I Hate You

I got my first "I hate you" this morning. I told the children after schooling that they couldn't play outside in the front yard until I had taken a quick shower. (Even though we live in a very safe neighborhood, I'll never take my chances on the children playing alone out of eye and/or earshot till they are at least 30). Whelp, apparently that didn't go over very well with my very-moody-this-past-week daughter.

Jack, promptly informed me after I headed into the bathroom, that Grace had said "I hate you." Daggers. Daggers. And yet the first thing you want to do is probably worse than her own words. So I showered and considered my options...let it go, have her sit down for the next hour and do some lovely copywork, take away her TV hour, call Daddy for back up ideas...

I settled on letting her think I had given her a pass, by not mentioning Jack's tattle. But when she asked for her TV hour, she and I had a little talkin' to do. We did. And it went over well. But no TV hour, no ma'am.

Ken's response later was, "She's lucky I wasn't there." I think she was.

I'm usually pretty tough on punishment, but seven years is a lot of parenting to go through without hearing an "I hate you." Not bad. So I went easy. But if there is a next time...not so much lil' missy.