April 11, 2005

Mother Knows Best Nothing

This morning The Senator and I had a showdown over clothing. I had set out a pair of pants for him; he wanted to wear shorts.

Son, look out the front door. It's grey, it's raining, and it's cold. You need to wear pants.

But Mooooooooom. I wanna wear shorts! Can I please wear shorts?! I really, really wanna wear shorts!

How about if we put a pair of shorts in your backpack and you can change at school if it warms up?

No! Please, Mom! Please can I just wear the shorts?"

Know what? I let him wear the shorts. He's such a good kid and I can count on one hand the number of times he's begged for something. Besides, when he's chilled to the bone at recess (or worse, he's made to stay inside for recess) he'll recall it next time we have this discussion. The great thing about The Senator is he won't complain about being cold. Nothing short of severe frostbite would make him open his mouth and admit he might have been in the wrong.

He gets that from me.

The rest of my day will be spent playing with The Governor and waiting to hear from the veternarian about Hoocher. I had to take the old boy in this morning to have another tumor removed. Shouldn't be a big deal. This tumor is within licking range, so we may come home with the Collar of Shame. He's going to hate that. But not, perhaps, as much as he hated the hyper black lab in the clinic's waiting room.

Posted by Cathy at April 11, 2005 10:56 AM
Comments

Sorry to hear Hoocher has another tumor; I hope this one is benign. Scratch him behind the ears for me when he gets home.

I think Mother and I had the same sort of 'discussion' regarding weather-appropriate clothing when I was younger. If memory serves, Mother took a similar tack, though more from weariness than my angelic nature.

Posted by: aelfheld at April 11, 2005 10:13 PM

Excellent, excellent -- my mothering philosophy is to say "yes" unless there is a safety or health-related reason to say "No." Sometimes, my convenience, or the household budget, may require a "No" answer, too, but on something like clothing choice? Why bother? Say yes, make them happy -- and let them live with the consequences of their decisions!

Hope Hoocher is doing OK, poor dear.

Posted by: Joan at April 13, 2005 12:02 AM