Here's the deal: I'm not a very good parent. What I am, is a pretty good actress. So, when the curtain goes up and I'm not prepared, that is always a bad moment. I've had a couple of these lately. Let me set the stage: Saturday morning, gorgeous day. About 9 am, birds are chirping, rainbows are shining, etc., etc. I am cleaning up from a delicious homemade breakfast (cereal) and encourage the little children to go outside and get some fresh air. As I take out our empty milk jug to the recycling (because of course, we are also a green family) I look over and see Zachary punching Wesley. And I launch. Hard. Seriously, I have already had 40 minutes with these little beasts and my buttons have all been pushed. I scream at him so loud that it honestly hurt my throat for the next 40 minutes, yank him by the arm to come sit on the steps in timeout and then look to see the damage he inflicted. As I look up for the first time I make eye contact with about three sets of neighbors and all of the random strangers in my neighborhood as apparently it is garage sale day and I am on center stage. Awesome. Love it when people not only see me launch, but see me launch in my grungy pajamas. And......scene.
However, for every horrifyingly embarrassing moment (like when I went inside for two seconds and came back out to see Wesley standing in the middle of the street laughing at me while some of the same neighbors probably wondered who let the 18-month go unsupervised for even one second) I have (what I believe) to be a stroke of genius. Ben has been having some serious attitude issues lately (which Zach then thinks is hilarious to mock. I'm pretty sure he thinks my name has been changed to Stupid Mommy). So, tonight, I asked him to get out of the bath, get his pajamas on and keep an eye on his brother Wes who was locked in his room. He proceeds to get out of the bath, go into his bedroom and then go all Magic Mike on his brother, because when isn't a naked dance hilarious? I wasn't so mad about the dancing, it was more the non-listening (although eventually he has to learn about the non-dancing, too). So, I told him that the movie he was planning to watch for the night was cancelled (knowing full well I wouldn't go through with it, because how else does one find time to blog unless they park their kids in front of a movie?) I let him scream for a while and think that I wasn't going to let him come down and then I saw it: his uneaten (as usual) vegetables for dinner. I told him to come down, asked him if he wanted to watch the movie (yes!) and said, then sit there and eat those vegetables and when they are gone, I will start the movie. Funny how corn started to look sort of appetizing. Feel free to use this technique at home. And I will continue to pretend to be a good mom:)
