The Cookie Monster
Life is a bunch of choices.
You can have it now or later. Not both.
We were a little later eating tonight. Not late, but more like normal people would about 6pm instead of earlier at 5 which is the norm here.
After a full day of school, she found two friends to terrorize the neighborhood with and didn’t come back until five anyway, so it all worked out.
“I'm hungry”, she whined.
We told her we were aware and gave her a slice of cheese and told her that this will do you for 20 minutes. You will not starve.
Then, BW and I went to what we do about this time of day: She cooks, and I clean - we’re a perfect match.
But.
While we were not looking, the child snuck into our small pantry and swiped an Oreo Cookie.
Then she snuck down to the family room to scarf it down.
The trouble was for her that seconds later I walked by her and noticed she was eating something so I asked her what she was eating.
“mmmffmf nothing mmmffm”, she replied with a sheepish smile that was covered in oreo dust as she tried to swallow that last bite before she got caught.
YOU STOLE AN OREO!!!, I cried.
I will have to give her some credit; she owned up to it right away. It’s not like there wasn’t enough evidence.
I then told her that she is currently eating her dessert in the shape of that cookie and there will not be any dessert tonight.
Cue the Screaming.
“Huggie!!”, she screamed.
Sigh. So, I got her on the couch and then we had a talk about telling the truth and we don’t sneak food. I took this family moment to try and explain the actions and consequences thing.
I’m not sure if it stuck, but there was no more misbehaving for the rest of the night and when dinner did show 10 minutes later, she ate it all up without hesitation and the rest of the night was a breeze.
Tonight, bedtime was easy. It was the two hours before then that was the problem and she got into trouble.
If it weren’t for the cookie theft she would have had a perfect score today.
Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.
Keeping out of the cookie jar,
TH and Co.