Parenting

Another great day in our lovely household. The kids had a shouting match during breakfast, because we have two bus stops to choose from and, of course, one wanted one and the other wanted the other. You can pretty much guarantee that it will be that way. Fortunately, I was blessed with very strong vocal cords and can shout louder than they can. Once that was settled, we moved on to a bout of begging from my son. He always wants something (don't we all), and will beg, argue, cajole, argue, present options, logic, etc until you beg for mercy. This morning it was, "Please download a song I found on iTunes that was free." Once he was completely ready for school I presented MY bargain, "I'll download the song and put it on your sd card if you agree that we'll go to your sister's bus stop choice and you won't give me a hard time about it." He smiled and agreed. I'm slow, but his training has begun to pay off.

So, down we went to get in the car and what should I notice but bright pink fingernail polish on my daughter's fingernails. Many of you would not think twice about fingernail polish, but there are three issues here: 1. The school says it's not allowed. 2. She knows that I don't like it. I really detest the idea that females are supposed to paint themselves to be more attractive to males. Why should I have to do that to attract a mate? Aren't my brains enough, not to mention my legs and breasts? Puhleeze! and 3. SHE LIED ABOUT IT! Yes, that is the crux of the matter.

"When did you paint your fingernails?"

She evaded, "I don't know," with a shrug.

"Well they weren't pink yesterday."

Continued evasion. "Huh? I don't remember. Yes, they were."

This went on for a minute or two until I said, "They were not pink yesterday morning. You painted them when you met your friend yesterday."

"Yeah." Glance at me, glance out the window,

"So, why lie about it?"

"I was afraid I'd get in trouble."

"Well, you're in a lot of trouble now!" Ah, it's so predictable, it makes me wanna cry.

As I pointed out to her, her timing stinks. We're going away very soon and I thought I could trust her to go places independently with certain restrictions. So much for that. Pretty clear that trust is an issue. So, this evening should be lots of fun. I emptied out the drawers of her desk. They looked like someone had taken a trunk full of papers, books, pencils, hair ties, toys and general junk, jumbled them all up and shoved them into the desk drawers. I also pulled everything out from under her bed. She can spend her time sorting through it. I haven't decided whether to let her join us for pizza and a movie or leave her up there in jail. Whatever I decide, she'll say she doesn't care. They both figured that one out pretty quickly. Take away Mom's ammunition by pretending that the punishment doesn't hurt.

You know, this may be one of those blessings in disguise. It may very well hammer home the point that they'd better behave on the vacation or they risk being confined to quarters and missing out on the fun. Last April, during our vacation, they ate half of the breakfast bars, hid wrappers around the room and then denied eating them. They said it was somebody else. Maybe a robber had come in the room and eaten the breakfast bars. We couldn't prove it was them. We all spent the afternoon sitting in the condo, waiting for them to confess. I took a walk, stomped around, cried and begged God to help me, because I figured it just showed that I was as lousy at parenting as I was at everything else. This parenting stuff is not nearly as fun as I thought it would be. Thank God for public school and summer camp.

So, I have about seven and a half child-free hours ahead of me. I was actually pretty productive yesterday and feel some productivity stirring in my veins at this very moment. Scratch that. I think it's the coffee doing it's morning work on my intestines. Later.