Chocolate Therapy

Before I get to the good stuff, I'll just go over my day with Darcy briefly.

Again today she helped me make my bed and tidy up my stuff. This morning we read for a while, played hide & seek and watched Sesame Street before heading over to the park. It was a beautiful day and Darcy wasn't much interested in going back home for lunch. She also wasn't too impressed with the high school kids that came by the park to hang out on the slide during their lunch break. She mentioned several times "that my slide" and wouldn't listen to any reasoning about sharing the park with big kids and little kids. No how, no way.

After a nice long nap (giving me plenty of time to catch up on my emails, sweep the floors in the house and have a couple of cups of tea), I decided to take Darcy down to the river this afternoon. I had hoped that after "chasing birdies" she'd have expended enough energy that giving her some ice cream wouldn't be such a bad thing. Little did I realise that the ice cream stand would be closed in the middle of the day. Oh well. Instead I got treated to Darcy giving me the evil eye, crossing her arms and sitting down in the grass as her refusal to go home. Even after I took a few steps away, she still wasn't moving. I'm not too sure how it happened, but it seems I marched over, said "Darcy, stand up please" (in a tone that many will recall hearing in my own mother's voice) and after a brief second of hesitation, she saw that I meant business and promptly stood up. Conflict over. I plopped her down in the stroller and home we went. No tears. No screaming. Simply and effectively dealt with. By the time we got home she was in good spirits again and we enjoyed doing some more folding and colouring until Sue got home.

As promised, Sue whipped up some instant chocolate pudding for dessert. Darcy enjoyed the first few mouthfuls using her spoon. Then she realised her other hand could go in the bowl too. And that's when it all went downhill. Fast. I don't know how many pictures I took, but I have a (bad?) feeling it may be close to 100 (honestly, all joking aside approximately 100). All with good reason. You have never seen chocolate go in so many places. Darcy started off with some innocent finger painting on her tray, then licked her fingers and got a bit on her cheeks and well, then some not so innocent people got her to touch her nose, put her hands to her cheeks, pound her chest like a gorilla, cross her arms in anger and even put the now empty bowl of chocolate pudding on her head like a hat. It dawned on me as she was rubbing the pudding into her arms and chest - women pay good money for chocolate therapy wraps, baths, facials, manicures and pedicures at spas. For $1.50 you can basically get the same treatment at home. Well, by the end the only way to get Darcy clean enough to get her upstairs was to take her outside and hose her down first. After the initial shock of cold water, she seemed pretty pleased to have her mommy chase her around with the hose. Sue took her up for a bath and I cleaned up the kitchen, highchair and dining room. Pretty fair trade off, if you ask me. And totally worth it! Pictures will be up next week (and again my apologies ...).

Last day tomorrow. I'll be sure to make the most of it.