Saturday, February 27, 2010

My Son, The Enlightened

Charlie spends most days surprising me. When he was 14 months old, he surprised me by counting to 3 in the bathtub. When he was a few months shy of 2, he surprised me by asking "Are we going to Daddy's work?" when he recognized the roads we were taking. I've always known that my child was sharp but he's managed to think things that I was not aware children ever consider.

And today was no exception.

Since having Henry, Mike and I fight. Alot. We fight about everything. Well, not everything. Mostly just about the really stupid, meaningless things. We're both exhausted. Henry is a handful. And I, personally, have lost every ounce of patience. 15 straight weeks without a single stretch of sleep longer than 4 hours will do that to you.

Today, we had it out. In the morning, we had decided to clean the house. Mike was vaccuuming the kids' rooms which bothered me because I think vaccumming should be the last task in the cleaning process, not the first. (And I'm pretty sure all women agree with me on that) And since I have no patience, I laid into him that he was doing it wrong (I should probably add in here that I have expressed my 'vaccumm last' policy to him many times before this) and then he got all upset that he didn't think it mattered and then I got even more angry that I have said several times before why it matters -- and the next thing you know, I can't stand him and he can't stand me.

Fast forward eight hours and we, of course, had gotten over it. I had picked up some yummy Italien for dinner and was unpacking it in the kitchen. I had set Charlie up with his dinner and he was munching away at the table as I prepared plates for Mike and I. For some reason, I found something to pick on Mike about and Charlie interjects with the most amazing child-wisdom I've ever heard:

"Mommy, you know that Daddy makes the same rules as you so if you both make the rules then you shouldn't fight. You should just be nice to each other and not argue. Don't you remember the Golden Rule?"


I've never been handed an ass-kicking quite so poetically.


I took a picture of my little man helping me clean today. He loved spraying and wiping and walked around saying "Whatcha need cleanin' next, ma'am?"