Sometimes I Write

I’ve been posting on Supermom about a few of my kids favorite bedtime stalling techniques. I affectionately titled one post Another Zoe Zinger. The girl is a quick thinker and she always has an answer for everything, or atleast a good comeback. I’m one of those types that thinks of the clever thing to say about five minutes too late, so she must get this from her Popa! She’s only three years old, but she continually cracks me up and sometimes exasperates me as you’ll see in the following paragraph.

I have white plastic dishpans that I sort the kid’s clothes into as I fold them, then it’s their job to put them away. (They’re decorated all cutesy for each child and their favorite things – thanks Family Fun magazine!) Even Pete at two years old knows how to put his clothes in his dresser. The other day I called the kids into the T.V. room to get their tubs. Zoe immediately told me she has too many clothes to put them all away by herself, as she dramatically flung herself onto the couch. I smiled and said, “I tell you what, I’ll give you a drink of my Pepsi if you put them away all by yourself”. She didn’t miss a beat. “I tell you what” she said to me. “I’ll give you a thousand bucks if you put them away all by yourself“. I was shocked and all I could do was burst out laughing! The nerve of that girl!!! Since when did I start bargaining with her for her chores? How did I fall into that little trap in the first place? The story ended with me carrying her tub to her dresser and her doing the job alone. No Pepsi shared. The thousand bucks would have been nice though.

For the past year I’ve really been into Flylady and getting my home and family organized. We’ve been decluttering like crazy since moving to Colorado. When you move and have to leave stuff by the dumpster because you don’t have room for it in the moving truck, you have too much stuff! Well, I’ve gotten my kids in on the act of decluttering too. I pay them a set amount of change for every toy, book, or piece of clothing they decide to “bless” someone else with. We were cleaning up their rooms the other day and I commented about the number of toys all over the floor and that maybe we needed to declutter their rooms again and give some away. My lazy little stinkers readily agreed and starting bringing me toys to take to DAV so they wouldn’t have to put them away! WHY do I spend money on toys for them??? Granted they’re usually from yard sales and such, but they don’t need all of that STUFF!

Petey likes us to repeat ourselves. I’ll tell him something and he’ll look at me questioningly and say, “What?” I’ll repeat myself and he’ll say “What?” again. The third time I just say, “You heard me” after which he laughs…hard. It’s hilarious to him. So today at naptime I told him to lay down so I could cover him up with his blanket. He said, “What?” and before I could say anything he looked at me and said, “You stutter?” Then I laughed. Benny must say “I didn’t stutter” instead of my “You heard me”. Little stinker! 😉