I don’t have a daughter. I have a mule or a llama, whatever.

We were getting the kids ready for bed last night and the next thing I knew, Gracie bitch-slapped Alex across the back.  I guess he was doing something she didn’t want him to do.  I think it had something to do with not wanting him to ride her giraffe or some such nonsense.  Either way, bitch-slapping is not allowed in our house.

“Gracie, go say your sorry to your brother right now,”  I asked.  I promptly received the classic “up yours” look from the two year old.  She shakes her head and very clearly says, “No.”

“Say your sorry to your brother, right now.  You slapped him and that’s not nice, you apologize right now.”

Another shake of the head, another “up yours” and another, “No.”

“That’s it.  You’re in trouble.  If you don’t say you’re sorry but the time I count to thr–,” before I could finish Alex chimes in excitedly and says, “I’m waiting, Gracie….still waiting over here for my apology…  Hey Mom, can you spank her now?  I wanna watch you spank her.  Make sure you hit her good and hard where there’s no diaper.  That’ll teach her the best lesson.”

Seriously???

“Go on mom.  You just told me at homework-time to finish what I started.  You said you were going to spank her, so now you have to finish it.  Go on mom, finish it.”

So this is where I say a mental., “fuck me” for telling my son to finish his homework and beating it into his brain that we don’t give up and we try as hard as we can.  At homework I think I said something along the lines of, “You really have to finish what you started and if you don’t there will be no ice cream or i-thing after dinner.”  Since that got a luke warm reception I said, “I’m going to email your teacher you’re not finishing.  Would you like me to do that?”

He holds his teacher right up there next to God, and the creators of his favorite app Spice War’s, so he gave me a huff and the, “Sweet Jesus whatever you do, don’t tell my teacher,” look and got cracking.  

I knew when I said it, he was going to use my words against me at some point.  I just wasn’t ready to hear them back at me so soon.

But really, he was Jonesing for me to spank the shit out of his sister?  I hadn’t even gotten to three.  I didn’t even think of what was next.  My exact thoughts were more along the lines of, “Gaw, you little turdball, you blew it with ten minutes left in bedtime.  Shit, now we have to play a round of dodge ball and you’re as stubborn as a Tennessee mule. I’m going to be really, really pissed-off if you puke on me.”  That, right there, was pretty much what was going through my mind.

For the sake of argument, this llama will now be called a mule. It’s late, I’m tired. Work with me people, work with me.

I’m a deep thinker.  

Sure, it had flashed across my mind to spank her but I was thinking more along the lines of just chucking her in bed without saying goodnight.  We really don’t spank in this house.

“No Alex I’m not going to spank her. This is not really a spanking situation.”  And with that I set the bar pretty low and chucked her in bed.

She never did say she was sorry.

Fricking Tennessee mule, I’m raising a mule.

I have no idea where she gets it from.

It must be her father.