or if you have one of those lovely, picture book families that always loves each other and acts appropriately.  Not us by a long shot!

I was a totally different mom when Celine (the lady that cared for my daughter while I worked) was in charge and I was a mother of a nice little girl.  Yep- I judged other parents- “oh their kids have NO manners or are SO out of control….or dirty.”.  Then I was taught a lesson and had a son and became a stay at home mom.  Now I am the one that leaves play dates apologetically. I do try hard and manners are important but man do I have a much better appreciation for Celine these days!

There was a time I handled bugs much differently too.  Like covering them with a plastic bowl and calling the apartment maintenance man for help.  The other day my daughter was screaming like she was being murdered so I ran to see what the problem was.  I actually don’t race when that happens anymore because that scream also means “I have no clean blue-jeans or I’m having a bad hair day”. This time there was a bug in her room (which if she cleaned once in awhile might not happen as much, sorry-I had to get that in there).  Instead of calling my husband or getting a tissue and getting rid of it I thought to myself “Cool bug. Jake is going to love this” and collected it in his bug-catcher.  My daughter never had a bug catcher- one that was ever used anyways.

My husband and I always laugh about “Boy’s Moms”.  They are different.  They don’t panic about blood- they expect it.  If you tell a Boy’s Mom a joke about bodily functions she doesn’t scold you- she has one too. And with all the wacky reckless things boys do, while she still may not understand the reason- she is usually one step ahead of them to minimize the damage.  Words like penis and poop are part of her vocabulary- she says them without blushing. All moms have my respect but hat’s off to the Boy’s Moms out there;)

Speaking of those words- this is what was going on yesterday:

I was having my daughter “babysit” her brother while I tried to balancee the checkbook to see if we could go to the grocery store a day early. She is all worked up to start babysitting- but for other people- not her brother because he is gross.
I’m doing my best to ignore the background noise-otherwise known as Amber threatening to do things to Jake and trying to micro-manage him. Then I hear:

“I’m going to pee in your eye, Amber!” Jake says
“Ha! I’ll give you $1000 to do it!!!” she replies

I asked her why in the world she would offer to pay someone $1000 to pee in her eye.  She said because she knows he can’t do it- then taunted him again.  No surprise when he went to drop his drawers. She’s screaming and telling him he will have to clean it up.  No, I’ll have to clean it up and I yell something I never expected to have to say  “No one is going to pee in anyone’s eye in the living room!”
Then Jake said he was going to throw Amber outside to be eaten by a shark.
Then he started talking about how he can and has peed on his forehead. And on his belly.  And he can because he has a penis on his butt. Why did I think it was so important to teach him the vocabulary for his parts? In retrospect that may have been a bad idea.

I asked them both to knock it off and asked Jake what Mrs. Deb (Jake’s pre-school teacher) would say about all the nasty talk.  He said she would say “hey everyone- I am poopy”.  I have never heard her say that.

The day ended with me taking away the Wii and banning them from speaking to each other.  Jake came up tome later and asked if he could pleeease talk to his sister because  “she is nice”.

The other night it was nearly midnight and Jake had been out of bed at least a hundred times.  One time because he was Spider Man. Dad tried to be stern and told him he had “One more chance” or he was going to lose the right to go to his karate class the next day. By the way- that one was never going to fly because the class is already paid for and I’m doing it to teach him discipline.  Jake replied that Dad was wrong- he still had ten more chances. That cracked me up!

And last but not least I had one of the most horribly humiliating moments of my life. If you have ever been to the Trails Rec. Center you might be aware that there is a family dressing room that is open to the pool. There is also a women’s dressing room that is private and you can change in the open there-but not in the Family Dressing Room because there are men and children coming in and out and it is open to the pool.  Apparently you are supposed to dress IN THE BATHROOM, which is wet by the way and the sink turns on automatically so don’t put your purse in it because it will ruin your cell phone. I had diligently laid out all the kids karate clothing for the class after swimming (multi-tasking at it’s finest) and left them all on top the dryer at home.  Jake is freaking out and crying because he is in a towel and has no dry clothing.  Amber is shrieking at me because class starts in ten minutes and they are going to be late because there is no way I can make it home and back in time.  I’m distracted by my wet suit which is ten years old and the elastic decided to give out while we were in the lazy river and my modesty had been severely compromised. It may now be called the booby-river, lol. My options were to cover myself and drop the kiddo or try to get to the side to put Jake down so that I could pull my suit up. Jake is still here so you already know my choice. Without thinking, I stripped the then falling apart suit off to toss on my shirt to handle the other crisis when bam- there I am naked- with a dozen people yelling at me because all the world can see.
I’m wondering if there is another rec center within driving distance that I can go back in time three months and reserve classes at. Or if I explained what happened I could get a refund and never return but that would be embarrassing too. Maybe it is my imagination but I  feel like everyone knows and my face turns bright red as soon as we hit the parking lot. I kind of hope my kids don’t want to continue karate there when the month is up.  And that fat hairy guy keeps winking at me. Sadly it is a little flattering because I haven’t been winked at in a long time;)

Related posts:

1. Friday Fun
2. Friday Fun
3. Friday-Not So Fun
4. Friday Fun-Spring Break
5. Friday Fun- All About Two Year Olds