Whether I am very successful at parenting or completely in over my head is redefined every few minutes. Landen tells me I am The Best and The Worst multiple times every day and Jake usually seconds the motion. Today I told him I was going to put him up for adoption, and he said "Great! I would love to be adopted." We were Skyping Corey at the time, and he just shook his head and laughed. Same response to the boys running in circles around the couch for four minutes straight, which flies in the face of our "no running in the house" rule.
If you want to be The Worst, here are some things I've found successful in helping you achieve that.
1. Made them bathe themselves with 42 baby wipes after the Great Near-Flood in our bathroom Monday night
2. Sent Landen to school dressed for Santa pictures without the form or the money to take Santa pictures.
3. Refused to give Landen a snack at 10 pm tonight, sticking to my warning that should he choose not to eat his dinner, there would be nothing prepared for him when he decided to be hungry around bedtime. I was still The Worst for this, even though he ate ice cream on the couch at 8:30.
4. Will not let them have sugar-filled drinks or snacks after 5 PM.
5. Only let them have 30 minutes of TV before bed, which is the standing rule here.
6. Deny them tokens for not doing what they were supposed to do.
7. Deny them anything I can think of when I have to repeat myself four times to have my instructions followed.
I am The Worst when I abide my our house rules and force them to do the same.
This week I was The Best when I:
1. Delivered them the Sideswipe and Rampage Transformers that I happened to scoop up in the check out lane at TJ Maxx the week before. Those are two we never saw in the toy aisles during our frequent trips to Target. I gave them to Landen and he screamed "Oh Sweet Mary of Christ!" or something borderline blasphemous-yet-hilarious before running up the stairs to their room, screaming his joy at Jake.
2. Made two stops when one wanted Taco Bell and one wanted Sonic on our way home from Landen's First Reconciliation Thursday night.
3. Ordered pizza for lunch today.
4. Bought two more Transformers and How to Train Your Dragon on Bluray tonight.
5. Let them eat ice cream in coffee cups on the sofa while they watched the movie. The only place children are usually allowed to eat or drink here is in the kitchen or at the dining room table.
6. Gave them an extra 15 minutes of TV before bed on Wednesday night, but really only because I got them washed and into bed ten minutes early.
7. Allowed them to drink my G2.
8. Let them sleep 30 minutes later on Friday morning and stopped at McDonald's for lunch.
Basically, I am The Best when I am lazy or spend money on them.
It's amazing how fleeting these moments of Bestness and Worstness are. Dudes can flip on a dime from one to the other. Landen held on to the Santa picture thing for a couple days, but I agreed that I was The Worst for that shit. However, the best moment is better than five bad moments. No matter what, Jake tells me he loves me seventeen times a day and Landen gives me a lingering neck squeeze when I tuck him in, so I guess overall, I'm not so bad either.
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