When she doesn't know I'm listening...

Louisa cracks me up. The way she talks when she doesn't know I'm listening is so funny. I'm lucky enough to get to do a lot of activities with her. I volunteer for church, school, Girl Scouts, and I get to be with her when I volunteer for these groups. It's a lot of fun and gives us much needed mother/daughter time. At home she sacrifices a lot of mommy time so that her younger brothers can have my attention, and since she's my only baby girl, I always work hard to maintain our friendship.
Tonight I got to go with her to the bowling alley as part of a Student Council outing. Louisa is her class representative for her student council. Her teacher appointed her and since she's a newbie in her class, it's a huge honor that her teacher thinks so highly of her to represent them in the student council. Especially since her teacher leads the student council!
I went along with Louisa because they were assembling "Candy Grams" that they sold as part of a fundraiser which will be distributed on Valentine's Day. The school totaled over 800 Candy Grams and they needed help assembling them all.
After the kids bowl one game and have a snack from the snack bar, we all get started putting together the Candy Grams. My job was to cut out die-cut paper hearts and then stamp hearts into them. Two of us moms worked side by side stamping out hearts as fast as we could. The kids taped suckers to the hearts. This weekend the two teachers who are in charge of the student council will attach labels to the candy gram to say who it goes to and who it is from. The kids could pick from a whole slew of Valentine type messages like, "You are a great friend", "You are sweet", "I'm happy we're friends", and "You're the best". There was an "I love you" option, but only if the child was buying one for their parent. Louisa's teacher had typed up only about a third of the labels she needed, so she will be very busy this weekend!
While Louisa was sitting with her friends taping suckers on paper hearts, they were chatting about this and that and the other thing. Usual things that second thru fifth graders chat about. Now, Louisa doesn't know that I'm close enough to hear everything she's saying. Me being me, I'm nosey and love to eavesdrop. One girl said she doesn't like it when her mom calls her "honey" in front of other people. Louisa chirps up and says, "Well my mom calls everyone honey. I think it's nice. It means she likes everyone." Awwww!!!! That was so cute! I was looking down, but I felt a few of the girls from the table looking at me. The first girl replies, "I guess it's ok if someone else does it to be nice. But my mom embarrasses me." We all do, Honey. We all do!
A short while later I heard my little honey start talking about me again. "My mom is the youngest in her family, she has an older sister. And trust me, my mom has done it ALL!!! There's nothing I can ever get away with. And trust me, I've tried!" Umm... well, I don't really like her telling people I've done it "ALL". But at least she knows she can't get away with misbehaving.
In my life I've played every trick in the book, I faked sick to stay home, I lied, cheated, conned, scammed, stole, made excuses for everything possible. My kids don't get away with too much in our house. It's nice to know they recognize that. See Mom, all my naughtiness came in handy some day! You had to suffer so I could be a good mom. Isn't that nice to know?!