DSP -- Kayley:Too Lil

Jessi stared out her window. Down below, her Daddy and her brothers were busy working in the yard. Daddy and Alex were painting the little building where the lawn mower lived and James was raking leaves on the other side of the yard. Sighing, she pressed her little face against the cool glass and wished they would have let her help.

It didn't seem quite fair, really. She had listened to both her brothers whine and complain all through breakfast this morning about having to help. And she had offered to do it for them. Why would anyone in their right minds turn down the chance to play wif the paint brushes? she wondered to herself. Or the leaves? It was taking all the control the little 4 year old could muster not to run outside and jump in them right now.

Of course, when she'd offered to help, all she'd gotten was her brothers laughing at her and her oldest sister, Taylor, doing that stupid snort thing in her direction. And then there was the inevitable reaction that a request like that always elicited from her parents. "Sorry, baby but you're too little."

She was so busy watching out the window and wishing for the day when she was not "too little" that she didn't hear her door open or her big sister Stephanie walk in. Stephanie was the closest of the 4 siblings to Jessi's age, and she idolized her. The other 3 were all busy doing their big kid things and being around Jessi tended to slow them down, but Stephie was only 7 and couldn't do much else anyway so she tolerated Jessi. She even managed to find the hero worship from her little sister amusing.

Stephanie walked up behind Jessi and sighed loudly. "Jess, this room isn't anywhere near cleaned up. Mom sent me up here to check on you and you haven't done anything. Have you?" She surveyed the room with her hands on her hips, using the voice that everyone called her "Little Mommy" voice.

Jessi looked around. "I putted all my dinos in the bucket." She said quietly. And then she had passed the window and stopped to brood about being the baby for a while. But she wouldn't mention that....

"Well, that's a start....but not much of one. I cleaned my half of this room;
everything left is YOURS and Mommy wants you to get it done. Now you better get busy before she comes up here to check on you." With that Stephanie left the room.

Jessi climbed down from the window seat and kicked a beanie baby under the bed. Stupid toys, she didn't know WHY the adults cared so much about her putting them up. She got them right out again, didn't she? It didn't seem fair that this was the only thing she was big enough to do. Pouting, she kicked a few more toys under the bed. Hmmmm, she thought, not a bad idea.

Quickly, she began to push toys under the bed. She'd get this done before Mommy came to check on her after all. Wouldn't Stephie be surprised?

She pushed her toys under the bed and gathered up the dirty clothes and shoes that were littering the floor. Hearing Mommy on the stairs, she hurried to the toy box and shoved them inside. She shut the lid quickly as the door opened.

"Everything getting picked up in here?" Mommy asked as she opened the door and peeked in.

"Uh huh- I's all doned!" Jessi announced cheerfully.

Mommy looked around and smiled down at Jessi. "Good job, baby. Now you can play for a while before lunch. Mommy is downstairs finishing up the stuff for the bake sale at Stephanie's school. So you play quietly, OK?"

"Can I help?" Jessi asked, excited. She loved to cook. Although the only time she ever got to was when they left her and Stephanie with the sitter. She looked up at Mommy, hoping.

And got shot down....."No, Jess. Mommy has to get this stuff finished and to the school in an hour. I need to get it done quickly and you're too little to help. But later maybe we can bake some cookies just for us. OK?"

Jessi sighed dramatically. Once again, those magical words.....you're too little. "But I could help you and you'd get done faster, Mommy!" She whined.

"Enough with the whining, Jessica Marie. I need to get this done and it will go much faster if I just do it myself. Now why don't you play with your toys since you finished your room?"

"Cuz then I'll just hafta clean it all up AGAIN. Can I go play outside?"
Maybe she could convince Daddy or one of the boys to let her help them.....

"Not right now, baby. Daddy is busy and so are your brothers. And there is no one who can watch you right now." Mommy was trying to be patient with her;
she could tell.

"I don't need a sitter to play onna swingset! I is big!" She knew that the whiny tone she was using was not going to go over very well but she was frustrated and Mommy wasn't listening.

Mommy looked down at her just as the timer in the kitchen went off. "You are not big enough to be outside alone, little girl. And you better watch that whining unless you just want to take a nap, because that is where you are heading. Now I need to get back to the kitchen. You stay up here and play quietly. Do you understand me?" She looked down at Jessi with that "Mommy-means-it" look.

"Yes, Ma'am," Jessi muttered. She watched Mommy leave the room and then flopped down on her bed. She could feel some of the toys under there pushing against the mattress of her little bed. She'd have to fix that before bedtime, she thought.

