The Scone

I have to tell you, I look forward to bedtime, and the time that Walter and I finally get to spend together at the end of the day. Our daughter, despite the fact that she spends the entirety of each and every day eating, is starving at bedtime. So every night, she has a bedtime snack, which is completely reasonable because I usually need a snack before bed too. The problem begins when one bedtime snack turns into two bedtime snacks, and then two bedtime snacks, turns into three bedtime snacks. By then, I do what any reasonable parent does, I tell her that there are starving children in Cleveland, there are children in Akron, who didn't get to have dinner therefore, SHE IS NOT (BY ANY MEANS) STARVING. And then I hold an internal argument with myself: Really, you had to become THAT parent...the one who talks about the starving children (except, I know we only need to go fifteen minutes down the highway to find them). 

Well, on this particular night, I'd had it. I told her she needed to discuss her snacks with daddy, and then locked myself in the office before I lost my cool. I know when I need a time-out, and I was thankful for the lock on the door.

We buy bread each week at a local bakery, and most weeks, I buy a few scones as a treat. I'd been saving my scone for that moment of peace when no one would bother me and I could savor it. I'm not sure why, but I really enjoy private, ceremonious, eating. Maybe it has become some weird way I maintain control when I'm serving the little people all day. Well, what did I discover when I emerged from behind my locked-door time-out? Walter had given her my scone for her snack. I thought my brain would explode.

As I said goodnight to her, she said, "I'm really sorry mommy that I ate some of your scone. I did save some for you because I just couldn't eat all of it, and wanted you to have some. But you know the little bit of icing on the top? I just love that so much, so I ate that part."

Later I discovered what was left of my scone, and it looked like a family mice attacked it.

Reading the 9pminus family yearbook: 

 Just give your kids a laundry basket and they'll be entertained for hours. This laundry basket was a secret hideaway, a boat, a Wii, a computer, and who knows what else. 

Oh, and just so you know how this snack thing goes down, it's something like this:

-Okay, what do you want for your snack. You can have cheese, or yogurt, or both.
-I'll have yogurt.
half an hour later, after she has already been in bed reading silently...
-I know you don't want to hear this, and I know what you're going to say, but I'm hungry.
-Well, you can go get a piece of cheese from the fridge.
cheese is eaten...back to bed...
-I'm SO starving, and I really need something to eat, or else I'll never fall asleep and I'll just lay here on the floor on all night! 
-Your choice is a banana.
-WHY is that ALWAYS my ONLY choice. I DON'T WANT a banana. You always say I can only have a banana! 
-I'm sorry you're unhappy with your choice, but the only thing left for you to have is a banana.
-You always say that. I don't LIKE bananas. I'm STARVING, and you only say I can have a banana!
-I'm sorry. If you don't want one, please go to bed.
-FINE, I'll have a banana, but I'm NEVER eating a banana EVER AGAIN after this! 

She's probably eaten one hundred bananas since the first time she threatened to abstain from eating bananas.