Whatever

Julia and I were in the midst of a heavy back and forth that, truth be told, I was losing.  I decided to put an end to it with an authoritative directive. "You need to [blah, blah, blah]," I began. She looked me dead in the eye and replied, "Whatever." With my blood boiling, I told her to go and sit in the corner and we would talk about it in four and one half minutes. She sits one minute for each year of life. Since she's so insistent about putting that, "And a half," on the end,  I will hold her to it.

As the time expired, she returned from the corner with the posture of boiled shrimp. She sat in my lap. I did not even have time to launch into my, why did I ask you to sit in the corner, what are some other choices that you had, what will you do next time, etc. She raised her pathetic little face up to mine. "Mommy you really hurt my feelings. You interrupted me before I could finish. I was going to say, 'Whatever you say, mommy.'" 

Seriously, how do you even recover from that. Imagine what kind of reply she will be able to come up with after five minutes.

Whatever!