Like Honey, Like Sweetheart*

My dd just turned 7, and she SO identifies with Mom. We are deep, deep into All Things Mommy, from applying lip gloss in the morning to choosing Diet Coke as her preferred soft drink. But this week she channeled Mom again in a way that made me laugh. She was loading the dishwasher with her brothers and got into a little "row" with them (as the Brits say). When I stepped in to referee, I discovered the cause of her frustration: She, who has the permanent job of unloading the silverware, was insisting to uncooperative brothers that spoons be put in THIS compartment, knives in THAT one, forks in THAT ONE ON THE END. This way when she unloads it, all she has to do is grab all the handles in one section and dump them into the drawer, with no sorting! Her exact words were, "Mom, I'm trying to be ORGANIZED."

This is like Mom in two ways. One, it manifests Mom's insane need to keep in order parts of the home that no one ever sees, such as the inside of junk drawers or the Christmas decorations in the attic, while portions of our home open to visitors sport dirty socks and stacks of old magazines. My dd can walk right past a puddle of chocolate milk she spilled on the table, but the SPOONS! the SPOONS, by Jove, are ALL TOGETHER in the DISHWASHER!

Two, she has picked up on a every woman's unspoken belief: Men don't load the dishwasher properly. You can't learn this too early in life.

*The Honey/Sweetheart title came from dd, too - when she was very small, around 2, she used to come to me and ask to play a game she called Honey/Sweetheart. "Okay. I'll be the Honey. You be the Sweetheart. Sweetheart, have you cleaned your room?" This game was just a version of House, where she was the mommy and I was the baby. I was puzzled by the name until I figured out that she always heard DH called me "Honey" and I was always calling her "Sweetheart." The game persists even today, with our cat in the role of Sweetheart. Pity the poor cat.