Mommy-hood Confessions

Areas of mommy-hood  I am NOT excelling at. 

1.  The boys had a pack of crackers and a little Debbie for breakfast this morning and a swig or two of lemonade.  I'm not feeding them like champions.  My apologies to Tony the Tiger.  The two little boys had physicals super early and I hit the snooze button 15 times to many.  So, I was faced with the choice of a healthy well rounded breakfast and miss the Dr appt or grab something and go.  I picked grab and go baby!  Wouldn't it be great if cracker/cake breakfasts only happened on crazy mornings?  Unfortunately it isn't.

Or not :)

2.  We have a neighborhood swimming pool in our subdivision and swim there frequently.  I may or may not let the swimming pool serve as a bath every now and then.  Here's the way I look at it.  The pool is just an incredibly over sized outdoor bathtub that has chlorine in it.  Isn't chlorine like bleach?  Why can't I substitute a bleach swim for a bath? Common sense would tell you that bleach disinfects better than bubble baths. I think it's perfectly acceptable.  The boys haven't started stinking, so I'd say it's working. 

3.  I will do just about anything to be able to sleep late.  If that means letting the kids pile in the bed with me with cartoons on then that's what I do.  I think it's bonding time.  They get to watch cartoons and I get to sleep.  Winning!  I tried letting the boys play until I was ready to roll out of bed...but letting 3 little boys with behavior problems have free reign of the house while I saw logs didn't turn out so well.  Walls were painted, hair was cut, kitchen cabinets were climbed, and Ethan got stuck INSIDE the top loading washing machine.  Just in case you're about to call child protective services on me the lid wasn't down and he was not harmed.  The cartoon method is the safer option.

4.  I am so sarcastic.  My kids never get a "straight" answer from me.  I'm sure it can be perceived as rude.  Opps.  I don't think this would be such a problem if my children didn't ask such crazy questions....or the EXACT SAME QUESTION over and over and over and over.  If I am in the kitchen prepping food chances are I'm cooking dinner.  Don't be surprised when I respond to your "you cookin dinner???" question with "Nope, I'm painting an elephants toenails".   Asking silly, and repetitive questions is what kids do...and giving smart butt answers is what I do.  My grandmother taught me to operate this way!  She always said "ask a stupid question and you get a stupid answer".  So, that is one character flaw I'm blaming on her.  Hehehehehehe.

5.  I don't save every single piece of artwork I'm given.  When Ethan started Kindergarten I had every intentions of scrap booking all of his school papers and projects he brought home.  That way when he is 45 he can look back and reminisce about his school memories, after his stroll down memory lane he'll think of me lovingly and be so grateful I did such a wonderful thing for him.  Ahhhhh nice to think about right?  That idea went down in flames when we were 5 days into kindergarten and he had already brought home enough papers to fill 7 garbage bags.  This caused my clutter-phobia to kick into high gear and I was afraid if I kept all his memorabilia I'd require an IV drip of
 anti-psychotics. These days I just pick out a few exceptional or funny papers and put the rest in file 13. 

6.  Most of the time I deserve time outs way before my children do.  When this happens you can find me in the bathroom, sitting on the floor, with all the lights off, and the door locked.  If it's an incredibly overwhelming day I might go as far as to suck my thumb and rock back and forth...OK so the thumb sucking was a joke it hasn't gotten that bad...at least not yet ;)  After I gather my thoughts and give myself a pep talk I eventually emerge and return to motherhood with a better attitude.  I'm hoping this method leaves my children less traumatized then having a total temper tantrum meltdown in front of them. 

I promised myself that when I had kids I would never, ever, ever, in a million, trillion years say "this hurts me more then it hurts you!" before or after a consequence.  All I have to say about that is eating crow is hard to chew and hurts going down.  On the list of things I never thought I'd say I have now said them all.  Here's some of the others...
-Don't make me turn this van around!!! 
-Because I said so.
-Do you want me to give you something to cry about?
-Eat your carrots they're good for your eyes.
-I have eyes in the back of my head!
-I hope your children act just like you, and I hope I'm there to see it.
-Clean your plate and stop wasting food!!  There are starving children in Africa for goodness sakes.
-Go to your room and think about your actions!


Ahhh it feels good to get all that off my chest!