Remote Control Sister

Apparently, Christmas was simply too far away for J to have to wait for the desire of his heart--an awesome remote control car.  So, he took matters into his own hands and created a remote control sister.

Who, surprisingly, was completely obedient.  That must have been a seriously strong remote he was using.  J's little hand held device would issue various voice commands.  Sit.  Stay.  Come.  Lay down.  Run around in circles.  And R would obligingly obey.

Their little charade was going on for a good while before I really began paying attention to what they were doing.  When there's harmony, sometimes it's better to just leave them be.  But it became too entertaining and I had to watch.  Then I had to grab the camera.

J was using R's little music studio to record voice commands to be played back via the detachable device.  He was roaming all over the house with her trailing obediently behind.  Like a puppy.  Which was apparently the very same creature she was portraying.

Sometimes they ran into some technical difficulty and we'd hear B wailing or singing or somebody saying something that didn't make any sense.  Then J would race back to his studio to fix it before remote controlling his little sister some more.

They were having such fun together,

that J even showed her some affection.  That is a rare treat, indeed!  Even if it was just a dog pat.

And then, as suddenly as it started, it was over.  The remote no longer worked.  The connection had failed.  The sister refused to be controlled.  Surprise, surprise.

Behind that sweet little face hides a meltdown monster who strikes like lightning and lasts like summer thunderstorms and is as stubborn as all get out.

She goes from the above, to this, in zero seconds flat.

All because of something so small and mundane as a broken crayon. 

Or sometimes it's because someone gave her a blue cup at dinner.  Oh, the outrage!  Or maybe somebody dared to put some food on her plate before she gave the ok.  Or they were nice enough to set her breakfast bowl on the table for her but cruelly gave her the wrong kind of spoon.  We seem to have a whole lot of thoughtless and mean people around here. 

Poor R.  She has to endure so much.  I sure wish she'd learn to endure it a little more gracefully.  Or that she'd respond more consistently to J's remote control.  I could really use a reliable meltdown dissipation button.  We all could.

Because these little sister's out-of-the-blue horrendous meltdowns are getting rather hard to endure.