Time Out

Because life gives you liver and onions after you've had a big plate of peach cobbler, today has been bad. So bad, in fact, that my two year old put me in a time out. She was not happy with the discipline action I took with her brother. Neither was I but sending him to his room so he would climb out of my hair follicles is sometimes a necessary evil with that child. Apparently my tone was wrong and my word choice was not up to her standard because I received a lengthy stay on the edge of my bed while she "cleaned up" all the while admonishing me for my infraction. Which is to say walked around with her Daddy's gym socks, a pair of his khaki shorts, and a Candyland pawn whilst utterly butt naked. As if the sight of her making "neat piles" in her birthday suit wasn't enough, the littany of reasons why I should not behave this way again were plentiful and, frankly, quite sound.

"You may not talk loud at my little boy, Mommy. You might want to but you cannot."

She has a point.

"You are in a time out for using mean words to my little boy, Mommy."

Can't argue with that.

"You will have to sit on your bed for thirty eleven nine seven o'clock."

Dear heavens, that can't be good.

"Why don't you go tell your brother you put Mommy in a time out, I think he will like that," I say forgetting my place.

"I will not. You are not done just yet." Apparently I am not be trusted. At any moment I could pull a fast one, dig a tunnel with my eyeliner, and run off through the peonies to a minivan waiting for me in the cul-de-sac.

"Will you tell me when I'm finished here?" I ask honestly perturbed.

"Yes I will. After I put this lotion on your legs, Mommy. You cannot get up until I'm done."

And I thought she'd be a gymnast.

The irony? It worked. I sat stone still on the edge of my bed for so long (oh, the torture of it all!) that I really did have time to think about the way I handled things. Before long, I came up with several other avenues of redirection that could've been implemented in lieu of the lazy mom's way of remove and desist. I was wrong. Barney Fife was right. Naked Barney Fife was right.

Andy Griffith would be proud.

I know I am.