Whistle Blowers

This was the week of the The Big Easter Egg Hunt at school. Parents were asked to donate plastic eggs filled with goodies not resembling candy. Three evenings ago, Mommy bought the plastic eggs; Daddy dutifully went to the party store for plastic frogs, lizards, rings, erasers, whistles. Your basic lot of of cheap crap from China. The girls and I spread everything out and commenced to filling the eggs. Wouldn't you know it, the whistles were too big for the eggs. Stella had one of those whistles hanging around her neck, PE teacher-style, and wanted to blow that thing so badly, but she is so aware that her mother is KA-ray-zee and can't stand noises like that in her ear. She gave it a couple of half-assed blows, looking at me with that, "Did you hear that? Am I in trouble?" look, and I was struck by the realization that my daughter is afraid of my Crazy. That's not right, and I was determined to make things right. So when we finished filling the eggs, I declared that they could save those whistles for the next day and they could share them with the boy next door and blow them outside. And then...BAM!...Momma had a great idea! "Girls, take those whistles and go in your room, shut the door, and blow those whistles as loud as you want! Blow them 'til you can't blow them any more!" They ran down the hallway, bopping their heads and blowing those whistles. They closed their door and they blew those whistles. And they were back in about 3 minutes, done with those whistles. Those whistles have sat on my coffee table since that evening and haven't been blown since.

I think if I'd banned them from whistle-blowing that evening, the torture of them wanting to blow those whistles would have lasted WAY more than 3 minutes. I think that was one of the most clever parenting decisions I've accidentally made thus far.