Shortcut Ain't A Bad Word

An important caveat up front: I am totally copying Damomma's post idea. Go check it out, especially if you're having a bad day parenting-wise, and read the comments. Trust me - you'll feel better. And besides - she told the Universe that I gave her kid a hot dog for breakfast after her daughter slept over... so I don't even feel badly about my lack of originality.

Her post is about Mommy Confessions. I had been kicking around a few of mine in my head recently, and her post prompted me to share. I'm a big believer in getting things out - as a parent my day to day life is filled with tiny little decisions, and it is just not realistic that I'm going to make all the right ones. And, I have always been a shortcut person. So here goes.

I hate laundry. Like, really hate laundry. I wish there was a cognitive behavioral therapist who specialized in Fear of Laundry, because I have it. I have no problem washing clothes; I like clean underwear as much as the next person. It is the folding and putting away part that I detest - it just seems so pointless. Every now and then I'll get super motivated and fold and put away millions of tiny child sized tee shirts, shorts and underpants. I'll get all organized and put everything in its own drawer, stacked neatly and gleaming. It takes all of two days for everything to spill out onto the floor. It all seems so fruitless.

I spend much of my day saying "In A MINUTE!" to my kids. Of course, I don't mean In A Minute, I mean can you please go away for at least an hour? My daughter is on to this, and she will now say "Mom, do you mean in 60 seconds or in like two hours?" Both my kids now say it back to me on a regular basis, too. I was desperate for Greta to get dressed so we could go out the door to something we were already late for, and she was sitting on the floor dressing up her Webkinz. "In a MINUTE!" she said to me, when I asked her for the gadzillionth time to get dressed. "Pom Pom can't decide which shirt to wear!" All I can do is stand there and get a good dose of my own medicine.

Especially in these long summer days, I am desperate for the kids to go to bed at night. It was a dark day when my 6 year old learned to tell time. Her bedtime in the summer is 8:30pm. On particularly long days I will set the clock back an hour, just so she will go to bed. I tell her it is time for bed, and she'll say "but it isn't 8:30!", and I'll point meaningfully to the clock. I'm sure she's up there lying in bed wondering why she can still hear the neighbor kids playing, but I'm downstairs with my feet up and a cup of tea and I don't care.

My 3 year old son talks all day. I mean ALL DAY. He'll just prattle on with these statements, and he won't stop until he gets some kind of validation from me. Much of the time, his concepts make no sense, or are plain wrong. I am too tired to correct them, so I just agree with everything says, hoping he'll stop talking. I figure the school system can sort it out one day - that polar bears don't actually live in the jungle, that the moon isn't the size of a marble, that motor boats can't fly - all things he steadfastly believes to be true, because it was his idea so it must be true, right Momma? Right Momma? RIGHT MOMMA?

My son still needs to nap on occasion. He is less than enthusiastic about this idea. So a few months ago I pretended to call the doctor and ask if he still needed to nap. I hung up the phone and told him "the doctor said you still need naps"... now when I tell him it is time for a nap, he says "Doctor said, right?"

To cut down on the bickering between my kids, I started a Yelling Jar. Anyone who yelled had to put in a quarter. So far, I am the only contributor.

Some days are just worse than others. Some days we spend the day in a cycle of frustration, pleading, whining and bickering. After days like this, after the kids have been asleep for a while, I'll sneak into their room, look at them all curled up together looking adorable, and I'll feel like a terrible Mom.

In the summer, running through the sprinkler or going in a pool totally qualifies as baths.

I can only sit and play a game with them, or do a craft, or read a book, for about half an hour and then I want to tear my hair out.

If I'm short on money and don't want to go to the ATM, I'll raid my daughter's piggy bank, telling myself I'll replace it before she notices. Then I always forget to replace it. This caught up to me on a girl scout field trip - she was perusing the gift shop and literally shouted to me over the heads of all the other mothers that she "can spend the eighteen dollars you stole from my piggy bank - you OWE me."

Anyone else want to share? C'mon - you know you want to....