When Soap Gets in Your Eyes

They asked me how I knew
What Evie was up to...

Well - she smelled like Lemon.

Evie frequently claims the need enter the bathroom under the false pretense that she has to go potty. In reality, she is just playing the only card that will guarantee her access to the area where she can secure water and its accessories (soap, spray, etc.) without having to actually ask to use those things.

Today, though, she was quite honest. She told me she needed to go wash her hair. This is the girl that panics when the rinse cup is even in sight during bath time. Instead of fully enjoying her opportunity for unfettered water indulgence, she spends much of the time dreading the culminating event and intermittently asking me, "Do you not have to rinse me?" So, I figured I was safe in telling her she could go wash her hair, surely she would just pretend. She does this quite frequently with other tasks she sees/hears Mommy and Daddy doing. She goes to meetings (usually at church) without leaving the house. She makes daddy tea in her non-existent tea machine and pours the imaginary liquid into a cup and delivers him nothing. So, I thought I was safe. Isn't that when you are most vulnerable, when you start to feel safe?

Anyway, I heard crying from the bathroom and out came Ev with a half-wet, half-dry, half-lemony, half-unscented head. Apparently, she had tackled her fear long enough to lather herself up with the soap at the bathroom sink and then dump some measure of water over part of her head. But, at that moment, she also must have remembered why she doesn't like rinsing because she came out bent over trying to fling her hair out from her face to keep the soap out of her eyes. It must have stung like crazy because, from the strength of the lemon smell, it appeared that she had used a lot. And, from the looks of the front of her shirt, she must have poured water right down the front of her head which then ran down her face and pooled on her shirt. For the first time in quite a while we had an accident in the bathroom that required a change of shirt and not a change of pants. This will certainly help even up the laundry ratio.

Anyway, she was not happy to hear that the cure for her ailment was also what caused her distress in the first place. Ev had to endure several more instances of rinsing before we sufficiently reduced the amount of lemoniness exuding from her scalp. And, even after doing that, Daddy still walked into the house after work and asked if Grammy Capon had been there (because the soap smell reminded him of her house - fitting since they did come as a Christmas gift from her). I told him that he would just have to read my blog to discover why his daughter was functioning as a living, breathing Glade Plug-In. I am sure nothing he reads will surprise him. After all, she did measure him the other night with her tape measure and estimated him to be 2 1/2 weeks.

No, not much she says is surprising, though some of it is quite embrassing - like last evening when we were at Pastor and Mrs. Smith's house - at least that is how we have instructed her to refer to them out of respect. We ladies were downstairs while the men were praying upstairs and Evie wanted to ask our beloved Pastor's wife for something so she called out "Hey, Smith, can you....?" I don't remember the rest of the question because I was still trying to process my daughter's display of total disrespect which was as unintentional as it was embarassing. Fortunately, Ronette, has such a sweet spirit, because she was as gracious as I was mortified. We did work on remembering to add the "Mrs." to the beginning for the rest of the evening though it sounded more like "Hmm Smith" even at the end of evening. I think Evie just felt so comfortable around her that she decided she could use a shortened form of her name because Ev was all kisses and hugs for them when we left and she asked first thing this morning if we could go back. I love it when the church functions like the family that it is - what a blessing!