My last post got me thinking–I had a whole 13 years of parenting under my belt before I started blogging, and you guys missed some real humdingers in terms of me screwing the pooch (and the psyche) as an estrogen bearing progenitor of the species. I thought I’d go back and give you all some highlights of my less than stellar career as a parent. Remember–I’m not proud of these things, but I do try not to repeat them.
Top 10 reasons I will never get parent of the year:
* The time we dragged a three year old Big T kicking and screaming out of Buster Brown shoes for reasons we could not fathom. Turned out, he was really attached to the Thomas the Tank Engine Shoes he had on and didn’t want us to remove them–when I heard him saying goodbye to his old shoes after being sent to his room when we got home, I cried for two days.
* The time Chicken’s annoying little friend got on her tenth nerve, and Chicken jumped on her chest and started to beat the holy hell out of her. It was so anti-Chicken behavior that the school let her off with a warning, but I was not surprised. In fact, I treasure that moment (this is what makes me evil) because I know that my Chicken will never be a victim for long. Of course, I never told Chicken that:-)
* The time I realized that while I had remembered to feed Chicken’s fish while she was away at camp, the fish had been dying for the entire week, and I had mostly been throwing fish flakes on flaking dead fish. I bundled all the dead fish into a bag, took them to the pet store and demanded (as the Cave Troll ran around the store terrorizing the cat) that they give me “seven fish that look exactly like these fish only not dead and covered in Ick.” I have not been back to that pet store since.
* The time we were broke and dodging creditors, and got T ear infection medicine on a health insurance account that no longer existed. When Kaiser called asking for T–and pronouncing his name VERY badly–I handed him the phone. What makes this really really awful is that although he was two years old, he could make one sound–YI YI YI YI YI YI… and so he did that into the phone until he handed it to me with a dial tone. (I mentioned I’m not proud of this, right?)
* The time we couldn’t find babysitters for a movie so we put Chicken and T in the back of the Ford Escort (hey–it was the family car!) and took them to the (now defunct) drive-in to see Twister. They were two and four.
* The time I tried to comfort Chicken during a tantrum in the back of the car (while I was driving) and she bit my hand. And I tried to beat her to death (exaggerating for effect here–nobody call CPS) while driving down Douglas blvd.
* The time T came down the hallway holding a dead–in fact a DESSICATED–fish in his fingers, sobbing, and I laughed because FINALLY I knew what was causing the stench in my son’s room!
* The time I hand-wrote (as neatly as possible) “Chicken’s bad handwriting is a disability not a choice” on a piece of paper to convince her teacher to get off her back about it. *&^%ing parochial school. (My handwriting has been described as “unhealthy”. The woman took one look at my message, looked horrified, and instantly agreed to back off.)
* The time I asked T’s fourth grade teacher if he ever had the same urge I had to jump on T’s chest and pull out the baby tooth that had been hanging on so long that the adult tooth had completely grown in behind it. The thing that makes me feel slightly better about this is that his teacher nodded his head and said, “Oh absolutely–I’ll hold him down if you pull!!!”
* The time Big T was having some bizarre sort of insomnia attack, and spent the entire night running around his crib (which was in an attached room to ours) laughing like a complete lunatic. Mate and I got up blind with exhaustion (I was pregnant with Chicken at the time) and got him a bottle of juice (also not a source of pride for us, but that’s another story) so often that we ran out of bottles. There were TWELVE of them in the crib when we were done, and he never did go to sleep that night. Or that day, either.
* The time I was pregnant with the Cave Troll and had just finished giving the two older children an excruciating, in depth talk about the facts of life, and T was so excited to know about S-E-X that he had to bring it up in every conversation. We were watching a movie in which two of the characters (J-Lo and Ralphe Feines–it wasn’t a very good movie) started kissing and the screen faded to black, and Big T said, “I know what they’re gonna do. They’re gonna have SEX!.”
And Mate said, “Yes, Big T–people have sex. Sex makes babies. Your mom and dad have had sex at least three times that you know of.”
“Four!” Replied a gleeful T. “Remember–I caught you once!”
Mate turned purple. “Remember–we agreed that that incident never happened. Ever. Ever. Never.” And I agreed. Never happened. Ever. Ever. Never.
And that, folks, is why even before the snail incident, I would never get parent of the year.
I love you so much! And just think of all the headshrinkers you will be supporting in the future when your kids get old enough to pay for their own therapy. (You know I’m kidding. I think you are a great parent, crushed snails and all. Bad parents treat their children like objects to be used or nuisances to be ignored.You treat your kids like people.)
None of that sounds like bad parenting to me. You approach raising your small ones with humor and creativity. That doesn’t make you a bad parent, just a fun one. Reading your stories here made me giggle rather than cringe, and that either means that I’m going to be hopeless or you’re doing a good job. I’m rooting for the second option, personally, it means there will be fewer embarrassing tell-alls written…
I think being parent of the year is vastly overrated. I don’t know a perfect parent and our children still survived to become happy, creative adults.
The only reason we didn’t get caught by our preschool age son, is that he had a blanket over his head pretending to be a ghost 🙂
My reason is that when my husband called me at work and told me he slapped Elanor in the face and she swallowed the very very loose tooth in her mouth, I laughed. And laughed. I kept remembering my parents threatening to “slap those teeth right down your throat” and I laughed some more. Oh, and the time the tooth fairy forgot to come and I told Kate it was because she was afraid of the window fan and if she just turned off the fan, I was sure the tooth fairy would come. (she did). I don’t think of it as bad parenting, just creative parenting.
ROFLMAO – I just laughed till I cried – and then laughed a bit more – I think that’s great parenting – bad parents neglect ignore and abuse their children – you talk and communicate and buy fish!
You’re great Amy – and don’t get me started on some of the awful things I’ve done in the last nearly 6 years!! I know a ‘parent of the year’ -all three of her kids are obese and ignored and all have major behavioural and attention problems she ignores!
I think we’ve all had moments like that. I know I have. (Grilltech tells a story of we’re doin’ it; and the Eldest – three at the time – opened the door to show the sixteen year-old where Mommy and Daddy was.
It happens.
OH, hon, that’s nothing, believe you me! Parenting is WAY TOO HARD – and freakin’ constant! – to not have a slip up or two along the way. You can’t beat yourself up about it. Especially not while driving, hahahaha!