Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Manners And Quirks

Teaching children manners is an ongoing effort, but the Muffins are well on their way to being polite little people, if I have any say in the matter. We're good with "thank you" and "you're welcome" and we're working on "excuse me." I'm also trying to inculcate "passed gas" instead of the baser term.

The other night I was mindlessly playing with one of the little chairs that goes with the Muffins' tea party table set and my bare foot made a crude sound against the plastic of the chair. Ella's head shot up immediately and said, "You passed gas, Mommy!" I tried to explain to her that I had not, that it was my foot sliding at an awkward angle on the chair. She persisted, "No, Mama, you say 'excuse me' right now!"

OK, so that's a good sign, right? (We'll just pretend she didn't order me to do something, mmmkay?)

My son, on the other hand, is obsessed with vacuums. And, honestly, that's putting it mildly. Whenever we're out shopping, the boy must always be brought down the vacuum aisle of whatever store we happen to be in, usually more than once. He's forever doing things around the house in order to try and get me to have to use the vacuum (a behavior his sister is none too pleased with). Over the past week alone, he has managed to get the salt shaker (at least three times!), which actually has resulted in my needing to pull out the little vacuum (which is really more like an electric broom and doesn't freak Ella out as much as the Dyson does), the pepper mill (which, sadly for Liam, has not ended with my pulling out the vacuum because he has yet to figure out how to ) and he's pulled my empty soda cups and cans down from the counter in the hopes that I "need vacuum" (again, sadly not resulting in my making a trip to the closet).

Maybe he'll be a clean freak one day?

No comments: