Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Misadventures of Misrepresentation

This morning I printed off my previous posts so that I could put them in my journal. Reading through the posts I discovered that a lot of them are about the mischief of a certain little girl. I now feel compelled to make a couple of statements. Statement One: Every single word I've written about said little girl is absolutely true. Statement Two: That same little girl brings me so much joy that, at times, it takes my breath away.

I'd like to take a few minutes and write about the wonder that is Nicole.

As I've mentioned before, Nicole has a bit of a naughty streak in her. To be fair, I'm going to change that from a naughty streak to an independent streak. I don't think that she is really trying to be naughty as much as she is trying to exert her independence and her own way of thinking. For example: Barbies are meant to play with, it makes no sense to keep them locked away in boxes in the basement (my ability to see her perspective is what has kept her hands still attached). Does Nicole get into more trouble than the others? Honestly, I will have to say Yes, she does. Nicole thinks of things that simply wouldn't occur to Austin to try and Erika's exploits are still on a smaller scale.

Although Nicole does make me shake my head and wonder where I went wrong, she also makes me stop and think that I must be doing something right. Nicole is the most affectionate of all my children. She will frequently come and give me a hug and a kiss and tell me that she loves me. She is very generous with her compliments, to me and to all of those around her. She says the most beautiful prayers. While the other kids tend to say the same thing over and over (I do it. Admit it, you do it, too) Nicole prays so sincerely for all of her family and friends. Nicole enjoys writing loving songs about the Savior and about her Family.

Nicole is a happy little package of contradictions, one second making me pull my hair out in frustration, the next melting my heart by showing me how big her heart is.

I love you, Nicole!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Misadventures of an Unclear Post

There has been a little concern expressed to me about my previous entry "The Misadventures of a Good Deed". People feel that Erika was treated unfairly in the situation of losing band-aids, bubble bath, and pizza due to the reprehensible behavior of her older sister. Please allow me to set the record straight. Although, she started the journey walking next to the cart, her frequent trips down a different aisle or refusing to leave her current aisle forced me to put her in the shopping cart. Erika had already lost her privileges due to the oft repeated offense of not staying with me. Please excuse my lack of clarification in my previous entry and realize that I'm an equal opportunity punisher.

The Misadventures of TUESDAY Laundry

TUESDAY laundry. What a terrible combination!

This time the folly falls squarely on Nicole's shoulders. Her folly was, once again, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Our laundry ritual consists of me washing the laundry, me drying the laundry, me folding the laundry. The children's laundry is then separated into their own baskets and they are expected to take it down and put it in their drawers. Today as I was sitting down to fold the laundry, I asked Erika and Nicole to go and get their laundry baskets for me. Nicole told me that she didn't want to have to get her laundry basket, she just wanted me to fold the laundry. Instead of going through my usual "Poor Mom" tirade, I decided just to give her what she wanted.

I started to fold the laundry. Every time I came across some of Nicole's laundry, I calmly folded it and then told her that she needed to take it down to her room and put it away. I always seemed to find a piece of her laundry right after she had gotten back from the last trip down the hall and restarted her previous activity. It was funny to watch her growing frustration(I know I'm a terrible parent)as she was called away from her play again and again. It turns out that a weeks worth of laundry takes a while to put away if you do it one piece at a time. To her credit she lasted about thirty minutes before she started yelling about the amount of laundry she had to put away. I, of course, had to remind her that it was her idea not to use the laundry baskets. She did bring me the laundry basket in time for the last pair of jammies and three pairs of sock.

I'm not sure if Nicole took a lesson from this experience. The lesson that I'm taking is that sometimes giving in to a temper tantrum can be kind of fun.

P.S. To anyone wondering what Erika was doing during this time: Erika didn't get her laundry basket either. So she was also puting her laundry away one piece at a time. Her laundry lacked the drama because she didn't add any. She ignored my request for the laundry basket and she put her laundry away without comment. I do need to confess to not adding the vindictive timing that I used with Nicole. I wanted to show Nicole that sometimes it's better to just do what you're asked and not argue.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Misadventures of a Good Deed

My folly this time was giving my children what they want, an action almost guaranteed to backfire.

After picking Nicole up from school today, we went to the haircut store so Erika and I could get our hair cuts. When we were done, Nicole asked if we could go to Target. Having gone to the store yesterday, I didn't really need anything from Target and I told her so. She said that she would like to go to Target to get a cookie and look at the dishes (plastic dishes with Disney characters on them) and Barbies. I decided that since I didn't have anything that needed to be done, we could go. We got our cookies (Alex ate mine). We looked at the dishes. We looked at the Barbies. I let the girls walk up and down any toy aisle that they wanted to. I let Nicole look at the clothes. I let Erika look at the books. They picked out some princess bubble bath and I let them each pick out a box of special (character) Band-Aids.

After we had wandered around for about an hour and a half, and well past Alex's lunch time, I said it was time to go get some lunch. When we're at Target, lunch means getting a personal pizza from the eatery and letting the girls share it while I feed Alex some baby food. Announcing that it was time to leave sent Nicole into a fit of rage. She wanted to look at bicycles!!! I never let her look at what she wants to look at!!! The last remark was, unfortunately for her, the wrong thing to say after I had just spent an hour and a half looking at everything that she had wanted to look at. We immediately went to check out and, sadly, left behind the bubble bath and the special Band-Aids. Leaving behind our treasures and the loss of the pizza did, of course, start and equally impressive tantrum.

The lesson learned today is that it is true that no good deed goes unpunished!