Do you ever have those moments as a parent that just totally backfire? I have them all the time. I'll start to get upset and then go totally blank mid-threat. I flounder and they smell fear, I panic and most often defer to the default "time-out". It's kind of like if I were to ever get really upset with someone and have a yelling match but I would say really dumb things that didn't make sense and then afterwards think of some really clever and cutting comment...a day late and a dollar short (probably a blessing that I'm a failure at arguments...)
Anyway, tonight I was putting the older girls to bed, rather late. We had friends over while their mother was rendering service elsewhere so they got to stay up and watch a movie (by the way, anyone who knows her, does our cousin Julie not totally remind you of the girl on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?...in a so blond, beautiful and cool teenager from the late 80's sort of way?)
I took them to do their little "last pit stop potty break before bed" bit. Haley, naturally insisted that she didn't have to go. Me, being the seasoned matriarch that I am, knew that wasn't the case so I persisted. Then, in a fleating moment of assumed wiseness I made a deal with her (this backfires all the time so don't even start...they try to "make deals" with me all the time, they don't really get it.) The conversation went something like this:
Mom:Haley, if you sit on this potty and don't tinckle, you can stay up for five more minutes. But, if you do tinkle then you have to go straight to bed.
(take a moment here to think, "what was she thinking, that sure is a dumb deal...")
5-year old with a bladder of steal: OK!
(she jumps at the chance to outwit, outplay, outlast me.)
This is the part where she sits and giggles, without tinckling for 2 minutes.
Mom's inner dialogue: OK, that's not gonna work...I need her to actually pee.
What Mom says next: OK, I change my deal. If you tinckle right now, I will let you stay up for another five minutes.
[Insert the immediate sound of rushing "water"...and more toothless giggling]
I never had a chance against her bladder and she knew it.
8 comments:
i love the story. so funny. we're so excited for the tea party. we have dress-ups picked out and everything.
See...that's what makes me nervous about having older kids. Like you, I can mever think of the correct things to say when I am "in the heat of the moment." I ALWAYS say what I didn't mean to say, or it doesn't come out right and then, later on I feel like an idoit...and I want to start over!
Yeah, my bet would have been on H. winning that bet all the way! You must have been really tired and your reasoning instincts impaired.
When I tell Oscar to use the bathroom before we go somewhere he politely says, "No thank you." It is hard to argue with that. (He also says "No thank you" to the washing of the hands when he DOES go! Yuck.)
Aubrey does this sort of thing all the time. More recently I've had her say though, "mom if you don't do (insert whatever she wants), I'm not going to be your friend again! And I never know what to say to that.
don't make deals with children...even if you win, you lose in the future b/c they will always be seeking a deal of some sort....love this story
awsome. and even i know the diffence between 'steal' and 'steel'.... har har... go haley.
I love it when I'm being all passionate and angry and Jake stops to say, "So mom, what you are trying to say is..." or he has to "translate" what I'm trying to say to the other 2. I figured out a long time ago that I'm no good at kid negotiations.
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