The unexpected perils of classic Sesame Street skits

So it's practically impossible to get Liza to hold still long enough to brush her teeth. We've tried just about everything - bribing with stickers, changing locations, professional wrestling holds, threats, pretending to brush Bunny's teeth, letting her brush our teeth, taking turns with the toothbrush, etc. I can usually get a new approach to work for about two or three brushings, then it's back to the old "tackle the kid on a bed and hold her down while I scrub" technique. The only thing that works this week is to offer YouTube videos as a reward for cooperation. She's big on watching the video of her sliding into the swimming pool over and over again, saying her lines along with the recording.

In order to keep from going brain dead, I have been throwing in a few classic Sesame Street skits I've found online, mostly ones with Cookie Monster or Elmo. I've been stocking up on some that she's a little too young for right now, but might appreciate in a few months ... Swedish chef, Super Grover, Beeker singing "Feelings," etc.

When I found a copy of one of the 'Grover as a waiter' skits, I thought I had hit paydirt. You remember those, right? Grover's an inept waiter, and the balding blue dude always gets stuck at his table, and things go horribly wrong for both of them in some spectacularly ridiculous way. "Great!" I thought, something new we can watch tonight. I chose to show her this one, right before bed. Watch it, and pay special attention to what happens at about 2:33 into it (right at the very end):



At 2:33, Liza's face crumples and she starts screaming like someone is coming after her with a chainsaw. "Cheeseburger! Ahhhhhhh! Cheeseburger! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

I get her calmed down, explaining that Grover is fine, it's just pretend, he wasn't crushed to death under a large lump of tasty, flame-broiled goodness. I quickly queue up one of the cute kitty videos, and she settles right down.

After I read her the three bedtime books she has chosen, Liza decides it would be fun to kick my arm as hard as she can while jumping up and down on the couch. I calmly tell her that if she kicks me one more time, she's going to bed without any bedtime songs, a fate she considers worse than being crushed by a giant hamburger. She looks right at me and kicks me again, so I carry her and the posse up to bed, turn out the light, shut the door, and listen to her scream bloody murder for an hour.

Not an hour straight, of course - every 15 minutes or so one of us would go up to make sure she hadn't broken her leg while kicking the wall and wasn't hyperventilating as badly as it sounded from the extreme opposite end of the house. She wanted songs, she wanted milk, she wanted MOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! Ahhhhhhhhhh! As long as we were in the room with her, she was her normal self, but as soon as we tried to leave, the screaming started again.

At a quarter to ten I gave up on watching Mythbusters and went in for the last time, prepared to be in there for as long as was necessary. I enter the room, and she's standing by the door with the posse, complaining calmly that she has a piece of blue paper stuck to the bottom of her foot. I help her peel it off, then tell her to get back in bed. She does, and I remind her that if she's upset about not getting any songs, it's because she kicked me, and I warned her what would happen if she did it again.

"mumble mumble big cheesemumble mumble trip mumble cry sometimes"
"Wait, are you still upset about the cheeseburger video?"
"Ahhh! Cheeseburger! Trip and fall down! mumble mumble cry mumble mumble! Scared!"
"Okay, so you're scared because you think Grover got hurt when he tripped and fell down under the cheeseburger?"

Well, at least now I understand why there was that note of hysteria in her voice tonight. We go through the whole explanation again, that it's just pretend, that Grover isn't really hurt, that it was all just supposed to be funny.

"Ahhh! Cheeseburger! Trip and fall down! mumble mumble cry mumble mumble!"

I explain that there are lots of stories about Grover being a waiter, and the same guy is always at the table, and there's always something really wrong with what he orders, and it always looks like Grover gets hurt, but Grover is really fine - it's just pretend, like when we pretend to eat the Play-Doh birthday cakes we make.

"Grover hurt? Cry sometimes?"

I ask if she wants me to talk to Grover tonight, to check to see if he's okay. "Okay." I tell her I'll tell him that she was scared because she thought Grover was hurt, but now she's happy because she knows he's okay. She's a little lost by that one, but it takes her a few seconds before I get the next "Ahhh! Cheeseburger! Trip and fall down! mumble mumble cry mumble mumble!"

"Okay, how about this? Let's make up a different ending for the story. Since it's just pretend, we can pretend anything we want, right? Why do you think Grover tripped? Was it because the cheeseburger was too big, and he should have asked for help to carry it?"
"Grover need help. BIGGGG cheeseburger. Ahhh! Cheeseburger! Trip and fall down! mumble mumble cry sometimes mumble mumble!"
"Right. So let's pretend that Grover asks for help, so he doesn't trip." So I give her the Cliff's Notes version of the story, only at the end Grover asks about the ketchup, then gets Charlie the cook to help him carry the cheeseburger back into the kitchen. There's a long pause, then, "Grover fall down?"
"No, sweetie. Grover didn't fall down, because he asked for help to carry something big. Everything turned out okay."
"Oh."
"Hey, let's think about something nice. Remember the frogs we saw at the pond today? What noise did they make?"
(smiling) "Aruk!"

Things got much happier after that, and she was mostly settled down by the time I started rubbing her back. She was still thrashing around a little, and she spent about 20 minutes after I left kicking the wall, but she wasn't crying or screaming, so I think the worst of it is past ... at least until she dreams about the damn cheeseburger and wakes us up at 2am. Yep, I'm looking forward to that one.

Something tells me there's going to be a lot of chicken nuggets in her future when we go out to fast food restaurants for the next few months ...