I Do It Myself

I keep telling myself letting young kids do things for themselves is a good idea. In the long run.

“I want juice,” Miss3 demanded of me.

“Please,” I reminded her.

“You’re welcome,” she said, and raced off.

A few minutes later, because I hadn’t moved, she was back.

“Juice, Daddy,” she demanded again.

“I heard you,” I told her, “but I’m still in the shower. I’ll get a drink for you when I get out.”

“A juice.”

“I don’t know if we have any juice,” I said. “But there’s milk or water.”

She gave me a withering sort of look, which was highly appropriate. It’s a mirror of the sort her mother gives me when I say I’m going to get up to the kids in the morning but my head doesn’t even look like it has any intention of leaving the pillow.

“I do it myself,” she said. And raced off.

It got me moving pretty fast as well, as I suddenly had a head full of images involving 2l milk bottles on their side glugging their contents out onto the floor.

“I’ll get you a drink!” I shouted, as I quickly toweled myself down, listening for the tell tale sign of a chair being dragged through the kitchen to the fridge. It didn’t come, which I thought was odd. I continued to call through the bathroom doorway, “Sweetie? I’ll get you a drink now!”

But I was too late. She’d already begun making herself a juice at the kitchen table…

…by shoving mandarins into and around a popper bottle.

Only ten more years of this and we’ll be right. She’ll be a teenager and won’t want to do anything for herself again.

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“Raising a family on little more than laughs”