Please Mommy?!

I strongly believe you need to have a good amount of humor when you're a mom. Or a dad. Or a caregiver. Between the massive amounts of poop, the projectile spit up, the picky eater, the non-sleeper, the screamer, the whiner, the hitter, the biter and all the other archetypes, if you can't laugh, chances are good you're going to lose it. Big time.

I'm big on manners. I expect my kids to have good manners, because let's face it, if your kids are rude, no one wants to be around them. And then how are you supposed to get a babysitter? So, I'm big on manners. And so far, I haven't heard anyone complain when I instruct my children to say "please" and "thank you". Go figure.

Being big on manners, I've been working on the "please" and "thank you" thing pretty much since the girls started making noise. I still have to remind them constantly, but lots of times they'll say the required words of their own accord. Still, having to remind them all the time to be polite gets a little old. So, I made up a way to make it just a little more amusing for yours truly.

When my oldest was a little younger, I started getting really sick of reminding her to say please. I'd try "What do you say?" and she'd just look at me. So I'd say, "Please Mommy?" and she would parrot me. Seeing that she just copied me, I'd say, "Please Mommy, my favorite Mommy?" And she would repeat, "Please Mommy, my favorite Mommy?" This made me smile, so I kept it up.

And now, when they really want something, they'll both say, independent of me, "PLEASE MOMMY MY FAVORITE MOMMY?!?!?" And there's a very good chance they'll get exactly what they want.