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Monday, October 28, 2013

The Day I Microwaved Ice Cream

In my freezer, I currently have a lime green Ikea kids bowl containing a very high quality ice cream sandwich that has been microwaved -- by me, none the less, and then refrozen.  The short version: Jonathan fell asleep at a strange time for a nap, slept way too long and not enough, and was not a friend of the laws of physics.  The longer version: in this house, as in most, mommy is the great comforter, but even I am not enough for Jonathan when he wakes up in a funk, and last night's was a doozy.  At times such as that, he just cries and cries and cries until he reconciles himself to being awake, and no amount of mommy-hugging helps.  Sometimes, though, I can offer him the right thing to break through a bit and help jump-start rational thought, always a good thing in a toddler.

So yesterday, it went something like this, "Do you want a cookie?"

(Through the wails,) "No cookie."

"Do you want water?"

"No water." (Still sobbing)

"Juice?"

"No juice."

So since that wasn't getting me anywhere, I decided to try a different tactic.  "Do you want an elephant?"

"No e'fant."

"An alligator?"

"No a'gator."

"Ice cream?"

"No ... yes i'cream."

Ah, the light at the end of the tunnel, or so I though.  I went to the freezer and pulled out two nice Costco organic ice cream sandwiches -- one for me and one for him.  I had debated splitting one with him, but past experience has taught me that he really likes "big" pieces, so I decided to forego that conversation and got us one each.  I led him to his little kid-sized table and chair, sat him down, and opened his sandwich for him.  He set it on the table without touching it.  I started eating mine and encouraged him to do the same.  He seemed content having it, but I knew it was going to melt all over everything.  So, I got him a bowl and tried to put it in it.  He obviously was still not over his funk and insisted, "No bowl, no bowl, table, TABLE," in a way that suggested he wasn't going to take "no" for an answer.  I wasn't sure if I had gotten it right, because, of course, ice cream comes in various sizes and shaped and locations, so maybe he thought I was going to give him one of those juice popsicles, or a bowl of scooped mango ice cream or even take him to McDonald's.  I figured I must have gotten it wrong, so I picked up the untouched, melting sandwich while it was still somewhat salvageable to put it in a Ziplock and stick it back in the freezer.  Apparently, this was NOT what Jonathan had in mind.  He apparently liked his sandwich sitting melting on the table, as evidenced by him racing to the kitchen to stop me from putting it away, yelling "i'cream -- i'cream."  So I tried to explain to him that it was going to melt, but I found myself at a bit of a loss because he just doesn't have all the requisite vocabulary for that conversation.

But evidently, he understood enough of it, because when I told him that I was just going to put it in the freezer to let it get cold again, he said, "No, hot.  Hot," getting all weepy again.  I tried explaining to him that you just can't have hot ice cream, but the word "impossible" is both literally and figuratively not in his vocabulary.

Then, I made the mistake of saying, "So, you want me to microwave the ice cream and make it hot?"  This was exactly what he wanted me to do.  I thought about it, and figured he was in a mood not to be messed with.  Besides, it dawned on me that just because my adult brain has been wired to think microwaving ice cream is daft, doesn't mean that microwaved ice cream might not taste yummy.  So, out of the wrapper and into a lime green kids Ikea bowl this poor ice cream sandwich went, already looking rather soupy.

I micowaved it 20 seconds or so and pulled it out and presented it to his royal grumpjesty.  "There," I said triumphantly.  "Hot ice cream."

Oh no.  The lip.  The whine.  What was it this time?  "No boowwwllll."


Epilogue: The boy went on to wake up sufficiently just about the time we would have loved to put him to bed, bouncing off the wall happily for hours having forgotten all about the ice cream fiasco.  The mom went on to sooth other babies that night, to varying degrees of success.  And the ice cream in the lime green bowl still sits in the freezer until I can figure out what to do with it or decide to throw it away in a week or so.  Poor ice cream.




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