Give Them an Inch and They'll Take a Mile

A week or so ago My mom and the girls and I went to Round Table Pizza for their family night. They have the pizza and salad buffet, games, balloons, and face painting. I usually don't allow my girls to get their face painted, but thought - it's summer time, there's only a handful of kids at the daycare, the Round Table employee doing the face painting looked bored as she had no customers - so I figured this could be a small summer treat for the girls. I expected them to have a little flower or heart on a cheek, and that would be that. I let the girls know they could do it AFTER they ate their food. :)

The next thing I know, I look over to where the face painting is happening and can't believe my eyes. Shauna looked like Jezebel! I was completely shocked and actually surprised that the worker did a full face painting without asking me first. However, the thing that really made me angry was the black eyeliner around the eye. She's 7 years old for goodness sake! And Shauna has sensitive skin - I don't see how this could be good for her face. After Shauna was done, I told Staci to just get something small; of course, she wanted to look like her sister, so I said "just the eyes, but not the black liner." You can see from the pictures that she didn't listen.

As soon as this happened, I thought - what a good blog post that would be - it's true what they say - "Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile." It also reminded me of a church sign quote I've read before: "Never give the devil a ride, he always wants to drive."

My pastor is always preaching about how we need to be careful what we do and allow into our lives - it may be something that seems insignificant and small, but it can have profound effects that we can't even begin to fathom.

Have you ever allowed your kids to do something, and then regretted it? Well, I certainly did in this case.

So, what did I do - I said "as soon as we get home, I'm taking your picture, and then we're washing it off - and DON'T go in the house and let Daddy see it." So, what do you think happened the second we pulled into the driveway - Staci jumps out of the car, runs into the house and says "Daddy, look at us!"

Well, Daddy wasn't too happy either - and the faces were immediately washed off. The girls were sad that they couldn't wear their face painting to daycare, but oh well!

I know this really wasn't that huge of a deal (at least I hope so), but it certainly gave me food for thought to be extremely specific the next time they want to do something.

It's also a reminder of the importance of good communication. If I had specifically told them ahead of time = you can get a small heart or flower on your cheek, and that's it - then we could have avoided the entire drama! :)

That's my thought for Friday. May you all have a blessed weekend!

Rhonda