Just then, she heard the back door open, and Daddy's voice. Perking up, she scampered to the door and went downstairs. Maybe Daddy was finished and could play with her. She got to the bottom of the stairs just as Daddy and Alex got to the kitchen.

She watched as Daddy reached down to hug Mommy while she moved brownies from the pan to a container to take them to the school. Alex sniffed the air appreciatively "Yum, smells good, Mom."

"Yes, Hon, it does," Daddy agreed with a grin, kissing the top of Mommy's head and reaching for a cookie from the other sheet. Mommy swatted his hand with the spatula she was holding.

"These are not for us. I'll make some later for us but I need each and every one of these for the bake sale." She said, swatting again as Alex tried to sneak one. "Do I need to spank everyone in this room?"

Daddy laughed and gave Mommy a weird, grown up look and went to get something out of the refrigerator and Alex stood by the oven and sulked about not getting a brownie. Jessi decided that this was a good time to make herself known.

"Daddddddddddy!" She squealed, running into the kitchen.

Daddy reached down and scooped her up. "Is you all finished? Can you play wif me now? I's sooooo bored." She asked, wrapping her arms around him. He held her while he reached into the fridge for some juice for him and Alex and then sat her down.

"No, gummibear, we're not finished. Alex and I are about to run to the hardware store to buy some paint so we came in to grab a drink first. We'll do something later on when everyone is finished with what they have to do today." He answered as he sat her on her feet next to him. "And speaking of stuff we have to do today..aren't you supposed to be cleaning your room?"

"I's all doned!" Jessi announced. "You can ask Mommy-she checked it already."

Mommy nodded absently. "Yes, she's finished. I was amazed." Then suddenly she turned and looked at Daddy.

For just a second, Jessi was afraid that somehow Mommy had just realized where Jessi had stuck all those toys. She knew that that was impossible because Mommy had been down here the entire time but for some reason she just KNEW that's what Mommy was about to announce.

"I just realized that I let Taylor take my car for the afternoon. I wasn't counting on you needing to go anywhere and was just going to use yours. And I have to get these dropped off but we don't have room to bring all of this and the kids and pick up Stephanie's friend on the way over. Do you have to go right now?"

"I really need to if we want to get this done today, which I want to do."
Daddy thought for a minute. "James is 12, if we let Jessi go outside with him, he should be able to keep an eye on her for a few minutes. We can pick up Stephanie's friend, drop everything off, and get the paint in less than a half hour. And I'm sure that Jessi would be more than happy to be good for her big brother if it meant she got to play outside for a little while. She's been cooped up in this house all morning as it is."

Mommy looked unsure, but Daddy continued, "James is mature enough to handle her for such a short amount of time. And if anything happens, the neighbors are both home. But if he keeps on eye on her and she listens to him, I don't see that anything would happen. Taylor was keeping an eye on the younger ones at his age."

Daddy knelt down then, so he was kinda eye to eye with Jessi. "Do you think you can listen to your brother if we let you stay here with him for a few minutes? And remember to follow all the rules for being outside?"

Jessi nodded, anything to get out of this house. "Yes, Sir."

"And what are the outside rules?"

Jessi sighed. "No climbin inna tree, no gettin in the boys' treehouse , no climbin anything, no jumpin outta the swing unless you are right there, and no leavin the yard wifout a growdup or Taylor." If it might be fun, don't do it. THAT should be the rule, Jessi thought.

Daddy nodded. "That's right. Now let me go talk to your brother." He walked outside then. Jessi was excited. She wanted to go outside and get out of this house, but more than that, she could prove to Daddy that she wasn't too little to help him. Her little mind was rapidly developing a plan of action.

Daddy came back in, escorted by a not-too-pleased James. He obviously wasn't much happier about the 'staying home to watch his little sister' idea than he had been about the raking leaves idea. He glared down at Jessi. "I just don't see why I have to keep an eye on her, Dad. It's not like she's gonna listen to me anyway."

"Yes, she will, James. She knows the rules for outside and she is going to listen to you. Aren't you, baby?" Mommy said in her end-of-discussion voice.

Instantly, Jessi was the picture of 4-year-old sweetness. "I'll be good for you Jimmy." She said, batting her eyes up at him, angelically. Jimmy just glared down at her. HE wasn't falling for it.

"You'd better," he muttered under his breath.

"She WILL." Daddy said looking at both of them. "And you WILL be nice to her. Do we all understand each other?" The look on Daddy's face made Jessi momentarily wonder if her plan was such a good idea. But she wasn't planning to be bad. She was going to HELP Daddy and Alex. And that was being good, wasn't it? Of course, you never knew with adults.

