sucker!

For a while we kept suckers around the house - the came in handy quite often, are easily portable, and are even less messy than popsicles. One night I was finishing the last chapter of a book, upstairs in my room to minimize disruption, and the kids asked if they could have a sucker. SURE! See? Told you they came in handy, now I can have 10 minutes to finish my book. Trouble was, I said sure to ONE, they thought "sure" meant ALL OF THEM. I came down to a freshly opened package of 50 suckers which now contained only 10. They didn't consume them all, there were a bunch of opened and once-licked suckers now stuck to the floor or left in the dirt, but which is worse - that you ate 40 suckers or that you wasted 40 suckers?  Eli and Patrick even each had 2 suckers in their mouths when I came down! They sure kept themselves busy in those 10 minutes. So I had a nice freak-out mom moment, everyone got suckers yanked straight from their mouths and thrown in the trash, got a whoop on their bums, got a high-volume talking-to, then got a time-out. I was SO MAD. When Patrick came out of time out he immediately went to the nook and got out paper and markers, which I thought he would use to write a mean note ("I hate you!") or draw a picture of our family and then rip it up (when he gets emotional he rips up pictures he's drawn). I was ready to continue my rant and tell him GOOD FOR YOU, when he brought me his picture. An apology, with me holding a sucker.

Translation: "I love you mom. I will obey, I am sorry that I ate too much suckers."

Talk about a sucker! I was still upset, because I was still right and they were still wrong and they STILL won't be getting a sucker from me any time soon, but it was a very sweet gesture that opened up the doors of communication when I was ready to slam them shut again. For that, thank you Patrick. I'll be keeping the note in my personal file :)