Two Steps Forward, One Giant Step Back

One of the kids was clearly not using her sweet little head tonight and "asked" me to be quiet.  To give her a wee bit of credit she did ask in a polite voice and she did say "please".  However, this is obviously a question that is not to be tolerated.  A question a child should never, unless in an emergency situation, ask an adult, at least in this house. 

This incident falls into the "giant step forward" category because everyone else but Annie had an "Oh, Snap!" moment, stopped what they were doing, whipped their heads around, eyes and ears wide open to see how badly Mommy was going to lose it.  It's nice to know that somewhere, tucked away in their internal files, they know that some comments are disrespectful to adults. So...hooray?

But then, within 5 minutes of a little victory, I stumbled across this:

Apparently, it is excruciatingly difficult to toss dirty clothes in a basket I positioned in the un-classiest yet most-convenient location. They almost had to put more effort in order to miss.

We'll get there.