Ariel, sitting across the room, yells over to me: "You shouldn't have done that."
Me: "Put the blackberries out? Why not?
Ariel: "Because Penelope loves blackberries so much they're her boyfriend."
I've been warned.
Ariel was a bit miffed this morning. Her dad had an early flight to catch, and forgot to mention he wouldn't see the girls before he left. Her feelings of frustration manifested themselves in her refusal to get dressed for school when I asked. I know she likes to wait, but that makes us late.
After eating her healthy food, she asked me for a Cliff bar. I told her she could have the Cliff bar, but I wanted her to get dressed first, put away her PJs, and clear her dishes. This is the surest strategy I know of how to get the kids to do something I want them to do: dangle the carrot.
Ariel insisted on eating the Cliff bar first.
Me: "Why don't you want to get dressed?"
Ariel: "Because I get cold!"
Me: "How does eating your Cliff bar first change that?"
Ariel: "Because once I eat my Cliff bar, I get warm, and then I can get dressed."
Me: "You better eat your Cliff bar then."
You can't argue with that logic.
Later - once all the blackberries were long gone - Penelope stood on her stool beside me, cracking eggs into a bowl like a maniac, and stirring them into the mashed bananas for banana bread.
She added all the ingredients herself, and was having a hard time mixing in the flour with the rest.
"Do you need some help there, sweetheart?"
"No - I do it!" She gave me a look that was all, back off mom.
So, I did.
You can't argue with that assertion, either.
Elyse was perhaps the easiest going of the three this morning.
She asked me for a second bowl of Cheerios, and was very polite about it when I obliged.
"Thank you, mommy. Thank you."
She helped clean up by polishing off Penelope's leftover fruit, and orange juice.
When it was time to leave, I may have heard her exclaim,
"Yeah! School!"
I couldn't agree more.
We made pizzas too.
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