Mayhem and Motherhood

Kids....Sometimes Ya Just Wanna'...

Have you ever been in a situation where your child hurts themselves by doing something that is sooo stupid you don't know whether to be glad they're not hurt badly or yell at them for doing something so idiotic.  When my 19 year old daughter Grace was 7, she walked into the house and informed me that she was going to get some pickles and go outside.  Now this is my "advanced" child.  Meaning that she was in advanced classes all through school, never had problems with homework, etc.  So I was rather confident and happy that she was able to do this on her own since I was in the middle of lassoing her 2 year old brother who was naked and jumping from the top of the stair into a major pile of pillows he had collected at the bottom.

Well, it wasn't five minutes later that I received a phone call from a mother down the street.  "Lisa, Grace has had an accident and has glass stuck in both hands and is bleeding."  Now, the tone of this statement was odd and almost accusatory as if to say what kind of mother are you.  With a half dressed 2 year old on my hip, I ran out of the house to look for Grace who wasn't anywhere to be found.  So I headed down the road towards the scene of the accident and low and behold, there was Grace lying in the street, bicycle beside her with the remnants of the pickle jar all around her and several mothers hovering. 

When I arrived at the scene, I got these looks.  You know those looks.  The ones from the perfect mothers who don't allow their kids to ride bikes holding pickle jars.  Now, on my way to the scene, I was devising my plan of punishment for:

1.  Leaving the house without telling me, and

2.  Doing something as stupid as carrying a glass jar while riding her bike.

Well needless to say, once I saw all of those evil looks from all of those perfect moms, I changed my plan of action.  I quickly moved into "concerned caring mom mode".  I tossed the 2 year old in the closest yard in hopes that he would find some dirt to dig in or mulch to eat.  I knelt down to my injured daughter and while giving her a look that could curdle buttermilk, and in a voice soft yet loud enough for the perfect mothers to hear I asked if she was OK and made the caring statement that maybe we should head to the emergency room knowing all along that there were no plans to go to the ER. 

So Grace got up and I dusted her off.  We left her bike at the neighbor's house to be retrieved later, I scooped up my 2 year old who, by that time, wouldn't need dinner because he had filled up on mulch, and we limped back towards the house, only to hear one of the perfect moms yell to us, "I'll call later to see what the ER doctor said." 

Damn !

This is a true story.  The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Lisa

Ask a silly question...

So, my angelic little five year old daughter says to me, "Mom, how come we don't have dinner like Hannah and Cosette?"

Hannah and Cosette live next door and their Dad is Korean-American. I thought Kaileigh had eaten over there with chop sticks or something like that. But I asked her, "What do you mean, honey?" just to make sure.

She answered in her sweet little voice, "They sit at the table and have napkins and two spoons."

I told her to go sit down in front of the tv and eat her bagel pizza.

Just one of the many ways in which I am an inadequate mother today.

Chris

My son wrote me a letter...

My son wrote me a letter for Mother's Day.

My mom is the best. My mom takes me to places. We are going to New Yorksomeday. We will go to the Empire State Building. We will go to the stachue of liberty. I can’t wait to go there.

My mom is the best. My mom helps me with my Homework. It is fun having a mom.

My mom is the best. She buys me things. My mom bought me a batman costume. She bought me a spiderMan web shooter for my birthday.

You are the best mom ever. I Love you very much. Thank you for loving me.

Happy Mother’s Day

New York is a thing in my family. I got my love of it from my mother and, obviously, somewhere along the line I passed it on to my son. After I read the letter, my husband and I made Jacob an offer. He could either have a birthday party with his friends or our family could go and spend the night in New York.

It took him about thirty seconds to decide. He checked with me to make sure that his birthday would happen again next year and that he would be able to have a party and then he said New York.

So, we are off to New York to visit the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the Toys R US in Times Square, and Central Park. We are going to ride the subway, taxi cabs, the ferry and the Ferris Wheel in the Toys R Us. We are going to stay in a hotel and swim in the pool and but junk on the street. We are going to stop at the Zoo on our way home and hopefully we will have a wonderful time.

Remember My Motto...

Remember my motto, Chris.

"If your kids don't tell you they hate you at least three times a week, you are not doing your job."

Learn it...... Know it....... Live it.

Lisa

Can I Quit?

Can I quit? No, seriously. I mean it. Can I quit?

I remember when I took this job. It sounded way better than I actually is—at least better than it is today.

If I remember correctly, the ad went something like this:

Become part of the most powerful movement on earth. Create a life! Pass on your knowledge and experience! Mold the future! Watch what you’ve made grow from tiny seed to full fledged person who is all the best of you and your mate! Join the Mommy team for a heart warming, life affirming and rewarding experience.

