The Meanest Mom Ever!

I decided a few days ago to insti­tute a play out­side before lunch hour. It’s cool enough out that we aren’t going to have heat exhaus­tion and fits in nicely with the morn­ing rou­tine. I thought ever kid loves play­ing out­side, espe­cially on a cool “dou­ble decker”.

We invested in one of those super-duper fan­tas­tic play sets you see at Costco. The kids of course loved it at the store, the beg­ging started last year. Fig­ur­ing if it saved some of our san­ity it would be worth the up-front cost. I taught an extra class last semes­ter & we put some of that money toward it.

So ear­lier in May Hubby with his brother & father put it up. I was ecsta­tic think­ing that I could have hours of chil­dren laugh­ing & play­ing out­side. I could push them on the swing, while wear­ing D-man, & every­one would be hav­ing one of those com­mer­cial moments. You know those com­mer­cials where the kids do hor­ri­ble things that would make any mother scream out “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?? WHERE YOU RAISED IN A BARN??” but instead she’s laugh­ing at the fact that all her flow­ers are pulled out of the gar­den with dirt fly­ing in the air & the kids are hav­ing a blast destroy­ing all her hard work.

How­ever, I real­ize I’m not one of those moth­ers. I’m a real life mother who has to put back, clean up, remove marks, kiss boo-boos, stop fights, and rebuild what is dam­aged. I am, accord­ing to my chil­dren, “The Mean­est Mom Ever!.” Some­thing I know to be bla­tantly untrue since I saw that Kate Gos­selin is “The Mean­est Mom Ever!”. I mean it was on the cover of US Weekly so it has to be true.

Why you might ask am I so mean? Well, I am appar­ently mean because I won’t let my chil­dren run their bikes into each other. I won’t let them pull flow­ers out of the gar­den while laugh­ing about what a great time they are hav­ing. I won’t let them jump off the play set because I do fear they will injure them­selves. I won’t let them push swings into each other or come down the slide head first. I also want them to play & enjoy the beau­ti­ful outdoors.

Yes, I am SO MEAN. At least that’s what they told me. You’d think I’d get a lit­tle grat­i­tude for the play set, but NO instead I’m just mean. I for­got that being mom isn’t just what they show in com­mer­cials it’s also all the mom stuff that goes with it. Mak­ing sure your kids sur­vive the day to try to do it all over again tomor­row & being “The Mean­est Mom Ever!” while at it.