Finally, everyone was out the door. James finished drinking his juice and pointed to the kitchen door. "I need to get this finished, so come on. But remember what Dad said-you hafta listen to me."

Jessi rolled her eyes as she followed him to the door. "Yes, I heared him."
She went out and ran to the swingset. After a few minutes, James was busy again and not really paying her much attention. Everything was going well.

She hopped off of the swing and headed over to the side of the yard near the gate. James had already piled up the leaves there, waiting to put them into bags. She grabbed her little purple kick ball and kicked it right in the leaves, spreading them everywhere. She felt a little bit bad, undoing all of his work but she had to sidetrack him so she could get to the paint.

She tried to pick some up, but only succeeded in scattering them farther around. Then James caught sight of her. "Jessi!! NO!!"

He ran over to where she was and yanked her up out of the leaves. "Look what you did!! Now I have to do this all over again!"

Jessi meanwhile scooped up a huge armload of leaves and dumped them on his feet. "I'll help you, Jimmy. I's sorry."

"NO!! Don't help, please. You are too little, Jessi. Dad told you that this morning. You CAN'T help."

Jessi pouted. "I is NOT too little, Jimmy!! I is big enough to help jus like the rest of you!"

She could tell her brother was having a hard time controlling his temper with her. "If you really want to help, then go play. OK, Jessi? And let me finish cleaning this up AGAIN!"

Jessi turned sadly away and went back to the other side of the yard. She had known that he was gonna be mad at her, but she still hated hearing that she was too little again. Turning back to check on him, she saw him busily picking up leaves, muttering under his breath to himself.

His declaration once again that she was too little to be useful pushed her to keep going, even though she did wonder briefly if Daddy was going to be mad about the leaves. But she was hoping he'd be so proud of her for finishing the painting that he'd forget about her sabotage.

She walked quickly to the small building and headed behind, after checking to be sure that James was still busy. Once behind it, she found the cans of paints and the brushes sitting in some kind of icky, stinky water. She reached down to grab one and knocked over the icky water. The can it was in tilted, and then came out in a huge wave, splashing against the still quite wet paint on the wall of the building.

She watched, in slow motion it seemed, as the dark blue color turned to a very pale blue in the area that the water hit and then started running. This was not good. This was NOT the way it was supposed to happen-not at all.

She reached down quickly and grabbed one of the brushes from the grass and hurried over to the paint, hoping desperately that the paint they had run out of was the white for the trim. She discovered that the top of the paint had been left off and just sat over the top of the can. Excited, she reached down for it.

Unfortunately for her, James had realized that she had disappeared and gone looking for her. He chose that moment to scream "NO, Jessi!!!!"

Jessi jumped and stepped back at the sound of his voice. In the process, she knocked over the white paint for the trim. As she went down, the paint covered her. Oh no....this was NOT good, not at all. As she opened her eyes, it got even worse.

Standing there, next to James was Alex who was gaping at her. And next to Alex was Daddy. And Daddy sure didn't look happy.

Daddy was looking from her to James, and he didn't look happy with either one of them. "Who would like to tell me what is going on?" He asked, looking right at James.

Poor James, he hadn't done anything wrong. "I uh well.....I don't know what happened here, Dad. She messed up the leaves and I had to go fix them and the next thing I knew I heard a crash and here she was."

Daddy seemed to be considering this information. He looked over at Jessi. She nodded her head.

"He didn't do nuffin, Daddy. I messeded up his leaves and then I comed over here when him was busy wif em. I was jus tryin to help....." Her voice trailed off and she started crying, as she realized what she had done. Not only had she not managed to help Daddy, she had actually managed to mess up what they had spent the morning doing. She had messed up James's leaves, and she had gotten him in trouble. This was not good.

"All right, then. Alex, will you please start cleaning up around here? I'm not sure how much we can salvage but we need to at least try. James, you go finish the leaves. It sounds as if you were doing what you were told to and Jessi tricked you. And Miss Jessica, let's get you cleaned up and then you and I are going to be having a long talk, little girl." Daddy said, pulling her up gently by her arm.

He led her over to the side of the house where the hose was and proceeded to strip her down to her undies, right there in the backyard. He then took the hose and sprayed her off as best he could. Mommy would not like it if he brought her in the house all full of paint.

Jessi decided that cooperation was in her own best interest and didn't fight him, even though she was not pleased with being in her panties in the backyard and both her brothers being right there. It didn't make her any happier knowing what kind of talk Daddy meant. And knowing that her brother's knew, too only made it worse. Well, at least her sisters weren't there to know about it too, she thought. She could just imagine what Taylor would have to say. Stephanie would feel bad for her, but right now, she felt bad enough for herself.

