Sunday Confessional

I start off my day very early morning and practise meditation till my kids ask me mom we too want to do it. lol. I LOVE MY KIDS VERY MUCH.

You're allowed to leave your kids in the room if they wake up early?!!? Sweet!

A few times I talked my son into watching cartoons from my bed. His only stipulation was that I watched too, so I got the outside spot and slept. If I felt him peeking to see if I was watching I would open my eyes. Sucker! It only worked twice!

My sister and I are both "retired" and no longer have children at home. She taught me to leave the vaccum sweeper out in the middle of the floor.....that way if hubby comes home early it "Looks" like I've been working.....

Did you know it is a state law that children under the age of 5 must ride in the grocery cart while mom shops or in his stroller if no buggy is provided?

Well neither does the state legislature, but that's what I always told my oldest two when they were little. ;) I loved that law, since my oldest two are only 16 months apart.

Okay, not really a confessional, but a "HA I DID IT!"

I love my mom dearly, but she is very critical about everything, and I have never been able to clean house good enough for her. No matter how clean it is, she can find something wrong, like leaves in the garage.

Well she came down this week and despite the fact that the house was already company clean, I did a thorough clean before I went to work Friday. The place was spotless!
She couldn't find one critical thing to say all weekend and we had a wonderful time together. Of course, she was here for DD10s birthday sleepover and the place is trashed now, but I WON! I finally got her to spend the weekend at my house without criticizing me or the house. I know I am being shallow, but it just feels so good!

When my oldest was little he hated to sleep, so we taught him that God made the moon for sleeping by and the sun for playing by. If he got up he was to look out and see if he saw the moon or the sun and decide whether he should wake dad or me. Worked great, especially on those nights when you can see the moon in the early evening sky. LOL

Now they just have to be in their rooms by 9 so dad and mom can have parent time. I don't care if they are talking on the phone or surfing the internet (they are teenagers now-college bound) as long as they are home, and not bugging me and dad.

And I promise, no matter what their houses look like when I visit, I will not say a word. I promise!

A favorite of late is "it's in the mama rulebook." Today, my son kept insisting "I'm not tired at all" come naptime. Rather than trying to reason with a 3.5 year old, I just said, "Well, I'm tired... which means you're tired. It's in the mama rulebook."

So far it still works... I know it it won't forever, but I'll treasure it while it does.

P.S. I just had an discussion with my dad about whether or not striving for perfection is appropriate. My point of view was that we strive for progress not perfection as perfection is a myth. My dad argues that perfection is attainable if we just work hard enough. We argreed to disagree, but the discussion clarified some things for me about how I grew up!

I love McDonald's Egg McMuffins and come up with things we NEED to do in the morning before they stop serving breakfast. The kids are old enough to completely see through my lame excuses and just know that if I'm dressed and ready to go by 9:30, we're probably going to McDonald's for breakfast. There! I said it! I am a bad mom for giving my kids McDonald's breakfasts! (Having confessed all, it is a nice treat before having to do it all for everyone all day long!)

I have not cleaned the toilet in the kid's bathroom since we move in to our house in June. It looks horrible, but I just can't seem to remember to clean it. My mom is coming for a visit at the end of September and I will use that as motivation to give it a good scrubbing.

We try to make "the cherubs" (what I call my two middle schoolers) responsible for their own bedtimes and wake times. They have to be in their rooms by 9 pm...we don't care what they're doing in there - they could stay up all night reading, whatever, but they need to be in there.

In the morning, dad wakes them up once. After that, if they get up late, it's their problem. They might not have time to eat, brush hair, teeth, whatever. If they miss the bus, they have to pay us $5 to drive them to school. (after all, we deserve to get paid for our time, and the price of gas these days, blah, blah, blah and so on, etc.).

Our first hated bed time and it was an ordeal. So we finally started asking him to look out side. What do you see? The dark is here. What does that mean? Its time for bed. And while it didn't promise an easy bed time it was 99% easier and he'd often climb right in and go to sleep. And yes, it was always easier in the winter because 7 or 8 it was dark. And if he was acting up 7 it was. The summer was harder we had to teach that 10 wasn't going to be your bedtime just because the sun was up til then. We called about how during the summer the sun stays up a lot longer. There was a short time when we had to explain that he couldn't get up until the "light was here" but 2 years later he'll sleep til 9 or 930 if we let him.

I don't clean (i.e. bathrooms, vacuuming, mopping, sweeping, dusting) nearly as often I "should". And there's too much clutter in our house. Both are things I've been trying to improve upon (not be perfect, just better) but still...

When Jacob was little and Erik was deployed I'd put him to bed at 5 or 6 pm because it was winter and dark out and he didn't know the difference. Me time is nice.