For forks sake!

We have had an ongoing battle in our house for weeks and I, for one, am sick of it. 

The battle is one of wills between my four-year old and my eight-year old girls. They are stubborn little buggers at the best of times, but when they want something, they can really create non-stop headaches. 

We have a mish-mash of things in our house. Stuff we've accumulated over the last fourteen years of living together - first as a couple, then as a family.  Not much is coordinating or matching. We have some random stuff we can't even remember receiving. 

We have this fork. 

Oh, fork off!

It doesn't match any other piece of cutlery and I have no idea where it came from. It has a flower design down it, which isn't really 'us'. The four-year old loves it. She calls it her 'flower fork'. It probably came from one of the grandmas' collections.

Anyway, the four-year old asks for it at every mealtime. If it's dirty in the dishwasher, she doesn't mind, she can deal with it. What she can't deal with is if someone else gets it instead, like her big sister. 

The problem is that the big sister knows that her little sister loves this fork very much, and goes to great pains to make sure that she has it. Then it all kicks off. So I say....

"Don't be silly. Give the flower fork to your little sister. It's only a fork, and it makes her very happy."

The eight-year old gives the four-year old the fork, but then the four-year old does a little victory smirk.

"Muuuuuum! She's laughing at me!"

For forks sake, thinks I. I wish I'd never got the bloody fork out. I should have pretended it was in the dishwasher or something.

It goes on and on. 

So today, I was bold. I took one last pic of the offending item and put it in the bin. If it is asked for in the future, it will be perpetually 'in the dishwasher'. 

Hurrah! Victory for me.