Turning a blind eye

There have been some 'incidents' in the Hot Cross household recently which reminded me of something I promised myself. That I would never become a boring mother. In my continual efforts to instill a sense of discipline, respect, good manners, an understanding of right and wrong, battles over vegetab...(yaaaaaaawn), it's too easy to forget about the fun stuff. And then these things happened ....

'The muddy puddle'

It started innocently enough with a bit of paddling about in a small puddle of rainwater on the grass. Then someone (I suspect the smaller one) enlisted the help of watering cans to pour gallons more water onto the grass, make a MUCH bigger and muddier puddle and do loads more splashing. And the best thing about this game? They thought I couldn't see them and didn't know they were doing it. 'Boring Mother' wanted to stop them, "You're ruining the garden. Daddy will be cross. Look at the state of your trousers, they were clean on this morning, rant, rant, rant...." Luckily, their squeals of delight prevented her from emerging. So I turned a blind eye and let them at it. Daddy, as it turned out, wasn't cross at all.

'The Curious Incident of the Missing Easter Eggs'

"Where could they have gone?" asked my four-year-old, wide-eyed and proudly holding up the empty 'easter basket' which several mini eggs had been lovingly displyed in on the hall table just moments earlier? "They've completely disappeared!"

"Hmmm, that's very strange. You didn't eat them did you?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Honestly, I didn't."

Now, 'Boring Mother' would have started a sensible conversation about theft, taking things without asking, and the importance of telling the truth. But how can you do any of that when the chocolate-smeared mouth doing the blatant lying is the absolute essence of childhood innocence?

(For the record, the two-year-old was also spotted pilfering chocolate eggs, but yet again, his brazen trail of foil wrappers leading from where the eggs had been to where he was sitting was just too brilliant to question).

Now, I'm not condoning theft outright, or raising an army of pickpockets (I hope), but these small things reminded me that sometimes it's alright to let the naughty step stay empty and leave 'Boring Mother' behind.

I've just convinced my four-year-old that I actually do have eyes in the back of my head and that I can turn them on and off. I think I'll leave them off for a while. It's much more fun!

Turning a blind eye