At 6 am

At 6 am this morning Zoe ran into our room, Lovey on her head, and jumped on me.

"Morning, Mama!"

"Morning, Z!"

"Is Daddy at work?"

"No. He's in the shower, I think."

"Good. Girl talk time," Now, when I hear her say this I smile and get nervous. It's cute, but it always means bargaining of some kind. And sadly, she can out argue me in a circle until I give up like the best litigator you could hire. I just didn't need to have a mental beat down from a preschooler at 6 am, you know? "Here's the deal. We can go play outside and make brownies. Two deals. One is go outside. The other is make brownies. Deal?"

"No! We are going to lay here until the sun comes up and then clean the house before we go to Backyard Adventures for  play date."

"Nope. I gave you two deals. Pick one."

"Z, I think you are confusing deals with options. When I give you two options (like stop throwing your blocks at your brothers head OR go to your room without a snack) you must pick one. A deal is when I bribe you in public, (like Stop screaming for Cheeto's in the middle of the aisle and flopping around like a dying fish and I'll let you eat the blackberries before we pay for them while you sit quietly in the cart). Neither of these are deals."

"Yep. It's a deal. Pick one."

The doorbell rang in the middle of this conversation to nowhere and I looked for a bra (didn't find one) and threw on a sweatshirt (better than a bra, even on 80 degree mornings).

We were outside (Deal 1) and she was in the sandbox for I even had a chance to shout for her to get inside and at the very least find her jammie bottoms, walked through the rest of the landscape job, and then I realized we had a play date we scheduled - meaning I needed to bring snacks for 18 kids.

I looked in the walk-in pantry of temptation and realized unless the kids wanted spaghetti, something with diced green chilis and salsa, or a Pringle's can of stale chips, we'd make a quick batch of brownies.

Licking the spoon, I called Zoe in from the backyard. It was 7:00 by then and she needed to eat an Eggo or something. She sprinted forth, smiling.

"Come on in, baby!"

"Yeah! You picked both deals!" with a high five into the house.

Huh?

"I played outside AND you made me brownies!" she smiled, hugged me, kissed my cheek and rubbed my back. Worked for me. Mom of the Year, folks.

I just smiled and rubbed her back when she plucked the brownie spoon from my hands, licked it, and winked as she walked away.