Revenge/Consequence

Remember when you were a kid and someone told you a story about how the family hamster had babies then ate their young? My first reaction was “how gross” then I remember my friends and I thinking how sad it was. How could a mother eat her own? Well, now I have children and it makes total sense. Don’t get me wrong, I love them dearly; however, there are days when, well, they are not really likeable. For those of you with older children, you’ve warned me for years that it only gets harder. For those of you with younger children, those folks are right.

In May we caved and bought our oldest daughter (middle school) a phone. We sheltered her for long enough and the day before she left for her first week-long, overnight camp, we surprised her with a phone. She is a fairly responsible kiddo and typically aims to please.

Fast forward to the day I found a mean text about her dear, sweet, precious, fun, mom. Yep, that’s me. (Please also note that while finding this text, I also found a wet bathing suit and a wet towel on her bed…need I say more?) Using my Love and Logic skills, I looked at her said “Aren’t you glad I don’t hate you like you apparently hate me?”. We briefly spoke about texting etiquette and I ended it with yet another fantastic Love and Logic line, “I will let you know about a consequence”.

Later that evening we took the kids to the Rome Braves baseball game. As we entered the stadium a couple Rome cheerleaders asked if I would be interested in playing a game on the field between innings. If you know me, you know there was absolutely ZERO hesitation. When they said I needed to pick my opponent, I got very giddy and with the biggest smile, I gladly gave her the name of my precious, preteen, painfully shy, daughter. The same daughter who, coincidently, wrote a nasty text to her friends about me. The same daughter who was warned about four hours earlier that I would let her know about a consequence. What a perfect bonding moment. What a perfect way to remind her how fun I am. What a perfect revenge, I mean consequence.

I am not sure what I enjoyed more, watching her beg her way out of it or beating her to the finish line. Either way, I am fairly certain that she will think twice before sending a nasty message about her mother again.

For this incident, this laughing mom of 3 got the final laugh. J

This likely captures the consequence at it's peak time.



Just Another Tuesday

"Keeli, you need to get it out of the intersection." This is the advice my husband gave me the morning my car broke down at 6:20 am, in the dark, in the rain, with all 3 kids in the car as we headed to school. Although I never have claimed to be a genius, I was actually able to derive this idea on my own. Thank you, Chris.

If you have read any of my other posts, you know how exciting mornings are at our house. This morning was no different. From what I can recall, the fights were minimal, there were enough Pop-Tarts to go around, and I found my keys right away. That should have been my first sign. Things were going all too well. About 5 miles away from the house, I noticed my temperature gauge was slowly moving to "H". Again, I'm no genius, but I knew something was about to go awry. I turned my heat on high (which blew cold air), said a quick prayer, and called Chris who is over an hour away. As he answers, the red light flashes, and a beep more obnoxious than an alarm clock start going. There was no where to pull over. No. Where. As I crested a hill, mid-intersection, the car dies. It is dark, raining, cold, and there I was. *This is where I had the idea that I needed to get out of the middle of the intersection.* I am not sure why or how it started going again, but I eventually made it to a parking lot where it still sits. I may or may not have hung up on Chris after his profound advice about the intersection, but at some point I called my mom and asked her to come get us. I knew she was headed out of town and wouldn't need her car. My plan worked perfectly. All 3 kids, arrived at their schools (3 different ones) on time. I was also able to take my mom home and manage to only be 5 minutes late for an off campus meeting.

I would have called AAA, but they already sent me a letter that said I maxed out my emergencies for the year. I am not kidding.