Daddy finished washing her off and called to James to get him a towel for her. He ran into the house and came back with one, and Mommy trailing right behind.

"Why do you need a towel, Hon?" She asked before she caught sight of her daughter. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows went up as she realized what must have happened.

"Our youngest child decided to trick her brother and sneak off to paint. It didn't go very well." Daddy answered. Jessi just stared down at her little feet. Somehow, words just didn't seem to be a good idea at the moment.

Mommy just shook her head. "You going to talk to her about this?"

Daddy wrapped her up in the towel and picked her up. "We are on our way right now." Jessi was amazed at how final those words sounded. There was no escaping this one; there was no way to explain it. Looking up at Daddy she realized that good intentions were NOT going to get her out of this one.

Once they reached her room, Daddy sat her on the floor and went to her dresser. He pulled out a change of clothes and sat down on the bed. One of the toys she had stuffed under it earlier must have poked him, because he jumped up. "What in the..."

Daddy knelt down and looked under the bed then while Jessi held her breath. Maybe he wouldn't notice???? No such luck; Daddy sighed and stood back up. He sat down on Stephanie's bed and motioned for Jessi to come to him. She walked slowly to him, knowing what was to come. But as much as she dreaded it, she also knew that once it was over that awful disappointed look would come off of his face. She hated seeing that look. She hated knowing that she put it there. She hung her head.

He didn't say anything while he changed her into her shirt and pulled off the panties that were now wet from the hose. She stepped out of them and waited, hoping he'd hold out the new pair. No such luck again.

"Look at me, Jessica Marie." Daddy ordered. She looked up at him sadly. "Is there anything you can say to me right now that will make this any better? That might explain why you decided to disobey me by tricking your brother and getting into something you were told not to? And I believe that you do know that cleaning your room means putting thing where they go, NOT under the bed. Don't you?"

"Yes, sir," she answered softly, "I knows. And I was trying to help. I was gonna show you that I'm NOT too lil to help you. Everyone thinks I'm always too lil to do anything! And I's not."

"Jessica, I know it's hard being the baby but you have to understand that sometimes you ARE too little. You can't do all the things that the older kids can do. You are too young - and when Mommy or Daddy says you are too little, you have to listen to us. We don't tell you that to be mean. We tell you that to keep you safe or to keep you from trying to do something that you really just can't. One day you will be big enough to do all those things. You just aren't right now. Do you understand?"

Jessi nodded.

"And do you understand why you are about to get spanked?" Another nod. "Why?"

"Cuz I din't listen to you bout listenin to Jimmy and I almos gotted him in trouble too. And I gotted in the paint and maked a big mess. And I didn't clean my room up right?" She answered in a small voice. That sounded like so much.....

Daddy pulled her gently over his big lap. "Quite a list for one afternoon, young lady." With that remark, he started spanking her. {Smack!!} {Smack!} His big hand came down over and over on her little rear end. She cried from the first swat and was sobbing by the time the lecture started.

"You {SMACK!!} will not {Smack!!} lie and trick {Smack!!} your brother. You will not {Smack!!} disobey {Smack!!} Mommy or Daddy {Smack!!} when we

{Smack!!} tell you {Smack!!} something. You will {Smack!!} stay out of
{Smack!!} things that you are {Smack!!} told to leave alone."

Jessi sobbed and kicked but didn't attempt to fight. She knew better. Instead she babbled and promised to be good forever.

"You will not {Smack!!} get your {Smack!!} brother in trouble {Smack!!} and you will clean {Smack!!} this {Smack!!} room!!" {Smack!!} {Smack!!} {Smack!!}

The last three smacks landed directly on her sitspot and she screeched. She was never ever going to be bad again, she thought. She would just stay in her clean room til she was bigger and could stay out of things. She was never never gonna be in trouble no more.

Daddy picked her up and hugged her tightly to him then. She sobbed into his shoulder while he rubbed her back and consoled her. No matter how much trouble she had been in, once it was over, she always knew that Daddy still loved her. Sniffling loudly, she turned to look at him. "I's s-sorry."

"I know you are, gummibear. And I know that you'll try really hard to listen and follow the rules from now on, won't you?"

Jessi nodded and wiped at her eyes with her hand.

"Good girl." Daddy said hugging her to him again. "Now, you need to go apologize to James for almost getting him in trouble. And then you are going to come back up here and clean this room correctly. OK?"

She nodded again as he sat her down in front of him and finished dressing her. Then she took Daddy's hand to go face her brother who was surprisingly civil about the whole thing.

Then she returned to her room to do the one stupid thing she wasn't too little to do.