a stephen covey moment

Dave decided he wanted to renew his use of the Franklin Covey planner during 2007. During most of our marriage he has used this calendar system to organize his work and family life. The last couple of years have been chaotic and so he is just now getting back to his system. On Monday we were all off for President's Day. Jordan attended a Girl Scout event encouraging young girls to be engineers. That left the rest of our crew to run errands. After lunch we went to the Franklin Covey store in the mall. Perhaps you've been in this store...it is quiet, beautifully organized, and full of expensive leather binders and briefcases. We arrive and make our way to the back of the store. William is hanging out near Dave and browsing alongside. Grace finds a glass shelf stocked with little charms you can clip onto your binder. She ever so carefully examines each one and then puts it back on the display. I decided to hang near Grace (though she was behaving) since monitoring seemed prudent in such a store.

Dave makes his selection and then tags me in the monitoring department so I can go browse. I am looking at all the neat "first things first" thank you notes, leather purses, and goodies when I hear Dave say, "Did you hear THAT?" Umm no, I didn't dear. I'm lost in all this put your family first literature.

Apparently Dave asked Grace to begin putting all her goodies back up on the shelf and get ready to leave. The child -- 2.5 years old I might add -- says, "This jewelry is soooo nice Daddy, but I'm not going to steal it today. No, I not going to steal it."

Gulp and double gulp. Where on God's green Earth did she add "steal" to her vocabulary? I suspect she picked it up during some older sibling squabble where one child would blame the other for "stealing" a seat, a nintendo dohicky, or a book. The girl has impeccable timing...using that new vocabulary word in a store that promotes good values. Ah parenting, dull is not thy name.