You know you've achieved full "Momhood" when . . .
- You go to the bathroom while holding a baby (bonus points if you were breastfeeding at the time).
- You find yourself saying odd combinations of words like "don't lick yogurt off the window".
- It occurs to you that if you kick your oldest child really, really hard you could have everyone in the house crying at the same time.
- You yell at the kids for not being dressed even though it's 1 in the afternoon and you're still in your bathrobe.
- Your toddler follows you into the bathroom and helpfully tries to wipe your bottom.
- You allow your child to draw all over themselves with marker simply so they will stay occupied long enough for you to finish making their lunch.
- You share a couple of cookies with the kids just so when your husband gets home and finds the empty package you can say, "well, the kids ate some too."
- You give your children cookies with their breakfast so that you won't eat them all yourself.
- You can carry on a 10 minute conversation with your child about Pokemon without him catching on to the fact that you haven't heard a word he said. (Trick: repeat the last 2 words of every second or third sentence and it seems like you're actually listening - my husband's been doing it to me for years.)
- When your 2 year old proudly says the f-word you encouragingly respond: "that's right, Sweetheart - truck!"
- You see your toddler tearing up an artificial flower arrangement and figure, "it can be re-assembled" so you don't bother stopping him.
- You insist on being the one to get the mail because you need your daily exercise.
- You plan all of your trips out of the house to minimize the number of times a child will have to be removed from a car seat.
- You know that trip planning has nothing to do with buying plane tickets and everything to do with grocery shopping.
- Your version of a cost-benefit analysis involves weighing whether cutting out a round of getting kids in and out of car seats is worth paying 50% more for diapers at the grocery store.
- You respond to a kid's "why?" with "because I'm mean and I don't like you very much."
- You know that one day your child will tell his own child, "because I'm mean and I don't like you very much" after being asked "why?" for the 5th time.
- You think other people are jealously admiring you and your attractive, smart, fun kids when really they're just watching you so they can go home and start a conversation with, "I saw this poor woman while I was out today . . ."
- Even when all of your kids are crying at once - except for the oldest who wandered off to look at Pokemon cards and is now having you paged over the store intercom system because he didn't see you when he looked up to ask if you'd buy him a pack of cards, you never think of yourself as "this poor woman". You're too busy enjoying your attractive, smart, fun kids.
- You find yourself saying odd combinations of words like "don't lick yogurt off the window".
- It occurs to you that if you kick your oldest child really, really hard you could have everyone in the house crying at the same time.
- You yell at the kids for not being dressed even though it's 1 in the afternoon and you're still in your bathrobe.
- Your toddler follows you into the bathroom and helpfully tries to wipe your bottom.
- You allow your child to draw all over themselves with marker simply so they will stay occupied long enough for you to finish making their lunch.
- You share a couple of cookies with the kids just so when your husband gets home and finds the empty package you can say, "well, the kids ate some too."
- You give your children cookies with their breakfast so that you won't eat them all yourself.
- You can carry on a 10 minute conversation with your child about Pokemon without him catching on to the fact that you haven't heard a word he said. (Trick: repeat the last 2 words of every second or third sentence and it seems like you're actually listening - my husband's been doing it to me for years.)
- When your 2 year old proudly says the f-word you encouragingly respond: "that's right, Sweetheart - truck!"
- You see your toddler tearing up an artificial flower arrangement and figure, "it can be re-assembled" so you don't bother stopping him.
- You insist on being the one to get the mail because you need your daily exercise.
- You plan all of your trips out of the house to minimize the number of times a child will have to be removed from a car seat.
- You know that trip planning has nothing to do with buying plane tickets and everything to do with grocery shopping.
- Your version of a cost-benefit analysis involves weighing whether cutting out a round of getting kids in and out of car seats is worth paying 50% more for diapers at the grocery store.
- You respond to a kid's "why?" with "because I'm mean and I don't like you very much."
- You know that one day your child will tell his own child, "because I'm mean and I don't like you very much" after being asked "why?" for the 5th time.
