Now, Her Ladyship is a proud and somewhat stubborn little lass... I've known that for a long, long while. Getting her to say "sorry" for things was a struggle to say the least - there was one incident where we had a Time Out stand-off for 45 minute before she cracked and muttered the feeblest "sorry" I've ever heard - but she's made a lot of progress in the last two years. That's mainly because she's realised that I have had 30 years more practice at being stubborn than she has. She's even started meaning it too...
Anyhow, that was until yesterday when, after taking a sneaky pot-shot at one of Mr M's friends as he dared to pass between her and the television, she point blank refused to apologise.
Oh dear.
Cue the back and forth between Time Out, pep talk explaining how important it is to apologise, psyching up to do it, leading her in front of the victim, silence, back to Time Out... I was getting a bit angry, so after doing the whole "disappointed" thing, passing swiftly to "my patience is running out now", I tag-teamed with the Good Cop... still to no avail. She remained silent and sulky. Good Cop was becoming Impatient Cop too by this point, so I took her aside and asked what the problem was.
"I've lost the word, mummy", she says.
"What word's that?"
"Sorry."
"You've forgotten the word "sorry"?!" [tries to keep a straight face at the obvious flaw in her argument]
"Yes, so I can't say it"
... aaaaand breathe!
Fortunately Mr M's friend had hardly noticed the incident, and was even less concerned about the apology (NOT THE POINT!!!)... but hey. Her Ladyship opted for bed, rather than to be reminded of the word she'd lost.
