Judge For Yourself

I read an article this morning by a fellow mom, and she was talking about her judgmental attitude towards mothers BEFORE she had kids. Oh, how I laughed. How many of us NEVER did that before we had kids? How many of us saw the mom in Wal-mart with the screaming children, watched her ignoring them completely while pushing down an aisle, and DIDN’T think “Lady, you are really missing the mark on how you are handling this.” ??? If you never had that thought…you win a prize. Warning, the prize is forfeit if you are lying, as I suspect you are. You don’t want the prize anyway. It’s a broken McDonald’s happy meal toy that I tried to throw away but the boys saw it in the trash and demanded that I let them keep it. So, all of you who have won the broken prize from out of my trash can, I feel a challenge growing inside me to GET you to judge like the rest of us judge. Here are a few things that happen within the 4 walls of the Martin household and are judgment worthy. I DARE you to make it through all of these without gasping and thinking I should be horse whipped.

* I forget to feed my kids breakfast sometimes. I GET BUSY- cleaning up the toys so we can start school without stepping on every lego we own, or getting everyone dressed because we have to return movies and pick up diapers and milk AS SOON as we finish school, or folding laundry because otherwise I won’t have any underwear to put on any of the naked butts running around, or drinking coffee and blogging…you get the idea. I get busy and I forget that I didn’t feed my kids breakfast. Not that it’s anything spectacular on the mornings I DO remember to feed them. It’s usually cereal, or toast and a piece of fruit, or a nutrigrain bar, and on Sundays its “eat that cheese stick and have a doughnut at church.” But still, a mom should NOT forget to feed her kids. It’s pretty basic. It’s probably the #1 thing in the mommy handbook. FEED CHILD REGULARLY. The worst part of this confession is yet to come. Are you ready? When 10:30 comes and one of my kids says “Mom, I’m hungry. What should I eat for breakfast?” I usually laugh…and then say “You don’t need anything. It will be lunch time in an hour. You can make it till then.”

* When one of my kids has a night time accident (they are wearing pull-ups, so it’s usually only a problem when their father lets them drink coke or juice too close to bed time and the pull-up can’t contain all the accident)  I go into their room and stare at the bunk beds for a few minutes, check to see how wet the sheet actually is…and as long as it’s not so bad that it will still be wet at bedtime that night, I turn on the fan to dry the sheet and leave the room, promptly forgetting that anything happened, and deciding instead that those sheets are plenty clean. If this happens more than once between washings, I will pull the top sheet up and tuck it in, and the kid can sleep on that one for a week or so. Bunk beds are a pain in the butt to strip and remake, people. If you have never done it…I have a couple at my house you are welcome to come take care of.

* I allowed my kids to watch Transformers. Yes, I heard all the comments made by all the parents about the innuendos , cursing, and off color content. I even heard a lot of the talk BEFORE I let them watch it…and we still watched it. I totally agree with many of the complaints, by the way. There was a lot of stuff (especially in #2) that I would be uncomfortable watching with my parents. But my kids didn’t know what most of that stuff meant. They are sheltered home school kids. All they cared about was seeing Bumblebee rip the head off a Decepticon. The drug references and cherry popping comments went right over their heads. By the way, this particular confession is giving me the urge to watch the movies again.

“Hey, kids! Want to have a Transformers marathon while eating lunch?” …… “What do you mean you haven’t even had breakfast yet?”

* Sometimes I let them take showers and when they argue about not wanting to get out, I leave them in…I figure when the water turns cold, they will start shivering and get out themselves, so what is the point of fighting them on it?  It takes a while for hypothermia to develop anyway.

* Once my daughter fell off an exercise machine at a store (which she wasn’t supposed to be on in the first place, but I let her try it out) and turned her ankle. She cried and said her ankle really hurt. I told her I was sorry, I knew a twisted ankle hurt, but if she could just walk it off it would feel better. 2 days later it was still hurting her so my husband made me take her to the doctor…it was cracked.

If you have made it through these few (and there are OH SO MANY MORE) confessions without judging me…well, you’re the only one. I am officially judging myself.

All you judgment free people deserve a prize. A real prize, not the broken trash can one. What have you won, you ask??? A fun day in the Martin household, hanging out with the greatest kids a mom could ask for, folding their laundry, fixing them meals, and changing their sheets. It would be great if you could arrive around 10, because they will be getting hungry by then, and stay until it’s time to put them down for naps. That is when I will be returning from my shopping trip, because I hate for you to have to sit in a quiet house while they sleep, and I will take that burden for you.

***Disclaimer (so that my husband doesn’t feel the need to erase this entire post): I don’t so these things ALL THE TIME!!! My children are actually healthy, happy, and moderately well adjusted. Hang on, the baby has snot running into his mouth…never mind, he wiped it on the couch.

I hear the shower cutting off, so I better go make sure there are only blue lips, not black fingers and toes. And after that, I gotta check the sheets of a certain bunk bed…can’t remember if I can pull the top sheet up or if I did that last time and I actually need to strip the bed today.

If you want to come over later, we will be watching Transformers. Don’t judge me.