Cutting Myself Some Slack

I try not to judge other parents too harshly (like I did before I had kids, lol) but sometimes you see something that makes you feel a bit better about your own parenting.

I'm certainly flawed myself. I don't think I spend enough time playing with my kids, and I go through phases where I kind of give up fighting to get veggies in them (although the "give up" phases usually don't last too long, thank goodness). I raise my voice too often, and I don't listen enough. (This could be a post about parenting New Year's resolutions, ha ha.)

I was at a house party recently with a lot of kids. The average age I'd say was 7 or 8, but they ranged anywhere from 10 right down to little Angie (fake name, btw, to protect privacy), who was a year and a half. Her mom is a sweet lady - easy to talk to and lots of fun. She loves both her kids dearly (she has an older daughter as well who is 6). This goes without saying of course but I had to throw that in there in her defense.

At the party she wasn't watching Angie all that closely, and Angie was by far the youngest and smallest kid there. I have been called over protective many times (I'm a helicopter mom - I can admit it ;) but I think many moms would agree that letting an 18 month old crawl around underfoot with a bunch of rambunctious, running, falling and dog-piling big kids is a potentially risky situation.

Nothing happened of course, and Angie left safely in her mom's arms. Still, it made me realize that none of us are perfect parents, and close supervision in a busy social situation isn't something Angie's mom is good at, just like sitting on the floor doing a puzzle for the tenth time isn't something I'm good at.

So there! I hereby, if only for today, officially cut myself some slack :)
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Learning About The F Word Part Two

More Wii, and shouting. This time the offender is Alyssa, but instead of the Big F Nasty, she is saying "darn" (or should I say shouting it with enough force to shatter our relatively new windows).

Lil J, not wanting anything his sister does to be swept under the rug, defiantly says:

"Maw-mee!!! Lyssa said the F word!!!!"

He hasn't said the word since his time out yesterday, and clearly he remembers our conversation about it. I'm just not sure if he remembers which word we were talking about...
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Learning About The F Word

With Alyssa, it only happened once. As an innocent 3 year old she blurted out the F word in front of her Dad, Grandparents and me. My stunned response was:

"WHAT did you just say??!!", at the top of my lungs. I succeeded in embarrassing her beyond belief, and she hasn't said it since.

Lil' J is in time-out at the moment, for his second infraction. He said it a few moments ago while he and A were playing Wii, and I spoke to him about it. I told him that was his last warning, and if he ever said it again he'd end up in time-out.

Sure enough...

(And how do you explain it to them without actually using the word? If you call it "The F Word", how on earth do they know what word you're talking about?) Ah, such a fine line.

Hearing DH and I occasionally slip and use it is an easy one: "It's a grown up's word. Kids are NOT allowed to use it, but grown ups may." Period. No explanation necessary. Alyssa gets this, but J is a bit of um, a boundary pusher (risk taker, pot stirrer, sh*t disturber - that's my boy!).

We'll see if time-outs work. I might have to get the soap out ;)
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Room Cleaning Chaos

I just cleaned my 6 year old's room, and am still recovering (never mind a "thanks, Mom!" - I deserve a two week vacation in the Bahamas for that).

There were some things I was able to get rid of, and some things I was able to move downstairs, but for the most part, I did a lot of rearranging. She has the larger of the two kids' rooms, and by FAR the most stuff.

I bought 2x2 cube organizers (see pic below) - one for each room. I got mine at Superstore and they came in colours - I used blue and green for Joseph's and red and yellow for Alyssa. The four cube space (plus the top, which is like another shelf) made a tremendous difference in J's room, but in A's? It just cleared enough floor space to get to her dresser.

Hey at least she can get to her pajamas now without complaining ;)



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Gum In The Carpet

This is a drawback to vacuuming - you find these things. This one could have been much worse. At least it was white gum (on a grey carpet). I can even pretend I didn't see it for a day or two ;)

I know you "anti-gum" parents (and the pro-carpet ones, too ;) are probably shaking your heads at me. That's ok, I don't mind. I have a clear conscience because it wasn't me who started the whole gum thing - it was their Grandfather. What can I do? Now before you say "get him to clean your carpet", allow me to point out that he already cuts our grass and paints our house, to name a couple of the many many many ways he helps out. What's a little gum between grass cuttings.

Besides, it's sugarless, and it stops them from bugging me for sugary snacks. They get their flavour fix without spoiling dinner. (Fyi their last dental check ups were perfect - no cavities). Lil J has not repeated the gum in the hair episode, so I think we're safe there.

All I have to do now is get it out of the carpet...
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