Arriving home way later than bedtime from Gabriel's baseball game, I told the boys in the car, please hurry and get ready for bed. It is past your bedtime and I want to get you in bed quickly. Michael's response, "No. No-mom it isn't past our bedtime." 'Yes. Yes it is Michael, I'm looking at the clock right now and it is past your bedtime." "Actually Mom, it isn't" and off he went into the house.
I got Isabelle from her car seat, walked into the house and found Michael playing with his Legos. "Michael I asked you to get ready for bed quickly, now go get ready for bed." I stated as I carried Isabelle, her diaper bag, the baseball bag of stuff and our dinner sack souvenir into the kitchen. Hoping Michael had listened to my repeated request, I returned to the bedroom area where I did see Michael had made his way from his room to our bedroom and was purposely taking the tiniest steps he could as he was trying to get undressed to put his PJ's on. He knows exactly what to do to push my buttons. "Michael, hurry up please" Meanwhile Gabriel had all his baseball gear off, was brushing his teeth and getting ready to jump in the shower. In the same time Michael had walked from his bedroom to ours (we don't have a very big house). He still hadn't started taking his clothes off.
After several repeated attempts to get him moving faster than a snail, I became frustrated, he became frustrated and we started a debate feistier than President Obama's first debate with Mitt Romney. I said, "Michael, you are moving so slow, I think snails can move faster." "No. No Mom, I am moving faster than snails do." Please then, show me how fast you can move?" I begged. "Mom snails can move fast if they want to. I just don't want to move fast now" he said showing his perceived power. "Michael, never mind about the snails, get to bed!" I stated, now pulling out the political hand jesters of pointing to his bedroom while I stated my firm response.
He finally did what he needed to, at least I hope he did. I decided to hit pause on our great debate and went to find Isabelle who was now also naked running around the house. Seriously I thought, how is it that Isabelle can get herself unclothed and running around the house in less time that it takes my 6 year old to take his shirt off. Ahhhh, I digress. Upon hearing Gabriel's shower go off, I knew it was a matter of 30 seconds before he'd be in his room, in his PJ's and climbing up to his bed. I walked with Isabelle into the boy's room and was greeted with "Mom- you said I was moving slow but I was moving faster than trees grow." "Why yes Michael you were probably moving faster than trees grow but I think we both know you could have moved faster than you were trying, don't we." "No. No mom, I was moving as fast as I wanted to. And I didn't want to go any faster."
Realizing there was no wining this debate and my desire to get them into bed was much stronger than continuing to
After getting Isabelle and Gabriel to bed, I pulled Michael out of his room and had a further discussion about his debating skills. I said, "Michael, you and I are alike in so many ways. And just one of the ways we are alike is that we both like to be right and we both like to state our point until the other person knows we are right too. But here's the thing, we are on the same team and that means we shouldn't debate each other. So let's agree to disagree on somethings and do our best to leave our debating skills out of our relationship. Of course I tried to explain it more at his level but I think he got my point. He said, "Mom, if I don't debate you, can I debate my girlfriend Mackenzie at school? Sure I said Michael you can debate with her all day long. But there is one thing honey if you do that.... she probably won't be your girlfriend for too much longer. See girls like to be right and that's one thing that's not up for debating.
Until next time,
Angie
LOL! That is such a great chat that you had with Michael! You're such a good mom.
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