I was packing lunches for the girls. I was hunting through the fridge for the Babybel cheeses, to no avail. I bought two packages on Saturday, and it is Thursday, so I'm a little confused. I start talking out loud to the open fridge. Gabe hears me and tells me they ate them all. Which is totally about to annoy me because the kids know to save them for lunches. Then Claire calls out, "I found them!" Yay! Thanks, Baby, where were they? "Um, in my desk."Come again?
"WHY are they in your desk?"
"Um, I don't know. I just put them there and forgot them."
"WHEN?"
"Yesterday."
Launch into lecture about ruining food and wasting money and having no options for lunch while throwing $4.00 of squishy warm cheese balls into the trash. Ended it with No Cartoons After School. Her response? "I don't care about that." Great. Except the only acceptable answer is Yes Ma'am. "Yes Ma'am." Thanks.
So there we are driving to school, me in the front actively trying not to fume, them in the back starting to squawk. What is this I hear? Oh, it is Charlotte repeatedly doing something annoying to Claire while Claire repeats, "Please stop!" more and more frantically. Grrr. Launch into lecture about respecting others' feelings ending with No Cartoons After School. Charlotte's response? "I don't really mind so much." Repeat Yes Ma'am lecture. "Yes Ma'am."
We are still driving to school, me in front fuming but trying to hide it, and then I hear
Claire: "I don't get cartoons either, Char."
Char: "Why not?"
Claire: "I don't want to talk about it."
whisper whisper whisper
Claire: "I put cheese in my desk."
Char: "What?!"
Claire: "I put cheese in my desk."
Char: "WHY?"
A smile is cracking on my face by now. How funny does that sound? I got in trouble for putting cheese in my desk. HILARIOUS! Thank goodness, because mentally I was halfway down that road that leads to locking your fridge with a padlock and putting nanny cams on your kids to control their every moment.
When I got home, I was still a little peeved because, honestly, my kids have serious problems with taking things that don't belong to them. Seriously. I found my tweezers in Charlotte's jeans pocket once, my loose change disappears off my dresser and I hear Gabe jingle by, and, of course, the cheese.
And let me just digress and say it is SO MUCH BETTER that Claire turned herself in because can you even imagine how nuts I would have gone if I had found that cheese on my own? And I can't even imagine when that might have been. Need I remind you of the Easter Egg debacle?
Anyway, a piece of coconut cake for breakfast brought me back to reality. I decided that I will have a sit-down with the kids and implement the "you take mine, I take yours and you lose privileges" rule rather than the lockdown I had been fantasizing about. And I took out the trash because every time I walked by and saw that dang cheese I started steaming again. I don't have enough cake for that.
8 comments:
Cheese in the desk... aaah it's always something. I remember Damon lecturing the girls, sick of them wasting or spilling milk: "that cup of milk was 10 minutes of my work day!"
We still give him a hard time about that. If we are going to start keeping track of all the wasted food, not even considering wasted time, patience, sleep hours... heaven help me.
I've never bought those Babybels although they always catch my attention. I'll have to now.
I got myself a Twix the other day after reading your post and considered mailing you one just for fun. But you live in 100+ degree weather and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have made it as a solid. I ate one for you though. Could you tell?
Ok this was so not funny but just reminded me that Sam left $30 worth of cheese that his sister had picked up for me at Costco in the car overnight. You can't take things away from your husband. Ok, I take that back, but still.
From now on, whenever I say, "I put cheese in my desk" that's gonna be code for "I'm about to tell you somethin' that's gonna make you mad, so just go ahead and laugh."
And that cake WAS delicious.
Pame - I felt that Twix, and thank you!
Alisha - SUCKY.
And just to finish the story: on the way home from school, Claire told Harris she couldn't watch tv because she put cheese in her drawer. After his incredulous, "WHAT?!" he made jokes about having cheesy underwear that you have to eat the whole way home. She was laughing too hard to get him to understand it was her desk drawer rather than her dresser drawer. He's my hero.
awesome story. Seriously awesome.
i love this. and alisha, kris gets certain privileges taken away all the time! hee, hee.
My sister couldn't figure out why she had a rat problem until she looked under her twins bunk bed. There was rotten food they would sneak out of the fridge and eat part of and then shove it under their bed!!! Apparently they had been doing it for months!! I'm glad you ate the cake. It always helps with recovery!
Nat - DISGUSTING! I love it!
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