parenting

Do Not Call me Super Mom

| LibertyDee

Re-posted with some edits from July 2013 _ For the record?  Nothing has changed at all.

Please Do Not Call Me Supermom.  Maybe there’s something wrong with the way I’m wired. Maybe I have a glitch in my “mom” gene. Maybe just maybe I’m right and no mom is a Supermom (ooh that just got controversial)

I can only assume that the term Supermom is in reference to Superman, the man of steel, the beloved superhero of superheroes.  He could leap over tall buildings, he was faster than a speeding bullet and could take a bullet without flinching.  I am nothing like that.

Forget leaping over tall buildings, I can barely jump with two feet onto my stepper at the gym.

Faster than a speeding bullet? uh?  no. If you ask my husband and kids they will tell you I am the opposite of fast. (don’t mistake being in a hurry for the same as being fast because they are two very different things. Perhaps if I was faster I wouldn’t have to be in such a hurry)

That whole thing about taking a bullet? Let me take that metaphorically because after all, all of us would at least flinch if we were hit by one of those. So let’s assume that in real life the bullet is a metaphor for those things in life that hit us hard.  I flinch. I more than flinch. I fall. I cry. I’m heartbroken. And I’m not even talking about really tough things like loss. I’m talking things like Toy Story 3 when Andy gives up Woody.  I can’t even read I Love You Forever by Robert Munsch without breaking down.

Baby on Couch

 

I am far from perfect.

I hate:

  • housework, laundry and cooking.
  • being the driver.
  • reading teacher comments on report cards.
  • enforcing the rules.
  • sharing my food.

I strongly rely on my husband to be an active father. I rely on my family and friends for support. Just because I can and will do anything for my kids, and have a knack for “sucking it up” does not make me Supermom.

I will happily:

  • take a day off of work to see their play that really isn’t even good.
  • take all three to their doctor’s appointments at the same time.
  • drive for hours in traffic just to keep a promise.
  • watch wrestling.
  • listen to “Despacito” over and over again.
  • do all their laundry (eventually) and cook all their meals.

I have even been known to build a medieval castle out of sugar cubes.

I’ll get a second job to give them everything I can, but don’t call me Supermom.

That title is just too much pressure and makes me feel like a fraud.

What if one day I really just don’t want to suck it up?  What does that make me then? And what message is my daughter getting? That as a mom you need to be perfect or at least have people believe you are?  That is not the message I want to raise her with at all. So, no matter what I have done or what I will do in the future for the sake of my family and most importantly my children. Do not. Call. Me. Supermom.

Can you relate to this at all?  Let me know in the comments.

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Please Excuse the Mess

| LibertyDee

I would like to take you back to 2 B.C (Before Children). I was 25 years old, been married 3 years, had just decided it was time to have kids,  and  had everything about what I would be like as a parent figured out.  Here are 3 things the 25 year old LibertyDee knew she would be like as a mom.

  1. I would never lose my patience – why would I? I was going to raise my kids with all the love in the world and give them all they needed and wanted. I was going to speak to them reasonably and explain things to them and they therefore be very well behaved.

 

  1. I would never give them junk food – why would I? These small beings deserved nothing but the best and as long as I only served healthy foods from day one they would never want anything but. I would come home every night and assure there was a freshly cooked meal on my families table.

 

  1. I would never choose tidying and cleaning over spending time with my kids – why would I? after all my kids are perfectly behaved so they will pick up after themselves and understand the importance of pitching in as a family and help with the chores and how much time really do they really want to play with me if they have their toys and books and siblings

 

Let’s fast forward now to the present 14 A.C (After Children). I am 40 years old, been married 18 years and know that I knew nothing about being a parent.  Here is how the 3 things that 25 year old LibertyDee knew she would be like as a mom have turned out.

