I say it often. “Murphy* was a genius.”
*If you have no idea who I’m talking about, click here.
I was reminded again today. “Murphy was a genius.”
As a general rule, we’re very up front and honest with our kids.
If I throw away something by accident (or on purpose) and they ask about it, I tell them what happened and apologize if necessary.
If I decide not to do something they want to do just because I don’t want to (or I’m too lazy), I don’t make up some feel good reason. I have no problem being the bad guy.
If someone dies, we don’t dance around the issue. Some of our best conversations come out of these situations.
Oops…I almost got on a soapbox. Returning to reality (and the point of this post).
If the kids get invited to a birthday party and I have to RSVP in the negative, I tell them anyway (even though they’ll be dissappointed). I figure it’s better for them to hear it from me than from the grapevine. (And yes, there is a grapevine in kindergarten.) But, truth be told, I’ve probably dissappointed them tens of times unecessarily and they probably would’ve been non-the-wiser because the grapevine is pretty spotty at age 5…except today.
Mia got an invite to a party for a classmate for this coming weekend. It would’ve been birthday party #2 for the weekend. Patrick doesn’t do birthday parties so it would’ve meant me and the three kids for the second seventh day in a row following a week when we’ve all been under the weather. I’ll be honest. I just didn’t feel up to it. I even looked at the guest list to see how many people I’d know there. It wasn’t enough. I RSVP’d “NO” and never mentioned a word to Mia. I just didn’t have the energy after being sick all week to deal with it.
Fast foward 2 hours to the grocery store. We run into one of her classmates. (Just for the record, that never* happens).
*except today…thanks, Murphy
My friend asks, “Will we see you at the birthday party Sunday?”
Mia’s ears perk up. She asks, “What birthday party, Mom?”
She gets her whine on as she hears me say, “Nope, but we’ll see you at the back-to-school picnic next Tuesday.”
I fumble as I try to justify why she’s not going. I end up pulling the Mean Mommy, “Because Mommy doesn’t want to, that’s why.”
And I’ll say it again, “Murphy was a genius.”