Instead of sharing my folly this time, I would like to share my deep, dark secret. People who know me know that I have four children. What is not commonly known is that I have a fifth child that I have to deal with. I try not to take her out in public, because she can be a bit of an embarrassment to me. Her name is Cricket. She looks a lot like Erika, but behaves a lot like Nicole. I think that, most of the time, she is about three or four years old. She is, of course, my inner child. I can't remember my psychology courses well enough to remember if the term for her is "ego" or "id". To me she is just "Cricket". She can be a lot of fun (she's responsible for the dictionary listed below in "TUESDAY Confusion"). She can also be a bit of a brat, throwing tantrums, sulking, stomping her feet, and, when she's really angry, refusing to talk to me at all. I am introducing her now because of an interesting conversation that we had this morning.
Katie:"The alarm went off. 5:00, Time to get up."
Cricket: "It's only 5:00. I don't want to get up."
Katie: "We need to get up and exercise."
Cricket: "My head hurts."
Katie: "Our head always hurts. That didn't stop us from going bowling last week."
Cricket: "But I don't feel good."
Katie: "It's 5 a.m., we're not supposed to feel good."
Cricket: "If you let me stay in bed, I promise that I'll do it later."
Katie: "It's Tuesday. You know we won't have time to do it later. If you get up now, we'll just do Level 1."
Cricket: "That's not true. You always say I only have to do Level 1, but when I get done, you always make me do Level 3, too."
Katie: "Once we finish Level 1, you usually don't mind moving onto Level 3."
Cricket: "But it's only 5:30. It is too early!"
Katie: "That's the best time to do it. If we do it early, we'll be done for the whole day."
Cricket: "That's not true. It's TUESDAY. You'll make me stay busy all day."
Katie: "That's why we have to get up and do it now."
Cricket: "But it's cold in the room."
Katie: "We'll only be cold for a minute. Once we get started, we'll warm right up."
Cricket: "But We're warm right now."
Katie: "Yes, we are warm right now."
Cricket: "And Our bed is so comfortable."
Katie: "It is comfortable, but....."
Cricket: "And it's 6:00. We don't have time to do Level 3 and Level 1."
Katie: "That's true. I don't think that we would be able to do both."
Cricket: "And You don't want to just do Level 1. You're supposed to be doing Level 3, You know."
Kate: "6:00 would be too early to go out to the family room and we can't do Level 3 in here."
Cricket: "If You wait a little bit longer, You can go out to the family room and do Level 3. Then it won't matter if You wake up the kids."
Kate: "That's true. It would be better to wait a few more minutes."
Cricket: "And Our bed is so warm and comfortable."
Kate: "Hmmmm, it is warm and comfor ......zzzzzzzzzzzzzz."
Because we had already turned our alarm off, we over-slept and the real children almost missed the bus.
