Payback

When I was a little girl, my sisters and I shared a bedroom. My mom and dad were strict about bedtime, and we were all put to bed with a hug and a kiss and expected to stay there. I don't know why it is that this worked better for my mom than it does for me, but I attribute it to the fact that we were just better kids than mine are.


Every night, we would lay in our beds and talk and giggle. Every night, my mom would come to the doorway and give us a stern look and a threat. "I don't want to hear another peep out of you."

Inevitably, one of us would wait until she turned to walk away and make a very small, quiet sound.

"Peep."

We did it every time. It made my mom really, really mad. We would never confess who did the peeping, and we always played innocent when she tried to find out who the culprit was. Her angry, "WHO peeped?" was always met with a chorus of "Not me." We thought we were pretty damn clever.

A couple of nights ago, I was tucking the girls in. Kiss, hug, kiss, hug, warning not to get out of bed... good night. Within seconds of leaving the room, I heard them laughing and wiggling around. I stuck my head in their door and said, "Girls, it's time to go to sleep. I don't want to hear another peep out of either of you."

You know what comes next. Molly looked at me, sweet as pie, and said, "PEEP." I had to leave the room so they wouldn't see me laughing, but I think they knew. The two of them laid in their beds and peeped themselves to sleep, while I considered the fact that I deserved that payback. I'm slowly turning into my mother, and my daughters are turning into mirror images of me. The mother's curse is taking effect. You know the curse... "I hope you have two just like you."

Peep.