Half asleep, I shuffled in to the kitchen and plugged in the coffee pot. Looking down, I found my daughter had left a note for me on the counter. Squinting, I read the following:
MOM
Wake me up when you wake up but if I don’t wake up then can you make shore I’m up when you leave. –P.S. I am a butt face XOXO –Lizzie
Butt face? What in the world? Why would she write something like that? Does my daughter have low self esteem issues?
Rather than frantically shaking her awake with demanding questions about her deepest feelings of self worth, I took my shower and dressed. Then, ever so gently, I touched her shoulder.
“Honey? It’s time to get up. Good morning baby.”
“Morning Mom.”
“And sweetheart? Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Why do you think you are a butt face?”
“…… huh?”
“Your note. It said to wake you up, and then you wrote you are a butt face. Are you ok?”
Silence…. Thought… recognition…. And then my daughter grimaced and spit out,
“MICHAEL!”
He got us. My son got us. He snuck that on my daughter’s note the night before.
Now I know the reason I had children.
Later that week was another note left on the counter:
Well played kids. Well played!
