Have already spoken 50,000 words today

Two things happened this morning that resulted in me using way more than my alloted words for the morning.

First thing was Salinda texting me at the Y at 6:50 that she needed a ride to work crew at 7:30. My morning was already over packed. Bart called and needed me to stop and get milk and Sadie and Tony were both with me and they needed to shower and go to summer school.

So, I finally agree to get her there by 7:30 but not without a rant. Now I realize that I had three parenting choices:

1) Love and logic -- tell her that I couldn't possibly get it done this morning, and that she would either have to walk or miss it.

2) Agree, explain my difficult situation to her calmly, and hope that it registered that she needed to plan better; or

3) Agree reluctantly to pick her up and then yell and lecture her for a long time.

Of course, of the three choices, I picked the worst one. But it felt good. She got a real lecture on the phone, but by the time I picked her up she was in an OK mood and apologetic. I figure that in picking her up I still made the statement, even if I didn't do it graciously, that she can count on me, when she obviously cannot count on her friends. I think that she genuinely tries not to inconvenience me, but she relies on some of the wrong people to come through for her.

So I used several words blasting her. But the majority of my words were spent in the "black, purple or maroon car" argument.

Almost as we are pulling out of the driveway this morning with Tony, Dominyk, Ricardo and Sadie heading for summer school, Dominyk "called the black car." Tony said, "I call the purple car. That's a purple car." Dominyk said, "No, it's not, it's black so it's mine."

I said, "Do you guys think you could argue about that all the way to the school?" (about a 7 minute ride). I decided to have some fun, and joined in the argument... until I was talking faster than I probably ever have before. Dominyk, Sadie and Ricardo were wide eyed and grinning through the whole thing, but Tony kept trying to get a word in edgewise, argue with me or get me to shut up. I had mentioned in my stream of consciousness monologue that he had insisted that the car was maroon after all but had never called the maroon car, so it was really mine.

I must admit, I was absolutely hilarious. I was on a role -- a monologue that literally was about nothing other than whether or not the car was purple, maroon, or black and the fact that if it was maroon, then it was indeed mine. I talked nonstop for a full 7 minutes.

When we finally got to the school I stopped abruptly. I looked back at Ricardo and said, "I bet I just said more words in the last 5 minutes than you do in a whole month." He didn't say a word, but simply nodded.

And as we drove away from the elementary to head to the Jr. High, Tony said, "Well, it was maroon mom, and I did call it before you did."