Not a Divorce

My husband and I were having a conversation about something this afternoon while my daughter was around.   We were having to do that "code word" talking where you eliminate words or replace them with other words because the topic isn't appropriate for the child to hear.   This works when concealing information like where the Christmas presents are hidden to medical specifics about a family member or anything else like the plot of an audiobook that's wholly inappropriate for the child to know.   That kind of thing.

I'm going into a lot of explanation here because while I know it was something we didn't want my daughter to fully understand, I can't actually remember what we were talking about.   Typically my daughter is pretty good at figuring out things.   She gleans far more from the sound of a conversation than most people do.   So it surprised me when she said from the next room where she was listening to us, "If you're getting a divorce, I'm going to live with daddy."  

I burst out laughing and said, "Oh, sweet girl, your father and I are not getting a divorce."  Then I said to my husband, "You won.  You got our daughter!" laughing.   My daughter thought it was funny at this point and wasn't worried about the divorce as much but she continued, saying, "Daddy and I have more in common.   We both like golf...and we both like blue.   Daddy and I like to cook and to bounce and to play outside..."   She ended her pitch saying she was more like her father than her brother was.

Fortunately, she won't be needing to make a choice about which one of us to live with.   She's stuck with us both.

The Big Boy Update:  When my son pushes something, he doesn't give up.   Laundry folding.   His items separated out and prepared for simple folding and inserting into drawers by his father this afternoon.   Twenty minutes of complaining, wailing, moaning, and attempts at negotiation, all of which failed.   He negotiated himself into no more screens for the day as a final response from us because nothing else was working.   He was doing the work, everything we did as, "wrong".   His father had separated the clothes—wrong.   His father had gotten things ready to go upstairs and be put in drawers—wrong.   His father tried to help when he first started and was complaining—wrong.   My son didn't want help and he liked things messy.   So we almost messed everything back up again.   He wouldn't quit with the wailing and moaning, saying we were "forcing him to do" these things.   I could go on, but you get the point.   He finished the work but, unfortunately, he lost screens for the remainder of the day.   And that wasn't the first consequence, keeping in mind we didn't want to give him any consequences, it was about the fifth.   All he had to do was stop talking and do ten minutes of work.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and son were upstairs at the start of our weekday work time, working on a KiwiCo Crate of  my daughters.  She now has mock s'mores, a hotdog with catsup and mustard, a fireplace with a twinkling electric candle in the middle.   And it all goes in a bear backpack she helped put together.   She is loving the KiwiCo crates.   I couldn't get her to work on them for over a month.   Paitence paid off it would seem in this case.