This is why I bang my head against the wall

;-)

Rose (10) is such a free thinker. It will take her far some day, so I'm not saying this to complain, just to *explain*. Although I find it totally frustrating, hence the title of this post.

Here is a recent conversation with Rose. This is how most conversations go between us (when I'm "parenting" that is, not just chatting about stuff, which we do also of course - but even many of those conversations are hard for me to follow...anyway...):

I had recently explained to her that she had to wait for snack until our babysitting guests left, because I didn't have enough of one thing to go around. About 15 minutes later, I realized we had enough apples.

Me: Hey Rose, would you like an apple? I just realized that we have enough apples for everyone, but we don't have enough of anything else. If you want a snack while the W.'s are here, it has to be an apple.

Rose: Can I have a banana?

She has been like this since she could talk. Give her options A and B, and she inevitably picked C.

This child will most likely design her own college curriculum, creating an original major, and invent something really cool. :) That is, if she doesn't wind up taking care of me in old age because she made me go insane at 39, LOL.