Bad Timing

Cinque

* Not completely edited.

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“You have to go to bed,” I sighed, rubbing my face in agitation.

Maia looked up at me in defiance, arms crossed over her chest. She didn’t look so wicked with her pink Paul Frank Pajamas and her brown curls combed neatly back.

“Nine thirty is too early to go to sleep,” Maia argued. “I’m seven already! I could go to sleep whenever I want!”

“Your parents want you to sleep early because you have to get up early for your dental appointment,” I said forcefully. “You need to go to sleep.”

“I could wake up by that time! I’m already old enough to sleep whenever I want.”

I have no clue why Maia thinks she’s old enough to handle everything a teenager could handle. For example, she insisted she cooked her own eggs this morning but ended up burning them and splattering yolk all over the stove. No matter how many times she was proven wrong, she still claimed that she was old enough to do this and that.

“You’re going to be cranky tomorrow,” I warned.

“I won’t!”

“Maia, I don’t want to hear it. This is not up for negotiation.”

“What’s a negotiation?”

“When two or more people discuss business until they both come to an agreement.”

“I think we should negotiation. I’ll sleep at ten thirty.”

“No! I just said this is not for negotiation,” I said with finality. I pointed my finger towards her butterfly covered bedroom door. “Go to sleep.”

“Please Emma,” Maia pleaded. My eyebrows hitched upwards when she went down to her knees and clasped her hands together. “Please, please, please with a cherry, raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, and a dingle berry on top!”

“Maia, do you know what a dingle berry is?”

“My best friend told me that it’s a fruit. Duh, that’s why it has berry at the end,” Maia said, smirking like she knew everything.

“A dingle berry is leftover pooh that is stuck to the butt of either a human or an animal,” I deadpanned.

Maia frowned, her eyebrows knitting together the same way Noah’s own does. “Are you serious? No wonder why nobody gives in when I say dingle berry. That’s so gross.”

“Yeah and I’m going to be one of those people who are not giving in,” I announced. I pointed to her door once more. “You need to go to bed or do you want to go on time-out?”

Maia snorted. “Time-out? Are you going to make me face the wall? You’re funny, Emmy. You know I won’t listen if you put me in time-out.”

“Do you have no sort of discipline?” I hissed, feeling my patience thin because the sleep deprivation I’ve been going through.

“My parents never put me in time-out. They just take away everything I love,” Maia responded with pride. However, she only realized her slip up a few seconds later.

“Fine. I’ll take away your makeup, your One Direction CD, your stuffed animals, your DS, your iPad, your – “

“No! Geez, why are you so angry today?” Maia snapped, looking as if she were about to cry. “All I wanted was to watch television for thirty minutes and you snapped at me. This whole day, you were nothing but a big meanie. Like this morning. I asked you if you could teach me to cook, but you just got mad at me because I burned the food. Sorry if I wasn’t a professional chef the first time I tried cooking!”