These are just times for me that I relaxed as a parent (the rules or otherwise) and it’s backfired. I know many parents can relate. With kids, vigilance is key, but who has time for all that?
1.) Jumping over cheerios instead of sweeping them up then feeling them exploding between your toes when you accidentally step on one.
2.) Not making dinner and then having 3 little baby birds all barking different orders at you late at night when you’re at your most exhausted. If I had made dinner, it would’ve been simple – they all would’ve lost their appetite and played instead.
3.)Not staying on top of the cleaning and then next thing you know, your youngest locks you in the bedroom during story time and your neighbor has to literally carve a path through the toys just to rescue you. I’m not kidding – this happened to me and it was super embarrassing. I start to think – oh well nobody is coming over for a few days so maybe I’ll take rest on the cleaning and have some fun with the kids instead. Then the house explodes and either someone pops on by unexpectedly or your kid locks you in a room.
4.) Instead of making yourself something to eat, you eat some of the kid’s cold, nasty leftovers and then realize that they spit up milk in it and you already ate some of it. Also, I usually wake up the next day with a sore throat whenever I eat after the kids. I’ve learned to just not do it – it’s not worth it. Let them eat first and then make yourself something nice and yummy and eat in peace after they nap or something.
5.) Letting them make slime by themselves in the backyard thinking oh it’s just the backyard – what could be the worst that could happen? Then, you step back out there a few minutes later and you have a flashback to the movie – Swamp Thing. Let’s call the fire department because we are going to need a fire hose to get this stuff off. I actually had to throw some clothes away that day.
6.) Not forcing them to go to the restroom before you go on a hike and then end up having to run through the whole hike because they have to go to the restroom and refuse to go out in the woods. Or worse, not forcing them to go to the restroom periodically throughout the day and they end up peeing themselves in the doorway to the bathroom of a fancy Chicago restaurant that you didn’t even eat at but just begged them to come in because your daughter is waddling around like a duck about to pee herself on Michigan Ave. Yes, this happened to us and I’ll have to write about it separately because there really is alot more to that story.
7.) Thinking you can casually go into a Taffy store for fun on vacation and not have any rules beforehand. I think we spent an hour and a half one time. The kids each filled a bucket with different types of taffy, like a hundred pieces each in 3 minutes, and then we spent the next hour and a half making them each put the taffy back in the proper buckets by flavor and started making up rules on the fly. That went well.
8.) Letting your child pick out their own clothes because you are tired and forgetting to check out what they are wearing on the way out the door. Next thing you know, they are getting on the bus looking like a street walker! Woops!
9.) The time I forgot to remind my daughter to share before going to a birthday party and she scooped all the sidewalk chalk into a pile, sat on it, and hissed, “Mine!” at the rest of the kids. That was a fun time. We left shortly after. Isn’t the terrible 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, …’s fun?
I’ve found as a parent that it tends to work out better if you put in your time first and then you relax in peace. If you spend 15 minutes playing a game or doing a craft with them, taking them to a super crowded pumpkin patch, or making up rules before doing something fun, it buys you 45 minutes (maybe more) of peace and possibly saves you alot of embarrassing moments. :-p Although what’s life without embarrassing moments, right? Those make the best stories. 🙂 And I am certain to have many more because as they are getting older, I am getting more relaxed. 😛