I made them promise

Today I made my boys make a promise. I know that 3 and 5 year olds aren't so trustworthy as to keep a promise just yet, but I made them do it anyway. My plan is to make them promise me things as often as possible so that there is no way they'd forget. These promises will occupy their waking thoughts. I will be that mother. Only instead of guilting them to death, I'll keep them to their promises. Which, I guess, may involve some amount of guilt later on when they realize there was just no way they were going to be able to keep Mom's ridiculous promises. No matter.

One that we've (their father and I) have made them try and keep is to stay little forever. We know this is a promise that is impossible to keep. It's a perfect plan that cannot fail. We make them promise to stay little forever and they just won't be able to do it. So they'll come and visit us often, as big people, and feel rotten that they were unable to do the one thing we'd asked of them all those years ago. We'll cry a little and tell stories of when they were little and cute and sweet. They'll feel so terrible that they'll move our old selves in with them or front the bill for a cushy rest home. Either way, we win. See guilt is involved. It's all very manipulative. Oh well.

Today I made them make a more realistic promise. While we were eating chocolate chip pancakes, and I was looking at their chocolate covered faces and their patches of freckles, I made them promise to come and visit me once they're bigger. When they're a big "worker man that builds really great stuff" and a "plan maker so that the worker man can build really great stuff" they have promised to come back and eat chocolate chip pancakes with me. The oldest made me promise not to move so that he'll always be able to find me. If I keep my promise he'll come and eat pancakes with me every day.

I hope he guilts me into keeping my promise. I don't think it'll take too much on his part. Pancakes every day with big worker men. Cool.