The parable of dumping all the silverware into the bottom drawer

This morning was rough. 

It didn't really stop at the morning because the whole day was a little bit rough, if we're being honest. 

But the morning? It was rough.

I won't tell on everybody, but I will tell on the four year old. 

I interrupted Phoebe's play to ask her to help me unload the dishwasher, which—granted—was rude of me. Like, why should she have to do chores? Pretty rude. 

But she eventually decided that the dishwasher could be on the plane, so unloading it could be part of her game. But, like, if any turbulence happened she'd have to go back to her seat...which sounded fair enough.

Though...also...things did get turbulent.

First, though, here's a picture of her earlier in the morning setting the stage for today's pretend play:

She couldn't locate her boarding pass for a minute, which made her feel "frantic" (her words), but eventually found it and handed it to me along with her passport (which—breathe easy!—is actually a sticker booklet, not her actual passport).

I had unwittingly been enlisted as the ticket taker and passport checker. But her documents were in order so I let her board her plane.

She sets up a row of chairs by the window (because we're about as high as planes fly! We have to pop our ears in the elevator!) and then she makes people do things for her like bring her snacks and toiletry kits and what not. And she just does stuff that she can entertain herself with at her chair. She colours. She plays with her dolls. She puts the iPad over the back of a chair and plays games or watches a little show.

Today she listened to the Star Dew Valley soundtrack and started sobbing when she got to "Alex's Keepsake" because it's "just such a sad song!"

Raise your hand if you're raising a Highly Emotional Child...

"Phoebe, what's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing!" she wailed. "I'm just listening to my airplane music! It's soooo sad!"

She was just...listening to the music and looking out the window...and allowing her little heart to be broken into pieces by the melody. 

There aren't even any lyrics, folks. 

Anywho...I interrupted her airplane ride to ask her to put away some dishes and she wasn't very happy about it, but she did most of it just fine, even though she wanted me to put the silverware away after she put away "the plastics."

I told her that she was going to put the silverware away because I had asked her to do that and it wouldn't be very helpful to me if I did her assigned job for her.

"But it would be helpful for me!" she pointed out.

And, sure. But...she was going to put that silverware away, by golly!

After we got passed our negotiations, I worked alongside her and the dishwasher was emptying rapidly. She just had the silverware left to put away. I grabbed a ladle to put away because I didn't think she knew where that went...so I put it in the drawer...and then Alexander asked me to come help him with a math problem that he kept getting wrong.

So I went to help him with that and she...finished up putting away that silverware lickety-split. 

Suspiciously lickety-split. 

I walked over there and saw that she had simply dumped the entire basket of silverware into the bottom drawer. And I had the audacity to accuse her of such a thing. 

"Well, you left the drawer open!" she accused. 

"Well...I didn't mean to?" I said. "I got distracted because Alexander wanted help. You could have closed it?"

"I just thought you left it open because you wanted me to put the silverware in it."

"Why...would I want the silverware all dumped into the bottom drawer when there is a designated drawer for silverware with a sorting tray inside of it with a little spot for everything?"

"I don't know! But you shouldn't have left the drawer open!"

"I'm sorry I left the drawer open but...you're going to have to fix this."

"What?! I am trying to play airplane ride!"

"I know, but you did the job poorly so now it needs to be redone and you are going to be the one to do that."

"All by myself?!" she moaned. "But that will take so long!"

"You should have thought about that before you dumped all the silverware into the drawer."

"You should have thought of that before you left the drawer open."

"Yeah, we're not going to do this," I said. "You need to take the silverware out of the bottom drawer and sort it neatly into the silverware tray in the silverware drawer. You can put the silverware back into the basket from the dishwasher if you need a place to hold it."

"I don't need a place to hold it! I can do it just fine!"

"Great. I'm sure you'll do a fine job this time around. I'm going to go...[I can't even remember what–I think just to the bathroom]...and I'll check on you in a minute."

"Fine!"

"Great."

"FINE!"

So I left and she started angrily gathering up silverware, dropping pieces left and right, slamming doors, and drawers, and just...I dunno...things were clattering and banging and...then she started screaming. 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah...I'm coming..." I called from the bathroom.

Because what else is new? 

Like I said, it was a rough morning day.

I made all the kids cry with my unhinged cruelty and unreasonable expectations and general diabolicalness. 

And they made each other cry multiple times as well. 

One child (not Phoebe, but not telling who) cried because they were lying on the floor and another sibling stepped over them. OVER THEM. Like, they didn't get stepped on or tripped on or kicked or anything. They got stepped over while they were lying on the floor taking up the whole walkway. OVER. 

No physical contact whatsoever. 

And there were tears over this. 

Tears and tears and tears...

Like I said, it was a day (that felt like a day and a half...or more).

So I moseyed back out to the kitchen thinking nothing in particular would be the matter and instead saw that the screams were (for once, today) somewhat justified, for Phoebe had dropped a fork on her foot and aforementioned fork had pierced her soundly through her second toe:

Cool. *Sigh.*

So I washed up her toe (it wasn't so bad once we'd washed it off and stopped the bleeding—and her tetanus shot is current so we should be good) and put a bandaid on it. 

We don't have any "picture" bandaids, just plain ones. And those ones were so big I actually had to cut one in half to fit it on her little toe...but we got her all patched up.

And the she was like, "Now will you just put away the silverware like I wanted you to do in the first place?"

"Absolutely not," I told her. "You're going to finish that job. You wouldn't have dropped a fork on your foot if you had been calmly putting silverware away..."

"I would have never dropped a fork on my foot if you had just put the silverware away yourself!"

"No. You dropped the fork because you were mad and were slamming things all around. And that was silly. In this house we help. And you are going to finish that job."

(SO HELP ME)

She finished the job. 

It's possible there's a fork in the drawer with a bloody tine *deep breaths* but all the silverware was put away (somewhat) properly and Phoebe returned to her game.

AND THE DAY JUST KEPT GOING

*****

Dumping all the silverware into the bottom drawer and hoping Mom just doesn't check...and then raging about how unfair aforementioned mother is when she does check and finds a job poorly done and asks you to redo it was certainly a theme of the day. 

Perhaps this mystery mom is just hard to please.

Or perhaps this mystery mom deserves to have children who just sort the silverware into the tray the first time around (or write appropriate answers or actually do their assigned math work or whatever). 

We may never know, but the least we can learn from this story is to not rage about and slam drawers and things while holding a handful of forks or your bare feet will reap the spiky consequences...