Why We Shouldn't Leave Money Lying Around

We had a little head to head with The Girl today. Usually, I don't like to blog about bad behavior. I don't like to give it the attention it was trying to seek out in the first place. But today, The Girl, took it to a whole new level. Since this blog is about preserving my Mommy Memories, I'll let this one story slide on in.

We took the kids to McD's for lunch today so that we could enjoy a different meal at a Mexican chain that the kids won't touch because they are kids, and they haven't discovered all the goodness that Mexican food has to offer them. They are still turned off by the spiciness of it all. Which, hello, is the best part. Hubs and I don't even waste our time or money trying to get them to understand. Instead, we have caved into their incessant whining and will buy them a Happy Meal. Plus, the toy at the end keeps them quiet just that much longer while we enjoy our Mexican goodness.

Well, the toy became a problem. It wouldn't stop making noise. Mostly because The Girl would not stop making it make noise. If you want know anything about me at all, it's that I can't stand repetitive noises. I lose my mind faster than you can shake a stick. So we gave The Girl a warning about the toy. We told her she had to turn it off until we got home, and then she could play with it in the toy room only.

(You've got to love the fact that those free toys are so annoying, and that they are also instantly your child's favorite.)

So, not so surprisingly, The Girl tested out our threat. Normally, I would have given just one more warning, but she was so blatantly testing us, I had no choice. We took the toy away.

Wow. She was mad.

As we got out of the car when we got home, she mumbled something to herself about how she thought her daddy needed to pay her back for that toy. She felt as though he needed to compensate her monetarily for the toy he was now going to keep for the afternoon.

Ya. That sounds like it would totally happen.

Well, as we went inside, she decided to take it a step further. She headed straight up to her daddy's office and grabbed a twenty spot he had laying on his desk . She then marched right back down stairs and told her daddy, "I'll be keeping this until you give me my toy back!" Hubs and I just looked at each other a bit astonished, and then he said, "What?"

She repeated, "Since you took my toy, I am going to take your twenty dollars. I think that's fair."

You know what I think? I think that is one gutsy five year old. I think we have a long road ahead of us in this parenting journey we are on. I also think that, when she was in her room with the door shut after her punishment, I about died laughing.

I am still floored at the thoughts that were going through her little mind when she confronted her father with his money and gave him an ultimatum.

She's braver than I thought.

Heaven help us.