 

  1. I would never lose my patience – How could I not? As it turns out no matter how much you love your children or how much you give them or how reasonably you think your speaking to them. They are by nature unreasonable, demanding, stubborn little beings that will try your patience on a regular basis just because they can. IT turns out that they are their own person, they think differently than you do and what you think will make them happy is the absolutely craziest thing you could have thought of. It starts off small like throwing toys all over their room and then refusing to pick them up. It then moves into the ability to lose one shoe right before you need to leave the house. _ yes one shoe. One! And if you think I’m making this up you likely don’t have kids. And as I’m learning now that I have a teenager in the house it escalates to dealing with mood swings when you suggest they get help on a subject afterschool and their eye roll up, around and back up again followed by stomping out of the room and locking themselves in their bedroom for hours at a time.

 

  1. I would never give them junk food –How could I not? Ok. So maybe there is no real “excuse” for offering your kids junk and yes home cooked meals are the way to go but… yes but. It turn out that even though I’m a mom I also want a life of my own, I want to do things that I enjoy, things that I love, things that have nothing to do with my family and kids (unthinkable right) Well, the consequence of doing things for myself is that they cut into “mom” time and many a dinner has been sacrificed to appease the “mom needs her own life” gods. This means Pizza, takeout Chinese, and dare I say it……McDonalds.

 

  1. I would never choose tidying and cleaning over spending time with my kids – How could I not? Ok. So this one I really truly thought would be easy because I don’t even like cleaning so given the option of playing with the kids or cleaning, it would be a no brainer right? Think again. There are two big reasons why this didn’t quite work out:

 

  • I Live Here – The mess to tidying up ratio is HUGE. We are now a family of 5 and if I was not constantly tidying and/or cleaning something up the house would quickly look like something out of Hoarders. This too has changes over the years, it starts with toys and the endless crumbs from endless snacks and evolves to cups and plates by the TV & their bed, shoes in strange places ( one on its side by the front door and the other at the bottom of the basement stairs) and piles and piles of laundry – And to be fair this includes that my kids are actually pretty good at doing their chores (after some reminding)

 

  • They want to play ALL the time and it’s NOT fun (all the time) – So remember how I said “how much time really do they really want to play with me if they have their toys and books and siblings” – the answer is ALL THE TIME. I frequently haven’t even taken my coat off before my daughter is already upset that I haven’t started playing with her. And yes there have been MANY beautiful moments and memories made while we play Shopkins, make forts, tag, and even video games together but there is one thing that is rarely fun (I’m using rarely instead of never simply because I can’t bring myself to believe that it’s never been fun but honestly I can’t remember the last time) BOARD GAMES. Aughghghghghgh. From Dora Candy Land to Connect Four to The Game of Life it always turns into an argument, whining and even crying and I get stuck in the middle , playing referee and being accused of picking ”favourites”  It   I rather be cleaning ( yuppp that’s how bad it is) but usually I suck it up because ”this time will be different” – ( Enter crazy laugh here)

 

I now know that anything I think I know is only temporary. Everything I have learned as a parent is only applicable to my kids and even then only applicable to the child that I learned it about because all though they were born to the same parents and live in the same house an went to the same schools they are nothing like one another. More importantly I have learned that 25 year old LibertyDee was a sweet, well intentioned young woman who knew nothing about being a parent and owes an apology to all those young moms she had the audacity to give “advice” to.

Mission: Birthday Party – Part 1

| LibertyDee

I don’t like to think of myself as a procrastinator, instead I see myself as working well under pressure, thriving in a fast paced environment and a just in time opportunist. This time however, Baby Girl’s birthday has snuck up on me and because she’s turning 5, and is old enough to have opinions about her birthday party, she has been talking about it for months. And for months I have been agreeing to her suggestions.

“Sure we can invite all of your friends”

“Sure we can have rock star birthday theme”

“Sure we can have balloons”

“Sure we can have a Frozen cake”

“Sure we can have a bouncy castle”

“Sure…sure…sure”

It felt like there was so much time to plan, so much time to get the whole thing together, so much time to make this the perfect 5th birthday…until this week I realized that the birthday party was 14 days away and I hadn’t planned a thing. The only thing I had done in advance was that I had asked Baby Girl’s teacher for a list of all the kids in the class so that I would  know who the invitations would be made out to, but I hadn’t really looked at the list in too much detail. When I realized I now had to move into planning mode, the first thing I did was look at the list to see how many invitations were needed.

