A Morning of Misunderstandings

Avery's birthday party with her friends is this weekend.  And, every birthday party, I have tried my hardest to come up with something creative for the favor.  My thought is that I would rather spend money on one "larger" thing vs. a bag full of small things that eventually just get lost or thrown away.  A couple of years ago for her 3rd birthday we did sand buckets with shovels, etc.  Last year, we did kites for everyone and this year, I found these super cute purses (at Walmart nonetheless!) for the girls which I'm going to put nail polish and something else in

and then these missile things for the boys. 

So, anyway - unknown to me, the Walmart bags were brought into the house (vs. staying in my trunk), so of course, Avery immediately spotted the purse and asked what it was for.  So, I told her but then made her promise not to tell her friends (because, of course, when you have a cool favor, the way to make it that much cooler is to have it be a surprise). So, she promised.  Mind you, I figured this would be impossible for a 5 year-old girl to keep a secret such as this, but I figured I'd try.

Well, this morning, Avery walks into Alex's room as I'm getting him dressed and she has this very concerned look on her face.  So, I ask her what is wrong and as she stumbles on her words a bit, eventually she confesses that she may have "accidentally" told Sophie about the purse.  I mean, I'm not kidding people.  You would have thought that she hurt her brother or something with the way she was looking at me.  So, I SWEAR I did not get mad.  I really didn't.  I just kind of looked at her and said something like, "Avery - I thought that we were going to try and not tell the girls?  Just don't tell anyone else, ok?"  But, seriously- it was in no way in a mean or angry tone. 

So, I'm done getting Alex ready and I walk into Avery's room and find her with her face buried in her covers on her bed SOBBING!!!!!!!!!  The child felt so badly that she told Sophie when she wasn't supposed to that she was sobbing in her room!  Talk about feeling like the worst mother on the planet!  So, I'm hugging her and explaining to her that it is ok and that I'm not mad and of course, the big Al Man has to know what is going on.  So, at this point, he is on the bed and gets really close to me and whispers, "Mommy, what happened??"  And, he wouldn't accept the "Nothing" answer, so I tell him something like, "Avery just feels badly because she told Sophie something that she didn't think that she could."  So, Al disappears. 

Next thing I know, Josh and Alex are walking up the stairs and Alex is holding an ice pack for Avery.  Apparently, he went downstairs and told Josh that Avery was crying because Sophie was a bad friend and Avery needed some ice.  

So, basically we went from Avery confessing that she told Sophie about the purse, me apparently getting mad about it and then to Sophie somehow coming out of nowhere in Avery's bedroom and being a bad friend because she did something to Avery to cause Avery to need ice. 

Now, while everyone clearly misunderstood what was really going on with everyone else this morning, one thing was very clear.  Somehow, somewhere along the way of raising Avery, we managed to do a pretty good job of a) teaching her to listen to us and not to lie and b) of having a conscience and wanting to do the right thing and somewhere along the way of raising Alex, we taught him to be a good brother, watch out for his sister and to help her when needed and I'll be honest - I'm pretty proud of ourselves for that.