Little White Lies

I came to a startling conclusion today. I lie to my daughter. Like....constantly. It's never anything major. Or mean-spirited. It's the little white lies that keep the peace. And I always leave myself a technical truth to it. Just in case that counts with God.

Like when it's bedtime and I tell her that Dora is sleeping. Is Dora really sleeping? I'm sure somewhere, at some time, Dora sleeps. And I didn't say she's sleeping now.

Or when I take my gluten-sensitive daughter through the McDonald's drive through. She gets a smoothie, which, incidentally is the only thing she can have there, other than a salad. And who really wants to see a toddler try to eat a salad in the car seat? I get my Extra Value Meal #2 fix. And when my daughter is begging for fries, I state "I don't have any fries" insert lengthy pause here "for you". How mean is that?? But, seriously, I really wanted those fries.

Then there's bathtime, where she insists the water runs the whole time. As she takes 30 minute baths, you can see the problem. So I say "The water is gone".  Then under my breath I mutter "from the faucet at this time".

She also tends to get reeeeeally whiney if in the car for too long. Can I be blamed if I ask "Do you see the cows?!". There are no cows in the visual area. But you'll note I didn't say there were. I just asked if she could see any. And it distracts her for a good 45 seconds.

I sometimes tell her that the batteries aren't working in an incredibly annoying toy. Of course they're not working. I took them out.

She's gonna catch on to me one of these days. And I'm going to feel like the worst mother ever. So from here on out, I promise not to lie to my daughter.

Unless my sanity requires it.

So I'm back....

I'm back and I have a pressing question. How big is too big when it comes to washing spiders down drains? I ask this because I recently chose the drain method over other, more conventional, means. This particular spider looked like this:

by the way, image not mine, I totally ripped it off of wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tegenaria_duellica.JPG if we're going to be proper.

Moving on.

I slid back the shower curtain and saw this bad boy staring at me, hunger in his eyes. The mere thought of squishing it with a tissue was enough to make me vomit. Besides, he probably would have just grabbed the tissue and thrown it back at me. I took the cowards way out and started pouring water on him, slowing inching him towards the drain. The fact that it took 5 hair-rinser-cup-thingy's full to get him to the drain is a testament to his monolithic size.

Finally, he was gone. Let the showering commence.

But if a relaxing shower after a hard day of being a mom/slave/house-elf is what I was looking for, then it was futile. I spent the entire 4.5 minutes (yes, that was four and a half. Not forty-five. I've got crap to do.) waiting for him to come crawling back up out of the drain and exact his horrific revenge on me. I'm no mathematician. I don't know what the weight of something has to be in order for it to bypass the trap. I do know, however, that I felt my foot step on something as I was almost finished and literally jumped back into the shower wall. Was that part of his master plan? For it to look like an accident? I clung to the 4x4 white tiles and nearly sobbed with relief when I discovered it was simply a sliver of soap.

What's the point of this inane story, you ask? There really isn't one. Other than from here on out, I will not be a drain-washing pansy. I will crush the arachnids as they scurry. And I will not be satisfied until I see their hairy little legs twitch their final twitch.

But I'm always going to be waiting for the one from tonight's episode to come crawling back up.