She didn't really just say that.....

This morning I found the laundry sorter in my bathroom completely broken down and clothes everywhere. Philip reported that daughter was the likely suspect.

When I confronted her, she retorted that if I did laundry more often she wouldn't have had to come looking for what she was looking for.

After a moment of an internal dialog of "did she really just say that? No, that's not possible...yes, yes, I think she did", I put my mean mommy hat on and informed her that I would be thinking about how I was going to respond to her disrespect.

I find that if I think about consequences instead of shooting off the hip I am able to come up with much more effective ones. In short order, the thought occurred to me that the child lives to text message. Guess who pays that bill? That's right....MOMMY!

So, I called Verizon and put a block on her phone. She will be unable to send or receive text messages until I turn it back on.

I'll be having a conversation with her about things that are her right and other things that are luxuries. Luxuries are things like being 13 and your mother still doing your laundry. Luxuries are things like text messaging (or having a phone in the first place). If she doesn't appreciate luxuries, they will go away.