Not The Usual Suspect

Friday night is the night I try to get some house cleaning done. Not a lot, but I would like to begin the weekend with a comfy, cozy, clean-ish, house. This past Friday Kenna and I were doing some chores in the living room and kitchen. Kenna was actually helping. She didn't like it, but she was helping. Kaemie was doing something in her room. I went in there and talked to her. She said she was cleaning her room. I got mad about something, I don't even remember what it was, but I lectured her with my "mommy voice" (not yelling) for several minutes. After this lecture I went back to the kitchen.

Moments later, Kenna is right there, tugging on my shirt, telling me that Kaemie called me a name. When I asked what Kaemie called me and granted Kenna permission to say it (because she would never say that word) she told me that Kaemie called me a "bitch." I laughed. You see, Kaemie does not call me names. Kaemie is sixteen years old and has never screamed "I hate you" at me. She has never stomped off to her room and slammed her door. I am not exaggerating. NEVER. I laughed all the way down the hallway to confront Kaemie. I laughed with Kenna following me with a smug look on her face. She just knew Kaemie was gonna get it.

I was laughing so hard I could barely get the words out to ask Kaemie if she called me a bitch. Kaemie was laughing too. She nodded while she was laughing, though. Then she said, "I didn't call you a bitch, I said you were acting like a bitch." How she said that with a straight face I will never know, but it made me laugh even harder. Now the look on Kenna's face has changed from smug to confused. Kenna gets in trouble when she calls people (me) a bitch. She is looking from Kaemie to me and back again with wide eyes and a arrogant/questioning look on her face. She is waiting for Kaemie to get grounded, soap, or even worse. I had to stop laughing long enough to explain to her that Kaemie was in trouble for calling me a name, but that since Kaemie didn't do it very often I wasn't sure of her punishment yet, and just because I was laughing about Kaemie doing it didn't mean that I would laugh the next time Kenna did it. And I reminded her that she was being a tattle-tale.