More He Said, She Said

I should probably make this a regular feature since I talk so much about the crazy things my kids say.

Katie is a free spirit. Anyone who knows her will back me up on this. Her creativity and her ability to live in the current moment are beautiful things. They will carry her far in life. They will. (This is a mantra that a friend taught me when Miss Thing was in the midst of the "Terrible Nuclear Meltdown Threes." The traits your child has that make you most crazy will be assets to them as adults. I repeat this to myself daily.)

So, anyway, like every other free spirit I know, Katie doesn't like to wear shoes. Nor does she like to put things away. She comes by that honestly, because I'm not big on putting things away either. Why go all the way upstairs to put shoes in the closet, when you won't need them again until you're on your way back out this door that they're currently right beside? See, I get that.

What I don't get is taking one shoe off in the playroom on the first floor and the other shoe off in the kitchen on the second floor. How does that happen? And then how does it completely leave your mind, so that when you're told the next day to "get your shoes on; we need to leave" you have absolutely no idea where on God's green earth they could be? How does that happen??

Just recently that exact scenario played out for the 1,342nd time, and as I swore holy oaths to myself that from now on, we were going to lay out clothes the night before including shoes, I took the opportunity to explain to Katie why this was such a frustrating experience for me. In great detail. Just so she would be crystal clear on it.

"....so I need you to take better care of your things and know where things are so that when I tell you to put your shoes on, you will be able to find them. Do you understand what I'm saying, Katie?"

"Yes, mommy."

"OK, then tell me what I'm saying."

My sweet child looked me in the face and without a trace of irony said, "Blah, blah, blah, Ginger."