The Mother Hen

Got Me Thinkin'...

These are our friends Jeff and Kara. Kara is my Wednesday bff and Jeff is one of our church's worship leaders. Kara blesses my socks off every time I talk to her and Jeff is bringing sexy back with his eyewear and mad guitar skills (Jeff is unknowingly giving credibility to my 15 year old argument that eyewear on a man is dead sexy). And you shouldn't worry because Kara knows I think her husband is hot, because I tell her, it may however come as news to Jeff and make our next meeting awkward. For the record, I think Shannon's husband Drew is hot too but no one thinks Drew is as hot as Drew does so it kinda loses its potentency with him.

Anyway, I digress. It was Wednesday and Kara and were hanging out, covering 186,000 topics in a 2.5 hour time span (it really is dizzying) and her 2 year old son Caleb did something he shouldn't have and she told him to stop and he told her 'no'. Gasp. I know. My kids never do that. I judged her harshly over it to her face AND behind her back. Ha!Ha! What I DID do was marvel at what she said to Caleb, now lean in because it was short and sweet and you'll miss it if you're reading two blogs at once, "Caleb. I don't tell you 'no', I say 'no thank you'. Please don't tell me 'no'." I tried not to act impressed but instead played it cool like I-always-talk-to-my-kids-like-that but 2 things jumped out at me...

1) Keep it simple. I have a tendency to talk and talk. And if you think I'm bad...well Hot Jeff puts the lecture in lecture. I was reminded when I heard Kara to just keep it short. They are little and they don't have the attention span for a dissertation on behavior. You moms of older children, well have at it; this is your God-given moment to make your kids miserable. I recommend doing this while in a car when they can't get out!

2) My kids are going to talk to me and to each other the way I talk to them. When I ask Samuel to pick up his cars and he says 'no' I can't really blame him when just 10 minutes earlier when I was making lunch and he asked me to play Candyland and I said 'no'.

I remember when Samuel was 11 months or so and started getting in to everything. His pediatrician said instead of saying no I should distract him with other things. Clearly that pediatrician is on crack because when you're nursing a baby and your kid is trying to sit on a lamp shade you are not going to DISTRACT him with any thing other than your voice at a decibel he has never heard before. I do, however, like this idea of adding 'thank you' to the end of 'no'. Its polite but practical.

Polite: good. Practical: good. Polite AND practical: Very Good.