Tag, You're It

I had a quiet day at home today with DS. Did the grocery shopping, worked in the office while he read all morning. He didn't whine about it, and kept his "Mom? Mom? Mom?" questions to a minimum. Tonight he was very nervous and goofy at school registration (he's very unsure about the school switch, though I'm sure he'll like it once he settles in), but otherwise it was a very calm day.

Which means that last night, sometime, they must have agreed to a switch. DD woke up grumpy about having to get out of bed. Outside her door were several articles of clothing which I had found while doing laundry which were inside out. My rule is that I won't wash them, and they have to wait for the next load. You would have thought the world was going to end because she would have to live without 2 T-shirts and 2 pairs of socks for a week.

Then when told to get dressed, she sat in front of 2 drawers full of shorts, skorts, and pedal pushers and complained there wasn't anything she could wear. This is a ploy of hers when she knows I'm in the middle of the laundry cycle, in the hopes she can pull something she prefers out of the clean-but-not-yet-folded basket. Nope. I told her to pick, or I would pick for her. When after several minutes of whining she insisted, "I won't wear pedal pushers today," guess what I decided she was wearing. After she finished her screaming fit, she got a lecture on how there are many kids who would be thrilled with a fraction of the clothing that she has, and we are not going to play the Pampered Princess game just because her favorites aren't available.

Every day our kids read for 40 minutes, and they make up the time they miss for other activities. Last night they didn't read because of DD's gymnastics class and our neighborhood's National Night Out get-together, so when DD finished her first round this afternoon, I sent her off to start her make-up round. Much joy and happiness ensued (NOT!) Sigh, I guess it's her turn now.

Oh, and I discovered that for the last few months, she has been slowly eating 1/2 a tube of toothpaste I left in the downstairs bath for guests. This explains why every time she's in there, she takes forever, but when we tell her to hurry up, I immediately hear the drawer slam shut and the toilet flush. She had claimed she was brushing her hair, or that I was imagining things, but I never dreamed she'd been eating the toothpaste. So much for leaving that there for guests. She actually took this lecture in stride, even when it cost her $1 of allowance money.