The Impossible Ideal

Lucy is going through a phase where she is very emotional and gets frustrated easily.

Tonight, she was attempting to color in a heart on a card she was making for me. But, she kept coloring outside the lines, and was getting extremely upset, to the point of tears.

So I scooped her up in my arms and said: “You know what? Did you know that daddy makes mistakes too?”

Almost before I had finished the question, Lucy responded: “Yes.” It was at this point that Kathleen decided to chime in. With no sense of irony and without even looking away from her TV show, she says: “Oh yea dad, we knew that.”

Next time I might just let Lucy cry.

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A Fine Distinction

Tonight is Fairview Fever Festival, a fundraising party at Kathleen’s school. As I walked her in this morning we had this conversation:

Kathleen: “I don’t think I can wait until after school for the FESTIVAL!”

Me: “I think you have to hunny.”

Kathleen: “Why do they call it Fairview FEVER Festival? No one is sick.”

Me: “Well, sometimes, when people are excited, we say they have the fever. So maybe they call it that because you are so excited.”

Kathleen: “Well dad, they don’t know that I am excited. Maybe you meant ‘they call it that because EVERYBODY is excited.'”

Lessons: (1) Kathleen is just like me. (2) I must be a little hard to live with.

I Asked For It

Kathleen and Lucy have an established night time ritual.  It includes standing at their bedroom doors and saying (really almost yelling to each other) goodnight via a repetition  of “Good Night!  Sleep Tight! Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite!”  This usually goes on until their parents eventually close their doors or shut off their lights.

Tonight, the ritual got extremely loud as the two of them attempted to out-goodnight each other.  As voices raised with no end in sight, I finally lost my cool.  “OK GIRLS, THAT WILL BE ENOUGH!  PLEASE GO TO YOUR BEDS!”

Immediately quieting down, Kathleen turned to me, and apparently to explain what had been going on, said: “It’s tough raising children.”

Tell me about it little girl.  Tell me about it.