Yesterday

To get this out of the way: the interview went well and I should know more in a few weeks.

As a parent you will find that there are times when you should laugh at what your child is doing and times when you shouldn't. The hard part is not figuring out the difference between the two, that's actually really easy. The hard part is to actually not laugh when you shouldn't.

I am not very good at this. In fact I'm terrible at it. It's one thing when your brother is disciplining his kids and you laugh, but when you are disciplining your own and you laugh it's entirely different.

Let us take last night at dinner for example. We were trying to get Alexis to eat her the rest of her green beans. She had actually eaten quite a bit but we wanted her to try and finish what was on her plate. Matt and I went back and forth with her for a few minutes but nothing was coming of the argument. Then, out of the blue, she picks up her plate and dumps what was left of her dinner right into the middle of my empty plate and declared the uneaten green beans as "Mommy's geen beans". It was the funniest thing.

Now I mean, really, what was I supposed to do? Well, I did what any parent would do. I laughed. I laughed really hard and so did Matt. We had no choice. We have no idea where she got the idea to dump her food onto someone else's plate, we have certainly never done that before, but she figured it out. I know as a good parent who is trying my best to teach her good manners I should have looked her sternly in the eyes and told her it was wrong to do but I just couldn't. She was so proud of herself for finding a way to empty her plate and it was very creative for a two year old.

I'm sure next time it won't be so cute when she does it. Yes, I'm sure there will be a next time. I just hope with all hope I won't laugh again because if I do there will be no turning back. To slip up once is okay but to do it twice is an open invitation.