Man, just when I thought we were doing so well, good old second Monday rolls around to fudge everything up. And though she was grumpy, tired and downright hostile a few times, Greta's finest moments this morning involved some truly inventive delay tactics.
First, she said she was too sick to go to school. Oldest trick in the book, I know, but, still very effective, especially since she has a very mild cold. But, since that was my go-to excuse growing up, daddy wasn't buying it. Sorry, biscuit.
So, then she got really creative and staged a “sit in” on the toilet for like five minutes. When I told her we had to leave, Greta said she was waiting for her poo to come out and that she wasn't going to school until it did. Good times! Needles to say, the poo never came and many tears were shed as we made our way to the kitchen to put on her shoes.
There again, she pulled out the big guns claiming that her shoes had tiny sticks in them that I couldn't see but that hurt her feet. After much stick searching and more tears, we switched to another pair and hurried to the car, where she staged perhaps her finest trick of the morning: pretending to fall asleep on the drive to school!
I don't remember trying that one as a kid, but, wow, if they gave out gold stars for morning delay tactics Greta would be top of her class! Simply put, she was good, but I was better. And since I've grown accustomed to half-dragging her ass to school lately, I just pretended not to notice that she was “asleep” and kept right on dragging.
And despite all the tears and recriminations — not to mention the fact that she would not say “goodbye” to me when we parted — we still somehow managed to make it to school on time, but something tells me we're in for another long-ass week…