As a new mother, I couldn't wait for my children to progress enough developmentally that they could speak and to converse with one another. Then they started talking. And it seems that more often I want them to stop.The information flow from oldest to youngest is too quick and my cute little 'rainbows and unicorns' fantasy of children speaking pleasantly to me and to each other has disappeared in the wake of the "She did it" line.
It's only in complete silence that I know someone is doing something they should not (and unfortunately it's Caelan that is silent more often than the other two). Evelynn comes running with the "She did it" or "She's doing something bad"... which the whole tattling thing with Evelynn is difficult enough to deal with because Caelan's usually doing something that's hazardous to her well-being. Sigh. The moments of "She did it" have come too frequently in recent days (and will go away soon as long as I'm the Mama in this house) and I cringe every time I hear it.
But it has now become that 'phrase'... you know, the phrase that becomes your children's go-to in every situation. "She did it. She spilled the water." "She did it. She didn't flush." "She did it. She took all the toys out of her toy box." "She did it. She took all the pillows off the bed." "She did it. She took her clothes off." "She did it. She put her toy in the dog's water." "She did it. She ate the tomato." "She did it. She moved that book." "She did it. She colored in that coloring book." "She did it. She drew on the wall." "She did it. She put her plate in the sink." See? Half those things aren't necessarily 'bad', unless of course she were stripping down naked in a public place and definitely if she drew on the wall. It just all begins with the "She did it." Grrrr...
They say it so often now that today at lunch, McKenna dribbled her food on her hand and immediately said "She did it" and when I walked into the bedroom that seemed to contain pleasant children, one said "She did it" as if the only reason I was in the room was to discover the guilty one. Then it turned out that no one had done anything. Now they could say "She did it" because I naively wanted them to speak in the first place.
