I am held in the highest accountability by two very short persons. Absolutely no room for hypocrisy - let me tell you! I am still chuckling in embarrassment over this most recent episode of not walking the talk...
I needed another spool holder for my threads. MIL (mother-in-law) is known to have at least one of everything, and sure enough, I spotted one not being used. With my ever watchful 4 year old tagging along beside me, I snagged the empty holder and began filling it with my spools of thread. I didn't think anything of it until a little voice chirps out, "That's Grandma's. You didn't ask! You're supposed to ask her before you use it, aren't you?"
Feeling slightly guilty, I fished for a justifying answer. "Grandma doesn't mind me using it - she has lots of stuff - she won't even know it's missing. But, yes, I will ask her tomorrow." Now, I should've admitted she was right, I was wrong, removed my offending threads, and returned it back to it's place...but I didn't.
Fast forward 24 hours later, We are back in the shared room with ours and Grandma's things. Without a backwards glance, my little girl marches up to a box holding a beaded purse she's been admiring for several days and picks it up. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm hearing a conversation about that beaded purse..."Mommy, can I have this?" "No, honey, that's Grandma's. You don't take Grandma's things without asking first"...then I got distracted by my younger son, throwing a rock inside the house - or something like that.
Later that day, as my daughter was cleaning up her toys in the living room, I spied that beaded purse among her belongings. Now, I felt really guilty. I knew she had seen my actions in spite of my words and had copied me. Very meekly, I repented of my error with the thread holder to her and then said we needed to return both the purse and the holder. We went together to Grandma's house to return the items. I told MIL in a low voice that I had set a bad example for my daughter, and she had followed suite.
Thinking it was funny, I related the whole story to Daddy. As we laughed about it, a little voice pipes up from the other room, "Mommy was setting a bad example, Daddy."
Little elephant ears!
No comments:
Post a Comment