Mean Miss Crabbypuss

Dinner tonight was its usual lively ordeal. My husband disappeared to do some work, since he juggled the boy all day, whose school was closed for the MLK holiday. Both of us had to work, so this is how we rolled today.

M-man and LP (little princess) alternatively giggled and pretended to accidentally drop pizza on the floor and screeched and whined for more pizza, for M&Ms, for, oh, I don't even know. I was wrangling some last-minute stuff on my BlackBerry for work and emptying the dishwasher, accomplishing neither particularly well. Just another evening at home...

Then I took my daughter into the bathroom to go potty. She proceeded to sneeze chocolate on the bath mat, which of course I had long ago purchased in the pre-toddler days, in a light tan color, and of course I had just washed days ago. I had to laugh. M-man was hollering he didn't want to pick up his toys, etc... and I thought of Mean Miss Crabbypuss.

Mean Miss Crabbypuss may just sound like me trying to make up a clever metaphor for my children's sassiness and grouchiness. But Mean Miss Crabbypuss is so much more -- she has very curious, magical powers in our house.

Take for example, this morning. M-man woke up like someone had been poking him with a stick. Upon arrival at the breakfast table, oh, he was so grouchy and complaining he didn't want his yogurt (which he normally loves). I asked if Mean Miss Crabbypuss also didn't like yogurt, and if she would take people's yogurt away.

And this is the "magical" part. My kids think Mean Miss Crabbypuss, totally made up of course, is hilarious. This is not the first conversation with the wee set about her. The very mention of her magically redirects their anger, frustration, whatever. Sure enough, M-man started talking about her, and how she takes toys away, and how she would throw away yogurt, etc. It was a good conversation.

I can't remember how we invented Mean Miss Crabbypuss. It's sort of like when, in the course of dating someone, you come up with ridiculous, silly lovey names for your sweetheart (think "schmoopie" from Seinfeld). After a while, you don't even remember how you came up with it, it just sticks. In the case of Mean Miss Crabbypuss, my husband probably invented it, and it continues to hang around.

So tonight, I made a mention of Mean Miss Crabbypuss tonight. We didn't end up dwelling on her, because M-Man announced he needed to poop. Which consisted of sitting on the potty for a long time and loudly carrying on a conversation with me as I was in the next room, getting LP ready for bed. Which was fine.

I think Mean Miss Crabbypuss can just stick around for awhile. I kinda like having her around.