What She Said

Sometimes the things my kids do just warms my heart and make me so proud. Sometimes, not so much...
On alternating Fridays my daughter Brenna has a group of friends that come over and hang out and eat dinner and then I take them all to a Bible Study I lead for 7th and 8th grade girls. Bronte usually has a friend come over too, but sometimes she doesn't. Last Friday was one of those evenings when she didn't. Brenna's friend, J, was the first one on the scene. J is always really sweet to Bronte and includes her in things when she is over. So, J and Brenna and Bronte are all sitting on the couch in the living room playing together. (When I say they were playing, what I really mean is that they were trying to figure out how to put together a Bratz doll. Have you ever seen those things? They are the sluttiest dolls I have ever seen, so of course Bronte loves them. The weirdest thing about them is, you don't change their shoes...you change their feet. The feet detach somewhere around the ankle and then you snap on new feet shod in some other stripper shoe style. And, unlike Barbie who actually has career aspirations, all a Bratz doll wants to be is a rock star, apparently. I mean, I have seen Veterinarian Barbie and Heart Surgeon Barbie and Teacher Barbie, but I have only seen one kind of Bratz doll...a rock star. That's just a nice way of saying "slut".)
Anyway, so the three of them are playing nicely when all of Brenna's other friends show up. Because they are all 12-13 years old there was lots of giggling and whispering and giddiness and they decided to go up to Brenna's room. So, Bronte thought she would go with them. Well, Brenna had other plans...now that her friends were over she didn't need Bronte any more so she told her friends, "Run! Come on! Let's shut the door before my sister gets up here!" And with that they piled into Brenna's room and slammed the door right in Bronte's face. Bronte tried to open the door, but Brenna was pushing against the door from the other side so Bronte couldn't get the door open. I watched all this from the bottom of the stairs while I was chatting with the mother of one of the girls. So, I knew Bronte's feelings were hurt, but I wanted to see how she would handle it. Bronte walked away from Brenna's door, in tears, and went into my room. I kept chatting with the mom while glancing upstairs every once in a while to see what was going to happen. Eventually Bronte came out of my room with a piece of paper which she slipped under Brenna's door. Then she turned around and went back in my room (still in tears). A couple of minutes later she came out and slipped another piece of paper under Brenna's door and then turned around and went in her room and shut the door. I said goodbye to the mom I was talking to and went in the kitchen to finish making dinner. Suddenly I heard Brenna's door fly open and I listened to my first born STOMP down the hall and down the stairs and into the kitchen. She looked at me, all indignant as only a 12 year old can be, and handed me the two pieces of paper Bronte had slipped under her door. Disgustedly she said, "You might want to talk to your daughter," and she stomped back upstairs.
I looked down at the first piece of paper and in Bronte's precious 6 year old handwriting I read, "Brenna, you hate me." That just makes me want to cry and give her a big fat hug. With tears in my eyes I looked at the second piece of paper. In the same sweet handwriting I read, "Kiss my Ass">

Okay. What does a mother do at this point? I died laughing, but I couldn't decide if I should be mad at her for writing this, or if I should high five her because her sister was being an incredible bitch and she should have kissed Bronte's ass. What to do? What to do? Luckily at that moment, Tony walked in the door, so I handed the notes to him, told him the story and let him handle it. Well, I should have known he was going to fuck it up! He called Bronte downstairs and looked into her adorable tear-streaked little face and told her she must NEVER say that Brenna hates her and that she was forbidden to tell anyone to kiss her ass, EVER! Well, of course Bronte started to cry again so I gave Tony a shitty look, hugged Bronte and told her that Brenna was being mean and that if she would just go wait in her room then I would send Brenna right up, lips puckered, all ready to kiss her ass because she deserved it. (I know Tony has a different version of this story, but this is MY BLOG and I will tell it however I want to. I'm telling you now...he made Bronte cry and that was bad! Bad daddy!)

In the meantime, I called Brenna down and told her that she was being a complete and utter brat. She maintained that she "didn't do anything" (imagine that being said in an annoying whine). I said, "Oh really? How about slamming the door in Bronte's face and telling all your friends to hurry up before your sister came in your room." She said, "I didn't say that." Okay. At this point I am getting really pissed off, but I am trying not to raise my voice so her friends won't hear me. I don't want to embarrass her, after all. I said, "Bronte said you did. Are you calling her a LIAR?" Brenna rolled her eyes (my favorite) and said, "I didn't say it to be mean." I said, "Really, Brenna. How did you mean it to sound? Wait! Let's go upstairs and ask your friends to clear this up. C'mon! I bet they will tell me what happened. Let's GO!" and my voice kept getting louder and louder. Brenna just repeated, "I didn't do anything."

That was all I needed to launch into my tirade. It went something like this:
You don't know how lucky you are to have a sister! You better be nice to her because someday she is going to be all you have and if you keep treating her like this she won't be there for you when you need her. So help me God, you better not sit there in Bible study tonight and tell us all how "Christ-like" you are because I will remind you about how you treated your sister tonight. Jesus never would have treated anyone the way you just treated your sister, so don't go all "Jesus-y" on me tonight. How can you even sit in Bible study knowing how crappy you just acted--turning your back on your sister like that! Maybe I'll just take your friends to Bible study tonight and you can stay home and think about what Jesus would have done. As far as I'm concerned, you ought to just get upstairs and BEG your sister to forgive you...and if that means you have to kiss her ASS then just pucker up! Now get upstairs and apologize.

So, maybe I went a little too far with the Jesus-y stuff...but it worked. Whatever. I'm not sorry.

In the meantime, Tony wanted to know where Bronte had heard the phrase "kiss my ass" and looked pointedly at me. Well, everyone knows that my favorite swear word is "mother-fucker" NOT "ass" so I get annoyed and told him it wasn't from ME so it must have been from HIM. Honestly, I could not figure out how she knew that phrase. Well...we can thank Zac Efron for this particular turn of phrase. Let me tell you why...

The day after the "Kiss my Ass" incident I was sitting down in my family room at the table where Bronte colors. Her papers and coloring books were all over and I was picking them up when I looked down and saw the words "Kiss My Ass" written (by Bronte) on one of the papers. I called Bronte over and said, "Bronte, why did you write this again after all the trouble it caused yesterday?" and she replied, "Mom I wrote that on Thursday." I shook my head and asked her, "Why?" Her answer is priceless. She said, "Well, my friend M was over, remember? I was telling her about the movie "Hairspray" and how hot Zac Efron was in it and I told her how he said a bad word in the movie. Well, M wanted to know what he said and I knew you would get mad at me if I said A-S-S so I wrote it down for her." (Incidentally, my 6 year old does, in fact, use the word 'hot' when she describes Zac Efron. I'm so proud.)

So, thank you, Zac Efron for this fine family memory.