. Queen of the One Liners. The Quiet Scowl. The Angry Silence.

"If we go on a walk today...can we bring toys this time. Last time you said we could bring toys, but then you forgot, just like you forgot the water last night when we went to watch Jeremiah skate and we were all so thirsty and he only had a little bit of water left..."

After a while of this I became suspicious. Max is notoriously sneaky, as most quiet people are. (Sneaky Quiet Freaks!) I began to think that she may have a sugar related reason for this sudden influx of mile a minute conversation. I checked the candy stash in the pantry and didn't notice anything out of place until I was exiting and noticed a tiny tootsie roll wrapper on the floor directly behind the door. Hm.

"Maxine! Were you in the candy this morning?"

"Ummmm No?"

"Max, remember that you get in less trouble for telling the truth than for telling a lie."

"Ok. I'll show you."

Max leads me through the house to hidden piles of empty tootsie roll wrappers. Under the couch, in the baskets of the play kitchen set, under Elijah's bed, in Rose's desk drawer.

"When did you do all this?!"

"Right after Jeremiah went to work."

6:00am.

She had been eating mass amounts of tootsie rolls and hiding the evidence in every room (except for my own room, even she isn't that brazen) for two hours.

Next to each pile of wrappers was a set of two or three childrens books. I couldn't help but smile as I imagined her sitting and looking at new books in each location, snacking on tootsie rolls and stifling giggles as she chilled out in the early hours of the new day.

I suppose I should have given her a time out, but instead I gave her a stern talking to. And then she gave me a talking to that lasted almost an hour. Somewhere around lunchtime she zoinked out and crashed in front of the t.v.

I later remembered that last summer Jeremiah and Elijah had collected a huge bag of tootsie rolls from a smashed to hell pinata at a family reunion. I had brought the bag home and hid it in the back of the pantry and had promptly forgotten that it even existed. Until Max miraculously found it, months and months later.

Maxine Jane turns FIVE Wednesday and until then my posts will be in honor of her excellence. I hope you all enjoy!