She's Got Re-spon-si-bil-ity ... Walk. Responsibility. Talk.

Yeah, yeah so I ripped off the title from Lloyd Price's song, Personality so what? The point is ladies & gents we have a seven year old who's ASKED for responsibility! Now, mind you she asked with a price tag attached but that's okay--it let's her understand the value of working hard for something she wants.



In our home, we've not really practiced having chores with payment attached. Sure, we agree with providing an allowance and sure we agree with expecting participation in chores but monetary value on doing those chores has not yet been discussed .. that is until today! In the past, Macy has just done as we've asked.



Macy accompanied me on a Sonic run today. While we waited for our drinks this is what took place:



M: "Mom, do you think I could start earning an allowance?"

A: "Well. Sure. I think that's a great idea! When we get home, we should sit down & discuss what some appropriate chores might be. What do you think would be a good idea?"

M: "Hmm .. (thinking) I think making my bed."

A: "Everyday."

M: "Yes. Everyday."

A: "Okay, that could make the list."

M: "How much do you think I can get paid for doing chores?"

A: "Well, that depends on what you do. You'll only get paid for work you do-you either do ALL of it or you don't get paid. But we'll come up with some ideas when we get home. We'll write them down & make an agreement."

M: "Okay! That sounds good to me."



I wanted to give her time to think about the things she could reasonably do. When we got home, she pulled out a spiral notebook and we began making a "contract". We agreed that it would last for 2 weeks to see if she needed to increase or decrease her responsibility. She was advised if her responsibility decreased, so did her pay.



As we discussed some of the things (you'll see the final list below) the subject of pay also came about.



M: "I wonder how much all this is worth?"

A: "Well, what do you think it is worth? What seems reasonable?"

M: "Um ... (thinking) I believe it's worth five dollars."

A: "So if you do _______ (listing off all the chores she agreed to) then you'll earn $5. But what
should be the consequence if you don't do all of those things on the day you agreed?"

M: "Then I shouldn't get paid!"

A: "Okay ma'am. It's a deal."



We shook hands. She signed the "contract".



*Editor's Note: Some of these items she already does because they're expected. The point is to have her understand the purpose of responsibility and how "working", works. The contract is subject to change after the 2 week period ;)

Flowers & The Trees.

Ever been around a toddler that learns a curse word? Sometimes they use it in context but sometimes they just throw it out in a random place within conversation to see what reaction their parent's give. Usually they do this because they know it's not an everyday word, the word has a "special" meaning, they're just not sure what.

Well, I'm afraid we had a case of the toddlers on our hands this evening. Take a read at what ensued.

"Mom, what are we having for dinner?", asked Macy.
"Oh, I'm not sure yet but I do know I need to go to the grocery store.", I replied.

Macy responded, "Well, sometimes I get nervous about eating other people's food."

"You get nervous about eating other people's food?" I asked, "What does that mean?".

"You know, like when we were at that chili thing at your work?" (referring to a chili cook-off I judged at my workplace), said Macy.

I thought, "Oh, you mean you don't like to eat in front of other people?"

She clarified, "No, like it makes me feel like when I have puberty ... like that."

"Makes you feel like when you have puberty??" At this point, I belted out a very boisterous laugh, I know. It was wrong, but I couldn't hold it back.

"What is puberty? I don't get it?", I asked.

"Then why are you laughing?", she said.

"Well, because I know what nervous is so I'm trying to understand how nervous equals puberty.", I responded.

"Well, I don't really know.", admitted Macy.

"Ohhh, where'd you hear that word? Maybe we could ask them to help us understand. Could we ask them? Who was it?", I pondered.

"Well, I can't really remember. I just heard the word.", I suppose she didn't want to fess up.

"Ohhhh, well. I believe I know what puberty means, I just wanted to know if there was a different meaning for it cause you called it the same as nervous.", I went on to explain.

"Puberty is when your body goes through different levels of changes somewhere between oh, 10 to 12 years old. You'll probably get zits, you'll get little boobies, you'll have a period--you know like when mommy has blood from her vagina & has to use tampons? That's a period. It happens one time every month. You will also get hair under your arms and on your goober."

She just looked at me like oh no you di'unt just sit there & say all that!

We both went from serious to busting up laughing.

"I said nervous was puberty!", she roared laughing even louder.
" Yeah, now you see why I laughed?", I asked.

"Gross.", Macy replied.

Fast As Fast Can Be, You'll Never Catch Me!

We had a small earthquake in Oklahoma yesterday. I anticipated Macy Walker would have one heck of a story on her account of the event; instead all I got was "Eh, it was no big deal." Well, okaythenma'am.

We went on to discuss much more important things, like ...

"Hey Mom, did you ever ding dong ditch when you were little ?",

said with a grin & slight laugh.

Me, baffled for a nano-second at how my precious, innocent, sweet little 7 year old baby already knew what ding dong ditching was, I paused only to quickly spit out,

"Ding dong ditch? What is ding dong ditch?", wasn't that the right thing to do?

Pretend I didn't know to see just how much she knew or would tell??

Shrug-Oh well, I sure thought so!

This time I got a bellowing, HA.HA.HA. as if she was thinking, you're so dumb-you know nothing-kinda laugh and

"It's where you go up to someone's house, ring their doorbell & then run off!"

