Nuts

I've decided that my kids are nuts. Not always, but a lot of the time. And I'm just going to roll with it. I swear, when I'm not looking, they do shots of crazy juice. Often, people tell me how wonderful it is to have girls. They say "Oh, boys fight and wrestle and blah, blah, blah...." Have you seen my girls go at it? They are insane! They hit and kick and poke and pinch and lick and bite and push and yank and do things to each other that little ladies just should not do. They climb on top of my car. They jump in the mud. They pick up creatures and anything else they find on the ground. They don't seem to care that being a girl means they should wear dresses and have nicely-brushed hair. They should sit nicely together and giggle and paint each other's nails. The only time they get along is when they're ganging up on me! Fine, girls - keep sipping your crazy juice. Mommy's got a little special juice of her own to drink.

Picking my battles

Lots of people, when giving you parenting advice, will tell you to choose your battles. It's sound advice. It's probably something that parents have to do every day. Sure, you can eat your spaghetti with a spoon but you may not have ice cream for dinner. Yes, you may wear your Snow White costume to the library, but you may not wear it in the bathtub. Stuff like that. You have to decide what is the bigger battle. Is it worth the fight? Allowing your children to do some silly stuff that you don't really agree with is just part of letting them grow up and learn to make good decisions. If people don't ever make mistakes, they don't ever learn how to fix things and do them the right way. I say this because I hope people aren't so quick to judge other moms when they see that kid in the Snow White costume at the library. When I pick up my little girl from pre-school, I see girls there with perfect braids in their hair and they're wearing the cutest little outfits and look all sweet and spiffed up. Then, there's my kid wearing shiny green shoes, purple leggings and a pink dress. If there was something in her hair, she's pulled it out by now. There's my oldest too. She thinks that wearing blue pants and a blue shirt is matching colors. If I give her grey pants, she says blue and grey don't match. So, she wears a royal blue long-sleeved shirt under a light blue short-sleeved shirt and navy blue pants. She doesn't understand yet that the blues don't necessarily match each other. But, she likes it and that's good enough for me. This morning, she went to school in flip-flops. Yes, it was raining outside when she left the house, but I let her wear them. She had a valid argument. When she went to school on Monday, it was 70 degrees and lots of kids were wearing flip-flops. Since she found out the footwear was allowed, she was excited to don hers to school. Okay, but it's raining. But, Mom, it's not fair that I don't get to wear them. Sure, go ahead. I know when she comes home, she'll have regretted her decision. I know she'll be sitting on the school bus and in class this morning with wet feet sliding around on her wet shoes wishing she didn't wear them. But that's okay. That's the consequence of her decision. She will learn that wearing flip-flops in the rain is not always the best idea. She will also learn that her mother is always right. But that's a battle she'll have to deal with on her own.

Through their eyes

Do you ever think your children are melodramatic? Are they little drama queens (or kings)? Do you wonder why everything is such a big deal? Why having the wrong color shoes is the end of the world or not finding the exact place where we left off in reading the story last night means bedtime tonight is in a complete shambles? Why do kids think the smallest problems are so important? I guess it's because those problems aren't small to them. To us, they overreact to minor glitches. But, if you flip the coin, they overreact to minor joys and we find that adorable. Today, I watched my children hunt for Easter eggs. At first, the oldest one was upset because we had to wait to stage the hunt until the little one came home from church. I thought it was going to get ugly. She was making a big deal of it, but she came to her senses. I thought things might get out of hand when they realized there were only three gold eggs this year instead of four. But, they handled it well. I think on a normal day, these little problems would have been made into big ones. Maybe the excitement of the day made all the little problems stay little. Then, they opened up their eggs and the tiniest treasures became the biggest gifts. So, being dramatic was super cute. Seeing those jelly beans and chocolate eggs through their eyes, watching them help each other find eggs and seeing how surprised they were to find them in odd places - it was the sweetest thing. So, all the drama they saved for their mama today - well... mama loved it.