Tea, anyone?

Maybe it was last Christmas? Thing 2 received a little ceramic teapot, which lasted about 20 minutes before she broke it trying to wash it out.
Today I took her with me to buy a new teapot for myself, as I broke my latest one last week. They had several sizes, and Thing 2 fell in love with the little two cup pot. For $12, I figured it would suffice her needs, and bought it for her.

She came in wanting a tea party. The tea pot has a little infuser inside. I tried to talk her into taking it out, but she wanted it in. So I told her I’d find some tea. I have a little loose herbal tea that I put in the infuser, and poured some cold water in. It was almost indiscernible from tap water. She wanted to try it with hot water.

Of course all this time I am thinking I should be starting laundry, cleaning the floor, folding clothes, etc. etc. But how can I turn down a tea party with my darling girl?

So I heat up the water, hot enough but not too hot. I get some sugar in a little cup. I assemble the tea party. I make a big show of pouring. We add sugar. We stir until it’s gone. I take a sip. It’s lukewarm herbal tea in a shot glass sized cup, not too bad actually. Thing 2 takes one sip and gags, sticks out her tongue, and says “Pppwwwaaaah! Ppwaaaah!”

I say Honey. You don’t have to like the tea, but please don’t make faces and freak out about and scrub your tongue on your sleeve. She is indignant and angry at me for suggesting she should exercise some politeness when the tea was so obviously horrible. We have a nasty tendency to escalate each other. I say “I spent five minutes making it, you could at least say you Don’t Care For It. You don’t have to Pwhaaah and Gag.” She glared at me, and stormed out the door over to Wytie’s.

I had no idea that warm flavored water could be so offensive. I’m still not doing the laundry, cleaning the kitchen, etc. I’m angrily writing up the account of the disastrous tea party.