A Line in the Sand

In my great tradition of stealing post ideas from other bloggers, which also doubles as my way of honoring them, because, you know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (where sincerest is code for most litigious), this week I am aiming high and ripping off one of the Top Fifty Mommy Bloggers, Jennifer from Playgroups are No Place for Children. Every once in a while, Jennifer does the “Cinnamon Life Cereal and It’s Raining, It’s Pouring. It’s totally fun to read and weigh in.

So, this is what I’m thinking. It would be too unfair for me to ask you if I’m right or if Husbandrinka is right about some issue, because, duh. So I thought that I’d handicap it a little. Like, I’m not a native English speaker, so he at least has a chance at a language based dispute.

And one presented itself the other day, when my daughter kept whining that she wanted her friend to sleep over, which really flew in the face of my plans to minimize the number of kids who are at our house at the same time. I have this equation where my own kids=great, but plus one other kid=purgatory. You’d think that it would make more than one kid to tip the balance, but you’d be wrong.
So I said “no” to the sleepover. Because if that’s all it takes to get out of purgatory, I see no reason not to.

And she made her trademarked pouty face. You know that face, where somehow she gets an eye transplant from a Basset Hound puppy and her lower lip turns itself inside out and is very impossible to say ‘no’ to. And Husbandrinka looks heartbroken and I say to him, “What? You think she should have a sleepover?”
And he says, “Well you already drew a line in the sand and said.no to her, so we can’t change it now.”
And I’m all, “A line in the sand? That is no line in the sand! What I did was etched a line in concrete.” Because “a line in the sand’ sounds very impermanent. But maybe that’s just me, having grown up with poor quality Soviet sand.

And he asks me what I think that a line in the sand means. So I told him, without googling, that a line in the sand is a line that you’re willing to erase. Like something that you don’t feel strongly about. “Like what?” He asks.
“Like I can’t think of an example right now,” I tell him. But then a miracle happens and suddenly I can.
“Ok,” I explain, “Like I’m drawing a line in the sand that between pea soup and tomato soup, I would rather have tomato.”
And he is a lot less impressed than you would think with my example and says, “that makes no sense.”
And I ask him what he thinks that expression means and he says, “When you forbid someone to cross something.”
“Why is it in a sand?”
“It may have something to do with kids playing in sandboxes.”

Yes. Kids playing in sandboxes. And forbidding other kids from drawing lines in those sandboxes.

So, who do you agree with–Husbandrinka’s sandboxes or my soup?

One year ago ...

• Bragging - 2011