What was I thinking??? Am I crazy???
With the goal of helping to make this summer somewhat memorable for my daughter, I try to be the ‘fun Mom’ every once in a while. Not all the time…just every once in a while.
See, I have this theory (let’s call it “Azmutt’s theory of children’s expectations”) that if you try to do wonderful and fun things with your kids (things that they absolutely love, but you may not be too thrilled doing all the time – example: going swimming for over an hour in the hot sun outside with no shade, or playing Clue 3 or more times in a row), then your kids will expect you to do wonderful and fun things with them all of the time and will not understand when you finally say “no, Mommy has to do laundry today”, or “no, Mommy has a staff meeting she has to go to today”, then throw the fit and stamp their little feet, cry, pout and call you the dreaded “Mean Mommy” (which, by the way, I’d like some business cards made up with that).
Don’t get me wrong – I love to make my kids happy – but I guess I’m just a pretty selfish person at heart, and would like to enjoy the time as well. I guess that’s my challenge as a Mom - to find fun stuff to do with my children that I’d really enjoy too. Also, I’m convinced that kid’s need to learn how to have fun and not expect it to be handed to them on a silver platter – that’s how they get to be creative souls! I’d much rather have my daughter sing and dance to music on her own, instead of going to a dance class (which, actually, she does…both things that is).
And this ‘fun stuff’ gets really hard here in Arizona during the summer time. It’s 150 degrees outside (ok, maybe it’s only 120), so playing tag, basketball, swimming, bicycling, or any other outside activity gets to be a big drain. So the kids are cooped up in the house during the day.
I remember growing up here and that was just a fact of life – of course when I was young, everything was different. There wasn’t this big push to be the ‘fun parent’ that there is today (also, my mom wasn’t always around ’cause she worked like crazy). Also, I had my big sister to pick on, I had 2 Barbies that I could play with, I read books for hours, and I almost burnt up the kitchen one day (but I digress…)
So, my daughter has this friend that she loves being around. Now this friend has a tendancy to be somewhat combative with my little boy, can be mean to our cats, and is not that polite of a kid (not that many 7 year olds are…) – ok, so I ‘m not a big fan of this child. But my daughter really likes her, and her mom is a good friend.
So we had a sleepover last night.
I think the last straw was when they woke me up at 4 a.m. to kill the cricket that was in my daughter’s room. From what I understood, they’d been up at 3 a.m. reading and talking. They didn’t go to bed until around midnight. I have yet to determine if they went back to sleep after the cricket episode, but they are up eating cereal right now and not falling asleep into it.
So hopefully today will be a quiet day – I’ll get my daughter’s friend back to her mom late this morning – my daughter is going to her Nana’s to play with some kittens that are over there – my son goes to preschool – and once again, I can be selfish again and take a long summer’s nap.
And my daughter….well…she’s spending a week away from her ‘mean Mommy’ starting on Saturday to be with her ‘fun Aunt’. Yup, the older sister I used to torment when I was a kid. My daughter is excited beyond anything you can imagine. That ties back to ‘Azmutt’s theory of children’s expectations’ described above.
…out
