Things I shouldn't have to say

I have had some major heart to heart moments with my kids the last couple of days (not really heart to heart as much as my hand to their tails) because after our camp excursion, we have been home for two days.  We are rarely home.  I like to get out and so do the kids... and we rarely stay home all day.  We don't always do something elaborate, but we usually get out to go to the park or the library or something... so staying home leads to a lot of bickering and drama.  Yesterday, while I was folding mounds of laundry, the girls were playing upstairs.  They came down BEAMING at what they had done. The conversation went like this:

Adelaide: MOM!!!  We recorded our height on the wall!!!!

Me: excuse me, what!?

Adelaide: Come see!!!!

Me: muttering, please tell me you didn't write all over the wall

Yup... they wrote all over the door facing that is at the top of the stairs... not even the back of a closet door or somewhere inconspicuous, but somewhere totally obvious!  With a ton of crayons... they marked a huge line and their whole name.  I wasn't happy.  Even if they did see this on the "muffets" they should have asked me before writing on the wall... a known offense.  I sent them straight to their rooms (by pointing because I'm a yeller and I knew if I started speaking, it was going to be a yell).  I came downstairs and while blowing smoke out of the top of my head, I prepared a bowl of soapy water and took 3 rags upstairs.  I'm all about reality discipline and relating the consequence as closely to the offense as possible.  So, they were told to use good, old fashioned elbow grease to wipe all of those marks off the wall.  When they were up there for too long discussing who was going to wipe what and wringing out their rag again, I walked to the bottom of the stairs and told them they should get busy because it was 12:30.  Rest time is at 1:00, and they still hadn't had lunch.  If they wanted to eat lunch before rest time, they should probably get to work instead of arguing over who was using which rag.  Adelaide got busy!  After a good amount of time and effort wiping the marks off the wall, I carried up my magic eraser.  The marks came right off.  I didn't want them to know that there was a magic eraser.... I wanted some hard work to go into it first.

After all that and a long discussion about asking permission first before you do something like write on the wall (even if it sounds like a good idea) and taking care of your things (i.e. your house)... I was wondering if Julianne even got it.  

At bedtime, I was talking to Julianne about our house rules... I try to do this every night while I'm rocking her.  She normally repeats after me, "Obey mommy and daddy, don't hurt yourself and don't hurt others."  Last night she repeated all of those and then added, "and don't write on the wall."  

Yes... please don't write on the wall.

I also had to tell them that I don't have to tell them why I'm driving a certain way.  They will always say, "this isn't the way to target" or "you should pass that guy, why did you turn when the light was red."  I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT YET!  This is not drivers ed and I shouldn't have to explain to my four year old why I'm taking the backroads to Target or that I can turn right on red.  

We've also had discussions about interrupting and manners.  Adelaide truly believes she's grown... and Lucy thinks so, too sometimes.  I don't have to tell you who I'm talking to on the phone... I am not going to stop my conversation to talk to you about what I'm talking about... you are a child and you get A LOT  of my attention... so you have to wait.