I needed to get those invitations out ASAP and then we could figure out the rest. However , when I looked at the list I noticed that there were 27 kids in her class. There is no way I could invite 27 kids. What if they all came? Where would I put them? How would I entertain 27 kids?  I had originally contemplated having the party anywhere but our place but now I was stuck because there was no time to do all the necessary due diligence to book a place . The invitations, including a location, had to go out NOW.

Mr. LibertyDee came to rescue and suggested we have a princess themed birthday, only invite the girls in the class, and ask them all to come dressed up or they could borrow one from Bay Girl’s extensive gown collection (she once left 3 gowns at a friend’s cottage and didn’t even notice) .

I whipped up some invitations using PowerPoint with some princess pictures; got them printed and had them in Baby Girls backpack with 12 days to go ‘till the party.  Now, did I mention that there are 15 girls in Baby Girls class and that once you add in close friends and family I will be expecting 20 4-8 year old girls at my house? And that,  as of this very moment I have no clue how I’m going to keep them entertained?

Stay tuned as Mission: Birthday Party continues.

Step Moms Aren’t Spies

| LibertyDee

I have been amazed by how much Baby Girl has learned in her year at Junior Kindergarten.  We find ourselves at the dinner table on a nightly basis having conversations about science, religion and current events with the boys but Baby Girl always has something to contribute.  I love her view on all things. She reminds me of how complicated I have made the world for myself and how simple it really is.

For example, she explained the skeletal system to me.

“Mom, Mom, MOM!”

“Yes baby girl? “

“The Skeletal system is all our bones put together.”

 “Yes it is sweetie.”

“Do you know why it’s important?”

“Tell me. Why is the skeletal system important?”

“Because if we didn’t have it, we would be all squishy on the floor.”

That’s it. That’s really all there is to it. Now, if you are in the medical profession you may need to know a little more than that, but for me, your run of the mill HR professional, that’s about all I need to know.

She also explained the Circulatory system.

“Mom, Mom, MOM!”

“Yes baby girl.”

 “Do you know what the circulatory system is?”

“I think so.”

“It’s all the veins in your body that carry blood everywhere and your heart pumps it boom..boom..boom.”

(I wish Baby Girl had been my grade 5 science teacher.)

The other night she also gave us a big talking to about how Pontius Pilot killed Jesus because he didn’t want Jesus to be King and she thinks Jesus shouldn’t have trusted him.

I love the fact that she is learning so much in school and that she is eager to share that information. Where I do have a concern is that if she’s absorbing and learning this much at school, she is obviously absorbing and learning at the same rate from the environment round her.

So far, the facts she has brought home from school are pretty accurate, she seems to have a good memory for the words the teachers use as I can hear their language when she tell us about the Dinosaurs,  the Solar system and a myriad of other topics.

Yesterday as Baby Girl and I were waiting for The Life to get a haircut she suddenly asks.

“Mom when you die will I get a new mom?”

“Sweetie, when I die I’ll still be your mom but if Daddy gets married again that lady would be your step mom.”

She looks pensive for a bit.

“So if you die, I would have a spy mom?”

“No honey not a spy mom, it’s called a step mom?”

“But in the movie Spy Kids, their step mom is a spy. Right?”

“Yes, but not all step moms are spies”

“Oh” she said looking very disappointed.

I have to remember that baby girl is only 5 and that her brain is absorbing all kinds of information around her both formally (in school and in books) and mostly informally (what she watches on TV, hears on the radio and listens to other say) She is not yet aware of the difference between the resources that are teaching her facts and those that are purely for entertainment purposes.  Based on her thinking, the idea that step moms are spies is equal to the fact that the earth revolves around the sun.

Although I have to be more aware of what she’s “learning” and assuring that I help her to sort out fact from fiction I can’t help but think, wouldn’t life in general be more fun and so much less complicated if we could keep the simplicity of a 5 year old? And wouldn’t  the world just be a much more interesting place if all step moms were indeed spies?  

That Cookie is How Much?!?

| LibertyDee

There are an endless and shall I say needless number of chocolatiers and gourmet bakeries in the Toronto underground. I usually just walk past and marvel that there are line ups to buy $6 chocolate bars, $5 cupcakes and $12 candy apples. That was NOT a typo; yes there are $12 candy apples.

Today, I don’t know what came over me but I entered a new store that had quite a large selection of pastries, cookies and chocolates.  I slowly perused the glass display cases that looked more like they should be encasing diamonds than cake. The slices of cake, tarts and pastries were beautifully crafted and looked very tasty. For an instant I thought about buying one and then noticed they ranged from $7 to $12 (for one). Nope. No way. I should not be eating the stuff anyway and no way was I going to spend that much when there wouldn’t even be enough to share with the kids.

I kept walking and came to a display of “cookies” turns out they were macaroons but "cookies"to the untrained eye they just looked like cookies. This display was absolutely beautiful too with cookies in all colours of the rainbow with all sorts of exotic flavours and names.  I decided I would bring some home for the family. The kids are not vey adventurous with exotic flavours so I ordered 1 vanilla, 3 chocolate and 2 cappuccino(for Mr. LibertyDee and I) I had originally ordered 5 but the girl talked me into the additional one as to avoid the tax. So all in all I ordered 6 “cookies”

“That will be $13.60” Again, that is NOT a typo. Yes. $13.60 for 6 cookies. I know that I probably could have refused to buy them or perhaps I should have checked the price before committing to make the investment but I felt I was at the point of no return and politely paid for my “cookies”.

So here I now sit writing this on the train on my way home and my mind keep going back to the cookies I have been carrying oh so carefully so they don’t get squished and my mind keeps thinking “those better be some F&*%$g darn good cookies.”

The question is, do I want to share these cookies with the kids?  Do I take the risk? Not because I want to keep them for myself or that I don’t think the kids deserve to indulge in some expensive cookies but what I’m afraid of is that they are going to put their sticky hands all over the cookie, take one bite and then yell ’’ugh gross” while they slobber the piece in their mouth all over the piece left in their hand rendering the cookie inedible by anyone.

Alas I’m about to find out.

Lock Down

Plug with lock attached
| LibertyDee

Lock Down

“That’s it. You’re both grounded!”

“What? What do you mean we’re grounded?

“No electronics. Nothing!”

“What??? For how long?”

“For the rest of your lives.”

This is what I was hearing. I was in the kitchen (as usual) and something bad happened with the boys. I had heard Mr.liberyDee give the warning, then some more bickering and then  the punishment was handed down.

“No electronics for 60 days”

“What????” My head spun. “Is he crazy? Has he totally lost his mind? Why is he punishing me??? 60 days without electronics?” That meant no TV, no phone, no Xbox. Nothing. Those are the things I have come to depend on to keep them busy when we’re home. If there’s no electronics that would mean I would become the entertainment centre. It wouldn’t be Mr. LibertyDee. No. Nobody wants to bother dad.

It was too late though the punishment had been handed down and now it had to be enforced.

Mr. LibertyDee removed all games from The Plan’s phone, changed the main Internet access password, put locks on the charger plugs for the laptop and hid the Xbox controllers.  I tried to reason with Mr. LibertyDee, tried to tell him he was being too harsh, I even pleaded a little bit for leniency on the boy’s behalf but truly I was pleading for myself.  I was certain the next few weeks were going to be hell.

Here’s how the first few weeks played out:

No Electronics Week 1 – Sad…Just Sad

The first week was right down sad. Not sad that the boys were sad or that I was sad for them. It was sad to see that they really did not know what to do with themselves. They sat around before and after dinner with nothing to do. Mr. LibertyDee and I did have a good laugh about it,  as the boys sat around with their long faces feeling like a world without electronics would never be fun again but we also talked about how we really had allowed the electronics to take over their lives so much, that they truly, honestly did not know what to do without them.

No Electronics Week 2 – No Choice

They stated reading. The Plan picked up Harry Potter and The Life turned to sports magazines and the World Records books. But still they were miserable and whenever I made a comment about what they were reading I would be quickly reminded that they had no choice and were not enjoying it.

No Electronics Week 3 – A Breakthrough

Week 3 was a bit of a breakthrough. The Plan was hooked on Harry Potter and started going through the series very quickly; he even asked to have his bedtime extended so he could read. I had gone to the library with The Life and he had gotten some books on building paper airplanes and how to draw vampires. After dinner we started playing cards.

No Electronics Week 4 – The Great Outdoors

Week 4 the weather had was better and they started going out to play basketball on the driveway.  They started riding their bikes, pulled out the old lacrosse sticks that had not seen daylight in at least two years. The Plan kept reading, The Life kept playing cards with either me or Baby Girl. Suddenly the whining and off handed remarks about no electronics had stopped.
No Electronics Week 5– Parole for Good Behaviour

In week 5 we introduced family movies, this was an exemption to the grounding. The boys were allowed to watch TV if the whole family was watching. But even then, the playing outdoors continued.  The countdown to when electronics would return stopped and they even lost track of the amount of days that had passed. So did Mr. LibertyDee and I.

Last week Mr. LibertyDee decided to let the boys play some Xbox until I got home from work but when I arrived at the house they were putting on their bike helmets and were on their way out. Needless to say I was shocked. When I asked them about it The Plan simply responded that they played for about 30 minutes and that it had felt like a really long time to just be sitting there so they were going out for a ride.

I hate to admit it but Mr. LibertyDee was right. This “punishment” was exactly what the boys needed and not just the boys but all of us. I too was guilty of spending too much time on my phone either playing games or checking Facebook and much of that came to a stop so that I could play cards, draw a vampire or help fold and advanced paper airplane. I finally decided to delete all the games off my phone and suddenly have found the inspiration to start blogging again.

Tonight The Plan is upset that he has to stay in and study for a science test instead of playing basketball  on the driveway with The Life. And Mr. LibertyDee and I are finally basking in a parenting win.

LibertyDee

Who Do You Love?

| LibertyDee

Last night I  watched this video that is making the rounds on Facebook by Jimmy Kimmel. The premise is that families are stopped on the street and young children are asked who they love more. Mommy or Daddy? In most cases they choose mom. In the cases were they choose dad they are asked a subsequent question about if they had to choose something  “bad” to happen to one of them who would they pick and those same kids save their moms and let the dad take the fall.

I shared the video with my boys and they thought it was funny. We’ve had the who do you love more topic come up before and it always differs. It depends on which parent has been the nicest that particular week. It’s funny though because in our family although I’m the one that yells the most and the loudest I’m still considered the “nice one” (most of the time)

I though the concept of who they would pick to have something bad happen too was kind of funny but since I didn’t want to make it too morbid I asked “If only one grown up could have Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) tonight who would you choose?” Now let me explain that the fact we were having KFC is a very rare thing in our house and the kids have had it maybe twice in their lifetime so it’s considered a big deal.

Baby Girl immediately says that dad is probably ordering a lot and there will be a lot for everyone. The Life chooses dad to eat the KFC (I’d like to think that he chose dad because he knows how unhealthy it is and does not want his mommy subjected to such a bad nutritional choice..NOT).

The Plan however had a completely different approach, he chose to give the KFC to mom.  Yes me, moi, yo. That’s right my eldest chose me, his mommy.  My eldest will always want what’s best for me right? WRONG! When The Life suggested that he should choose dad instead on me, The Plan explained that the question was which GROWNUP could eat. This meant the kids were still eating and that dad eats too much and that mom probably wouldn’t want KFC anyway so there would be lots for him. You see, for The Plan it’s not about mom or dad it’s more about mom vs dad and his choice is based not on how his decision will impact mam and dad, but on how  the outcome will benefit him.

I think he’ll get far in life.

Check out the video: 

We Yell, We Cry…Part 2

| LibertyDee

Continued from We Yell, We Cry…Part 1

We drove home in absolute silence. We now had one hour at home, before we had to leave for a birthday party. I decided I would make macaroni and cheese so the kids could eat quickly and I could drop The Plan off at the party by 3:30pm. Now here came the next argument. This time it was about tuna. Yuppp you read that right. Tuna. The Life wanted tuna in his mac and cheese, Baby Girl and The Plan think it’ s gross so of course the whining started again. (I don’t know what it is about that whiny voice that just drives me nuts!!) I was feeling guilty about losing it on Baby Girl earlier so, to keep the peace, I offered to add tuna to some and leave the other plain. No big deal.

After lunch was served, we had about 20 minutes before we had to leave for the birthday party. Baby Girl really wanted one of those drinkable IOGO yogurts for dessert so I gave it to her because, after all, what harm could yogurt do? The  kids went off to keep themselves entertained while I cleaned the kitchen. (As much as I hate the seemingly never ending kitchen cleaning, sometimes it’s the only time everyone gives me a moment of peace) Then I heard the arguing. It was between The Life and Baby Girl. The next couple of minutes are a complete blur. I was so overcome by rage emotion that I don’t even remember it all very clearly. It turns out that Baby Girl had taken something The Life was playing with and wouldn’t give it back so The Life took Baby Girl’s yogurt and spilled it out on the driveway.  They were both telling me their side of the story simultaneously and although The Plan had not been involved, he maneuvered his way into the argument by taking Baby Girls side in an attempt to dig The Life deeper into trouble. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I went over the edge and began to yell at all three of them. I don’t remember the specifics of what I said but I do know that I ended it with “and be assured we will not be going to Wonderland tomorrow!” We had been planning to go to the opening day of our local amusement park for months, we had been counting down the “sleeps” for two weeks and this particular day was going to be the beginning my count down to 40 (more on that in another post).

The kids fell silent and I stomped back into the kitchen. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! It was time to leave for the birthday party. On the bright side, the kids were smart enough to not complicate things and they got their shoes on and into the car much quicker than I would have expected. Considering the day I was having, I was happy that we were running on time and arrived at the party a few minutes early. So early in fact that the birthday host wasn’t even there yet. We waited around and when it was 10 minutes past when the party was supposed to start, we asked the front desk if perhaps the party was already inside. Turns out we were at the wrong location! The party was actually 15 minutes from my house in the opposite direction.

In an attempt to make this very long story short, by the time I got home that evening I had completely broken down.  I was frustrated that the kids couldn’t get along, I was tired from running around all day, I felt guilty that I had yelled at the kids, and  I was disappointed that we were not going to Wonderland as I too had really been looking forward to it. And so I cried. By this time Mr. LibertyDee was home and he has gotten better at reading the cues and so he made sure I got my space but boy did I cry. I felt selfish that I wanted time to myself, I felt torn and thought perhaps we should go to Wonderland after all, then there’s all that motherly guilt about the lack of patience and having The Plan miss half the birthday party. It was awful. I felt awful. I went to bed.  When I woke up Sunday morning I remembered a saying I had recently heard on Downton Abbey “We yell, we cry, but in the end we all die” and with that I woke everyone up and off we all went to Wonderland. It was amazing.  A day I’m sure the kids will remember forever .  I only hope that it was so great it over shadows the day before.

P.S The Plan read this post today and I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to have him read it but he thought it was hilarious. He actually said I should thank him and The Life and Baby Girl or else I would have nothing to write about. He also said that he now understood why I snapped and why I wasn’t going to let them go to Wonderland.  He initially thought I got that upset because there was yogurt on the driveway.  SO it looks like I may not be screwing them up as much as I think (for now)

Screenshot_2015-05-06-19-39-30~2~2

We Yell, We Cry….. Part 1

| LibertyDee

Saturday was a really sucky parenting day. The kind of day that had me just sitting there, completely defeated, like a child whose mom has just told them they’re not going to the amusement park tomorrow after all.

