"Smart" sure can backfire.

Okay, enough with this whole my-daughter-is-so-great thing already.

Yesterday, dinner-time.

I think I may be coming down with some kind of plague or something, at least that's what my aching head and back are telling me. For the first time in a while I am seriously considering serving the children cherrios sans-milk for dinner.

"Girls," I yell, "time to clean up."

Matilda pokes her head down the stairwell, "I'm starving."

"I'm getting dinner ready right now."

"I can't wait. I need an appetizer."

She can't just beg for food with over-the-top drama like normal five-year-olds, she has to throw big words in my face, using them against me. Isn't that cute? My five-year-old knows all about dining etiquette. The little terror.

I appease the children with bread and butter and send them into the living room to clean the blocks. Cherrios have been abandoned in favor of pasta and brussel sprouts, Matilda's new favorite vegetable. Honestly, what kind of mother would I be if my child actually asked for brussel sprouts and I laughed in her face and gave her dry cherrios instead? Well anyway, I wasn't ready to cross that line. Not yet.

Five minutes pass in silence. (i.e.: I do not hear the gentle clunk of blocks being put away.)

"Girls," I yell from the kitchen, "you're not cleaning!"

"How do you know?" Matilda yells back. "You can't see us!"

"I know everything," I retort.

Huddling together against the power of my omnipotence, Matilda comforts her little sister, whispering, "Don't worry Freya, that's not true, she doesn't really know everything."

Fifteen minutes later the blocks are still strewn about the room.

Hands on hips, I put on my serious voice. "Ladies, you need to get a move on. I want these blocks cleaned up right now, or you won't have time to clean your playroom and you'll have to go straight to bed with lights out after dinner." The impending plague has done nothing for my already thin, end-of-the-day patience.

Matilda, using two fists for emphasis, yells, "You're not treating me with respect! I want to be treated with respect!"

I have to leave the room. I do not feel at that moment as though I am capable of treating her with respect.

But she follows me.

"You have to be kind to me! No one ever treats me with respect! It's not fair to treat a child with no respect and that would be me!"

How am I supposed to have an irrational argument with someone who sounds so freaking sensible?

Matilda, that's not a nice thing to say. - Um, no.

I am treating you with respect, God damn it! - No.

Shut up and clean!

This isn't going well. A little help?

No-good, smart kid. Why? Why does she have to be smart and rational? Traits, which until recently, didn't seem to have a down side.

Seriously, when I am not feeling like a good mother, and my daughter calls me out on it, is it wrong to think about making her sleep in the garage, just for the one night? I'd send her out with plenty of blankets and brussel sprouts, and it has been unseasonably warm lately...