Mother-of-the-year Award

Contrary to the title of this month's blog, today demonstrated a not-so-classy approach to parenting.  I must confess.

It all began yesterday afternoon when my mother-in-law called me to announce that Nina had projectile vomited all over their deck after drinking a 'sippy'.  (My mother-in-law's endearing term for some Red #5 colored powder that comes in a little package - just add water)  Grampa had already hosed off the evidence, and Grammie had cleaned Nina up.  By bedtime she was spiking a fever of 103.3.

At sunrise, my girl was well-colored, chipper and hungry, no fever.  Today was to be 'beach day' with her 1st grade class.  And, not wanting to be a bad mother, I agreed if she held down her food and had no fever by lunch, we would venture down to bid adieu to her classmates.  (Tomorrow is their last official day)

By noon, all looked good so we went to the beach for a few hours for a low-key lunch and a bit of play in the sand (no swimming).  All seemed right with the world while driving home, until MJ, (hot and napless) started to have a meltdown because he wanted his window open instead of AC.  When I did not go through with meeting his latest demand, he began pounding on the window with a steel model jet he had in his hand.  I was terrified he had put his hand through the window.  After the relief of not finding him covered in glass had passed, my fear turned into seeing red (this was perhaps the millionth time he had been told not to do that)...  I pulled over, asked him to give me the jet, got out of the car and threw it into the woods.

Now of course this only heightened MJ's tantrum and Nina (always coming to bat for her brother despite his ill tempers) just exclaimed, "Mama!"  This downshifted my emotion of anger to guilt, and I spent the next 15 minutes looking for the jet, to no avail.

Okay, so beach day was ending on a somewhat sour note and I had not exactly modeled anger management for my feisty four-year-old, who seems to be falling right in stride with Mama.  But all was forgotten by the time we rolled in the door.  Until Nina looked at me glassy-eyed and flushed and said "I'm freezing".  A thermometer reading confirmed  a 102.00 temperature.

In the course of 24 hours I took my sick girl to the beach and threw one of my son's favorite toys into the forest.  So what did I do?  I called MY Mom.  And as we girls know to be true, no one can comfort your guilt and shame better than Mom.  Be it through her own experience as a mother or well-meaning lies, she made me forgive myself, reminded me that tomorrow is another day, and added  "I bet he'll never do it again".

In the end, Nina's temperature was moderated by Ibuprofen and she was tucked in with her latest pulled-tooth under her pillow, happily smiling at the prospect of the tooth-fairy.   I laid with MJ in his race-car bed, his head tucked into my shoulder, until he fell asleep.   Yes, tomorrow is another day.
Namaste'