Elias Finds the Lollipops

Today after we got home from school, I retreated upstairs to Graham's room to nurse. Elias was messing around downstairs, and, bad mother that I am, I figured he was probably wrecking something, but as long as I could hear banging and clattering, then he probably had not gotten to the scissors and started doing surgery on himself or the dogs. Graham and I were lost in our oxytocin-fueled daydreams when Elias appeared at the door with his best I'm-Going-To-Be-Charming smile plastered across his face. He was rubbing his chest in a big circular motion, which means (as those of you doing Baby Signs will know) "Please"

"What do you want, Elias?" I asked.

"A lollipop," he replied hopefully.

Uh oh. Well, without going into too much detail, let's just say this:

Prehalloween trip to Target + mommy with sweet tooth = bag of 300 mini Tootsie Pops stashed in a drawer in the dining room

So Elias had (finally) found this bag. Trying to buy time to think of a new hiding place for the tootsie pops, I drew him into conversation.

"Where did you find the lollipops, honey?"
"The drawer"
"How many lollipops are in there?"
"ALL OF THEM!!" He was about to burst.

I went downstairs and let him pick out a blue lollipop from the bag, but told him he couldn't eat it until after lunch. I was forgetting, of course, that on the spectrum of self control, Elias is far closer to chimpanzee than he is to adult human. He promptly sat down on the floor and started picking at the wrapper.

"Honey, don't unwrap it until after lunch"
"It's unwrapping itself!!" he cried helplessly.

A few minutes later he had managed to pull off the entire wrapper and was lovingly gazing at the bare, ready-to-eat tootsie pop he held in his hand. I was peeking at him from the other room and when he brought it to his mouth called out, "Don't lick that yet, honey!!"

"I just need to touch it with my teeth!" he explained, exasperated. Silly mommy.