Karma

I tend not to have good material to work with when it comes to Maddie, because in reality, she is a fairly easy child.  She whines more than the engine on the sweet Beretta I used to drive (Loretta the Beretta to be exact), but besides that she is generally helpful and easy to get along with.  But, the more time I spend with her being home these last few weeks, the more I realize, she is a LOT like me and just might be my karmic retribution.  Lately, when I catch her doing something wrong (take this morning:  Ben, Maddie and Zach were eating breakfast and talking about Ben's sight words.  Zach said, "I want to learn a sight list" and Maddie goes, "Ha, did you hear that Ben? Zach called your sight words a sight list" basically implying that Zach is a total idiot and no where near the intelligence level that she and Ben so obviously share.  I said, "Maddie, don't make fun of your brother, he is just trying to have a conversation with you" and she said, "Mom, I wasn't laughing at Zach, I was saying that to myseeeeellllllfffff.  Uhhhhh." I said, "Really, when you said Zach called your sight words a sight list" you were really taking to yourself."  "Yeeeeeesssssss.") she starts crying because she knows she had been called out and I wasn't buying into her crap.  I mean, growing up, I was pretty good at being the ol' wordsmith with my parents in order to get myself out of trouble.  Who could doubt this angelic face, right? Maddie has that exact same attitude, I can tell.  She thinks she already has the "in" as the only girl who helps mom with whatever she needs and whenever another kid is getting busted for doing something wrong, she is quick to chime in with "Mom, don't you just love how good I am being?" With time and a little determination, she will get much smoother at this deception and Matt and I are going to have our hands full.