Hide and Seek?

Did your mother ever ask you to do something and if you didn't jump right to it she would start counting? My mom did a lot and if she ever got to number three before we started moving we were in serious trouble. She would even add "two and a half, two and three quarters."

Lately, I have to ask Kendi to do something four or five times and then threaten to put her in time-out before she will do it. I feel the urge to start counting the way my mom did. I've always resisted this urge because I know Kendi wouldn't understand and because part of me doesn't want to sound just like my mom. Not that it would be a bad thing. I can just still hear my mom's words, "Someday you'll have a child just like you. You know, what goes around comes around!" My response to that was, "Maybe what went around came around."

Anyway, the other day I was getting something out of the fridge. Kendi loves to look in the fridge. She's fasinated by it. She would stand there all day with the door wide open. So, I asked her to close it after a while. After asking her four or five times I could feel my patience running short. It was the end of a tiring day. Instead of loosing my patience I started counting because I didn't want to think of anything else. When I got to two Kendi spun around, smiled up at me, pointed and shouted, "GO HIDE!" I laughed really hard. It was just what I needed.