Friday, October 19, 2012

I will not scream for ice cream

Parenting is a dirty job. Disciplining your kids is an even dirtier job. Disciplining while driving and operating a vehicle is pure filth, and requires a gold medal of excellence because i'm convinced it's impossible.

Last night I picked up my 8 year old daughter from soccer practice.  Bo's has always been a challenge. I wont go into her background, but she is feisty and headstrong and the touchy feely, getting down to her eye level and calmly explaining stuff like, "We don't yell honey" does not work for her.  For some unknown reason she got it stuck in her head that I was going to buy her ice cream on the way home.  Considering it was 7 pm, we still had to drive across town to pick up her older sister from her practice, and no one had eaten dinner yet, this was never going to happen.  Try explaining that to my daughter.   She screamed and wailed at the top of her lungs, like a two year old.  I didn't have the option to pull over.  I had to get across town to pick up my other daughter.

I did what I like the call the stair steps to failure:

Step number one: I told her to stop.  Explained to her why she wasn't going to get ice cream. I rationalized. Explained we hadn't eaten dinner, blah, blah, blah.  Didn't work at all.

Step number two: I tried screaming at her to stop at the top of my lungs.  All that did was hurt my throat. Bad idea.

Step number three: I was so desperate that I started throwing out the empty threats.  Some of you moms know what i'm talking about here.  The, "If you don't stop screaming, i'm going to pull this car over and you're walking home."  Yeah, she knew I was full of bullshit on that one considering we live in a big city, it's dark, we were miles away from home, and well…it's illegal.  My kids are pretty smart.  They know the laws.

By the time I got home I had listened to her scream for about 15-20 minutes.  My nerves were completely shot, my head was pounding, and I was regretting ever having ovaries.   I gave my hubby a brief description of what had just occurred and he was pretty upset and went in and told her to write sentences. He told her to write, "I will not scream for ice cream" which I find pretty comical. It is sort of  funny, isn't it?

I was skeptical that his punishment was going to work, but at this point I just wanted to run into the bathroom, lock the door, and stay there until the kids turned 18.

A little while later my hubby called me into her bedroom and she was lying on her bed, sound asleep,  with a homemade card lying on her chest:
I'll admit, I cried and secretly thanked my hubby for being a genius.  And then I thanked my ovaries. 




25 comments:

  1. Aww this is great!!! And hilarious!!!

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  2. I'm loving your fun polkadot background! I don't have any kids yet, but I do have two nieces, Hailee (1), Harlee (1month). I have a feeling we haven't seen anything yet haha! I'm so excited to be your newest follower.
    Take a minute to stop by my blog and say hello!
    alizabethxoxo.blogspot.com
    Happy Friday!

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  3. Awwww, even though it was hard to deal with that little apology card kinda makes it worth it. :)

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    1. I agree :) I was not prepared for the card. She is not the apologetic type at all so it warmed my heart.

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  4. *high five*

    Doesn't matter why it worked just that it worked.

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  5. Oh gosh that sounds really hectic! When I was a kid and did things like that my parents would straight up lie to me to make me quite being crazy especially in the car. So for example they would have just lied and went along with it "yeah were going to get ice cream" and sometimes they would even go as far to ask where and what flavor.. lol but then we would obviously never end up there. Your husband had a great idea though and that card she made you is super cute!

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    1. LOL! I wish that would work with her, but she would know the second we started heading home that we weren't heading to the ice cream place, lol!

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  6. Absolutely brilliant! Remind me to tell you sometime how my daughter became an opera lover, hehehe.

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  7. ha! I may take a hint and try that.. but with my luck it will be on the wall with sharpie 50 times...

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    1. I hear ya! That's why all of the Sharpies have been banished from our house!

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  8. Yes, I will not scream for ice cream is a very comical thing to make a child write. There is a reason that nuns had kids write pages of sentences. It worked! How cute of her to leave the note on her chest for you to find.

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  9. I love that! Apparently yelling is my go-to for my daughters because Lena made me a card yesterday that said "I love you mommy evn win yor mad at me."

    Thank God for funny husbands!

    XO Tracy @ Momaical

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  10. WOW! That was frustrating (as I could totally relate) and hilarious! Kudos to your husband, he made it look so simple (don't you hate it when they do that?) and ....it worked!!!

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  11. I sent you an award. You can get it here: http://lifeoftab.blogspot.com/2012/10/another-award.html

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  12. love this post...son's only three and he goes crazy now...

    Good idea on the punishment...sometimes you need to do something...waht a sweet girl though

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  13. Give that hubby a little extra snuggle!

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  14. Hello,

    I'm following from the hop. The little things they do such as her card she made for you makes it all worth it in the end. And why do we end up feeling bad after it's all said and done? Word of encouragement...it does get better. Mine are 19, 12 & 11 and I've been there & done that. There will be a time when you can reflect and appreciate those moments. I look at mine now and they keep me smiling & thanking my ovaries. ;)

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  15. Oh, that card is so sweet. Your daughter will remember a different version of the "I (will not) scream for Ice cream" saying, but she will also have an awesome "When I was little...." story for her own kids. Cheers to your husband for thinking up the punishment. Double cheers to you and your labor-of-love. Funny how we can get so angry/become so forgiving at the drop of a hat. Yep, you're a good momma.

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  16. I am so going to try this the next time my 7-year-old decides to have a meltdown! Genius! and so precious that you got a card out of it too!

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  17. Love the idea of hiding in the bathroom until my daughter turns 18...think of all of the reading I could get done! I had to write lists like that when I was a kid. I wrote "I hate my mom" on the wall (I know, I was evil). My dad made me write "I will not write I hate my mom on the wall" a 100 times. I never wrote on the wall again! Haha...my poor mom.

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