Master of the Guilt Trip

At two, Laney has already learned to master laying guilt trips on people. Shouldn't this be years in the making? How can she do this already?

For whatever reason, she was in a crabby mood the other morning. She followed me into the bathroom and when I finished, out of habit, I flushed the toilet. Wrong thing to do. She started to cry.

"I wanted to flush your pee-pee! I wanted to flush your pee-pee!"

(Gross. Why do so many of my stories involve toilets and toilet matters?!)

To be fair, I think she had made this request before the actual flushing, but I wasn't really listening. Sometimes, you just want to pee in peace, and around here, you make your own peace. You find your center and drown out the kids noise.

"I wanted to flush your pee-pee! Whine. Whine. I wanted to flush your pee-pee!"

This went on for five minutes. Okay. It went on for about 30-seconds, but it felt like five hours, and I wanted her to stop already.

"Laney, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you wanted to flush the toilet. You can flush next time, okay?"

"No!" she cried on the verge of hysteria. "I wanted to flush your pee pee!" (Are those words beginning to grate on your very last nerve yet? Are they? Are they?!)

"Well, I can't do anything about that now! You need to stop it," I snapped at her.

She didn't say a word and gave me her saddest puppy dog eyes and began to whimper like I kicked her. Shoulders drooping, she walked slowly away, went to an old chair and sat down, whimpering the whole time -- not crying, just making these little, sad noises.

So who was being unreasonable here? Demanding over and over and over again to flush another person's pee pee, long after it has gone down the toilet, is not charming behavior, is it? It's not fun for the other person, and they have an excuse for getting annoyed, right? Right!

So why the hell did I feel so guilty?????