I've long suspected that there is a distinct possiblity that might children might be turning out to be spoiled brats, despite the fact that we are far from rich. They have often given good reason to suspect but tonight they clinched the deal. Dave and I decided that we would take the kids out to Baskin Robbins for a treat tonight. We had buy one get one free coupons for sundaes and a slew of gift certificates so we thought it would be a fun surprise. Well it was a surprise all right, how badly our kids acted. It started when we informed the girls that we weren't going to be letting them pick out a flavor each but that we were going to get two "cups of shame" to share and a kid cone for Greg since no one likes to share with him. For those of you who don't know, in my family the "cup of shame" is that giant Reeses peanut butter cup sundae at Baskin Robbins, its plenty big enough to share. McKenzie and Hailey carried on, sometimes together, sometimes on individually, the entire time we were there about how unfair, mean, and horrible it all was that we were sharing. And also we are liars because we said they could each get their own sundae. Which we did not, I think our pulling in there implied that to them. As if my children carrying that their treat wasn't big enough was enough, we sat next to a table of little old ladies who I swear were snickering in their ice cream at my poor parenting skills and what brats my kids were being. I'm quite sure they were secretly chanting underneath their permed little heads for me to drag those girls out and spank them.
Lately my girls have been acting like entitled little princesses. They whine about every little chore, Kenzie's new favorite thing is to yell at me for making her do all the housework and telling me I'm lazy. I've had the you don't talk to your parents that way talk several times by the way. A month or two ago Hailey informed me that she was going to call the police because I was a mean mom and mean people go to jail. And the kids were all going to live with Grandma. She pulls that one back out regularly whenever things aren't working out for her, and I think she means it. I think in her mind I sometimes rank up there with the criminals.
I realize that things are a lot different than when we were all kids and I'd bet my life savings (ha, ha, ha) that we would have been very sorry if we acted this way. I'm doing the best I can, but I'm running out of answers. So if anybody has some advice, tips, or amazing new punishment or motivator please let me know. Because I think I've got the future Paris Hilton of the low rent apartments on my hands here.
