The Obvious

A good friend of mine,
 who is as funny as they come and as dependable as you need,
 blogged today on an incident that one of her children pulled a few years ago.
  You can check it out at her blog The Fence when you wnat.

But it reminded me so much of the forever statements
that I make and have made to my kids
and how those statements have evolved.

As a parent I had the general rules down.
No meant no,
 now meant now
and because "I said so" was still in fashion.

But I obviously missed a few things, 
that, well to be honest I didn't think I had to say.

For instance I apparently needed to say:

"Do NOT place your Pb&J in the VCR ( yes I'm dating myself here I know)
or
"We don't lick our friends"

Who knew these needed to be covered?

But apparently so.

Soon Mr. Rodgers and I would look at each other and think
"Why must I always state the obvious?"

We never got an answer .
1. because it's a rhetorical question
and 2. because we only thought it and gave each other the look.

but as months went on and our children pushed the
buttons of mass porportions obvious envelope
we did say it out loud
and LOUD

things like

" The postman does not want to see your hiney",

"Please don't put play dough in your diaper"
and
the ever popular

"You say hello first when the phone rings"

were all followed by the under-the-breath statement of
"Why must I state the obvious?'

In later years the obvious statements changed to things like

"Yes you do receive a 0 when you fail to turn in your homework."
or
"Sharing answers during a test is called cheating"

but not until they became teenagers did the  rhetorical ? change.

 You realize your kids are trying to figure out the world they live in
first it's cute
then you tire of   "stating the obvious"
graduating into
"natural consequences" and them falling a few times to catch on.

But one day it came to a halt
and the teenage brain went into overdrive

The rhetorical ? changed from
"Why must I continually state the obvious?" 
to
"What in the hell possessed you to do that?"

(for those of you who think "How harsh"
probably have little ones.)

My philosophy is this:

"Make all the  mistakes you want under my roof, this is where the love is"

Mistakes made and dealt with while here are lessons learned . 
The world is far less forgiving.

And the last thing I want is a kid who never experienced a consequence
 for an action until she dealt with a cop
or a financial disaster,
all while wondering why the world stopped revolving around her.

So occasionally when Happy Mouth or Rollercoaster pull something like

answering the phone when driving
or
leaving the popcorn popping on the stove when they are showering
or
using dish soap in the washing machine
or
(my personal favorite and a WHOLE nother story)

"I'll just google it, it knows more than you any way"
Yes you read that right , and she is still alive.

I give a good ole' mama shout out  that goes something like this:

"WHAT in t-h-e-  HELL possessed you to do THAT????"
emphasis mine


It just fits.