Surprise!

My kids are obsessed with surprises. Everything has to be a surprise: from the mundane to the important, as in:

Surprise! We came home from pre-school!

Surprise! I'm getting out of the bath!

Surprise! I'm hiding around the corner breathing really hard but you can't see me so it's still a surprise!

Surprise! I'm supposed to be getting ready for bed but instead I'm hiding under my bed, ignoring your requests to please brush my teeth!

Surprise! I broke yet another one of the things you told me to be really, really careful with!

This whole surprise! business is really, really annoying. Firstly my anal-retentive-don't-like-spontaneity Capricornian self hates surprises in the first place. I want to know stuff NOW, before it happens. I don't want to be surprised, okay? (This also applies, of course, if you are trying to cheat by giving me gifts before the event the gift is meant for, in which case that's not ruining a surprise, that's breaking the rules. The rules are holy. I know, I made them.) Secondly, if I god forbid somehow ruin the surprise - then an all out crying hissy fit then ensues, filled with indignant "you *ruined* the surprise mummy!" and frowning, annoyed faces. Now by ruining the surprise I mean something like ...oh, maybe opening the front door when I hear the car come in? Major crime, that one! Or - walking around the corner behind which lie 1 or more annoying surprise! people. Or - asking what's for breakfast. This is how I, on a daily basis, ruin my kids' lives. I ruin their surprises. A lot. Not on purpose, but that doesn't matter to them. They care only that I've ruined it all and they say, with all sincerity "I'll NEVER EVER give you a surprise again!"

If only they meant it.

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Random "Kids say funny shit" Mention: DD just got out of the bath and on her way to get dressed for bed, yelled back to DH, "DAD! When you're dead I'll always remember you!" *grin*