That Time I Valiantly Saved Mummy Pig from Certain Death
So very valiant of me, did I mention?
My toddler waddle-marches up to me while I'm cooking spaghetti, with her little hands full of little figurines: Peppa Pig, Mummy Pig, Daddy Pig, and George. She holds Mummy Pig up in one hand and says “party party” and I go along and repeat back to her “party.”
And she keeps saying it – “party, party!” – and as I've learned that means I'm not hearing her right. She’ll keep repeating it until I say the right word back to her and she knows that I understand, so I try some other variations.
“Do you mean party, like Mummy Pig’s birthday party?”
An emphatic shake of the head, no. “party!”
“Do you mean, you want to take her apart?”
An alarmed and outraged expression. She pulls the dolls far away from me, monster that I am.
“Do you mean potty?”
Her eyes light up.
And off she marches to the bathroom, dolls in hand.
“Wait wait wait wait wait,” I say heading her off in the hallway. “You can't take Mummy Pig to the human potty. You might drop her in and she could drown.”
Stubborn and absolute determination gleams in her brown eyes.
I grasp for a solution that will (1) prevent the instant meltdown if I block her mission, and (2) prevent the future meltdown when I have to throw away toilet-water-contaminated Mummy Pig.
“What about we make a potty just for Mummy Pig?” I suggest.
She nods, mollified for now.
Oh thank Noodles!
I grab an expendable rice measuring cup and hand it to her. “Here’s the special potty, just for Mummy Pig.”
She runs off towards the bathroom again, cup and dolls in hand.
“Wait wait wait wait wait” I say again, chasing after her and gently grabbing her tiny shoulders. “Mummy Pig wants to go potty in her own house,” I explain, guiding her and her toys back to the cereal-box-sized Peppa Pig playhouse and all its scattered accessories taking up the entire floor of the living room. “And she might want some privacy.”
She runs off in the right direction and I return to making dinner, having kept the peace as well as saved Mummy Pig from an inglorious ending.
She looks like she’s in water. Seemed appropriate:
