Parenting 101

On the day my first child was born, I said to myself that I would be the best parent ever! I would make all the right decisions and my child would grow up to be the most amazing adult that ever walked the earth- all b/c I was so good at raising her.

On the 8th day after my child was born, when I took her to the doctor all dressed up in a cute-but-ridiculous little yellow duck outfit (complete with webbed feet and a bill) but without a pacifier, a bottle, a cloth diaper and an extra outfit, I said to myself Ok, well I messed up already, let's just start over, she won't remember this.

Today, I've been a parent for about 3,830 days. I have 2 kids. I average about 8 mistakes per day per kid. That's a lot of mistakes. I have a habit of wishing I could make a fresh start. When they were babies, I always had the excuse that they wouldn't remember. Now, I often catch myself thinking, Ok, if I make no more mistakes from here on out, how screwed up will my kids be by the time they reach adulthood. In other words, if all the mistakes only occur between birth and age 6, will my child remain unscathed or is it too late?

I once had an ongoing competition with a coworker to determine who was the World's Worst Parent. Sometimes she would show up at work and say "Michele, I'm the winner today. I am THE world's worst parent". And she would tell me what she did and we would laugh together. And sometimes, I was the winner.

This morning I would have been declared the winner after I "raised my voice" at Emily b/c she moved her head when I was installing 2 state of the art ponytails for spring picture day. As you can imagine, it wasn't really about the ponytails. It was about how I stayed-in-bed-too-long-hadn't-had-enough-coffee-couldn't-find-an-outfit-for-spring-pictures-needed-to-take-beverages-to-the-girl's-school-for-the-faculty-meeting-needed-to-get-to-work-on-time-really-needed-more-coffee.

My guilt is the same no matter what the offense might be. Sending my kids to daycare for 5 years while I worked leaves me with just as much guilt as buying Koolaid at the Salvage Store. If my kids become delinquents, I'll never know whether it was from daycare or the discount Koolaid I let them drink.

Or maybe they remember the duck outfit.

I have a dream...

Is it terrible that I sometimes dream of what I'm going to do when my kids grow up and leave me? I love my kids, I really do but...lately I find myself sitting around thinking of all the things I'll have the freedom to do in, oh...about 12 years.
A few weeks ago I thought I would torture myself and sign up for email updates from the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, just so I'll know what shows I'm actually missing. Every semester, SEMO sends me informative brochures- informing me of what shows I'm not able to see at the River Campus. And of course I always check the movie listings to see which movies I won't be seeing. This weekend I went to the movie store and browsed all the movies I cannot watch in front of the kids and I'm too tired to stay up and watch after they go to bed. Sometimes I browse the 1000 photos I have thrown in boxes, just to remind myself that I won't be organizing them anytime soon. Sometimes I send my kids to school with a fever, just so the school nurse can call and tell me I have to leave work once again to fetch my sick child. If I'm really dreaming, I take a moment to check the balance in the bank account, just in case I forgot what I spent on the kids this month. But if I'm really desperate, I just take a look around the house to remind myself of how much space is filled with toys, school papers, backpacks, and FurReal Pets. Just in case I forgot.
So tonight, tell me what you dream of doing when your children grow up. Or if your children are grown, remind me of what you do to fill all that time.

Parenting 101

Sometimes I am appalled/shocked/pleased at the things I let my girls do. Tonight, as I let Emily have way too much raw cookie dough and I ate some myself, I began to ponder how I raise my kids vs. how my mom raised us 4 girls vs. how my friends raise their children. As parents, we all let our kids do things or not let them do things for a variety of reasons. Maybe our moms let us do it or maybe our mom DIDN'T let us do it. Maybe we agree to let them do things out of pure laziness or b/c that's how our friends told us they raise their kids. I tend to blaze my own trail much of the time but I am influenced by my parents. Mom let us eat cookie dough and cake batter. Why? I don't know but I do know it was something fun we all did together, dipping our spoons in the bowl and licking it clean. Dad always made sure he took us to the store to buy Mom presents for her birthday and Christmas. So I am raising Scott to do the same thing...lol. Tonight, Megan was complaining that I ate a piece of her Halloween candy out of her bowl in her room. That's right, I poured all her candy in a bowl on Nov 1 and put it in her room. And guess what? She still has a huge bowl left. She knows how to eat it sensibly and besides, she doesn't have a single cavity either. What decisions do I make when I feel lazy? Well, sometimes I'm too tired to fix a sensible snack, so I let the girls eat something from the snack cabinet. Or I let them have frozen pancakes for supper b/c I'm too tired to cook. I know my kids eat too many snacks, not enough vegetables, have too many toys, don't always clean up, but overall they're not bad kids. I tend to balance things out by being super strict about other things, like what they are allowed to watch on TV, how late they are allowed to stay up, or where they are allowed to go. I often wonder how my Mom managed to stay sane raising 4 hormonal girls. But deep down, I know you just do what you need to do to survive. And if that means going to bed with a belly full of cookie dough, then hopefully the girls will drift off to sleep thinking about how much fun they had with Mom.
Let me know what you do with your children that may or may not be what the rest of us are doing.