Keepin' On The Sunny Side of Life

My daughter chose to have an arm-wrestling styled match against her father when tooth brushing commenced tonight. It was the age-old, "quiet down, brush your teeth, don't wake the baby, and get into bed" struggle we all have often during the bedtime hours. Tonight, Daughter chose to end the tooth brushing fiasco with a simple slam of the door, thus waking Baby #3. Not the best idea.

Now she's in bed, sniffling, because her choice landed her a play date-free afternoon tomorrow instead of what was sure to be one glorious playdate with her bestie, Seb. Pick your battles, I told her softly in my mind as I watched it all go down.

Then I took a step back and thought about that statement, Pick Your Battles. We all pick our battles on a daily basis... eat the ricotta-stuffed french toast battle, then guiltily extra-exercise to win the fitness war. Pick the "don't talk back to your mother" battles only to later ignore blanketed "You Don't Understand Me" statements during the tween war years.

Today I picked a battle with a blog that fed us food for thought based on whether or not parents who kiss their children are innocently doing wrong. It's a battle that I am quite comfortable having, but it's not one that needs to be held. I'm strong in my convictions as I said, and I'm sure that was present in my response to this said blog. Often the devils advocate in discussions with friends, I understand the compelling nature to write up an article such as this. Heck, I almost respect that compelling nature simply  by existing. Still, I didn't need to pick that battle. Why, when by existence alone, did the article ultimately ooze out what me and 50+ compelled commenters later said...

I vow to, in the future, better pick my battles, because no one likes a smart a**. And that, my friends, is what I became when I pointed out the flaws in that post. Someone who simply took hefty notice of the obvious. None too clever on my part, now was it?