Noteworthy

Yesterday, Sonya got a bit ticked off at me, because I wouldn't let her have a notebook. Here's the thing, I bought a couple notebooks at Target last week in the dollar section for myself. I need notebooks to jot down thoughts and things that happen throughout the day, so I have all these lovely stories to present you with. I find if I don't write things down I'm walking around going, "I KNOW there was SOMETHING funny Lana said yesterday. What the hell was it?" I've bought quite a few notebooks in the past, and they are always absconded by one of the girls. They find a notebook and immediately it belongs to them. No matter that mommy has writing in it. Instead, it becomes a place to draw flowers and rainbows. Recently, Sonya has even started writing sentences in the notebooks. I appreciate that they love to draw, and that Sonya loves to write, but all I wanted was ONE notebook all to myself. Is that so wrong?? If you ask my oldest, then yes.

She found my new notebook in our secretary/desk/junk holder, in the kitchen. As soon as she saw it she, oooohhed and went to grab it.

"No, no, no," I said. "That one is mine. You can't have it."

"Please!" She said. "Can't I just draw in a few pages?"

"No, Sonya. Here is another pad and pen you can write with." I handed her one of those free notepads you get in the mail from Realtors.

She frowned at it and claimed it wasn't pretty like the other notebook.

"Too bad, " I said. "It's this or nothing. Besides, you have other notebooks that used to be mine somewhere."

"I don't know where they are!" She was getting angry now.

"Oh well. You'll have to use this. The other one is mine. Sorry." I tried to hand her the other paper again. This time she grabbed it from me scowling, and stomped off to her room.

I took Georgia in to her room to change her diaper and put her down for her nap. When I left the room, there was a piece of the paper that I had given her, lying on the ground. I picked it up and read this:

"Mom is macing me mad and I am going to hit her"

Nice, right? Now rest assured that we do not, in any way,, hit in this house. Our kids are punished through time-outs. Not that I haven't WANTED to smack them a time or two, but I just don't think it's an effective way to discipline. Nonetheless, Sonya wanted to hit me. So then we had a discussion about how this wasn't a nice thing to write and how it hurt my feelings. I could tell she felt bad and in the middle of our discussion, began writing another note. This one read:

"Mom, I loves me Sonya"

I wasn't sure what this meant, and at first I thought she was being nice, but no. She was taking a page out of her father's playbook and was trying to joke her way of the situation, or at least so she told me. She said it was a joke and that it meant she was telling me she loved herself. At this point I just walked away from the situation. That's when she started to really feel bad, because this was the flurry of notes that I received over the next ten minutes:

"I love mom" Followed by:

"I am sorry I gave you that not I wille give you a new one" And finally:

"Mom is the Geratist"

I know... awwwwww. Okay, so she redeemed herself in the end. She did feel remorse for the original note, which is a good sign. I showed Andy the notes when he got home and we had a good chuckle over them. And because she made things right and apologized on her own accord, when I went to Target today I spent a WHOLE dollar on a new notebook for her. Too bad it'll be gone in a week, and she'll be back to trying to steal mine.