"Ohhhh", I responded. "Well, what happens if it's a really mean person

and they run out & chase you??"

"Then I guess I'd just run really fast to our house and lock the door!",

followed by more laughter.

I kinda chuckled too this time because a.) I hoped she'd ding dong ditch someone who'd scare the bananas outta' her so she'd not do it again but also because b.) I still don't know how the heck she so accurately knew the ding dong ditch concept ... she's SEVEN for cryin' out loud!

I asked how she learned to do that and warned only to do it to people she knows (apologies to our neighbors in advance), applied the concepts of stranger danger, politeness, etc, etc. but didn't say NOT to do it ... Gimme' a break, we aaaaalll know she would do it anyway but the best part came shortly after.

"Well, you didn't do it but I BET Daddy & Jen Jen did!!!",

she & I both roared laughing.

She's right ;)

Gasp ... And Then She Said It.

WARNING: Explicit language.

Casey and I made a pact long ago to always tell Macy the truth, even when that means we have to admit embarassing & not so pleasant things to her. Thus far in her life, we've upheld that pact and do not plan to deviate from it anytime soon. She knows babies come from vaginas (yes, we call parts the proper names when explaining) she knows the alternative is a c-section but she doesn't know HOW babies are made and frankly ... I'd like to keep it that way right now!

How? You might ask, does she know where babies come from but not how they're made? Well, we tell her just enough information. We answer her questions but don't offer anymore information than necessary. There may be a point in her life where background information or further explanation is needed for certain things but to this point it's the facts ma'am only the facts.

Every parent dreads the day their child comes home to ask about something-typically inappropriate, they've learned outside their home. I expected to answer questions about where babies come from. I expected to hear "Susie said the S word", I expected to explain why people go to jail (which I've had to do already this week--because so & so's Dad spent all his money on drugs and they only had one dollar left to get his Dad out of jail because his Dad was in jail for doing drugs), I expected to explain favoritism, nerd, stupid, fairness, responsibility, good character, I even expected to explain divorce. What I didn't expect was to explain THE mother of all words.

Macy wasn't even in the car 5 minutes when she said, "Mom, what does the middle finger mean?" See, I try really hard to get by with the simplest of answers but its becoming increasingly more difficult! "Well, it's just middle man. You know where is middle man, where is middle man, there he is, there he is ..." She laughed. "Nooo, it's a bad word. What does it mean?" Crap! I thought. Now what? What do I say?? I swallowed a big gulp, said a nano-second prayer for the right words to say and replied, "Well Mace, it's a really really bad word. It's so bad, I don't even want to say it. It's not a nice word at all & it's something you should never repeat." I really didn't know what to say! I couldn't bring myself to say THAT word. "Well, can I guess what it is? Would you tell me then?" Sigh, "she knows" I thought. "She already knows." Ugh. So I said, "Of course. I'll tell you."

She was somewhat reserved & hesitated a smidge, shrugged and wincingly said "ffff..uck. Is that what it means? Fuck you?" OH.MY.STARS! Did she just say that?? "Yes. Yes Macy, that's what it means.", "How'd you learn that?", "Somebody said that the other day at school." "It's a bad word, huh mom?" Here would be a good time to reintroduce good character. Ouch.

Aging

Elderly people often take a large assortments of medication, so much they often have those pill separators allowing them to plan their medications by day. Now, I just can't imagine those folks enjoy taking all that medication but I'd venture to guess they realize they're extending their precious time on Earth, they see its necessity.

When those same elderly folks were oh, let's say 5 years old I bet they fought their mommas & daddies tooth and nail when taking medication. "This tastes bad.", "I can't swallow this, it gags me.", "I don't like it.", etc. Their desire to get rid of the symptoms wasn't as great as their disdain for the medication. They knew it was relative to get rid of their illness but they weren't mature enough to understand that taste or gagging reflex was temporary.

But then they aged & maturity set in. They realized swallowing that nasty medicine was necessary. Macy Walker has now realized this and begrudgingly requested cough medicine. On her own. Without my suggestion.

Wow, maturity.

She Gets That From Her Father ...

If you know our family well at all, you know we're quite the jokesters. We find humor in almost anything, afterall laughter IS the best medicine. It does a soul good! Watch below to see how our humor has trickled down to the youngest Walker, Miss Macy Renee.

P.S. This was totally un-rehearsed. I had NO clue it was on my video camera until I went to upload something else. I remember her asking me "Mom, how do you take pictures?" but I didn't know she'd just recorded something .. on PURPOSE! hahaha

She's Bossy, The Queen of the Pack

You often hear little boys say they want to be firemen or policemen when they grow up. They like firetrucks and policecars all the while pretending to be those professions. Little girls will tell you they'd like to be teachers or mommies while they "teach" or "mother" their baby dolls. Macy Walker knows what she wants to be when she grows up too, but it's not a teacher, mother, nurse or any other traditional "female" role.

A: "Mace, what do you think you'd like to be when you grow up?"

M: "I'm gonna' be be a boss."

A: "Ohhhh, you're gonna be a boss? What kind of boss?"

M: "You know ... the boss of a company. The kind that has an office and tells people what to do."

Of COURSE I know! hahahaha