The joy of being a parent

As a parent we are required to act a certain way when our child does something wrong. We're supposed to give them the "talking-to" and educate them on why it's wrong, ask them all the pertinent questions to affirm their understanding, etc., etc. But sometimes, just sometimes it's so hard not to laugh at the situation. Here's what I mean...

On Saturday we continued our quest to entertain ourselves while as my husband puts it, we're "adrift in Kansas." So we headed into the big city and did a little shopping, had a pre Father's Day dinner and ended the evening at a Kohl's department store before heading home. So Daniel goes to the bathroom while I'm pushing the stroller around and trying to keep Kate from wandering off and talking some poor unsuspecting soul's ear off. We're in the girls clothes and I notice her wonder off to look at something one aisle over and turn my back for just a second. Clearly it was a second too long.

I tell her we're going across the aisle to look at baby clothes and to follow me. As I'm weaving in and out of the racks Kate is super quiet and following closely behind. I thought this was unusual but decided not to question the perfect behavior and just go with it. At one point I turn around and see her grabbing at her crotch. "Do you need to go to the bathroom?" "No," she says. "Are you sure?" "Yea." So we continue on. A few minutes later I turn around again to witness the same thing. "Are you sure you don't need to go?" "No." "Did you forget to wipe? Is it itchy or something?" "'No." Now you have to remember my child is not a child of few words so again this strikes me as odd.

We walk back over to the other side and I turn around one last time and she's still got a hold of the front of her dress. "What are you doing? Why do you keep grabbing yourself?" My little cherub then proceeds to lift up her dress, pull her underwear back, and expose the source. There's a shiny blue bracelet in there. My first reaction is confusion, then shock, then that moment where you're trying so hard not to laugh because you know it would be so wrong to do so, but oh man. "I don't know how it got in there," she says.

I'll spare you the details of the conversation that followed. Daniel walked up just in time and Kate ended up being pretty embarrassed and decided she was "sleepy" when we got out to the car. In her defense she's always finding little trinkets on the floor of places and stashing them in her pockets. In the past they've always been discarded tags that have come off clothes, little perfume sample cards, or the round size thing off of hangars. I guess she figures it's trash and my child is a classic case of turning trash into her little treasures. So imagine her excitement when she saw this little bracelet, lost from her fellow bracelets and without a tag. But somewhere in there she must have know I would have made her leave it so she stashed it where the sun don't shine. Ahh parenthood!