Thursday, February 10, 2011

Common Sense

Tonight, I forgot myself.

When Jupiter was spitting out the glop from brushing her teeth, and it was hanging from the sink to her mouth in a big thread and she was stretching her head all over and backwards trying to free herself from the glop in complete disregard of the hand towel which was right next to her, I said, with some exasperation "Use some common sense."

Well, actually I was brushing my own teeth at the same time, so it came out more like "OOS SOM OMMN SNSH".

Just as well. Please. I don't know what I was thinking. Now that I think about it, I was that way all day.

This morning, Jupiter was up early. She chose not to eat her supper last night, so she was up bright and early at 5:15. Gotta love those natural consequences. So I gave her a drinking yogurt, found her hairbrush (amazing how much easier that was when I put in my contacts), and told her to brush her hair, then get dressed while I was in the shower.

When I got out of the shower, she was in bed surrounded by Littlest Pet Shops, hair still in a rats nest, and body still in pj's.

Her reasoning? "I needed help with my hair."

Well, yes, she did. But I did not specifically say to her, "If you need help with your hair, than skip the hair part and please get dressed. In underwear, pants, a shirt, and socks."

And I was so good. While I was dressing, I was thinking in my head about what I would say when I went back to her room. Apparently I had more than an inkling that my directions were vague.

So I went to her room and said, "What a great outfit! Your friends are going to LOVE that outfit."

Had she been dressed, it would have been appropriate. And since she wasn't, it was still appropriate.

1 comment:

Lisa said...

You knocked it out of the park! :)