Exactly. As a lawyer, my world revolved around rules. Local rules, federal rules, state rules. There are rules for everything. And there are rule enforcers. Judges don't hesitate to take away privileges if you break a local rule. In my house, I am the judge, the jury, and the corrections officer. I am also, according to my two-year old, a princess. My name, therefore, has become Princess Phunkeller (phonetically? Princess Fun Killer. The killer of all things fun. The bedtime reaper. The play date ender.)
Princess Phunkeller has high standards. There is no running in the house. The furniture is not gym equipment. There will be no of licking your sister. Same goes for the couch. Pee goes in the potty. (Breaking news--Gigi is potty trained!) And for the love of all that is good and right, pants are not optional!
It's just so much easier to ignore the rules sometimes and let them have fun. And sometimes, as the mommy, I want nothing more than to get to be the fun parent. The cool guy. The one who lets them stay up late, eat popcorn upstairs, and watch four episodes of The Justice League. Sometimes, I just don't want to wear my Princess panties.
When it became apparent that Snowmageddon was in fact going to become reality, I temporarily abdicated my throne and surrendered my royal title. Rules were ignored. We've been snowed in, for the most part, for nearly 6 days with a few breaks now and again. We had a few meltdowns, not of the street clearing kind--of the kind that ended with RJ in timeout for his own safety.
The first rule to go? "It's too cold to play outside." It was 16 degrees:
Gigi wished I hadn't given up my princess title and had in fact put on my Princess panties that morning. She was in desperate need of someone to kill this fun.
Her brother, on the other hand...
well, he had snow pants and Batman boots,
which make a happy boy indeed.
Add an afternoon of driveway work with daddy, and his day was complete.
They humored me since it was Gigi's first real snow.
The second rule to go?
Don't eat snow. We didn't eat yellow snow--some rules just aren't meant to be broken, ever.
The third rule to go?
No crayons on the carpet. I gave up the dream of a grown-up living room. As my friend (who just moved her train table in to her living room) says, "They're only little for a little while."
(I have not abandoned the rule about nose picking. Gigi likes to live dangerously.)
We've survived Snowmageddon. So far, our little Lutheran school is promising class tomorrow. I certainly hope so; my scepter is getting rusty where I left it out in the snow. It's time to start enforcing some rules again. But every now and again, it's so nice to eat some snow, put my feet on the couch, and enjoy life with these little commoners:
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