Great Moments In Parenting...

Leaving out all my great mom moments of the past few weeks, let's concentrate on last night instead. As usual I'm busy trying to clean the place and as usual my sweet little demon spawns are busy undoing it all. First I get the boy off of his sister's bunk bed and kick the children out of their bedroom then go to the kitchen where I need to sweep and I find toys, yet again, strewn about my kitchen floor. "Girls! Pick this up! I'm trying to sweep. Where's your brother? Is your brother in your room again?!?" Lilly: "Yeah, he's on my bed" "What?!? Did you not just see me get him off of there and kick you out so he didn't get in?!? Why!?!" muttering expletives to myself as I go their room and hope, yet again, that he is still on the bed and not, you know, fallen to the floor, I grab him (safe as usual), shut the door, and go back to the kitchen where, you guessed it, the girls are dumping their toys again. I might have lost my shit. Might. So they hurry up and clean it and I, more calmly this time, explain again why toys need to stay to the flippen play room. Lilly then looks at me and says "Is that why we have a playroom? To keep our mess in?" Yes! For the love of god, yes! Have I not been explaining this very thing for the last two years we've lived here? But that is not what I say. Instead I say "Yes, Lilly. That is exactly what the playroom is for. Now give me a high five and take it that a way."


I also had a nice long talk with Nicole about her attitude and dance. For the last week it's been parent watch week at the studio and I've watched Nicole flub up things I know darn well she knows how to do and knows how to do well. But because other kids were struggling she seemed to think that was the in thing to do and being all giggly and saying silly things in an obvious attempt for attention. God that was frustrating. I spent nearly the whole damned time giving her dirty looks and motioning for her to pay attention. Yeah, I know, kids will be kids. What bothered me was her dumbing it down to fit in. Also it made me worried that I wasn't paying enough attention to her at home. Maybe I'm not. I didn't see other kids acting quite so silly for attention. Her teacher is a saint, I tell you what.
So we had the talk. The don't try so hard to fit in and never dumb yourself down talk. This has been a long time coming. I've been watching her pretend to struggle with math and I'm sure it's because at school her friends don't like math. Once I get her past the complaining, she does her math perfectly, but the whole time she bitches about how hard it is and how she doesn't know how to do it. When her friends come over I hear them talk about how hard school is and how much they hate cleaning and, suddenly, Nicole doesn't know how to clean or do math. Methinks they're connected. I think she gets it. I hope she does. Now I just have to see what sank in and what went over her sweet little head.