Running Late

Everything Benjamin Franklin said was true about early to bed and early to rise.

Unfortunately, we do not always want what is good for us.

Last night, we all stayed up too late, and so I got up late this morning and everybody was dragging. Tommy sneaked to watch tv instead of eating breakfast, and Sam discovered as we were getting ready to leave that he still had spelling words to correct.

I said, "Well, just do it at school while your teacher is making announcements and things, because you've got to learn to be able to do some work on the fly like that."

Sam: "It's against my principles to turn in my work late."

Wha' huh???? I guess the teacher asks them to hand in their work while he is sitting there making announcements (maybe he is actually teaching them and they are working when I go in, come to think of it), but where did MY kid get principles?

This came up last night too: Tommy said, "When Daddy says he loves God more than me, it really pisses me off."*

I'm like the old ladies in the baptist congregation going, "Mmmm-hmmmmm, sing it, honey," while Sam is like, "Daddy's right, you'll just use every opportunity to use foul language."

Later, Sam was banging around and making noise and I asked him what was going on.
"Well, it's against my principles to use bad language, so I have to make noise when I hurt myself instead."

This, from the kid whose mother could make a sailor blush (truly, I could).

I'm torn: do I want the aliens who have stolen my real children to keep them, so I can have the ones who play in the snow, or do I want my actual, lazy, unprincipled children back?**

*last night Tommy wanted me to call his father about the whole God thing, but I had Tommy leave him a message. The Father returned the call and we spoke very civilly about it and he said he would stop.

**It would seem, given Tommy's procilivity to sneak around watching TV this morning that perhaps the aliens have actually given him back, and merely kept the other two. And that seems about right.