Monday, April 4, 2011

It's an interesting approach

Sometimes when I'm getting ready for work Eli will wake up (at the crack of dawn) and want to follow me around as I finish getting ready. This part's great, but unfortunately it's often followed by "But Mama..., don't leave Mama, why can't you take me to school Mama?" and a 5 minute good-bye suddenly becomes 15, culminating in peeling/shushing a crying (dramatically, not emotionally) four year old off of my leg, then I'm rushing out the door, squealing into the parking lot at a *barely* reasonable 15 minutes late, and ducking all the looks as I sneak into the morning meeting just in time to sign in and leave. It's a crappy way to start my day, and I miss getting my second cup of coffee. Seriously, it just starts the day off bad. One morning a few months back I told Eli that I had to be on time to work or my boss, who Eli met once, will get mad at me and I'll get in trouble. This accomplished two things. One, Eli started letting me leave a bit easier and two, I totally villian-ized my boss. Luckily we don't do a lot of fraternizing. This morning I was again trying to leave, late as usual, and Eli was walking me to the door. I could see the wheels turning and he'd already asked once if I could take him to daycare. But instead of throwing a fit or dissolving in hysterics, he thought hard and made this suggestion. "Mama, if you're late, just act like a kangaroo." "What?!" "Yeah Mama, act like a kangaroo. Then Dr. _____ won't notice that you're late and he won't be mad." Pretty clever, don't you think?

No comments:

Post a Comment