Saturday, September 25, 2010

Star, Butterfly, Star

At last!  I've been given something I've always wanted.

As anyone with a six-going-on-twenty-six-year old daughter will know, a mother's behaviour can sometimes go beyond the pail.

So it was for Anna-mouse the other morning, when I asked her casually if she would be cold without her cardigan.

No, Mummy,  she replied dutifully.

Are you sure? I said, as I do.  As I always, infuriatingly, do, having asked the question and received a perfectly good reply.  Doubly, I suspect, if the question is anything to do with whether or not she is/will be/might possibly not be warm enough.

A small hurricane ensued.

MUMMY! she yelled.  I'm a BIG girl now!  If I say I'm sure YOU DON'T HAVE TO ASK ME AGAIN!

Honestly, I muttered to myself, I only said 'Are you sure?'.

Right!  That's it! she cried, sounding so like me I couldn't help but notice,  Mummy, you are getting a star chart! 

Really?  This I had not expected.  I tried hard to sound nonchalant.  What for?

But she had vanished, only to reappear several minutes later with a bright pink piece of paper marked up with fourteen irregular boxes and wording as follows:
Mummys are you sure chart
if she says are you sure see gets nothing.
Prize if mummy dosent say are you sure is a masagine

I'm doing awfully well.  I haven't missed a day.  Every morning Anna-m gets out her stickers and rewards me with a shimmery star or shiny butterfly, filling the little boxes in a satisfying, alternating pattern.  Tomorrow I shall get another butterfly, and the day after that, if I'm lucky, a star.  Anna-m is impressed.

The prize, I must say, I'm looking forward to.   I love a good masagine.

5 comments:

Elsie Button said...

love it! and well done you! x

nuttycow said...

But it's so tempting to "are you sure?" - I found myself doing it over the weekend too (not with my children, of course, since I don't have any but worse... with someone elses!)

Shiny said...

Ooo, I wonder which masagine you'll get? What a sweet thing your little Anna-mouse is xx

Debbie Doughty said...

Priceless! In my house they are still called mazagines even though my 'little ones' are now 34 and 28 :)

Miranda said...

Heh, too cute! I, too, often pop over to yours and keep meaning to put you on my blogroll! Love your blog and your writing. xx