Yesterday, Miss asked to go to bed at six. I fell asleep on the couch at seven and in my bed at eight thirty. Jr - apparently - is good at sharing. Thankfully, Lannis is stepping in today.
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Do you ever feel petty, as a parent? When looking at your kids, do you ever think, “serves you right... ha! Glad you’re angry, you deserve it!”
No? Just me, then? I’m the only one who laughs when my kid does something jerky and is hit in the face by instant karma?
Perhaps this is better illustrated by an anecdote.
Bubbles.
Yes, bubbles. We go through a lot of bubble mix in this house. We have a plethora of bubble wands. Big, little, square.
(Seriously, check out the pic. But it doesn’t make square bubbles, it just makes you feel your brain is leaking out of your ears while you explain to the four year old every time you take it out why it DOESN’T make square bubbles, in spite of being, clearly, square. Uh huh. Square bubble wand designer? Yeah, watch your back. I don’t care how freaking funny you think you are, I’m coming for you and it won’t be pretty.).
Anyhow... we have a lot of bubble wands. This year, we invested in a battery powered wand, sanity included. Up to 800 bubbles in a minute, or so the package claims. I’ve seen it in action, and I wouldn’t wager against it (though I think the makers were kind of counting on no one willing to count the bubbles, but that’s the cynic in me speaking...). So, guess what’s the darling of the collection right now?
Of course!
Back to me (silently) being a jerk to my kids when they are (not so silently) being a jerk in general.
Picture: sunny day, hot, but not mind-numbingly-hot (let’s say 25c), nice breeze, excellent weather to toss the kids in the backyard for a bit and get a little housework done, right?
So, I grab the bubble mix, fill the bowls. I grab the bag of bubble wands, and my five-year-old is rudely reaching over my hands(!) to grab the coveted battery powered bubble maker. His friends, of course, are left with the rest of the old school collection, and they rifle through without complaint, grabbing the large oval, the cool little puffing frog who blows his own bubbles, the wand that makes baby-sized bubbles, and yes, even the odd-ball square wand.
Imagine my five-year-old’s shock when he discovers (click, click, click on the button) that the wand has run out of batteries!
Oh yes, he wailed. Threw back his head, slumped his shoulders, and wailed.
I loved it. Want to sneak ahead and grab the mightiest wand in the bunch? Not so cool when it’s powerless, is it now?
Muahahahahahha! (I laughed internally, of course, as I stood with brows raised watching the Oscar-worthy meltdown.)
Then he stopped long enough to see that his buddies had all the secondarily cool implements, and proceeded to wail some more, until I told him, unsympathetically, to “shut it off.”
(Which, for non-believers, works every time. It also doubles as a great trick in crowded malls, when your kid is trying to mortify you into submission. Please note, children: Mommy always wins. -- She also occasionally earns free coffee from bystanders who are impressed with her blunt parenting skills. True story. Too bad I drink tea...)
See, me? If I’m honest, I know I have the ability to be a world-class jerk. I try not to be, especially to my kids, but sometimes? Sometimes they’re jerks, too, and I can’t help but be happy when life teaches them a lesson I had no hand in.
HA!
I live in a small town with my favourite people: my husband, Mr Lannis, and our two boys, along with two cats and one hamster.
If you follow me on Twitter, you might witness my issues with linear thought, road rage, spending more money on food than books, and potty mouth. Be warned.
