Not sure I'm raising my kids right...

On weekends Ralf and I try to sleep in.  A lot of preparation goes into this: The cat must be locked in the pantry for the night.  The morning cookies for the kids must be accessible.  The shades must be drawn.  The alarm clock must be turned off.  Friends and family must be under strict orders not to call before 9AM.

Yes, it's sad but true.  We consider sleeping in until 9AM an extravagent luxury.

Once the kids wake up it's more of a half sleep than a real sleep.  We hear them moving around and going downstairs in search of cookies and parental ears tune in automatically to make sure each child adheres to the rules about the quantity of cookies per child.  So, when we hear K going downstairs too many times, one of us usually wakes up enough to yell, 'One cookie!' 

For a while K would come in, gently kiss my face and softly whisper, "Mommy, can I get another cookie?"

'Mmmmph,' I would say, which K would happily interpret as, 'Whatever, honey, just get one for L, too, so she doesn't come wake us up!'

Finally we upped the ante to 2 cookies in order to skip this little scene, which worked pretty well.

Until yesterday - I had baked chocolate biscotti the day before and they were really yummy.  Adictive, even.  K found herself irresistably drawn to them and we heard her sneaking downstairs once, twice, a third time with 4-year-old L in tow.

Ralf stood up with a resigned groan and headed for the stair, intercepting our red-handed little ones on the way back up.  Everyone froze - I know this because I was listening from bed and the stairs stopped squeaking.

K (brightly): Papa, I brought you a cookie!

Ralf (dryly): Really?  That was thoughtful of you. 

In bed I smiled proudly to myself, reflecting that my oldest girl can totally think on her feet.

Ralf: What about L, did she bring me a cookie too?

L: Mmmph hmmph.

Ralf: What's that, L?  Your mouth seems to be full.  It isnt' full of cookie, is it?

L (after a slight pause): No.  No cookie.

In bed I smiled proudly to myself, reflecting that my youngest girl is bold as brass.

We'll, um, work on the lying and stealing later.  Confidence and quick-thinking are harder to teach than honesty and trustworthiness, right?

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

On a personal note, I'd like to give a special thanks to those of you who comment regularly.  I haven't had as much time for blogging and commenting lately as I would like but I really enjoy hearing from you.  I usually try to respond to comments by commenting on your blogs, but since the folks over at Content Writing India don't have a personal blog to comment on I just wanted to say thank you for reading and commenting.