- You think other people are jealously admiring you and your attractive, smart, fun kids when really they're just watching you so they can go home and start a conversation with, "I saw this poor woman while I was out today . . ."
- Even when all of your kids are crying at once - except for the oldest who wandered off to look at Pokemon cards and is now having you paged over the store intercom system because he didn't see you when he looked up to ask if you'd buy him a pack of cards, you never think of yourself as "this poor woman". You're too busy enjoying your attractive, smart, fun kids.
posted by Rebecca Trotter at
10:39 PM
5 Comments:
I've always called getting all the kids crying at once a "Bingo"...
And my answer to "Why" is often "Cause I'm a mean mean mommy from outer space and I'm BAD!"
By
Anonymous, at 1:19 PM
Quoting Little Shop of Horrors would go over great here, but...
Encouraging meanness with kids, even in jest, creates meanness (at least in that moment). There are more peaceful ways to be, and it's not all that hard.
http://sandradodd.com/peacefulparenting
Crying shouldn't be joked about, and it can be a avoided.
By
Sandra Dodd, at 12:29 PM
Sorry, Sandra I've got to disagree. I work very, very hard never to be mean to my kids. What I do encourage and model with them is having a lighthearted attitude and an ability to laugh at one's self. Intensity runs in our family and both their dad and I know from experience that the best way to overcome the problems that being inappropraitely intense or attached (to an idea, object or desire) is to lighten up. The reason the "because I'm mean . . ." comment works is precisely because my kids know how patently absurd it is to claim either that I'm mean or that I don't like them - it usually makes them laugh because the very idea is just ridiculous. It's a lot like when they ask how long we're going to be waiting in line and I reply, "oh, about 3 hours, I guess." The point is that I'm not going to feed their obsessive need to get their way or avoid any unpleasantness, so they might as well let it go. If i had a kid who actually thought I meant that I was mean or didn't like them, of course I would never utter the phrase again. As it is, God has choosen to bless me with very intense, emotional, spirited and strong willed children. I'm so glad that our family has a healthy sense of humor which we can use to help us cope with the many difficult parts of life, including the ones created by our own personalities.
Actually, I may have to blog about this. My hubby and I have dealt with some very, very difficult and heavy stuff in life thus far. We cope and make some sense of it with humor ("remember that time the doctor gave you that medication for headaches which made you manic and you spent all of our money, , trahsed the house, overdrew the checking account by 3 grand, got arrested and had the car impounded while I was out of town- haha - that was so crazy!"). We will sit around and tell these stories and laugh and laugh because they're just sooooooo ridiculous. However, I have had the experience of having someone else look at us like we're completely nuts for thinking such things could be funny. Perhaps we have our own family version of the gallows humor common among doctors. hmmmmmm . . .
By
Rebecca Trotter, at 4:20 PM
Also, if you know how to completely avoid a 2 month old crying because she's sleepy and a 19 month old crying because she just broke her crayon and your 7 year old wailing at the top of his lungs because he fell off his bike onto the gravel road in front of the house, PLEASE let me know. However, it is my opinion that crying is a perfectly normal part of life. As I have taught my kids - everyone's sad sometimes and that's OK. You deal with it and feel better and then you can move on. Again, part of dealing with it can be to laugh - even my toddler feels better if I can get her to stop crying by making her laugh. Sometimes you need to cry and once you've done that, you may as well move on to laughing as quickly as possible.
By
Rebecca Trotter, at 4:29 PM
Very funny post. And everything is so true. I also like to pretend to be mean to my kids. If I give one kid a slightly larger piece of cake (due to the fact that I'm not going to weigh each piece or use lasers to ensure absolute perfect equality) and the other kids complain, I tell them it's because he's my favorite, so what do they expect?
Of course, my "favorite" changes based on the situation and whoever is whining. My kids somehow know I'm joking despite my deadpan delivery. Kids are smart like that.
By
Anonymous, at 12:19 AM
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