Her Own Two Cents

Our five-year-old daughter, Miss J, is very gifted at thinking of reasons to get out of bed.  Sometimes we can tell that she's been using all her powers of creativity to come up with what she thinks is the perfect plan to escape the prison of bedtime. 

Over the past two years or so, Miss J has had countless "tummy aches", a few "fevers", and several phantom aches and pains.  One time, she happily announced that she had broken her ribs.  The problem (or the good thing for us) is she's a really bad liar.  She prances out into the living room and announces quite nonchalantly,

"My tummy hurts!"        

Or, she knocks at our bedroom door and says with a little smile,

"I fell out of bed!"  
                            And you're obviously not injured, so climb back in!   
"There's a cat in my room!"  
                            And I know for a fact that you let him in, so let him back out!  
"I think I might have a headache!"   
                            You think you might have a headache?  And you're happy about it? 

At times, even her genuine pleas have been hilariously self-incriminating, like two hours after she's gone to bed, she comes out crying that she broke her necklace or lost her toy down the back of the bed, which naturally leads to the question "Why on earth are you playing with a toy or a necklace when you should have been asleep two hours ago?!" 

Although she's duped a few well-meaning grandparents and babysitters, as you've probably guessed by now, my husband and I rarely fall for any of Miss J's little schemes.  She's usually told to go immediately back to bed and not to get out again, which she does without complaining, turning around to quip "Goodnight, Mama!" as she skips back to bed.  Little putz of an actress. 

However, when she comes into the room with eyes full of tears, like she did last night, we try to take her seriously.  Something was truly bothering her, we could tell.

"Maybe something really is wrong this time," we wondered. 

"Maybe it's not just something silly."

Or maybe our daughter has just swallowed two pennies because she was trying to clean them with her mouth.

Makes perfect cents to me.



P.S.  Don't worry.  We called the doctor, and Miss J will be fine.  Most objects less than an inch in diameter (except for batteries, magnets and sharp objects) usually pass quite easily through the digestive system.  However, she will probably suffer some emotional damage for being teased mercilessly about always having to put in her own two cents.