Children Make Plans…

…without their parents approval.

Tim and I just had a discussion about this last night with the 12-year-old.

We’ve had this discussion with all three of our girls at one point or another.

How they come up with a plan…which usually involves a friend…and then they come to us with this plan.

Unfortunately, sometimes we have other plans and their plan doesn’t quite work out!

(Had enough of the word plans yet?)

What happens next you may ask?  Let the disappointment commence…and crankiness…and…and…

ANYWAYYYYY…

My post really wasn’t going to be about cranky children who didn’t get their way.

What I wanted to write about was the revelation we, Tim and I, had today:

It starts at the age of 2!

We had the babies here today.  Ok, babies might be the wrong term…but I still call them babies.  (Heck, I still call my daughters my babies and they’re 23, 19 and 12!)  But I digress…

One is a fabulous, fun-filled, sometimes temperamental 2 (almost 3) year old.  And then the other one is an almost one year old baby – a sweet, loving little peanut.

The fun is constant when Tim and Gabi are here…Elena the oldest LOVES having time with them.  She had Gabi time this morning and then when Tim came home from his errands…this little girl commandeered all of his time.  (Like that was a difficult task…HA…she has him wrapped around her little finger!)

The revelation came after Tim got ready to leave to coach his basketball game.

Elena walked into the living room and promptly announced “I go with Tim”.

Once again, the child in the story had to be disappointed…but not before Tim and I had a chuckle over this.

There’s just nothing cuter than a stubborn little two year old announcing her plans.

Had it been anything other than accompanying him to his basketball game we probably would have given in…

Which might just bring us to the root of the problem…

Hmmmmmm…

Ah well…I think we’ll leave that deep discussion for another day.

For now, we’ll just think of Elena and her little march and her cute little smile, and the way she yells “TIM…WHERE ARE YOUUUUUUUU?”.

Thank God for little (and big) girls!

Enjoy your evening everyone…with good memories, disappointments, giggles and all.

Patty O

ps…both of the girls got past their disappointment…one with a slice of pizza and a malt, and the other with a different toy.

Who says the art of distraction doesn’t work?

pss…I had full permission to use this photo…and thought it was great irony (parents frustrated with kids…).  My oldest daughters say this is their favorite photo of Gabi (taken 2 years ago at Disneyworld)!