Saturday, November 6, 2010

Say what you mean and mean what you say

Living with five children is never quite what it seems. . .


What I say: Please stop playing with that noisy toy.

What I mean: If I hear that toy sing one more song, I am going run screaming from the house.

What my child hears: Blah, blah, blah. . .play with that noisy toy.


What I say: You cannot have a cell phone until you are in high school.

What I mean: No matter how many times you ask me, we will not allow you to have a cell phone until high school, and even then, we don't really want to pay for one.

What my tween hears: If you ask me often enough, I will eventually give in and buy you one before your eleventh birthday.


What I say: Please put your laundry away.

What I mean: Please put your laundry away.

What my child hears: Please put your laundry away whenever you get a free minute, even if that means hours from now.


What I say: Stay in your bed after I tuck you in.

What I mean: For the love of heaven, if you get out of your bed 5 times like last night, you will never see the itouch again.

What my 4 year old hears: If it's an emergency (such as a need to talk about Sonic, or to tell me that his brother is looking at him) it is absolutely fine to get out of bed as many times as necessary.


What I say: No scream!

What I mean: Please stop screaming in the middle of Toys R Us! People are looking at us and my ears hurt!

What my baby girl hears: I love hearing you make that noise! That's why I keep giving you all this attention every time you do it! Please don't stop!

4 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

So true. And I only have one who can follow directions. We have been in the terrible twos for what seems like an eternity and Wesley definitely has his own mind set on what he wants to do. It is good to hear though that I am not the only one taking a screaming kid through the store - pleading for them to stop, thinking if all these people weren't standing around we might handle this whole thing a little differently. Thanks for sharing.

Heidi said...

We used to think our kids WANTED us to yell at them before they fell asleep because they too, would have to come down millions of times until we yelled. Once we yelled, the coming down would cease.

Christine said...

You crack me up!