Fiona told her first BIG lie today. After asking her if she ate almost the entire bottle of gummy worm vitamins, she answered with a very cool, confident, "No. I didn't. I promise." Before I had time to grab the empty bottle (or call Poison Control), she was uncontrollably crying, admitting that she had been a bad girl. Nothing makes moms more mad than their children almost being poisoned. And the lie just made me that much more angry.
In case any of you face a similar scare one day (and apparently Poison Control gets this particular phone call all the time), your kids need to ingest A LOT of vitamin before they need attention. So, that's good. It reminded me of the time that Fiona ate a huge palm-full of antibacterial hand sanitizer when she was two. I wigged out, called P.C., and listened to them laugh as I cried through the phone call. They said it was hard to believe she was able to ingest that much (as most kids avoid eating soap) but reassured me that it would take A LOT of hand sanitizer to make her sick. "She might complain that her tongue has no feeling or that her throat is burning, but as long as she doesn't have acute vomiting, you're in the clear." Fantastic. She's not vomiting, but her tongue will permanently stick out of her face from "numb tongue".
This was one of those moments where I knew a real punishment was in order. No time outs, but something good. I looked around the house and realized how perfect my idea was. There was a divine light shining down onto the vacuum, piles of unfolded clean laundry, and unmade beds. "Fiona. The time has come. Follow me." I led her to the first stop on her circuit of chores.
At first she thought it was kind of fun- watching dust bunnies get sucked into a long tube and polishing furniture into a lovely luster. But, it didn't take long before she realized how much mommy's job sucks. I even said, "Now you see what mommy feels like, picking your messes up all day long?", only to have her reply, "When will I stop being a mommy!?" So, not only did I ruin any chances of her actually enjoying being a tidy housekeeper, I've also ruined any chances I had of having grandchildren.
My first instinct was to not only help her, but to actually keep her from doing things that I felt I could do quicker and better... micro managing my four year old? I resisted the urge to jump in, and watched over her like a prison guard. By the time we had reached the laundry stop on her circuit (my least favorite chore, by the way), she had enough. I instructed her on which articles of clothing were to be folded and which were to be hung. Folding went well, but hanging shirts and sweaters takes a level of dexterity that even her father can't seem to reach. I watched her fumble with one shirt for about 1.5 minutes until she fell apart.
"I CAN'T HANG THIS SHIT! THIS SHIT IS TOO HARD! MOM, PLEASE HANG THIS SHIT FOR ME!"
For those who don't know what my daughter sounds like, she has the cutest speech impediment that keeps her from saying her "R"s. What sounded just like a downright "Shove your laundry, Mom" was actually a plea to help her with her "shirt". While I'm happy that word has not found a home in my daughter's vocabulary (yet), I admit to being very amused by this outburst.
Not long after that, I let her end the circuit of chores with a final vacuum under the dining room table, just for keeping a good attitude through most of it. (I'm always muttering things like, "I can't do this shit" as I clean my house.) Almost as if a light bulb went off at that very moment, she looked up and said, "Why are there so many messes here? Where did it all come from?" I had been busted. In other words, "if you cleaned this place more often, mom, I wouldn't be down here vacuuming up three month old petrified lentils."
1 comment:
Hilarious!
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