Never trust a five year old with a secret

Alternately titled: Hit em where it hurts

Alternately alternately titled: I'm gonna get real here

Not that I'm not always "real" with ya'all, it's just that I recently had a conversation with my friend (in real life) Meredith about blogging and how hard it is for me to share my life here and then my other friend (in blog life) Meredith went and posted this. I mean, I tell you all the funny stuff and every once in a while I tell you the junk (yep, I have junk), but I rarely go to deep here. It's because I have a wall. I have a wall in real life and I have a wall in blog life. And this wall keeps me from allowing people to get to close. I hate this wall. I want to be more transparent to everyone not just my few close friends. I'm working on breaking my wall down, but it's thick and tall and strong.................
and what is it with TWO different Meredith's bringing up the same subject within 24 hours of each other?

So my real confession:

I fed my five year old McDonald's today.
TWICE!
The first was an arranged hookup at lunch time, we met some friends there.
The second? Well perhaps it could be called poor planning?
Whatever it is, it happened.
Ben's birthday is on Saturday and I left the gift buying to the last couple of days because that is just how I operate. I woke up this morning feeling a bit under the weather and by later this afternoon it was apparent that I was not getting better, but am likely going to end up with the crud, so it became necessary to get my tail in gear and get the birthday stuff done while Ben was at his theatre classes tonight. So off Cooper and I went to the only mall in our area that has Lego store for one particular requested gift. A Lego key chain.
(Yes, I drove 30 minutes to go to the Lego store for a $5 Lego key chain).
After that Cooper and I ventured over to Toys R Us to pick up one more gift. I figured our timing was good in that spending a few more minutes shopping would enable us to miss the rush hour traffic getting home. Ummm, yeah, WRONG. We got back on the freeway headed North and pretty soon we were sitting. At a complete standstill. Oh and did I mention my gas light was on and had been on for about 10 miles? So as we approached another freeway that would take us by a Costco on the way home, I decided to jump on it so I could stop and get gas. Well, that freeway was backed up too. So there I sat at 7:15 pm on a backed up freeway with a very hungry five year old and an empty gas tank, oh and I'm getting sicker by the minute. So off the free way we go where I find the first drive thru and gas station that I can.
And that my friends is how I came to feed my five year old McD's TWICE in the same day.

Now about the secret. On the way home I had a very serious discussion with Cooper about not telling Ben what his gifts were. I told him that they were a surprise and that Ben would get to open them on Saturday, so he only needed to keep the secret for two days. Since Cooper only knows what the two gifts we picked up tonight are, I didn't think it would be that hard for him to keep them a secret for less than 48 hours. Wrong again. As soon as we walked in the door Cooper said "Dutter, me and mom got you a Lego key chain and I got one too."
I was fuming. I had just gone over with him in the car that we were going to tell Ben nothing!
I told him how sad I was that he told Ben, but he didn't seem at all remorseful. It then dawned on me that I needed to "hit em where it hurts" and that taking away his Lego key chain (I told him he couldn't have it until after Ben's b-day) would be the best punishment for his crime. When I told him that would be his punishment he started crying, sobbing actually. Very quietly, but huge, great big alligator tears.
I think he's remorseful now.