The day started off ok. I got up just after 7:00am (which is sleeping in for me) and I got the kids out of the house on time for the skating lessons scheduled for 9:30am. That’s when it started. The bickering, the insistent bickering, the “he touched me”, the “he started it”, the “she always get her way”. All this noise is happening behind me while I’m driving and I was doing well. I had decided to stay out of it. I decided to let them work it out. I took deep breaths and just kept driving.

After skating we had only half an hour to be home before we were off to guitar lessons.  I gave the kids some clear instructions (at least I thought they were clear)  “When we get home, don’ t bother taking off your shoes, you can have free time to watch TV, play video games, or go outside if you want.  Please make sure the guitar is downstairs by the door so that we can leave in exactly half an hour. I need to do our meal plan for the week and the grocery list.”

We got inside and I went straight to the computer, created the meal plan, made the grocery list and download my coupons.  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! (I use the stove timer to keep me on track and the beeping meant the half hour had passed and we had 15 minutes to get to guitar lessons) I closed the laptop and bellowed “Time to go!”  The Life was the only one ready to go, Baby Girl had taken off her shoes and had set herself up to colour, she was terribly upset that it was time to go and couldn’t finish her picture. The whinnying started and then the crying. I was able to talk her down, get her shoes on and to the door in record time.  The Plan was outside playing basketball, the guitar was nowhere to be found.” Where’s the guitar?” I asked (I don’t know why I ask these stupid questions, I knew there was only one place the guitar could be. It was upstairs in his room.)” Hum..? The guitar…? What…?”  This has become his go to response when he’s trying to buy time to think of some B.S to feed me. I.e. Hum..? homework …? What… ?, Hum..? Shower…? what..? This time I put my whispering technique into action. I keep trying to yell less and I have found that whispering sometimes has the same effect.

I dropped The Plan off at guitar lessons 8 minutes late and headed to the grocery store right next door with baby Girl and The Life.  I was happy to have scored a “Parents With Children” parking spot ( it’s all about the small wins) but before I really got to bask in my parking spot win I found myself in an argument with Baby Girl in regards to why she shouldn’t bring in her pink princess cup to the grocery store. Where the cup came from? I don’t know. But there it was, and she wanted to bring it into the store.  All of you moms know that a five year old bringing something into the grocery store can only have one of 2 outcomes:

  1. The cup will be lost and there will be crying
  2. The child will grow tired of holding the cup and you will end up carrying it or worse you will put it in your purse where it will remain until the end of time

This time I put my natural consequences tactic into effect. The concept is you let them do what they want, and then allow them to suffer the consequences and so I explained there was a good chance the cup would be lost and that I would not be carrying the cup if she grew tired of it. She chose to bring the cup anyway.

We got to the grocery store and not ten minutes had gone by and already the following had happened:

  1. Baby Girl and The Life had a heated argument over who would put the cucumbers in the cart
  2. Baby Girl and The Life had a heated argument over who would put the pears in the bag
  3. Bay Girl and the Life had a heated argument over whose fault it was that there were 7 pears on the floor
  4. Baby girl knocked over an apple display which sent me chasing apples in the aisle
  5. An old lady paid the price for my natural consequences technique when I gave in a let Baby Girl push the cart.

I kept it together though, I really did. Yes there was some speaking through clenched teeth, but overall I really did remain composed.

The Plan joined us after his guitar lessons “Do I have to stay here? How much more do you have to buy? Can I wait in the car? “This is where I started to lose it. Not so much outwardly but I did feel something snap inside me.

We were able to finish the shopping and make it back to the car without much further incident, until of course all the bags were in the car and baby girl asks “Where is my cup?” AUGHHGHGHGHG. The cup was gone. She blamed The Life because she remembered him having it by the pears, but after sending the boys back inside to look around, the cup was nowhere to be found. The crying started, not the regular I’m sad, I scraped my knee crying but the “I’m mad and I want the world to hear it” crying with the intermittent whining and the boogers and the name calling targeted at her brothers.

This time I snapped. I had everyone in the car; I finished putting on my seat belt and snapped. At the top of my lungs I told her how I had warned her this would happen, how she should trust me, how she shouldn’t blame others and I went on and on and on and on.

To be continued………….