Un-huh.  Tell me this, where is the truth in advertising? Who do I see about this? Is there anyone I can sue?

No where in the advertisement did it say anything about the swollen ankles, heartburn or back pain of pregnancy. No where did they mention or even allude to the hideous 42 hours of labor. No one mentioned the whole “giving-birth-without-any-pain-medication- because-they-couldn’t-get-the-epidural-to-work” thing. No where did they mention that at the ripe old age of thirty-three my bladder would be shot.

All of this I accepted and endured because the payoff was supposed to be great.

No where in the advertisement did they mention colic. Never heard a word about the stomach bug—the one that lasts fourteen days that requires you to give them fluids every ten minutes whether or not you yourself need to vomit.

No one told me any of this.

No one told me that when you look in your child’s diaper and are convinced that they are suffering from internal bleeding that you should check to see if they have had red Gatorade—BEFORE you call the ambulance.

No one told me that Poison Control takes your name and number EVERY time you call.

No one told me that with this job came the unpleasant task of standing in line at the drugstore, waving a tube of K-Y jelly around in your hand asking—at the top of your lungs—if they could open another register because you were really in a rush to get home and use this.

But I lived through all of that and more to arrive at today.

Today, I told my five year old daughter that it was time to come inside to which she promptly told me, “No.” I know children test their parents. I get this. So, I gave her a second chance.

"Come inside."

This time it was a scream.

"NO!"

Oh, wait. Did I mention that half the neighborhood was gathered on my lawn?

"Last chance, Kaileigh."

She didn’t move.

(Just for the record, my husband has been away on business for ten days. I have spent every waking and non-waking minute of those ten days with my children. Today was day eleven.)

Calmly, ever so calmly, I took a deep breath, pronounced her punished and told her to take her butt in the house.

"I HATE YOU!"

Shamed in front of my perfect neighbors with their perfect children, I took my daughter into the house, and sent her to her room. She refused to go. I picked her up and marched her up the stairs and put her in her room—all the while muttering in her ear that if she didn’t get her act together I was going to send her to military school.

As I was closing the door--closing, not locking--my-Oscar-winning-actress-of-a-daughter yelled out the open window down to the perfect neighbors with their perfect children standing on my not so perfect lawn—“Please Mommy, please! Don’t lock me in my room! Don’t lock me in here."

I’m expecting DCYF to show up here any minute, and when they do, what I want to know is, do I hand them my resignation or do I send it somewhere else?

One Down, Three to Go...

For those of you who have kids around the age of 19 to 21, you know what time of year it is.  Yes, it’s that time when all of our little darlings leave the safety and coziness of their cramped smelly dorm rooms and return to the nest for a summer filled with relaxation and trips to the beach with friends that they haven’t seen since Christmas break.  At least, that’s what they think. 

My daughter came home from school on Friday.  In less than 24 hours, she had given me her itinerary for the summer and I just wasn’t sure where the terms “working” and “making money” fit in.  There were trips to the beach, vacation with her father and weekends at the river (or as we say here in Virginia, the rivah). 

Hello, do I look like I have ATM tattooed on my forehead?  In an attempt to prevent a full scale battle within the first day of her return, I took a deep breath and counted to ten.  I then tried to explain to her the importance of making and saving money over the summer so she would be able to help furnish her off campus apartment (oh, did I tell you she’s getting an apartment) and have a cushion of cash in the event of an emergency.  At this point, I was pretty proud of myself.  I hadn’t flown off the handle like I usually do.  Wow, maybe I was finally getting this positive parenting thing down.  Unfortunately, she’s much better at getting her way than I am at enforcement.  She proceeded to whine to me how she had kept her grades up during this freshman year while working to organize and set up a new sorority; and went on to say how she didn’t get kicked out of school for alcohol and academic infractions (like that’s a real accomplishment) like some of her fellow students.  Well strike up the band ‘cause we’re having a parade.  NOT! 

At this point, the adrenalin started to flow and those prehistoric survival skills kicked in.   I squinched up my face and proudly displayed those three wrinkles on my forehead that I have worked so hard over the years for; and in a voice that could only be described as something from an exorcism, I gave my daughter my summer itinerary for her which included actual work and allowed as to how she would be sleeping on the floor of her new apartment if she didn’t take my itinerary to heart.  Gosh, think she got the message?

Well, it’s Tuesday and I’m happy to say that Megan has seen the light and has managed to schedule her summer events around a nice full working schedule.  So there's a lesson to be learned here that I will keep in mind for next summer.  Why bother with positive parenting when threats work just as well.

Lisa